Archive for Investigative Reporting Investigation Team

Unfortunate Team Hashtags

Every year, thousands of well-intending Twitter users will slip their tweets unknowingly into a baseball Twitter search. For those like myself who leave a Tweetdeck search column running, I have the pleasure of encountering these non sequitur tweets. I’ve compiled a few, and graciously omitted those I see annually in my Chicago #Bears feed.

#Rays

I JUST WANTED BASEBALL NEWS. stop. CANNOT BE UNSEEN. stop. SEND HELP. stop.
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Big News out of Japan!

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TOKYO — All of Japan is buzzing with news from the capital today. RHP Yasuhiro Ogawa, SS/3B Shingo Kawabata, and OF/Giant-Man-Bird Tsubakuro were all in attendance as the Yakult Swallows unveiled their new alternate jerseys.

“I definitely like to wear lighter colors,” Ogawa said. “I think the lighter colors are easier to wear in summer (day) games.”

Even though the Yakult Swallows lack any green colors in their normal uniforms, Kawabata felt the alternate uniforms will help them better match their surroundings: “The field is green. The fans (wearing free replica jerseys) will be green. I think more teams are looking for a chance to wear green.”

But not all the players were excited about the change. Fan-favorite and science-abomination Tsubakuro looked visibly displeased despite offering the party’s platitudes:
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Here’s the Information You Require

Here is the collection of important news necessary to be a competent speaker about world events while attending cocktail parties and intimate office affairs, such as secret fight clubs.

MLB Trade Rumors Permanently Discredited

The UN Council of Free Press announced that popular baseball transactions and rumors blog MLB Trade Rumors would be permanently barred from the international list of accredited news sources, known as LUNAN. The barring appears to be a direct result of this link, which shows MLBTR is guilty of citing four pages worth of Dayn Perry links.

Hyun-Jin Ryu Sings in a Song


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Roy Halladay Shocker: “I’m Not Really a Doctor”

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Halladay never even took organic chemistry.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Just a day after announcing his retirement from baseball, former Philadelphia and Toronto right-hander Roy Halladay returned Tuesday with an even more startling confession — namely that, despite answering to the name “Doc” for almost the entirety of his 16-year career, that he isn’t a medical professional in any sense of those words, nor does he possess any formal training whatsoever in the health sciences.

“No, of course not,” Halladay said when confronted on Tuesday by a member of our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team and asked if he’d ever attended medical school. “I assumed it was pretty obvious from how I was drafted out of high school. I didn’t even go to college.”

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The Things Players Won’t Do to Sign with the Yankees

Brian Wilson recently crossed the New York Yankees off his list of potential team to sign with — due to the fact that New York Yankees can’t have facial hair (which is dumb because, among other reasons, damn near every “original yankee” had facial hair), and Brian Wilson refuses to shave (as per Andy McCollough by way of MLBTR).


The only shower “the Beard” has ever known?

The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has discovered that Wilson isn’t the only 2013-2014 free agent who has ruled out signing with the Yankees. Indeed, there are several such players, and, like Wilson, their reasons for eschewing the Bronx Bombers are as colorful as their personalities (which is to say, not all that colorful, in some cases).

Those of you testing your Hot Stove predictive skills would be wise to take into account the following info (with the player’s FanGraphs Crowdsource free agent contract ranking in parentheses):
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Report: MLB and FanGraphs to Announce Creation of Mike Trout Award

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NEW YORK — Major League Baseball and FanGraphs, in an effort to have people shut up about Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, and the American League MVP Award for one goddamned second, have teamed up to announce the creation of a new award, the Mike Trout Award, a source from the commissioner’s office told NotGraphs on condition of anonymity. An official announcement is expected Friday afternoon.

The Mike Trout Award will be given annually to Mike Trout, for being the best player in baseball, and to a player in the National League who represents the essence of Mike Trout by leading the National League in Wins Above Replacement, as calculated by FanGraphs. It’s hoped that the Trout Award will mercifully end the debate between the Baseball Writers Association of America, fans, and sabermetricians everywhere — mostly on the Internet — over who are definitively baseball’s most valuable players every year. Because after two years, it’s fucking exhausting.

The Trout Award was to have been created for the 2014 season and beyond, but after Trout versus Cabrera Part II in the American League, MLB, and especially Commissioner Bud Selig, who acted “with a sense of urgency,” according to our source, pushed up the award’s timeline.

“Seriously, no one at MLB really cares who wins the MVP awards,” our source said via email. “We just mostly want not to receive angry phone calls and emails and even one weird — and pretty graphic — fax, which we suspect was sent by Mr. Brian Kenny. In any case, we believe the Trout Award is the perfect solution to stop the insanity.”

The winners of the Trout Award — Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen — will be presented their awards on Monday in a ceremony at MLB headquarters in New York City.


The Mariners’ Ambitious Offseason Plan

Like other artists of note, Benjamin Gibbard didn’t become a towering figure within his chosen genre (in this case, American indie-rock music) by not suffering. In fact, signs point to him having suffered greatly in this life. The evidence is clear: Benjamin Gibbard is a Seattle Mariners fan.

The reader has perhaps heard of this team. An obscure outfit based in this country’s Oregon Territory, the Mariners have actually been an entirely active participant in the Major Leagues of Baseball since 1977. And while the reader would be excused for assuming that the club had taken one or three sabbaticals en route to the present, the record indicates quite clearly that Seattle’s membership has, in fact, been contiguous since the date of their enfranchisment.

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BREAKING – Shirtless Mike Napoli Still on the Move

NEW YORK –Days after initial reports surfaced regarding Boston Red Sox first baseman Mike Napoli roaming the streets of Boston without a shirt, new findings indicate that Napoli is still on the loose.

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The above image from Twitter user @FrankTheKoala_ posted on November 2nd shows Napoli on the streets of Boston, presumably celebrating the recent World Series victory by the Red Sox.

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However, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has uncovered grainy footage that shows Napoli has made his way to New York City. He has appeared to have befriended an African American man, and has participated in exercise activities with that man.

Stay tuned to NotGraphs as we continue to provide updates on this story.


Investigative Report: Adam Rosales

Much has been written, including on this very website, about Adam Rosales’s past week: DFA’d by the A’s, picked up by the Rangers, DFA’d by the Rangers three days later, picked back up by the A’s, DFA’d the next day, and then claimed by the Rangers again. Or by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, depending on whose NotGraphs post you believe.

But over here at NotGraphs investigative headquarters, we’ve discovered that all of this DFAing has made Rosales begin to wonder about whether he might need to look for a new career… and he’s decided to become a computer programmer.

Among his very most recent follows on Twitter is the account for Codecademy, a site that provides free computer programming lessons that, according to the person writing this NotGraphs post, is a great idea that can get a writer really excited to sign up, and then the lessons are kind of interesting for about an hour, but then it’s impossible to get motivated enough to ever click on the site again, even months later (although maybe that just means I’m not cut out to be a computer programmer).

Anyway, I think it’s great that Rosales is using his down time productively, and hopefully someone will find a new major league use for him soon.


How Are Ballplayers Hoping to Gain an Edge in the Post-PED World of Tomorrow?

The recent Biogenesis suspensions levied by Major League Baseball are leaving many anti-aging clinics and other “sports wellness” organizations scrambling to come up with new kinds of performance enhancing substances and new methods by which to consume them.


Many players are hoping that Dino DNA Gumdrops™ will be an accessible, inexpensive source of powers.

An anonymous survey of players at the major and minor league levels was recently administered by the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, the results of which (posted below) might inspire the leaders of the aforementioned clinics and organizations as they brainstorm new ways to tarnish America’s pastime.