Why are you so sad, Steve Bedrosian?

Is it because you saw the end of Kris Kristofferson’s remake of A Star Is Born?

Is it because Barry Gibb finally retired the name Bee Gees and disco died?

Is it because you are watching Bambi?

Is it because you stubbed your toe really hard?

Is it because it’s time to take off your beautiful jacket and come into the ball game?

Is it because you’re playing for the mid-80s Braves?

Is it because they made you a starting pitcher in 1985?

Is it because you know you didn’t deserve that Cy Young Award in 1987 and you feel like a fraud?

Is it because you’ve been hanging out with Hopeless Joe?

Is it because you realized time is fleeting, you’ve wasted so much of it, and you’ll never get it back?

Is it because it’s all so meaningless?

Cheer up, Steve Bedrosian.

Have some panda babies.

Starting at first base tonight for the Texas Rangers: a wheel of Parmesan cheese.

You might or mightn’t have noticed, as you might or mightn’t have spent the past few weeks in a crowded Peruvian jail, that the baseball squad known as the Texas Rangers has experienced something of a medical catastrophe this season, with precisely 32,000 of its ballplayers – to be fair, just 30,000 have been starters – landing on the disabled list, in the ICU and/or in a Tommie Copper commercial.

Earlier today, in response to this graphic demonstration of human frailty, Texas manager Ron Washington opened a pack of Camels and considered his options for tonight’s lineup against the Angels, all the while pondering the Buddhist precept that “life is suffering” even as he blew a series of distinct but ultimately ephemeral smoke rings. Upon snubbing the final ashy butt he decided on the following lineup, primarily for its ability to withstand the daily threats – pulled hammies, strained obliques, scarlet fever outbreaks, meteorite strikes and spontaneous combustions – that turn players into casualties of the human condition and proxies for the impermanence that turns us all, ultimately, into role players, pinch-hitters, DFA’s.

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There a number of ways in which Daren Willman’s Baseball Savant site could be utilized but isn’t being utilized by the present author — largely because the main constraint with regards to that site isn’t its lack of possibilities, but rather the author’s lack of imagination.

Spending the last hour-plus within the sexy confines of that site hasn’t changed matters that considerably; however, it has compelled the author to produce the three GIFs below.

For what follows, what I’ve done is to identify both the fastest and slowest secondary pitches from the past week (i.e. since last Friday) which induced swinging strikes — where “secondary pitch” is defined, for the purposes of this exercise, as any pitch not classified as a four-seam, two-seam, or cut fastball by PITCHf/x.

Here, first, is the slowest secondary pitch of the week, an 0-0 curveball thrown at 62.2 mph by Paul Maholm to Charlie Culberson last Saturday that was actually classified as an eephus:

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The place: a pine forest in Upstate New York

The time: the second hour of a day in spring

As gentle as an angel’s breath, or as placid as a cherub’s fart, a breeze comes to tease the hardwoods, tickling the needles and nudging the cones as it goes. The wind, it shushes, the hush cut through with a warbler’s trill and the trill cut through with what seems a louder fart. And yet the forest knows, as only old growth knows, that this is not an ethereal toot but, rather, the creaking of a tree – a creaking, alas, that mimics the sound of Don Zimmer’s knees the last time he came for a hike.

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I have no witty words, other than perhaps a mention that mispronunciation must run in the family. Otherwise, I have only blatant use of my son for all the page hits.

Yes, you got it right son. So right.

Manny Machado has just been activated from the disabled list. For this, he is a happy person. When people are happy, they express their feelings utilizing different channels. Some prefer smiling. Others, drinking. The most cavalier combine the two. Manny Machado chooses to please the Gods of his inner self with the help of the age-old, Kevin-Bacon-endorsed art of the dance. Behold.

This has been Baseball Players Twerking.

Would you like for it to be larger, reader? I think you know exactly what to do.

Because it’s impossible to watch every game — and sometimes even just one game — on any given day, it’s equally impossible to make a judgment as to which single pitch might have been that same day’s most transcendent one to have witnessed. And yet, one notes, such information might be the very thing to make this miserable life a slightly less miserable life.

With a view to addressing this suddenly urgent matter — and also with the assistance of this site’s Highly Reputable and Totally Real Think Tank — the author has endeavored to develop a methodology by which to identify at least one of each day’s most transcendent pitches in a more or less objective fashion.

Said methodology follows, with almost nothing in the way of explanation, but no less wisdom for that reason.

1. Utilizing Baseball Savant’s PITCHf/x utility, search for every pitch from the previous day that (a) wasn’t a four-seam fastball, (b) was thrown with two strikes, and which proceeded to (c) produce either a swinging or called strike (and therefore a strikeout). (Click here for an example of this exact search for April 30).

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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.

Two robots, each four stories tall, are sitting on abandoned cars in a clearing just beyond a public park.

JIM: Bob, what are we doing now?

BOB: We are waiting, Jim.

JIM: For what?  Read the rest of this entry »