I can’t compete with Craig Robinson’s brilliant art. I can only try my best.
(People in the comments wanted to buy Craig’s. Anyone interested in mine?)
Shea Stadium (from memory) (I am nearsighted) (And I have a bad memory) (And it’s almost a holiday) (And I moved this week) (So please forgive me) (Doesn’t this kind of look like a piece of pizza?) (I’m hungry) (Can I just say Hopeless Joe made this?) (Or my eight-month old son?)
FIRST BASE: Joey Votto
Also Considered: Yonder Alonso, Ryan Howard
First base on the NL All-Star Ballot is weird this year, almost as weird as the growth on my foot. No one on the ballot has been as awful as many of the American Leaguers, with .095 averages or the entire year spent in the minors so far. No one’s even had fewer than Brandon Belt’s 129 at bats. (129 is also my income for June. In pennies.) So I could give this one to Ryan Howard for hitting .234 (but didn’t most people see this coming?) or Yonder Alonso for underperforming dreams and hopes, or Joey Votto for looking about as much like Joey Votto as I look like Grady Sizemore. We’ll go with Votto.
FIRST BASE: Nick Swisher
Also Considered: Daric Barton, Prince Fielder
Tough battle here between the injured and the remarkably ineffective, but the All-Star slot should go to the player who has been the most bafflingly terrible for the most at-bats, just like when I won the Employee of the Month award at my office after everyone else was indicted due to some papers I accidentally spilled coffee on and had to retype from memory. Who knew that the SEC was so particular about corporate filings? Good grief. That job was great until the checks started bouncing and my boss sent me a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. I didn’t even realize they had fish in prison — our tax money, and they get fish? He was super-tasty after I grilled him, too. Was a good thing he arrived because otherwise it would have been another night of dry ramen for dinner (the water’s no good here, and I don’t know how to boil it).
Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, purple for NotGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community.
It’s not just BABIP-driven. He really is hitting like a .600 hitter.
Catchers: Can’t Live Without Them, But They’re All Dead
Is it new helmets? Is it new balls? Is it a new Plague? We’ll never know, but Carlos Santana is counting his lucky stars that he got moved out from behind the plate!
A look at the new cannibalistic fantasy leagues taking over Ottoneu.
David Price: Remind Us How He Became an Astro…?
After sixteen trades over the past twelve months, David Price takes a turn at the top of the Astros’ rotation.
Can You Find The New Stat Somewhere On Our Player Pages?
When you do, please explain it to us. We’re not sure how it works.
Okay, Mike Moustakas, I’m Finally Starting to Get Convinced You Are Not That Great at Hitting
.091/.121/.262 since last year’s All-Star Break. Well, okay, maybe let’s give him a few more weeks.
Which Starters Haven’t Had Tommy John Surgery?
None of them. None of them.
How Many Hairs Are in the Average Mustache, and is it Different for Hitters than Pitchers?
A six-month research study funded entirely by reader contributions, both financial and bodily.
Investigating our country’s achievements-above-replacement-militia in the latest Middle East conflict.
A Retrospective Analysis of High School Ballplayers, 1881-1885
Long, but worth the read.
Did the President’s Announcement that the World is Ending Affect the West Coast Games?
Shutout and 14K for Kershaw. So I think we’re doing fine. Although this does explain the whole catcher situation, we think.
How Should ZIPS Treat What We Assume Will Be A Partial Season?
If the world’s going to end, we assume play will stop for the year. Will your favorite projection formula be able to accurately assess the impact?
Can you Justify Playing Fantasy Baseball Even as the World Ends?
In a follow-up to yesterday’s Presidential announcement heralding the end of life on Earth for 85% of all species including humans, can you justify taking the time to play fantasy baseball? Or is it in fact even more important at a time like this?
Pictures of players flipping their bats into the circles of flames that will apparently devour us all quite soon.
George Springer on Home Runs, Strikeouts, and the Future of the Astros
We already had this is the queue, so we didn’t think it made sense to pull it. (Editor’s note: yes, we realize the future of the Astros is now very much in doubt.)
The Rising Cost of Tickets During a Time of Anarchy, by Wendy Thurm
At this point, conditions have started to deteriorate and the government has abdicated responsibility. Should you still trust online ticket brokers?
Your Dream Co-Owners in the Afterlife
We asked our RotoGraphs writers to weigh in on who they’ll be asking to join their leagues as soon as we all arrive on the other side.
For real this time. There is no food left.
Thank you for stopping the meteor, Alex. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for saving us all.
“I bet there’s something good on TV. Maybe if I make enough noise during this so-called nap, my daddy will get me out of the crib, take me into the living room, and turn on the television to watch a baseball game thinking my eyes are closed and I can’t see it.”
“Looking at the wall is really interesting. I can’t imagine anything would be more interesting, including the second no-hitter against the Padres thrown by Tim Lincecum.”
“Tim… hmmmm… I wonder if he’s related to my stuffed monkey, Thelonious, since both of their names start with that shape with the one up-and-down line and then the other side-to-side line on top of it. I also wonder why mommy and daddy named my monkey Thelonious even though they don’t really listen to any jazz music. I wonder if I’d like jazz. I think I would.”
“This is weird for a west coast baseball game to start in the evening, before I get ready for bed. West coast baseball games usually start so early in the morning, before I’ve even woken up for my first of three feeds while it’s still dark outside. What? You call 10pm the nighttime and not the morning? That’s silly, everyone knows nighttime is from 7pm until 10pm, and everything after that is daytime and mommy and daddy are lucky if I still decide to sleep.”
“The Giants, wow. They are giants, indeed. They’re even taller than mommy and daddy, and mommy and daddy are even taller than Curious George, so they’re definitely giants. I didn’t even know people came in sizes bigger than, say, five-foot-nine or so. I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone taller than five-foot-nine!”
“I bet I could get a hit off Tim Lincecum. Hitting a baseball is just like putting your toes in your mouth, right? Because I’m really good at that.”
“I can’t believe he’s throwing so many fastballs. Everyone knows Will Venable is more vulnerable to the curveball.”
“I wonder what the infield dirt tastes like.”
…the single-engine plane touches down in a clearing, surrounded by impossibly tall trees, the smell of rain, and what sounds like thousands of brightly-colored parrots, squawking his name as he exits the airplane in a tan linen suit and wide-brimmed hat, a mosquito net covering his face. “Odrisamer,” the parrots say in unison. “Odrisamer Despaigne.” He tips his hat to the flock of them, and the parrots all converge onto his arms, his shoulders, his neck, nearly strangling him in the process, but Odrisamer Despaigne proves more than able to tame a thousand birds at once. He pulls a wrinkled old treasure map from one of the many pockets in his suit, and announces to no one in particular, “I think we’ve found the place.” Just then, the sound of a gunshot. “Someone’s after us,” he says, matter-of-factly, again to no one in particular, and the parrots, as quickly as they appeared, soar back up into the trees. Odrisamer Despaigne is left to search for shelter so that he can escape the evil poachers before an errant shot takes out his arm — the same arm that earned him a ticket to the States, a ticket he was glad to give up when he heard he was needed back in the jungle….
You may recall FanGraphs’s pre-season staff predictions. Though I, Hopeless Joe, am not officially a member of the staff, Mr. Blachman only follows what players do on Twitter and on his fantasy roster, not the win-loss records of the actual teams, so he allowed me to make his picks for him.
I, of course, chose the Padres as one of my two NL wild cards.
I did this because of players like Andrew Cashner, and his mullet, and Chase Headley, who once had a really awesome season, and whose name is pretty similar to Chase Utley’s, if you cover up a few letters.
Also, pitching excites me more than hitting, pitcher’s parks excite me more than hitter’s parks, and it just seemed to make sense that a team with seemingly smart folks at the helm would eventually figure it out.
It appears that my pick is likely to prove incorrect, just like most of the things I pick, including the entree at every buffet I’ve ever eaten at, oh why must food-borne pathogens enjoy replicating inside my insides so very, very much?
Alex Torres– who I should have protected on my Scoresheet team!– over the weekend became the first pitcher to wear a padded, protective, giant, silly-looking hat on the mound. Hats off to Torres– or, I guess, hats on to him– for not wanting to get injured by a comebacker. Really, the part of me not trying to wring a NotGraphs post from this is 100% behind the hat, players should absolutely try to avoid being seriously injured by stuff, however clunky the hat looks.
Ah, but the part of me that is trying to wring a NotGraphs post from this thought it would make sense to search the Internet a bit for some alternative hats that Torres might consider wearing his next time on the mound.
Presenting: New Hats for Alex Torres
Ow. That hurt. I’ll be okay, but– ow. And what the **** did I do? I didn’t make Drew-bear pitch like **** or– oh, Drew-bear? Yeah, that’s just my little pet name for him. He’s usually like a gentle, little cub, pawing around my seat, sitting down so delicately and rubbing himself up against my slats. But that’s the way with so many abusers, isn’t it? They lull you into a false sense of trust, of kinship. He told me secrets. He whispered them into my cushion late at night, when it was just the two of us and maybe a table– but you know tables, they barely even have a consciousness, you can’t worry about what a table overhears. We shared so much. I remember the time he spilled water on me. And then he lapped it up, just like a cat.
I mean, I guess there were warning signs. In the heat of passion, he once threw me against a locker — he apologized, he said it would never happen again. I still have a mark — you can see it if you look closely at the grain. I would have gone to the carpenter for treatment but Drew-bear asked me not to say anything. And when he looks at you with those eyes, it’s hard to say no. I just slapped some wood glue on it and kept my mouth shut. He was sweet when he wasn’t abusive. The TV told me Drew-bear hit him too, but you can never believe what the TV says. Hopefully whoever replaces Drew-bear on the roster will have a nice, soft tushie and a calm disposition. I just hope they don’t get that Canseco guy back, from a long time ago (56 years ago in chair-years). He was the worst. And once injected me with termites.
Oh, ****, I think I’m splintering. ****. ****, ****, ****. That means they’re going to put me on the DL too. ****, Drew-bear, why’d you have to **** me up? The players don’t think about it, but we work hard too. I spent a decade in the minors– Stockton, Visalia, Costco– before finally getting a chance up here. And now I’m gonna lose my spot to some couch with good (sleep-)numbers. I was six months from qualifying for a pension! Six months!
**** you, Drew-bear. **** you and all creatures with fists. ****.
