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Mayhap your team needs to lighten up down the stretch, have fun as a team, grow trust. Glenn Braggs & Co. can help with that. Allow him to provide a list of services.

Mayhap your team needs someone to move very, very heavy things. Glenn Braggs himself can do that. For fifty bucks!

Tommy Lasorda bids you: Look at that specimen.

You say your team’s players desire to know exactly who among them is able to get away with wearing a half-T while bobbing around the locker room in their respective jocks? For a reasonable fee, a consulting team comprised of select members of the 1991 Cincinnati Reds — including Glenn Braggs — will be able to advise on said.

To this day, when Tommy Lasorda needs to present a “specimen” of human strength, he refers to this video, and to its inadvertent star, Glenn “That Specimen” Braggs:

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Dear NotGraphs,

Desperately seeking guidance,
John Cusack

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Yesterday I posted Part 1 of this Q&A with Andy Johnson, a Bradley University reliever who is recovering from Tommy John surgery. This is part 2. Out of 2. Or 6. No, I’m kidding. Just 2.

Have you been able to reach out to any others who’ve had the surgery and compared your experiences? More generally, are there ways for college players to reach out to major leaguers who’ve shared their experiences? Ballplayers, especially in the past couple of years with the rise of Twitter, seem far more accessible than they used to be — but I’m not sure that actually means anything substantive for the ability to reach out and find someone willing to talk.

The cool thing about the surgery is that it’s kind of a brotherhood. If you have the zipper on the inside of your elbow, there’s a talking point right there. I had a friend at Rutgers, Nathaniel Roe, who had TJS just a couple weeks before me and we texted each other a lot wondering where the other was at and how each other was feeling.

During the summer, I interned with the Peoria Chiefs and they had a Cubs pitcher rehabbing with them, Justin Berg, and I was able to chat with him a few times during the season. He’s a real positive guy and even after a rough outing, he knew he was getting better and that helped me keep my attitude up.

Another close friend and coach of mine is Terry Steinbach. He had played with guys who had Tommy John and he told me that it takes time. It might not all be back after a year but give it 18 months and that’s when I’ll see the zip on the ball and feel normal again.

Twitter has actually got me in contact with Brian Duensing. While he was at Nebraska he went through a similar process and I’ve exchanged a few tweets with him. With only 140 characters it’s hard to get a lot out of him but when I asked him questions, it seemed like he went through a lot of the same stuff.

How have you balanced the surgery and rehab with life as a college student more generally? Do you feel more like a student, or a professional ballplayer– how much of a typical week is spent on baseball-related activities, and has that changed with the surgery, and since you haven’t been pitching, have you been able to have a life closer to that of a typical college student, or is there still a lot of rehab and baseball-related activity?

Being a student-athlete is tough. Going to class everyday with homework and tests can be tough enough but throw in practice, games, workouts and rehab and it can get to be a lot.

In a typical week I probably spend 25 hours or so on baseball activities during the season. We have practice for a few hours and weight lifting two or three times a week for about an hour each. Then my rehab takes about four hours a week with all that I do.

In the athletic training room, I work on forearms, rotator cuff, use the hot tub to get loose and the cold tub to rejuvenate.

With surgery came more time dedicated to baseball but even without injury we’re all able to enjoy the life of a college kid. On weekends, we can go out and have fun with friends and blow off some steam. As much as it seems like a chore sometimes, I couldn’t imagine not being a student-athlete…it’d be too boring.

One last thought:

The surgery process has really changed my mindset on life after baseball. I used to think I’d play pro ball and make enough money to retire and never look back. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Such a small percentage of players are ever able to do that.

I read the book Moneyball during my freshman year and it opened my eyes to the other side of baseball, which I fell in love with. Ever since, I have tried to get my hands on any book or article dealing with the business side of baseball or how to improve the game. I loved The Extra 2% and Baseball Prospectus’s Baseball Between the Numbers and Extra Innings and I read FanGraphs everyday trying to learn something new.

My goal after I am done playing is to get into the baseball operations department for a Major League team. I think that side can be just as fun as playing and it keeps me in the game longer.

For anybody who has had Tommy John or has it in the future, remember it is a great time to learn about the game. It’s when you think you know it all and then it comes crashing down that you are always learning.

Young Ichiro wonders what all the commotion is about.

Young Ichiro, if forced to put a name on his look — and he wouldn’t do it unless you forced him — might call it the “Doctor of Love.”

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That one time, it was the balmy night of the eighteenth of June. Mike Trout stepped in against Matt Cain, in the bottom of the fourth inning, with one out and runners on second and third. The Angels were down by a run. There were many right things Mike Trout could have done; he had done many of them in the past, and he would go on to do many of them in the future. But on this night, at this moment, Mike Trout did the wrong thing. He dribbled a grounder back to the pitcher, and the lead runner was forced out at home. At that moment, Mike Trout made his team approximately thirteen percent less likely to win.

He also singled that night, and walked, and stole three bases, and scored a run. By the end of the night, balance had been restored: his team was better off with Trout than without Trout. But the damage was done. A fleeting indiscretion, perhaps. And yet its record would be etched in stone forever.

Last month, I stumbled across (and posted about) the Pitcher’s Duel blog, written by two college students / baseball fans, one a college pitcher at Bradley University named Andy Johnson who recently had Tommy John surgery. I thought the perspective of an aspiring professional ballplayer trying to come back from major injury was an interesting one (and one I’m not sure we get to read about very often), so I asked Andy if he’d be willing to do a Q&A for the site.

It’s long, so I’ve split it up into two parts. This is part one. (Part two tomorrow.) Huge thanks to Andy for taking the time to answer my long-winded, multi-part questions.

Before the injury that led to the surgery, had you experienced arm pain before? What does the typical soreness following a start feel like, and how did this pain compare? Did you know immediately that there might be something seriously wrong, or was it only because the pain kept coming back that you had a doctor take a look?

Before the injury, I really never had elbow pain before. It started in the fall of 2010 following my freshman year but I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. The pain started in my forearm and as the year went on, it crept into my elbow.

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Perhaps it is the addition of the extra Wild Card. Perhaps it involves the improbable campaigns put together by teams long-ridiculed, such as Baltimore and Oakland. Perhaps the fact that no contenders for the last playoff spot in the NL actually seem to have any interest in winning it.

Whatever it is, baseball fever is spreading, fair readers.

We, as ardent fans of the game, may have a heightened sense of this, considering the people and electronic pages with which we engage are probably discussing such things on a regular basis. But have these excitement tendrils reached down and ensnared the huddled masses? Does Joe Sixpack understand that this is turning into one of the most engaging final two weeks in recent memory?

It appears so:

My cousin – who’s kinda in between jobs right now – saw this image whilst watching Thursday’s episode of The Price is Right. The producers of this game show, which features a subset of games contestants play to win fabulous prizes, have tried to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the end of this baseballing season. The game in question (and in image) is Cliff Hangers which entails, according to my cousin, “guessing the prices of stuff, and if you’re off by too much, the guy falls of the end or whatever.” As you can see, the producers have switched out the typical and boring flat mountain side for the climber statue to scale with the win probability graph from Wednesday’s exciting Rays/Orioles contest.

Since this game show is played by and for the lower crust of our society, I consider this evidence that all of America is vibrating with anticipation over how the rest of this baseball season will play out.

Maybe now, even if for only a few short weeks, you and your dad will have something to talk about.

Cheers, to the future of a franchise…

The first time I saw an upside-down map, I experienced a brief burst of denial, followed by the creeping itch of cognitive dissonance, gently giving way to a sort of mild, liberated euphoria. Damn right! I thought, smacking the nearest tabletop. Why SHOULD north have to be up?? And I’m pleased to report that I experienced a very similar series of sensations, earlier today, when I looked at the Major League Baseball standings and thought to myself: Why SHOULD wins have to be good?? 

The more I looked around this site and other similar sites, my vision newly unobscured by preconception, the more evidence I found for the insidious effects of win-ism. Win Shares! Win Expectancy! Wins Above Replacement! Win Probability Added! How much ink has been spilled on the Orioles, and their unexpected ability to win — and how little on the Astros, and their spectacular capacity to lose? How much on Stephen Strasburg’s benching, and its implications for a winning team’s continuing to win — and how little on Ricky Romero’s, and its implications for a losing team’s continuing to lose? In our blind haste to glorify the win, we’ve come to treat the loss — no less vital, no less pervasive, a part of baseball — with neglect, at best, and more often than not with open contempt. I’m here right now to rectify that. Regard, for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, Smith’s Universal Corrective Baseball Standings (through 9/10; projections from coolstandings.com):

Notes:

– The Astros are the story of the year. Houston set the bar high in 2011, finishing with baseball’s best record by a full seven games, but they’ve outdone themselves this year. Keep in mind that only one team in the past half-century (the ’03 Tigers) has posted a losing percentage better than .700. Currently projected at 110 losses, the ‘Stros have a shot at joining that short list if they keep up their scorching pace (they lit up the league to the tune of 46-8 in July and August). What are they doing so well? The better question is, what aren’t they doing well? They rank third in the majors in pitching Losses Above Replacement (LAR) at -5.6, but hitting is where they’ve seen the most improvement since last year: ranked second in batting LAR at -10.3, they’ve scored fewer runs than any team in baseball. Houston has continued to find playing time for pleasant surprises like Jordan Schafer (0.3 LAR) and Rhiner Cruz (0.6 LAR), demonstrating the organization’s commitment to losing, and losing now. The club is scuffling a bit of late, having dropped only five of their last nine. An area of concern is the performance of newly hired journeyman Edgar Gonzalez, who’s failed badly so far to meet his replacement-level expectations. In his two starts in September he’s posted an ERA of 1.74, standing out as a major weak spot in an otherwise outstanding rotation. The Astros will be counting on some regression out of Gonzalez as they chase history down the stretch.

– There’s plenty of drama in both leagues. However, the scenarios are very different in the AL and NL. On the junior circuit, there are essentially six teams battling for the five playoff spots; most of the suspense comes from those six teams jockeying for position, with two division races (East and Central) still up for grabs. In the NL, the Rockies and Astros have already wrapped up their divisions, while the Cubs have a lock on the first wild card. But the Marlins and Mets look to go down the wire for the East crown, and there are at least five teams in contention (within 5 games) for the last playoff spot.

– A lot has changed in the past month. Around this time in August, the Brewers and Phillies were in the thick of the NL wild-card race, the Jays sat comfortably atop the AL East, and the Pirates were nowhere near the conversation. Well, those first two teams have all but bumbled their way out of contention, going 10-19 and 9-19 respectively, and free-falling all the way to near .500. Philly’s starters have been awful of late, with the league’s worst FIP (3.19) over the last 30 days; after losing so effectively in the first half of the season, Cliff Lee has all but fallen off the map, posting a hideous K/BB of nearly 19 over the recent period. For Milwaukee, the culprit has been weak hitting, with a lineup ranking 26th out of 30 teams in LAR; Ryan Braun, currently in a .336/.402/.664 slump, needs to break out of it soon if the Crew is going to climb back into the race.

In the AL East, while Toronto has been playing decent baseball, the Red Sox have turned on the afterburners and seized the division on the strength of a 19-7 stretch. Boston’s rotation has been lights-out, with a league-best 6.50 ERA over the past month. Though the Sox will miss Josh Beckett, the return of Dice-K (8.25 ERA since Aug. 10) and the continued excellence of Felix Doubront (10.50) bode well for the stretch run.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the month has been the Pirates’ surge. Though their stats have been less than remarkable, they seem to keep coming up with a certain magic: they’ve lost 9 of 11 one-run games since August 1. After his disappointing debut, phenom Starling Marte has gone on a 6-41 tear, slugging .194 over the past month. James McDonald has been living up to his ace potential with a 5.30 FIP, while closer Joel Hanrahan’s control issues (8 walks in his last 9 innings) bode well for Pittsburgh’s final chapter.

But the hottest team in baseball has to be Cleveland, which is finally operating on all cylinders after scuffling so badly in early 2012. The Tribe are in the midst of a 21-6 streak, with their starting rotation posting a 6.14 ERA over that stretch while their hitters — led by breakout star Ezequiel Carrera (.194/.250/.269, -4.4 fielding runs saved) — have piled up a +1.4 LAR.

– The next few weeks will feature some crucial series. By losing three of four in Minnesota over the weekend, the charging Indians finally grabbed a share of the AL Central division lead. All eyes will be on Cleveland on September 18-20 for the last three contests between these teams. Meanwhile, the battle for the AL East will be coming to a head this weekend as the Red Sox visit Toronto for a make-or-break three-game series. After getting swept twice in a row at Fenway — in July, and just this past weekend — the Jays have to treat this as a can’t-win situation.

Don’t overlook the Pirates’ visit to Milwaukee next week, for the last set in the season series between two teams that are both on the playoff fringe but headed in opposite directions. And finally, the powerhouse Astros will be wrapping up their 2012 with a visit to Wrigley Field in early October. Although it’s unlikely to affect the playoff positioning of either team, this will be Houston’s stiffest test as it tries to put the cap on a potentially historic season. If nothing else, this series promises to showcase some scintillating baseball from two of the league’s best teams.

Dear Mr. Graphs,

Sleepless, but not in Seattle,
Big Daddy V

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