This Modify watch can be yours. This modifiable Tim Lincecum watch, with two differently colored straps, goes to the person that best modifies the image below. Please, keep it safe for work, or I might have my role at FanGraphs… modified.
Matt Moore likes Mondays. Boy oh boy, he likes Mondays. Monday is the only day that starts with “M” and that’s the same letter that his names start with. He feels like he owns Monday, like every Monday is his birthday. On Mondays, he jumps out of bed bright and early and just wants to yell and shout and tell everyone that it is his favorite day of the week, Monday.
When you talk about Carson Cistulli, what you’re talking about is a guy who knows how to first (a) watch a baseball game one night and then (b) make three GIFs from that game at some point during the following afternoon, with a view to justifying his existence on the company payroll.
In this case, what Carson Cistulli has done is to make three GIFs from Thursday night’s A’s-Yankees game (box), during which game Cuban emigre Yoenis Cespedes hit a home run that compelled veteran right-hander Freddy Garcia to discover physics again for the first time.
For the benefit of the reader, who is likely busy using large-bosomed women as barbells on the sandiest possible beaches of the Florida coastline, I have taken the liberty of organizing last night’s events in chronological order, clearly demarcating the order of those events with clarity.
Note: all GIFs are clickable, embiggenable.
You might have already looked upon Carson’s fulfillment of reader Dave’s wish to watch Eric Young, Jr. slip-slidin’ around the bases into GIF-tacular eternity. That was fun wasn’t it?
Because Carson’s days consist of prettily sitting on his NotGraphs throne, waiting for his loyal subjects’ GIF-based pleadings at which to wave his magical GIF-making scepter, and because I work a real job, he got to Dave’s request before I did. (Actually, my real job was mostly cancelled yesterday due to a massive fire in the neighborhood that caused 4,400 buildings to be without power for 4-5 hours, during which span I went with a co-worker to see The Amazing Spiderman, which, turns out, is a totally unnecessary piece of cinema.)
But [I hope] it’s worth revisiting this EYJr incident. Here are some things to consider, presented in the style of my above-teased liege, Count Cistulli, whom I adore.
Read the rest of this entry »
It is, generally speaking, the policy of this website not to use the misfortunes of others as a means to the end of our own personal and/or collective glory — and it’s for that reason which, generally speaking, the request for such a GIF as follows (of Colorado Rockies utility gentleman Eric Young stumbling elaborately) would be summarily denied.
In this particular case, however, an exception has been made, on account of the suppliant in question (a certain Dave, in this case) has submitted his request from an email address at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, UK.
Is Dave an actual student, or faculty member, of Loughborough University? “Doesn’t matter,” is the only possible response. That he has made the effort to create a foreign — and therefore pleasantly mysterious — email account is both halves of this particular battle.
Posting this because of the look on Ben Revere’s face as he dives and makes one absolutely splendid catch. You can actually see his eyeballs track the baseball as it lands in his glove!
Never in doubt. And, no, there’s nothing quite like a diving catch — fully outstretched — made on the run. It’s my favorite.
H/T: @SAJagfire. His Twitter bio says, “I make GIFs.” It’s the truth.
Throughout the annals of history, it has been man’s ambition to capture, in GIF form, video footage of one man sliding both (a) awkwardly and (b) face-first into another man’s butt-part. It was to facilitate such a moment, in fact, that Abner Doubleday, Patrick Henry, and the entire writing team from Benson invented the game of baseball on a humid and musky and pungent and redolent and musky summer day in 1839.
Doubleday and the writers of Benson have died, of course, but I have it on good authority that Henry is not only alive, but flourishing, as an adult film star known as the Patriot Missile — and likely reading this post, too, his heart (metaphorically) filling (metaphorically) with joy (metaphorically).
Indeed, for reader MikeS has not only witnessed just such an episode as Henry and Co. envisioned, but has utilized the Team NotGraphs Hot Hotline to the end of alerting this site’s editoriat to same.
Pitcher porn happened last night. The 100-mph throwing Andrew Cashner took on the foul-line to foul-line long-tossing Trevor Bauer in a battle of the babies. Each young prospect went into the game riding the wave of good feelings and expectation. Each left a little tarnished. Cashner, known for both his filthiness and his fragility, strained a lat muscle and will be out three weeks at least. At least it wasn’t the elbow that everyone thought he was pointing to when he was taken out. Bauer, known for his wide array of pitches and also his inconsistent ability to control those pitches, left early after walking too many and being a little too hittable.
Before they left, however, they left an impression that might last a while.
I’m sure you are, by now, acquainted with the anti-statistical crowd who bemoan their inability to encompass the little things in baseball: running out ground balls, going from first to third, concocting really good shaving cream pies for postgame interviews. Perhaps some of this belief system stems from a naturally cautious personality, or an anachronistic Rockwell-based worldview. It could even be based on the simple desire for mystery, the resistance to a science that seeks to boil down the game in the same manner that killed checkers. It is probably none of those things, however. It is probably because of Munenori Kawasaki.
In his meager playing time this season, Kawasaki is hitting .194/.265/.210. He has been caught stealing twice in three tries, and his UZR is negative. He has, as ballplayers go, not been good. But to say this is to take a very narrow definition of goodness, if not a fascist one. It’s the mentality of the factory manager who looks at output instead of people. How do we define Munenori Kawasaki, and ourselves? Is it by our jobs, by the things we create to be consumed by other people? Or is it by how we respond to the forces of nature that toss us from one moment in life to the next? By this alternate set of standards, as evidenced by this footage of the Mariners celebrating their (extra-inning, walkoff) victory over the Boston Red Sox, Kawasaki is a very good player indeed:
Reader Well-Beered Englishman, who has likely sired many children on even more continents, has a request that, against all odds, falls within the purview of the present author. A request for GIFs, is what kind of request. For multiple GIFs, in fact, of Oakland A’s right-hander A.J. Griffin — and, specifically, for GIFs of A.J. Griffin’s curveball.
Provided the PITCHf/x data at Brooks Baseball is accurate — and who would suspect otherwise, besides some overly suspicious jerk? — Griffin threw 13 curves during his Friday start at Texas, of which a total of five were taken for strikes and four for balls. According to Harry Pavlidis, about twice as many curves are taken for balls as strikes in the majors, suggesting that, in addition to being as shapely and refulgent as a young Brigitte Bardot, Griffin’s curve is also rather effective.
Below are the requested GIFs, my fellow Americans.
GIFs like this one, of Elvis Andrus taking strike three in the first inning:
