Archive for Wisdom

When Lawrie met Kawasaki.

During the offseason, the Blue Jays acquired Jose Reyes, a four-time all-star with a batting title on his résumé; Mark Buehrle, who’s thrown a no-hitter and a perfect game, and 12 consecutive 200-innings seasons; Josh Johnson, a two-time all-star who’s struck out over 20 percent of the batters he’s ever faced; Melky Cabrera, an all-star game MVP with a, uh, checkered past; and R.A. Dickey, arguably the greatest human being alive, who with his magical knuckleball struck out 230 batters last year, and won the Cy Young.

Yet on Monday and Tuesday nights at the Dome, it was Munenori Kawasaki – signed to a minor-league contract in early March, and called up from Triple-A Buffalo to replace the injured Reyes – who was being feted by the crowd, with chants of “KA-WA-SA-KI! – Clap, Clap, ClapClapClap!”

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Regardless of how drowsy he gets, the reader would do well
to avoid sleeping on Cleveland right-hander Carlos Carrasco.

Earlier today at RotoGraphs, Mike Podhorzer advised the teeming masses not to sleep on Cleveland right-hander Carlos Carrasco.

Sound advice, that — nor is Carrasco the only player with regard to whom said advice is relevant. There are number of other players upon whom we shouldn’t be sleeping.

A number a lot like seven, for example:

Dan Uggla
A relatively even surface is ideal for sleeping. Uggla, meanwhile, is composed almost entirely of biceps that bulge out all over his body. Not conducive at all for healthy sleeping practices. Don’t sleep on Dan Uggla.

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DISCLAIMER: I wrote 90% of this post last night, but by this morning, at least several people were talking about Evan Gattis’s Twitter avatar. None of them, however, provide the indispensable insights offered below.

By now, I’m sure that all of you know of Evan Gattis, his colorful path to the Majors, and his sledgehammer power.

“Is it surf-time yet, dude?”

Things that are awesome about this include: his hair; his ruddiness; the semantics of the ID itself.

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The image embedded here is not, in fact, a screencap of an actual Wikipedia entry, but rather a fictional entry the author himself has spent 45 aimless minutes crafting for reasons that — upon reflection — might only make sense to someone wearing pajama pants and drinking deeply from a bottle of Trader Joe’s-brand tawny port in his living room-cum-home office.

Please, over-sexed readers, compare and contrast the following entities.

Austria-Hungary …

Vis-à-vis Astros who are hungry …

Similarities? Differences? Pleasing felicities? I count thousands. You?

For no apparent reason, Werner Herzog, icon of depressive existentialist cinema, recently sat down and discussed America’s pastime with Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith. In particular, they discussed baseball strategy, fundamentals, and the grueling experience of being a baseball fan, season after season.

In case you missed the conversation, here’s a choice Herzogian nugget:

“Ozzie always says [playing baseball is] full of erotic elements. I don’t see it so much erotic for the fan. I see it more full of obscenity. It makes a person vile and base. I wouldn’t see anything erotical in the stands or the living rooms. I would see fornication with delusion and asphyxiation and choking and fighting to believe in a losing team, I would see hope growing and then just rotting away.

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Health can be confusing! Sometimes you feel healthy when you’re actually not, and other times you don’t feel healthy and your body actually is but your brain is betraying you by saying it isn’t. Even though your brain is part of your body, which makes it even more confusing. And that’s not even including the pineal gland, which houses our soul and regulates our sleep patterns. I mean, yikes, right? That’s why I, Dr. Mitch Williams, M.D., am here to answer your questions about healthiness.

Q: I’m a college pitcher, and after my last start my arm was feeling sore. What should I do? Do I just wait, or is there a way to speed up the healing process?

A: Pain is jut your body telling you that it’s disappointed in you. The key to overcoming pain is to repeat the motion that caused the pain, and doing it harder, and more suddenly than you did before. This stretches out the muscle cells and allows life-giving aether to enter the nuclei. This makes them stretchier, which in turn lets you throw harder and more suddenly than you could before. It’s like a cycle of success!

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Former MLB shortstop and current manager of the Águilas Cibaeñas of the Dominican Winter League, Felix Fermin, is going to eat your entrails in a second, but right now he is putting on this baseball cap.

Felix Fermeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!

Felix Fermin has two big strong hands, which are capable of incredible dexterity; you are seeing this dexterity in action presently as he puts this cap directly onto his head without crushing said cap. In a second, though, just as soon as Felix Fermin is comfortable with how this cap rests on his head, he’s going to use those hands to pull your outer flesh apart in order to gain access to your delicious entrails. Yes, Felix Fermin is convinced that your entrails are delicious and he is happy to see you have arrived, fresh and jiggling and alive.

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In his Discourses, noted Roman Stoic Epictetus proclaims that, to live a life free from anxiety, that each of us must become like a “spiritual athlete.” To that end, NotGraphs presents this exercise, with a view towards helping to tighten and tone the spirits of the readership.

A pair of she-bears take a long loving look at the real while also devouring some children.

Notes
In his challenging text on the nature of the contemplative life, 1974’s The Human Adventure, Carmelite monk William McNamara invites the reader to take what he calls “a long loving look at the real.”

During the final game of Pool A play this morning in Fukuoka (box), Cuban left fielder Alfredo Despaigne either did or did not accept McNamara’s invitation following his eighth-inning home run off Japanese right-hander Takeru Imamura.

To wit:

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First, Brandon Morrow said he’d “rather look at the nerd stats.” Then he shows up to Ricky Romero’s first start of the spring with notes on Romero from Brooks Baseball, which he passed on to his teammate.

Witness, via John Lott in the National Post, a fine Canadian newspaper:

Brandon Morrow’s research startled Ricky Romero. It showed that Romero had almost given up on a key pitch during his disastrous 2012 season.

In 2011, when his ERA was 2.92, Romero threw sinking two-seam fastballs 22% of the time. Last year, his sinker rate fell to 11%. His ERA was 5.77, worst among big-league starters.

Morrow found those figures on the Brooksbaseball.net website, printed them out and gave them to Romero.

“I was a little bit amazed by it,” Romero said Tuesday, pulling the sheet from his locker.

Brandon Morrow is going to, hopefully, start a revolution.

Every now and then, usually on my walk to work in the morning, I whisper to myself: “Brandon League for Brandon Morrow.” I can’t let myself forget; I won’t. And I can’t wait for that no-hitter.

Image credit: David Lykes Keenan Photography.