This has been Inserting Aaron Harang into Classic Silent Films. May it never be again.

Would you like for it to be larger, reader? I think you know exactly what to do.

In which we spotlight the five minor-league prospects whom we most want to reach the majors, for reasons completely unrelated to baseball skill.

1) Kevin Vance, RHP, Birmingham

On Twitter, Kevin Vance describes himself as an “Undersized Silver Back Gorilla.” To call his tweets “pearls of wisdom” would be to give pearls a great compliment. To wit: “I don’t want to learn the language that Khaleesi speaks, I need to.” “Oh you went to Coachella? No one cares.” “Do people still orders magazines? Unless you own a barber shop you should not be doing that #21stCentury” “Need to see a full on make out at the end of a ice dance performance. Figure it out. #5SecondFrencher #Sochi #SuchATease #MakeOut #Nation”

2) Dovydas Neverauskas, RHP, West Virginia

Dovydas Neverauskas goes by “Never.” As in, there has never been a major league player from Lithuania. When he was asked if his teammates had heard of Lithuania, he said: “To be honest, they really do not know.” Also, he is on SoundCloud.

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[Don Giancarlo] has exercised the influence of a revelation upon my whole life…I regard [him] as a work without blemish, of uninterrupted perfection…

– Charles Gounod

[He] ascends with ease to the highest plane of revealed truth, the threshold of the world beyond…

– Pierre Jouve

One marvels again and again how everything comes to expression in him: heaven and earth, nature and man, comedy and tragedy, passion in all its forms and the most profound inner peace, the Virgin Mary and the demons, the church mass, the curious solemnity of the Freemasons and the dance hall, ignorant and sophisticated people, cowards and heroes (genuine or bogus), the faithful and the faithless, aristocrats and peasants…

– Karl Barth

Last week, I reported on the brave, lonely, and likely doomed struggle of Daniel Watts, who is attempting to become the first man of his tribe to reach the major leagues. Today I write to shed a light upon a matter of EVEN GREATER URGENCY, as well as acute personal interest. I write of the Fall of the House of Smith.

Remember the halcyon days of the late eighties? (Unsettlingly, some of you may not.) Remember when Lonnie Smith was a multitalented WAR machine, when Zane Smith was one of the best pitchers in the National League, when Ozzie Smith ruled the infield and Lee Smith ruled the ninth inning? In 1989, nine different Smiths logged an MLB plate appearance, nine different Smiths logged an inning pitched, and these men combined to post 27.5 WAR. In effect, there was a pretty respectable 27th major league team composed entirely of Smiths.

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Time for the Braves to cut Dan Uggla

– David Schoenfield

However, if you do not obey Dan Uggla and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

Dan Uggla will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. He will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. He will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. He will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

He will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. He will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. Dan Uggla will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark.

– Uggleronomy 28:15-29

This is Daniel Watts. His name will be unfamiliar to you. One reason for that is that he plays High-A ball for the Visalia Rawhide. But there is another, more sinister reason.

Odds are, you have run across someone named Watts. There were 86,000 of them in these United States, at last count. The redoubtable Anglo-Scottish surname comes in at #324 on the list of most frequent American surnames, ahead of such commonplace handles as Norris, Vaughn, Terry, and Bush. By sheer chance, at least five Wattses ought to have appeared in the major leagues by now. Yet no Watts ever has.

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As in, Bronson Arroyo, junkballer extraordinaire.

By popular, if relatively subtle, demand, one of your favorite NotGraphs features is back — and rebooted! — for the 2014 season. For our opener this year, instead of giving you postgame quotes per se, we’ll be giving you pregame — and thus, pre-season — quotes from yesterday’s contests. Also, because we like to more broadly distribute our cultural tastelessness, we will no longer be simply translating into Chinese. Instead, we’ve devised a new and highly proprietary translation formula that also involves Indonesian, Nepali, Yoruba, and Hausa, and is expertly honed to yield the reveal the truest and purest kernels of meaning nestled within each sound bite. Without further ado:

Kansas City Kingdoms vs. Detroit Jaguars

“My first day, in a match on the opening day will be the first time, these ideas. To Detroit, disappeared before we play, the field will know that one of the most energy, the first day there, I’m sure it would be very appropriate, then, if you do not know that you see me.” – Brad Ausmus

“We are beaten, you are, this is a Jaguar, each time in the city, such as voice, or we go there. They, we, you. Challenge is the need to go to a victory party arrived, we say.” – Eric Mo Hawes

“You’re in a fun, but we all-star game Baseball instead of waiting began to break, so it must be the first day. I believe that the nature of the person has a good team behind again, and this year, you know everyone.” – Aaron Crow Pharmacy

NOTES: Outfielder Andy Dirks, shortstop Jose Iglesias and pitcher Bruce Long Dong is strenuous…Second baseman Ian Kinsler New – Best for batting – a movie from German Prince Phil Texas this offseason to go to work…They also signed right field and bat second baseman Omar Infante open and play from the sale rabbi Delin Aoki.

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KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Leaking out of Houston’s spring camp this week was the news that top draft pick Mark Appel is perfecting a never-before-seen pitch — one that could do no less than revolutionize the sport, say awed observers.

“It’s insane,” said a source, who preferred to remain anonymous. “He controls the ball with his freaking mind. It rises up out of his pitching hand and floats to the plate on its own. He’s already getting all kinds of movement on it — now he’s working on spins. Once he’s got it down it’s going to be completely unhittable.”

Though Christy Mathewson was said to be secretly working on such a pitch in his later years, no pitcher is known to have successfully executed it in a big-league game.

“Leave it to the Stanford kid to pull this [stuff] on us,” said the source, who claimed that during practice Appel had struck out 37 consecutive batters, and then “willed” a ball into Jose Altuve’s pants.