So the poetry has an underlying wistfulness, a sort of musing nostalgia for something that we cannot possess, yet something with which we feel so deeply in tune. Even the gentle yet strong colors speak of this ambivalence: the figures have an unmistakable presence and weight as they stand before us, moving in the slowest of rhythms. Yet they also seem insubstantial, a dream of what might be rather than a sight of what is.

This longing, this hauntingly intangible sadness is even more visible in the lovely face of Cespedes as he is wafted to our dark shores by the winds, and the garment, rich though it is, waits ready to cover up his sweet and naked body. We cannot look upon love unclothed, says The Birth of Yoenis; we are too weak, maybe too polluted, to bear the beauty.¹

¹ Sister Wendy Beckett, “Botticelli: Lyrical Precision“

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Never one to be parted from his fatig, my indefatigable colleague Mr. Cistulli has taken the trouble to catalogue the many instantiations of Tigers and Giants, while raising the question of how each would fare in a fair fight. I lustily applaud his work. And yet it must be observed that he has considered only one class of possible outcomes of Tiger-on-Giant action. What of the possibility — vanishing though it may be! — that, upon encountering one another in the sensuous confines of American Telephone & Telegraph Park, the aforementioned protagonists should be compelled to spontaneously procreate and unleash their monstrous spawn? Should our loins not be girded for that shocking eventuality?

They should. And here are some potential outcomes that we’d be wise to consider. They would all be horrible. Which would be the most horrible? You, gentle and heretofore bare-loined reader, be the judge.

Tiger Giant Sex Medicine For Penis Enlargement

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If Tim Lincecum were a Paramount film he’d have been pulled from their release schedule for “reshoots” by now.

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This post is for those of you who happened to be trapped under unwieldy objects for the past week and a half and missed the playoffs up to this point. Don’t worry! I can catch you right up to speed, with this informative summary of recent events — in the players’ and coaches’ own words! As for those of you who saw it all unfold — relive the drama!

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I’m feeling nostalgic, maybe prematurely, about 2012. This could have something to do with the fact that the world is ending in December, but regardless, these days I find myself paging desultorily through the year-end stats, looking for rhyme or reason, mostly. And also for therapy following another soul-flattening Braves playoff collapse, but that’s another story.

So here is something I noticed. It’s about Mike Trout, who was good this year, as you may have heard. How good? Well, offensively, about 75% better than league average, if you’re down with wRC+. That’s good, and in fact, it made him the best offensive player in baseball (not to be confused with the most offensive player in baseball, which is Delmon Young). But last year, Jose Bautista was 81% better than league average. Also, Ryan Braun was 78% better, and Miguel Cabrera was 77% better. The year before that, Josh Hamilton was 76% better, and the year before that, Albert Pujols was 82% better. In fact, you have to go back to 1999, the year that Barry Bonds blew an elbow and missed two months, to find a league leader who stood out less from his league than Trout did from his. Before that, you have to go all the way back to 1988.

Maybe you’d prefer to break it down a little further, since Trout got his offensive value in a few different ways. By stealing bases, for example. As it happens, his 49 SB’s was the second-lowest league-leading total since 1963. Purely as a hitter, according to Baseball-Reference’s park-adjusted OPS+, Trout was 71% better than league average; Buster Posey edged him out at 72%. Posey’s mark is the lowest league-leading OPS+ in 24 years. Care for more traditional stats? Posey’s league-leading average of .336 was the second-lowest since 1990; Joe Mauer’s OBP of .416 was the lowest since 1984; Cabrera’s SLG of .606 was the lowest since 1991. And Trout’s WPA of 5.32 (again, tops among qualifying hitters) was the lowest in 60 years! The last guy to lead the league in WPA with a number smaller than 5.32 was Jackie Robinson!

OK, so it wasn’t a great year for batsmen. We know we’re in a pitcher’s era. Plus, 2012 was just fluky. Look at the Hall of Fame-caliber hitters around the league: most of them — Pujols, Rodriguez, Bautista, Ortiz, Ichiro, Votto, Kemp, Gonzalez, Berkman (and to a lesser extent Fielder and Hamilton) — endured disappointment thanks to injury, slump, and/or adjustment to a new league. That left plenty of room for upstarts like Trout, Posey, and Andrew McCutchen to crowd the leaderboards. You say coincidence; I smell a rat. I wasn’t born yesterday. Anyway, that first page of the Fangraphs 2012 batting board has the least celebrity wattage of any I can remember. The pitching board, on the other hand —

Well, never mind. 2012 was kind of fluky for pitchers too. Several stars — Halladay, Lincecum, Santana — had really disappointing seasons. A bunch of others — Greinke, Hernandez, Lee, Sabathia, Weaver, Johnson — had good seasons, but certainly not their best. Justin Verlander had a very good season: according to FIP-, he was the best pitcher in baseball, 30% better than average. But that doesn’t sound that impressive, really. How far back do you have to go to find a less impressive league leader? Holy crap, 1976.

Pick just about any skill in baseball, and in 2012 there just wasn’t anyone who was all that outstanding at it. Anytime anything good happened, odds are that someone unlikely was responsible. Look at some of the guys we’ve been talking about this year. Kris Medlen. Melky Cabrera. Jim Johnson. Philip Humber. Homer Bailey. Aaron Hill. Chris Davis. R.A. Dickey. Ben Sheets. Josh Reddick. Lance Lynn. Chase Headley. If someone had told you in March that that set of dudes would be getting this kind of ink, you’d have laughed in their face and then located the nearest exit.

If I were (God forbid) inclined to the Grand Narrative, I might say that 2012 was the Year of the Everyman. Or the Year of Thwarted Expectations. I’m not going to say that. But here’s another factoid, because I’m not tired yet. Of the top 20 hitters (by WAR) in baseball this year, only five of them were in the top 20 last year. That’s tied for the highest year-to-year turnover rate ever. I checked. (And only one of those five, Miguel Cabrera, was also on the list in 2010.)

So what’s going on? Is 2012 just a blip, or is our current star-starved state the beginning of a new world order? Are the days of Bonds and Pedro behind us? Along with the days of wine and roses?

I don’t know, but in the spirit of a Mayan codex, I offer these graphs, which I’m quite sure offer a clue of some sort. They represent, respectively, the standard deviation of all qualifying hitters’ wOBAs for each year, and the standard deviation of all qualifying pitchers’ FIPs for each year. But what do they mean? Discuss. Discuss!

As you may have gathered from my previous post, I had pretty well narrowed down my imaginary ballot for American League MVP to two players. I hadn’t seen either of them play much, but everyone kept talking about them, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong. Sure, the choices were kind of uninspiring. The one guy, from what I understand, just comes up with the bases loaded all the time, grounds into a zillion double plays and every so often drives dudes in by accident. The other guy, from what I understand, can’t do any normal things very well and is kind of miserable to watch, but for whatever reason the numbers add up to make him look like a freaking superhero. Still, I figured I’d have to suck it up and vote for one of the other. And because I am a reasonable man, I decided to base my vote on which one had the best highlights mix.

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In a clever ploy to ingratiate himself to all those namby-pamby, metric-spouting, pizza-faced milquetoasts who make up the MVP electorate, thrice-coronated man’s man Miguel Cabrera has produced his own telenovela. We here at Notgraphs recognize that his rival, Mike Trout, probably needs no such gimmickry given that voters have already spent the last five months fondling his UZR like a Diablo III preorder receipt. But we here at Notgraphs also believe in a fair shake, and so we’ve set aside our distaste and put something together for Mr. Trout.

Trout Creek follows four close friends in the picturesque mill town of Millville, New Jersey, as they struggle through the trials of adolescence. The show centers on Mike, a precocious fast-talker with wide-ranging interests, who finds his security challenged when brash, brawny Miggy moves to town. As Miggy captures the hearts of Mike’s friends with his good looks and old-fashioned charm, Mike begins to wonder if beauty is really only skin-deep — and if there’s any place in his hometown for an oddball with a unique skill set.

Lost in the commotion over Miguel Cabrera’s Triple Crown candidacy is the fact that another player is in contention for an equally historic accomplishment. I’m referring to the remarkable Jemile Weeks of Oakland, who — although it’s a very long shot — could theoretically still join the very short list of Triple Dunce Cap winners. To win the Triple Dunce Cap, of course, one must finish last in one’s league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. This feat, and Mr. Weeks’ run at it, has not gone entirely unnoticed, although it’s been treated somewhat more prosaically elsewhere. In any case, nowhere to my knowledge has the proud history of the Triple Dunce Cap been properly historiographed. I’ll just come right out and say it: it’s my intention to do so right now.

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