Can’t talk. Grabbing my go bag. Gotta lay low for a while, until this shit blows over. Stay frosty. Trust no one. Remember your training. I’ll see you on the other side.

After Giants right flailer Hunter Pence fell victim to the notorious scooter snatcher of San Francisco, he mentioned to reporters, “I can’t fathom driving for some reason.” The crack NotGraphs Investigative Team followed up and learned that, in fact, Pence suffers from a psychological condition that renders him literally unable to conceptualize the operation of a motor vehicle. The two-time All-Star’s difficulties do not apparently extend to other pieces of complex machinery, as he readily answered questions about steam engines, countertop blenders, personal computers, and the Large Hadron Collider. Experts, however, note that it remains debatable whether Pence can fathom the operation of his own person.

MLB Network presents a brand new slate of shows this summer designed to take your mind off the fact that every pitcher on your favorite team is undergoing Tommy John Surgery.

From the makers of Grey’s Anatomy and So You Think You Can Dance… it’s the brand-new SO YOU THINK YOU CAN THROW A BASEBALL 95 MILES AN HOUR AND NOT END UP HAVING ELBOW SURGERY? Follow three thousand young pitching hopefuls as one by one by fifty by two hundred, they all end up blowing out their elbows and having Tommy John Surgery. Will their surgery be performed by renowned surgeon Dr. James Andrews… or will they draw the “wild card” and have their procedure performed by a nine-year-old boy who saw a video on YouTube about how to do a ligament replacement? You’ll have to watch to find out!

It’s not just a Mets pitching prospect about to undergo an MRI on his elbow… and it’s not just a former closer now pitching for the Cardinals’ AAA team in Memphis… it’s both, on SYNDERGAARDSMA, the impossible story of two pitchers, two dreams, and at least one Tommy John surgery between them, if not more to come. Do you have extra vowels and no uniform to sew them onto? Then you have to call… SYNDERGAARDSMA.

Have you ever wondered about the life of a brand-new hitting coach you’ve never heard of, just hired to replace some other guy you never heard of, trying basically to avoid calling attention to himself and staying out of David Wright’s way? Then you’ll want to DVR every episode of LAMAR! Lamar Johnson, an instructor in the Mets’ system since 2005, just brought up to the big leagues, because what isn’t interesting about a hitting coach for a team that’s probably not going to do very well no matter who the hitting coach is? Will he prefer sunflower seeds, or bubble gum? Gatorade, or water? Wilmer Flores, or Ruben Tejada? Does any of this matter?

What do you get when you combine a White Sox first-year phenom, and a should-be-Hall-of-Famer who probably ought to have retired already? It’s ABREU TIMES TWO, as Jose and Bobby team up to hit home runs (Jose) and, uh… fight crime? (Bobby, I guess.) Is the game on the line? You want Jose! Is there, um, a flood in the bathroom? Maybe Bobby can help. Or at least let you use his cell phone. Trying to intimidate the opposition? Jose! Need to fill out some forms to activate your Social Security? I think Bobby would probably have a better handle on that.

Finally, we’re putting a camera in Manny Ramirez’s hair, and following him around, on HE’S A PLAYER-COACH? REALLY? Are you as confused as I am? Actually, why don’t the Mets hire him as their hitting coach and actual major-league outfielder? No? That isn’t a good idea? Are you sure?

TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays, to a man, will tell you that they always believed. That they knew, hidden among the ruins of last year’s 74-88 last-place finish, they were a first-place team.

Atop the standings in the American League East as May winds down, with a comfortable game-and-a-half cushion and the division’s best run differential, a quiet and confident sense of satisfaction has settled around the club as it prepares to officially end Toronto’s two-decades long playoff drought.

“This game, it’s fickle. It’s – and this is one of my favorite words – capricious,” said knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. “We learned a lot last year, when we crashed and burned. We learned a lot about expectations, and putting the cart before the horse, and Las Vegas. This year’s different. And I thought it would be.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The thing that makes America great, apart from the way it fits so perfectly into the North American landmass – seriously, what are the odds? – is its capacity for allowing talented bloggers to showcase their kick-ass math skills by writing that “Bourjos is a miiiiiiilllllllion times better than Trout, you four-eyed moron,” and also by providing enumerated (enumer8ed) lists.

What also makes America great are these three (3) things:

1) unscripted television

2) mustard

3) the First Amendment

Granted, it’s weird that something called the First (1st) Amendment came in third (bronze) place in my List (List) Of Great-Making Things, but why, you might ask, is the aforementioned Amendment still so totes amazeballs? Well, for one thing, it allows intelligent Internet commenters to observe, “Thers somthing called the Frist Amendmant, you know!!1!2!3!!” whenever a corporation cans an employee for cooing via webcam, “My boobs are totes amazeballs!”

For another, it allows private citizens to voice private thoughts regarding

1) auto racing

2) mustard

3) cannibalism

without fear of gubmint retribution.

One such instance occurred this week, after Dodgers Triple-A catcher Miguel Olivo gnawed off the unfortunate ear of teammate Alex Guerrero.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, the author introduced a nearly reasonable methodology for identifying the most glorious baseball pitches over any given interval of games. What follows is that same methodology applied to every relevant pitch since last Friday. Click here for more information on the definition of break. Click here for previous editions of the same exercise.

Fastball
Pitcher: Hector Rondon, RHP, Chicago NL (Profile)
Batter: Jonathan Lucroy   Date: Sunday, May 18th
Velocity: 96.8 mph   Break: 6.0 in.

Footage:

Read the rest of this entry »

When last we left our friend, generally deplorable president of the Miami Marlins David Samson, he had been the very first contestant kicked off of this season of Survivor. Even though he missed out on 36 of the 39 days the eventual winners spent in the Philippines, his brief stay was eventful. Let’s recap his downfall:

1) David shows up wearing a sport coat, and is immediately acknowledged as the leader of the “brain” tribe.

2) David establishes his M.O. of speaking entirely in baseball metaphors.

3) David misreads a situation and targets one of his team’s strongest physical players for elimination, “thinking about Day 39” before the game is even 5 minutes old. That player winds up being given a significant advantage in the game.

4) David and the rest of his tribe fail spectacularly in the immunity challenge, meaning they will be forced to vote someone out.

5) David forges an alliance with Kass, who convinces him to focus instead on the incompetent J’Tia, but then Kass tells J’Tia they are gunning for her, allowing her to scramble together a counter-alliance.

6) David is voted out, blaming his tribe for being disorganized (when he was supposed to be their leader) and saying he had no regrets about the strategy that led to his immediate expulsion from the game he had trained so hard for.

On Wednesday, Survivor had it’s season finalé, which Samson did not win, obviously. Because he was the very first person eliminated. Indeed, he has had more time to think and reflect on where his game went wrong than anyone else who played the game this year, and whether by adopting a different approach and making different choices, he might have found even the smallest measure of success.

So during the half-hour reunion show, host Jeff Probst turned to the Marlins’ executive and asked him about his strategy: Read the rest of this entry »

Not getting the results you want at the plate? Tried all those fad swing tools without any progress? Had enough of your father’s disappointed looks?

Then register today for the Hunter Pence School of Just Kinda Flailing at It.

Here at the Hunter Pence School of Just Kinda Flailing at It, we understand the frustrations that can come with trying to hit for power with a traditional swing. Our founder, Hunter Pence, had that frustration, too. That’s why he developed this revolutionary new approach to hitting. It may look unorthodox, but the results are proven.

Just one 10-week course at the Hunter Pence School of Just Kinda Flailing at It will have you knocking balls over the wall while looking like an anthropomorphic bowl of Jell-O in no time. Results are guaranteed, or your money back.

Don’t settle for weak grounders to third. Don’t waste time trying to model your swing after Ted Williams’. Enroll at the Hunter Pence School of Just Kinda Flailing at It, and see your game transform. Teammates and opponents might say you hit like a windsock with a significant tear in it, but they’ll be saying it as they watch balls go over the fence.

Call now. Special financing is available in most states.

Rod Steiger would not care to hear about your semester abroad.

Periodically, the editors of NotGraphs compile a brief list of team names that remain unused at any level of baseball, accompanied by some suitable hometowns and likely mascots — with a view, that is, to aiding any clubs (either extant or prospective) in search of same. What follows is such a list.

Team Name: Fighting Post-Structuralists*
Possible Locations: Berkeley, CA; The Main Quad of Hampshire College
Mascot: A gender-less, race-less creature to which each member of the crowd will inevitably attach his or her own associations, anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since you are a baseball fan, you probably have cheered for a home run before. You probably have been cheering for home runs for years. But you probably never have examined how you have cheered for all of those home runs. Maybe you never have asked yourself what the optimal way to cheer for a home run is; you never have fretted over cheering for home runs before a home run happens, nor have you felt dumb about the way you cheered for a home run after you did so.

Well, you should feel dumb. Because no matter what you have done to cheer after a home run, you have never done it correctly. You have been doing it all wrong for all these years.

Thankfully (and thanks especially to NotGraphs reader Eric Rood for his hot, GIF-able tip), former GOP presidential candidate and current senior US Senator of Arizona John McCain is here to show us the way — the only way — to properly cheer for a home run. He shall show us all.

First and foremost: tuck in your shirt. You don’t want to look like a slacker when cheering for a home run. The cheering of slackers doesn’t really count as cheering.

Next, if at all possible, try to stand in front of a guy in a Zac Brown Band t-shirt. This provides an awesome, patriotic backdrop for your cheering.

Then — here’s the really important stuff — do your best impression of an elated zombie by reaching out your arms, and keeping them stiff. Open your mouth in something that resembles a palsied yelp. Rotate 90-degrees away from your wife (so as to disassociate yourself with her pathetic clapping), and then back again — with stiff arms still outstretched, of course.

Read the rest of this entry »