UPDATE: Chris Resop is a real estate agent now. We interviewed him for Barbecast 50!
Chris Resop is a 31-year-old right-handed reliever. Since 2005, he’s pitched for the Marlins, Angels, Braves, Pirates, and A’s. He has a 4.62 ERA in 243.1 career innings. His career bWAR is 0.2. Chris Resop is unremarkable.
Or is he?
As some of you may know, I am quite fond of ridiculously lopsided batter-pitcher match-ups. The match-up that everyone’s been freaking out about lately is Paul Goldschmidt vs. Tim Lincecum, and rightfully so. It’s completely ridiculous. Anyway, I was recently checking out Starlin Castro’s most lopsided match-ups. Sure enough, there was Resop. Castro is 6-8 with three home runs, zero walks, zero strikeouts, and one hit-by-pitch against Mr. Resop. Interesting! Sorta. Using our buddy Daren Willman‘s amazing Media tab on Chris Resop’s player page over on baseballsavant.com, I went back and found video of the three dingers he gave up to Starlin.
Wait. What? I went looking for these videos in search of a pattern; maybe a pattern of pitch location, or pitch type. What I found was something far more fascinating. I have documented before how spectacular pitchers’ reactions are to giving up home runs, especially when the home run hitter is Barry Bonds. These three simple screenshots led me to the obvious question that thousands before me have surely asked: does Chris Resop grab his crotch after every home run he allows?
I returned to Chris Resop’s baseballsavant page in search of answers. The Media tab on baseballsavant player pages provides video of every play the player was involved in, as tagged by MLB Advanced Media. I decided to watch every home run that Chris Resop has ever allowed (or at least, the ones provided by MLB) and see what I found. The results:
I was in shock. This was spectacular. To be clear, I am well aware that all players, including pitchers, may need to adjust their protection down there every once in a while. But this was much more than that. This was uncanny consistency. Chris Resop could not stop. I became more curious. Is it only home runs that makes Chris Resop grab his nether region? There was plenty more video to peruse. What happens when he allows an RBI single, instead of a home run? Does he still express his frustration in the same way?
He certainly does! What about groundouts?
Amazing. How about flyouts?
Spectacular. Doubles? Doubles!
Flabbergasting. How about a triple?
Beautiful. And finally…sacrifice flies!
Everything. Everything makes Chris Resop grab his crotch. Chris Resop is currently a member of the Pawtucket Red Sox, the Triple-A team for the Boston Red Sox. Let’s hope he gets the call soon. Chris Resop needs to be pitching in the major leagues again as soon as possible. Chris Resop is remarkable.
CESPEDES FAMILY BARBECUE 
This is absolutely beautiful. I don’t know what classes you’re in, but you should get some sort of credit for this. Maybe this can be Jake’s thing when he pitches.
Oh man my Mom is going to love this.
I’m no Freudian acolyte, but I’d guess his reactions are based on some residual childhood habit. Or maybe he just likes to touch his junk.
Great job with this!!
[…] Cespedes Family BBQ on reliever Chris Resop’s … idiosyncratic post-contact behavior. You don’t have to hit it right at him to generate a cup check. […]
What about bunts!??
I haven’t laughed this hard in a very long time. Thank you.
It’s for security. He feels most comfortable when he’s holding his nuts. ” find a happy place”.
his junk is tricky
Literally a junk ball pitcher.
My guess is that he has the biggest dong ever and has to constantly adjust his cup … or he has the worst case of crabs ever and has to constantly scratch it.
Haven’t you guys ever heard of a Base on Balls?
Nice work.
[…] still don’t believe me, check out a further in depth post on Resop’s behavior on CFBBQ. Eight years Resop performed his signature crotch grab and for eight years it was ignored. He was […]
One can only hope he will grab his crotch after every home sale…and that someone will be there with a camera to document it.
[…] former major league reliever Chris Resop! If you don’t understand why that’s amazing, you should probably click here. Chris is a real estate agent now, so we talked about that, and you know, the other stuff about […]
This is priceless
There is only one explanation. Chris Resop used to be Christine Resop and is still having difficulty adjusting to her additional appendages.