Nicasio reacts to news of his promotion.
Colorado Rockies’ prospect Juan Nicasio will make his major-league debut Saturday against the St. Louis Cardinals. As the above photo indicates, he is very, very surprised by the news.
Image courtesy Ed Andrieski – AP.
While attending a few garage sales in my hometown in Kansas, I seemed to have come across a relic that is many miles from its home: Jeff Francoeur’s little league bat, a PRO-LINE Little League SUPER-LITE Georgia Cracker, made in Atlanta, GA, Size 9.
It is the fabled bat that Jeff used to swing at pitches in the Atlanta area. It didn’t matter if he missed the ball or hit a warning track pop up, he always loved his Georgia Cracker. It was rumored lost when his parents had a garage sale after he joined the Braves in 2002. It was spotted a few times, but no one knew for sure of its location or owner.
I feel fortunate to have found the bat and hope to make a pilgrimage up I-35 to return the bat to its iconic owner soon. I will enjoy having it in my possession for a little while and maybe, just maybe, go take a few swings with it.
What follows is apparently not entirely new to the Internet, but it’s new to me, which is why I’m bothering conjuring this image. It is a personalized jersey, which is a thing about which I’m not entirely sure how I feel. Is it silly-britches? A sign of arrested personhood? Utterly harmless? Actually, yes, it’s utterly harmless, but I don’t indulge in the practice, which is tacit disapproval of a kind, no?
But whatever my feelings about the larger rubric, the personalized jersey below, by whatever standard or measure you wish to apply, is something that warms the cockles of hearts like a puppy made of sunshine who is holding a scalloped-edge, rose-gilded porcelain serving tray filled with delicious gooseberry muffins …
Gooseberry muffins! Nom, nom, nom!
Seriously, just click to make larger first.
Thoughts upon inspecting this excellent newspaper graphic from the San Francisco Chronicle:
1) Man, I haven’t picked up a print newspaper in a while.
2) I haven’t gone outside in a while.
3) Yeah it’s impossible.
4) At the last game I went to, my cousin and I wondered why nobody charted foul balls so that we could get a heat map of foul balls, maybe one where the color is decided by just sheer number of balls and then one where it’s measured by catchability because you wouldn’t want one to take your head off.
5) What the heck is a quarter second? What’s a millisecond?
6) Is there anything I can do in 150 milliseconds?
7) Dirty.
8) Does the bat literally deliver the power of nine large horses upon the ball?
9) It’s probably right when people say Mike Stanton delivers destruction upon balls, then.
10) Gotta find this book.
This post comes complete with poll. Because it’s America, you know.
Tiger play-by-play man Mario Impemba is most well known for his role as a Fratelli in The Goonies.
In a move that I believe underscores my commitment to the fledgling broadcast-review project here at NotGraphs, I’ve not only consumed three or four Tiger games ahead of the present review, but have actually traveled to the pleasant peninsula that is Michigan with a view towards truly understanding what it is to watch Tiger baseball*.
*That my wife’s family happens to live on same peninsula, and that we had been planning to visit them this past weekend, ought to be regarded as mere coincidence.
As I say, I watched parts of about three or four broadcasts on FS Detroit for the purposes of this review — including the May 24th game, at home versus Tampa Bay, with particularly close attention.
The FS Detroit broadcast team is composed of play-by-play man Mario Impemba and color commentator Rod Allen. Regarding the studio hosts, there are either one or 100 of them. But they’re all giant, large men with strange haircuts, is what I can say about them.
In case the use of pronouns in the headline and the naughty letter to Burt Reynolds pictured above don’t tip you off, this is a post about Brian Fuentes. Mr. Fuentes is not a loser, but he’s lost things. To wit, he’s lost enough games this season to overwhelm something — maybe an over-sized bulk box constructed of triple-wall corrugated fiberboard or perhaps a a silo towering over the American prairies like a tensed phallus — designed expressly — and, it should go without saying, with expert craftsmanship and tantalizingly in excess of industry standards and best practices — to hold a great deal of losses.
Indeed: Brian Fuentes, despite being a reliever tasked with doing something besides recording decisions of any kind, is on pace to go 3-23 this season. Like others who make love to these pages, I’m aware that pitcher wins and losses are far from illuminating. Still, one can’t help but be impressed that a reliever has managed to be yoked with defeat seven times before June.
Getting to 20 losses will, of course, require another, greater conga line of foul-smelling performances on the part of Fuentes. That’s not difficult in a vacuum. The problem is that merely one or three more foul-smelling performances on the part of Fuentes will likely result in his being banished to the low-leverage terra incognita of the bullpen. And thus, the Republic’s dream of a 20-loss reliever will perish.
Not to place the dual burdens of Job and Frodo upon Mr. Fuentes and Bob Geren, who stands in the dugout and projects authority, but they simply must contrive a way to make this happen. This battered generation needs it. These beleaguered patriots need it …
So you say you stormed Omaha Beach, old man waiting for the bus? Adorable. I saw a reliever lose 20 games in a season.
You’re damn right I’ll take it from here.
This is slightly late, naturally, with the first round of MLB’s interleague play having concluded this past weekend. My Milwaukee Brewers were not involved, but we were still treated to some excellent rivalries that elude us during boring old intraleague play, including but not limited to: Seattle vs. San Diego! Minnesota vs. Arizona! and Detroit vs. Pittsburgh!
Ah, the memories. But I digress. One thing that caught my eye on MLB.com as interleague play raged onward was this largely hidden logo used for interleague play:
Via SportsLogos.net, click to embiggen.
The imagery is clear: two eagles, one representing each league, fighting over a baseball, much as the teams and leagues fight for superiority on the field. Personally, I think it’s a solid logo, although I think it would be improved by using more lifelike eagles as opposed to the semi-cartoony look employed here.
What do you guys think. Is it a good logo? Should it be featured more?
This chat will begin at 3pm ET; however, questions can be submitted any time beginning this moment.
For some idea of what might happen in a NotGraphs Chat, do considering briefly looking over this post from yesterday.
The third-ever NotGraphs Chat will take place tomorrow (Thursday) at 3pm ET. Here are some assorted thoughts ahead of same.
Allow us to re-introduce ourselves.
The attentive reader will probably know that we at NotGraphs have, in the course of the last month, hosted two chats (this first one and this second one).
Insofar as said chats have been mostly pleasant and have begotten other posts (like this one and this one), I’m prepared to describe the chat experiment as a success thus far.
Yet, it’s also clear that there’ve been some questions — both among the readership and inside my own brain — about what a NotGraphs Chat actually is and how it differs from other chats at FanGraphs.
For while, in the typical FanGraphs Chat, it’s generally the case that readers submit questions about specific players or teams — with the author answering them in turn — that’s obviously not a useful model for the authors of NotGraphs, for whom performance analysis is res non grata (which, I understand that maybe that’s not a real phrase).
To that end, I submit this post, wherein readers might suggest how these sorts of chats ought to go.
For my part, I assume some discussion of books and movies and other cultural artifacts is a possibility. Or the aesthetics of the sport, generally — including the quality of broadcasts, the best camera angles, or the very best in the mustache-related arts. Mostly, I suppose, I view it as an opportunity for people who like baseball and one other thing — whatever that thing is — to meet each other and have fun.
But, like I say, I’m curious if the bespectacled readership has any input on this matter, as well.
