Dear NotGraphs,

Paul

Paul,

I don’t know. Chad would probably say yes, based on what he told Ottoneu owners earlier this week, but I think there’s a more fundamental set of questions to ask about your hypothetical. How did you become the GM of a major league baseball team? Who did you replace, and how? And if you became a GM through nefarious means, should you be spending your time attempting to trade for Ryan Braun, or instead trying to cover your tracks and ensure you have a foolproof alibi.

For instance, did you club Brian Cashman over the head after you heard that he was trying to trade for 96-year-old Alfonso Soriano, and then wear his face as a mask on top of your own, fooling the world (and your fellow general managers) into thinking you were him? If you did do that, then I think this would probably be a great time to buy Ryan Braun, since the Yankees need some players who won’t be either suspended or Medicare-eligible in 2014. Of course, there would be no need to buy low, since the Yankees can afford to buy high.

Or did you pass Dayton Moore the same sleeping pill he has passed to the owners of the Royals, and quietly sneak into his office and take the seat at his desk? If so, I also think this would be a great time to trade for Ryan Braun, except that you probably won’t be permitted to take on his salary. Oh well. You tried. Maybe you can just build a farm system and eventually have a winning record in 11 or 12 years.

See, it’s very complicated. Also, why would the Brewers bother to sell low, since they’re not going anywhere this season anyway? I don’t expect there’s much reason for them to trade him. So I think you should probably spend your time as GM doing all sorts of other cool things, like helping more Cuban stars defect (actual question for readers: is Henry Urrutia keeper-worthy in an AL Scoresheet league? I’ve been offered him in a trade), or making waiver claims just for the heck of it.

Incidentally, if anyone else read this question and was wondering whether or not suspended players can be traded while suspended, initial Google results do not indicate a problem.

Good luck,
Jeremy

You can Ask NotGraphs too! If you have any questions, about baseball or otherwise, and want answers, about baseball or otherwise, feel free to send them my way.

Without delving too deeply into what it means to be a fan, I think we can recognize that one develops something analogous to a romantic relationship with players and teams. As delusional as it is to believe people on the ballfield can return any of the affection you direct them, it still hurts to be cheated on. It doesn’t feel like Braun cheated, it feels like he cheated on me. A certain part of my heart wants nothing more than to clutch a sequin-framed 3×5 portrait of Braunie and rock back and forth, mascara running, as “Love Hurts” by Nazareth blasts from my laptop speakers. An autographed University of Miami Braun jersey smoulders in the fireplace. Scribbled sharpie covers my caricatured Braun tramp stamp. My children Ryan and Joseph bang on the front door begging to be let in and fed. My wife, Braunhilda, rots in six separate garbage bags in dumpsters distributed randomly across Dane County. I want to have, you know, a typical breakup reaction to this whole situation.

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If you have a television and that television has sports powers, you, sir or madam, probably saw this last evening:

A million life-debts to SB Nation for so precisely and cleanly enGIFing this so precisely and cleanly turned double play. And thank you Yunel Escobar and Ben Zobrist; thank you for you Jedi-like connectedness that allows for the glove-flip-to-bare-hand turn. I thank everyone.

This has been a HOT GIF.

As should be apparent by now, “Dr. Internet” is not a specific person. Rather, it is any man who has decided he’s not going to take this shit anymore — “this shit” being the epicene objections of unmanly others on this our Internet.

Recently, a NotGraphs commenter by the nom de Internet of “TheReal” happened upon a Yasiel Puig post by Ham-Nuts Cistulli that, in the service of eroding civilization, celebrated one of Mr. Puig’s opposite-of-elusive bat-flips. TheReal took the necessary step of pointing out that this flourish would not play too well on the streets of fire whence he was forged. But then the lady-lads in his midst predictably took offense. Tired of conversing with his inferiors, TheReal took to the rhetorical top turnbuckle and landed this finishing move:

At this point, you will recognize — in spirit if not in precise diction — the imprimatur and influence of one Banknotes Harper.

True, Banknotes Harper learned business because business wanted to be learned by Banknotes Harper, and the only use Banknotes Harper has for the higher-education asset bubble is the opportunity to make a sherpa’s load of billion-dollar bills via credit default swaps on the student loans of the working poor. Still, the timely wielding of the Business Pecker, whether it be by way of high marks in a possibly-credentialed MBA program or with stacks of redeemable bullion, is something that pleases Banknotes Harper.

And so when Dr. Internet wielded his Business Pecker in order to cow the dole-sucking hordes that deigned to afflict him, Banknotes Harper saw that it was good:

Dr. Internet, you may just have a shot at being an intern to the intern of Banknotes Harper’s interns’ interns.

Ted Williams didn’t play during the Heat Map Era. He also didn’t play during the Internet, Grunge, Civil Rights, Designated Hitter, or David Bowie Era. But Mr. Williams still understood the idea behind heat maps. The above (embiggenable) image is of a display at the Hall of Fame museum, in which Williams estimates his batting average based on pitch location.

I have yet to visit the Hall of Fame, but when I do, I will certainly seek this display out. I’ve tried to come up with something humorous or insightful to say about this, but everything I come up with pales in comparison to just how cool this thing is. Just imagining Ted Williams dictating a batting average for 77 different balls — splitting some vertically, some horizontally, because that inch and half matters — delights me. We don’t have Pitch F/X data with which to compare this, and I honestly don’t care. Comparing it to facts would ruin it somehow. This isn’t so much a factual chart as it is a peek inside the head of one of the smartest hitters the game has ever seen.

It’s a glorious thing, and it will be my misshapen computer wallpaper for a while.

(image via the digital mind meld known as Reddit)

“I don’t understand why no one is signing up for my Photoshop* classes. It doesn’t make any sense.”

*Actually, GIMP, which seems really powerful, if only I knew what the heck I was doing.

I assume the one-armed man is Johnny Damon.

According to Bill Madden of the New York Daily News, Alex Rodriguez “is the Whitey Bulger of baseball, the most wanted criminal in the game’s history, more condemned by MLB authorities tan Shoeless Joe Jackson…Pete Rose…or Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.”

Indeed, Whitey Bulger ran organized crime in Boston for roughly a  decade, murdering almost indiscriminately.  After being on the run from 1994-2011, he was captured and has been charged with 19 murders and is currently on trial.

That’s a pretty apt comparison, actually. We may never know how many deaths Alex Rodriguez is really responsible for, but here’s a list of those in whose death or disappearances he’s most certainly had a hand:

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The SEO Wizard strikes again.

The reader should rest assured that the above is not merely a hastily selected clip-art image stolen from the internet of a cartoon thermometer exploding, but rather a technologically advanced and mega accurate Outrage Meter exclusive to NotGraphs which is capable of measuring the level of indignation present among America’s sporting commentators at any given moment. What one finds now, in the wake of Ryan Braun’s admission of guilt and subsequent punishment, is that the Outrage Meter has reached Dangerous Levels of Danger.

Dear Hopeless Joe,

Cheers,
B. Todriguez

Mr. Todriguez,

Thanks for writing. It’s a lost art. Writing, I mean. Kind of amazing anyone does it anymore, with video games and the Internet and all of that. Also paper cuts. That’s a real disincentive. I hate paper cuts. But I should get to your question. Yes, watching baseball is an escape from everyday life, but even escapes from everyday life are sometimes similarly bleak. After all, they have to be believable. Maybe you need an escape from the escapes from your life. Have you tried the fire escape? I think it’s high enough off the ground that you have no chance of survival if you jump. Not that I’m telling you to jump. I watch baseball as an escape from my everyday life, too. Did I ever tell you where I escaped from? They’re still looking for me.

Cautiously,
Hopeless Joe

If you have a question for Hopeless Joe, he already knows it.