Hopeless Joe’s 10 Lessons I Have Learned About Writing NotGraphs Posts

If you’re not reading the wonderful 10 Lessons… series this week over at The Hardball Times, well, perhaps like me, you’re too busy with your electroshock therapy treatments. In any case, I thought I would join in the “fun,” though I’m not sure I know what that even means anymore, not since the accident. Here are ten lessons I’ve learned, having written a whole bunch of NotGraphs posts, some of them still accessible in my long-term memory even after the treatments. (Gosh, who invented this electricity thing? It hurts!)

1. Predictions are enjoyable to make, even if your odds of being right are never any better than chance.

2. Readers never comment on the posts you think they will, and sometimes the ones on which they comment in droves are quite surprising.

3. If you feel particularly sad, and want validation from readers in the form of comments, just ask a question at the end of the post, no matter how pointless. They will comment, and you will again feel that slight connection to the rest of humanity that the remainder of your life does not provide.

4. Baseball provides endless inspiration for posts, related and unrelated to the game, except on the days when you have absolutely no ideas and need to troll Twitter hoping you can stumble on something worth posting.

5. There is no problem that a mustache and a bat flip can’t solve. (Except crippling depression.)

6. Kendrys Morales has it worse off than me. (And if anyone wants to offer me a 1-year, $11 million deal to write for them, I will take it, no questions asked.)

7. Really stuck for a post? Just make up a new statistic.

8. Putting Dustin Pedroia’s face on the body of lizards does not pay off in terms of time spent versus comments received.

9. Writing for NotGraphs does not, as previously assumed, entitle you to pitch for the Mets.

10. Don’t promise a list of ten items when you only have three or four good ideas.