Archive for Uncategorized

Brad Ausmus is the handsome manager of the Detroit Tigers, one of only 30 men in the world who can claim a job managing a Major League Baseball team. That’s a hell of a gig, and you think most people would be happy with that amount of professional success.

Alas, Brad Ausmus is not most people. He wants something much, much more, but much, much less prestigious: to be a standup comedian. Take his comments on Tuesday, for instance:

As most of us know, wife beating jokes went out with the death of Jackie Gleason. Nobody else has been able to consistently been able to transcend the appalling image of a large man beating the hell out of his spouse. We really miss you, Jackie.

Ausmus apologized, both for not being funny and for making light of spousal abuse. In light of his apparently very real remorse, The Royal We are inclined to offer him some form of conciliation. Here’s a list of better possible responses for Mr. Ausmus, should he get the question again: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m in a 5×5 keeper league, languishing in last place (Fielder, Verlander, Holliday, etc). I’ve spent the past three weeks working day and night to dump some of my veterans for prospects who could potentially help me turn this around in the future, but obviously underperforming old guys are a pretty hard sell. Nevertheless, I took each team’s roster and spent hours entering projections and running simulations to demonstrate that my proposed deals were fair, and they should take the risk of, say, a Holliday turnaround in exchange for a risky bet like Noah Syndergaard. Hours on the phone, missed tons of family stuff, really dedicated my past few weeks to this and got a whole bunch of blue-chip prospects and risky wild cards (Danny Salazar, etc). My question: is my wife going to leave me?

Yes.

I’m in a crazy dynasty keeper league, we have three in-season drafts to pick up new guys, just had one after work last week to grab players from the draft. I ended up with Rodon and Pentecost and feel pretty good about that, but I feel pretty terrible about the fact that I missed my wife’s 12-week ultrasound to go to the draft, told her I had to work late but she found out I was lying. My question: is my wife going to leave me?

Yes.

After years of putting our league before our family, my husband somehow convinced me things would be better if I joined the league too and became fantasy-baseball-crazy like him. Turns out I actually love it, it’s been the best spring of our marriage, we’re both now totally into it, we spend more time together than ever before and don’t hate each other because of it. Problem is I’m demolishing him, am in first place by a whole bunch, basically stole Tanaka and Josh Donaldson from him in an early-season trade, and he’s in eighth place with no hope, mopes around the house all day, blames me for his sucky team. My question: is my husband going to leave me?

Yes.

I was about the pull the trigger on a great deal, had the e-mail written, just needed to push send, and I suddenly started vomiting blood. Went to the ER, the e-mail never got sent, and by the time I got back to my phone, the guy had pulled the offer. The blood is just the tip of the iceberg– everything that could be coming out of me is coming out of every orifice. Doctors say it’s a medical mystery. How do I get the guy to offer the trade again?

Sorry. You probably can’t. Good luck.

I think I accidentally traded my daughter for Carlos Gomez. Wife is furious. Well, sometimes. Depends on her mood. Was it a good deal?

Not sure.

Is it actually the middle of the season yet?

Not quite. Soon.

Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. doesn’t know the difference between at bats and plate appearances, and how to calculate batting average, according to a recent broadcast, in which he was unable to comprehend how Jimmy Rollins and Mike Schmidt have almost the same batting average when they have the same number of hits, but Schmidt has so many more PAs. The audio, from Crossing Broad, is below:

Here is a list of other questions Ruben Amaro has, the answers to which he should probably already know, given his job: Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, how did we miss this?

On May 24th, Coco Crisp tweeted to his followers, looking for a name for an app he’s developing where you catch baseballs in his hair:

I'm developing a new game where you catch baseballs in my hair. Any ideas for names? #namecocosgame pic.twitter.com/glv6tGWgY4

— Covelli Crisp (@Coco_Crisp) May 24, 2014

We’ve missed the deadline, and the name was chosen last week– and with a little Twitter research, you can find out what it was– but I thought I’d see if NotGraphs commenters can do better than what was chosen.

The floor is all yours.

Friends, allow me to pull back the curtain and show you how the sausage is made by sharing with you some private correspondence not intended for your eyes. Prepare to be totally shocked and appalled:

“Buttfaces,

I’m taking the week off this week, for all of your information.

I’m in the very south part of the heel of Italy.

I don’t know most of what anyone’s saying.

Here’s a picture of me with a strange dog that my wife took: http://instagram.com/p/o9OBR9sjHZ/

Here’s a picture of me from the day before that, probably writing the next great epigram: http://instagram.com/p/o8JitwMjCu/.

Don’t [redacted word unsuitable for your eyes] up the whole site this week (ahem, David Temple).

Tell your mothers I love them. [Ed. note: Mom says you know the restraining order says you’re not allowed to contact her anymore.]”

While the language and sentiment of the message’s sender may be disturbing, surely some of you are concerned what will happen to me, given my egregious breach of trust. Do not trouble your heart. I am confident that I will get away with it because A) it’s Carson and B) as he points out, he’s not paying attention to anything this week. I am free and clear to do whatever I want.

Which is why I feel totally comfortable posting pictures of a dick and balls on Notgraphs: Read the rest of this entry »

The North Shore Navigators are a baseball team from Lynn, MA playing in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. They use wooden bats. Cistulli knows a lot about them, I’d guess. Other facts about the Navigators can be found on their Wikipedia page, but those facts are trivial compared to the content of this here web page. Because what Wikipedia can’t tell you about the Navigators, is that they are in love. The relevant screenshot, below:

You’ll notice the players who’ve moved on to professional baseball are listed as Coming Soon! Evident in this picture is that this might apply to one Navigator “sooner!” than the others.

Take in the following three images while listening to the Twin Peaks Soundtrack. 

And understand The Love of the Navigators.

Just as a refresher on the rules, in the annual NotDraft — now in its 1st consecutive year — amateur players are selected not on the basis of their talent, but on the basis of their nickname potential.

1. J.B. “Buck-Buck” Bukauskas | Stone Bridge HS (Va.), Senior | RHP

2. Taylor “Top 40” Sparks | UC Irvine, Junior | 3B

3. Cy “Sneedclone” Sneed | Dallas Baptist, Junior | RHP

4. Braxton “Law Firm” Davidson | T.C. Roberson HS (N.C.), Senior | OF

5. Bryce “Mountains of Geese” Montes de Oca | Lawrence HS (Kan.), Senior | RHP

Read the rest of this entry »

On the face of it, this scene depicts Chone Figgins reacting to a pitch from Jose Quintana during last night’s contest. Only the power of ChoneVision^TM — which was once, quite presciently, described by the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley as “[stripping] the veil of familiarity from the world, and [laying] bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms” — reveals the truth.

Multiplatinum recording artist, serviceable thespian, nightclub habitué, collector of bullet wounds, zealous pursuer of wealth at great bodily risk, connoisseur of sex, eschewer of lovemaking, and life coach Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson engaged this week in combat with The Internet, and it may be fairly said that he came out victorious. Now that Mr. Jackson has one big-league pitch to his credit, taking his place alongside Mariah Carey and William Howard Taft, his scouting report is perhaps already overdue.

Pitch #1: Based on limited video evidence, perhaps best described as a no-seam fastball. Excellent armside sinking and tailing action. Relies heavily on movement as velocity tops out in mid-30s. Uses it as a chase pitch down and out of the zone to righties.

Delivery: Low leg lift with a low three-quarters arm slot. Stands in the middle of the rubber. Smooth and easily repeatable.

Control: Probably the weakest point of his game. Often struggles to find the plate, or the general vicinity of the plate, or even the correct quadrant toward which to attempt to direct the ball.

Poise: Maintains good humor and above-average flow in the face of severe adversity.

Physical Description: At 6 feet and a reported 205 pounds, the stockily built Jackson lacks a conventional pitcher’s frame. Good muscle definition but vulnerable to massive weight swings.

Projection: Projects best at this point in his career as a limited-use LOOGY against extreme free-swingers. Reputation for wild lifestyle may scare away potential suitors. However, his dramatic life story could make him a valuable veteran presence in the right clubhouse.

Don Mattingly is pretty pleased right now. He probably just finished a really difficult sudoku or something, one that he has been working on for days, the page worn thin by multiple erasings.

There was probably, like, this one box that he just kept thinking was a seven — he just knew it was a seven — so he had to rearrange all the other boxes several times to accommodate this certainty. But at times he had to erase the seven, too. For the good of the sudoku, maybe he had to entertain the thought that the box wasn’t a seven, that maybe he was just becoming a crazy old man.

Probably on more than one occasion over the last few days, because he kept trying to solve this sudoku while getting dressed, Don Mattingly put his underwear on backwards. Also, I bet he sat to pee so as to afford himself more time to work on the puzzle. He maybe got eraser scraps in his pubes.

His pencil’s eraser was worn down to the metal. There probably were times in the last few days, in the middle of the night maybe, when Don Mattingly would wake up and think,

If I don’t finish this soon, I will have to get a new pencil. Or maybe a cap eraser. I effing hate those cap erasers: they always crack or fall off the pencil and get lost before you can get any real use out of them. And I hate using up a pencil’s eraser before the pencil is anywhere near used up. I hate that; that’s such a waste. I wish pencil’s came with bigger erasers. Or maybe I just need to get better at sudoku, make fewer mistakes. Maybe I just need to get better at life.

It’s possible Don Mattingly had the humility and mental fortitude to then let go of the stubborn thought about the seven, and that he had resolved himself to focus on another part of the puzzle. Maybe he felt emasculated, giving up on the seven; and, at times, maybe he even came close to giving up on the whole damn thing. We can’t know for sure, but maybe Don Mattingly just had to dig deep and find it within himself to saddle up again. Get off the sad saddle and get back on that sudoku saddle, Donny boy, is what I like to think Don Mattingly thought to himself at one point, which would have been a dark hour for Don Mattingly.

But tonight, as his team hosts the Cincinnati Reds, Don Mattingly finally solved that sucker, and you know what? That one square was a seven! He knew it all along!

I think that is really the only explanation that I am willing to accept for how Don Mattingly can appear so pleased right now.

Picture borrowed from @MLBFanCave’s tweet from Tuesday.