Category Archives: Randomness

Organizational Lineups: The Best Names In the Minor Leagues (NL East)

by Jordan Shusterman

If it wasn’t obvious already, we absolutely love ridiculous names. For each 2014 team preview, we included a list of the best names in the organization. Because it’s summer, I’m gonna take it one step further. I have assembled a starting lineup and starting rotation of the most spectacular names for every team in baseball using solely players in their respective minor league systems. You will read some of these names and question their legitimacy but a quick Google search will confirm each and every one these as 100% real. As a rule, each position must be played by a player that is actually listed at that position. For example, the Giants have five different shortstops with unbelievable names but I could only choose two (SS and DH). Every team has a DH, and the DH could be any position player. Each team also has a five man rotation. Rotations were certainly difficult to determine because OH MY GOD THESE PITCHER NAMES ARE UNREAL. Okay. TO THE SQUADS.

NL EAST

Atlanta Braves

Atlanta Braves

  • C Orrin Sears
  • 1B Juruengelo Tielman
  • 2B Mattia Mercuri
  • 3B Mike Dodig
  • SS Ray-Patrick Didder
  • OF Nisandro Cleofa
  • OF Fernelys Sanchez
  • OF Ledernin Tejada
  • DH Trenton Moses
  1. RHP Osman Manzanares
  2. RHP Evertz Orozco
  3. RHP Dakota Dill
  4. RHP Francois Lafreniere
  5. RHP Jesus Jones

Miami Marlins

Miami Marlins

  • C Yobanis Pinto
  • 1B Viosergy Rosa
  • 2B Terrence Dayleg
  • 3B J.T. Riddle
  • SS Garvis Lara
  • OF Wildert Pujols
  • OF Coco Johnson
  • OF Alinson Peguero
  • DH Iramis Olivencia
  1. RHP Jheyson Manzueta
  2. RHP Jorgan Cavenerio
  3. RHP Yeims Mendoza
  4. RHP Yonqueli Perez
  5. RHP Esmerling De La Rosa

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Chris Resop: The Most Interesting Reliever In the World

by Jordan Shusterman

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.

resop 34 home run resop 21 home run resop 13 home run

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:

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Jose Bautista’s Most Outrageous Follows

by jakemintz

As you may or may not know, Joey Bautista follows over 147,000 people on Twitter. Following someone on Twitter usually means that you are interested in what they have to say. I hope for Joey’s sake that this is not the case for his account. Here are some of Bautista’s best follows of the last couple weeks:

Screen Shot 2014-02-26 at 9.59.14 PM

This one makes a bit of sense seeing as baseball “his life.” You’d think a true baseball fan would be wearing a baseball shirsey in his header photo. He’s also quite the friendly lad, offering up his phone number for all of those who have yet to meet Mr. Blow-Me.

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Fixing the Baseball Hall of Fame

by Jordan Shusterman

Since the vote was revealed last month, constant discussions and arguments over who should and shouldn’t have been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame have occurred. A large portion of our internet compadres believe this year’s class of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas was far too small. Clearly, many other deserving candidates belong in the Hall. People are starting to worry if some of these superstars are ever going to make it into the Hall of Fame. We decided to speed things up.

What follows is somewhat inspired by an old Jeff Sullivan tweet.

(Note: former podcast guest Scott Weber now runs Lookout Landing, so it looks like he wrote the tweet. But he didn’t. He’s not that funny.)

What a brilliant idea. Barry Bonds should probably just go to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, he’s too busy biking and holding adorable dogs. Luckily, we can just put him, along with the large group of other deserving candidates, into the Hall of Fame.

Let’s fix this mess.

HOF2
Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, and Barry Bonds finally made it to the Hall of Fame. Piazza looks exhausted.

HOF6
Tim Raines stands confidently inside the Hall of Fame. Slammin’ Sammy is jumping for joy because he’s finally in the Hall of Fame.

HOF5
A young Barry Bonds casually leans against a pillar inside the Hall of Fame. An even younger Sammy Sosa and Piazza pretend they’re still in the big leagues. Jeff Bagwell is relaxing on a bench in the Hall of Fame. Edgar Martinez has fallen and he can’t get up…but at least he’s in the Hall of Fame. 

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Pitchers React to Barry Bonds

by Jordan Shusterman

So you might not have heard, but I’m a big fan of Barry Bonds. Last month, I wrote about my 25 favorite Barry Bonds facts for Michael Clair’s blogathon. This time, I did very little writing at all.

Something fun to watch on home run replays is the victimized pitcher’s immediate reaction. I quickly found that pitchers who gave up monstrous home runs to Barry Bonds had a fascinatingly wide range of reactions.

MLB.com recently added video of every single home run that Barry Bonds hit into McCovey Cove, as well as all of his milestone home runs. Naturally, I went back and watched all of them once or a thousand times, and I observed the humans around Barry Bonds the instant he hit the dinger.

These are their stories (in a series of blurry screenshots).

***

bb1

bb18

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Michael Clair’s #Blogathon2014

by Jordan Shusterman

In case you haven’t heard, our friend Michael Clair over at oldtimefamilybaseball.com has been doing a remarkably cool event known as the Blogathon for Doctors Without Borders. He’s done this for a few years and it’s a fantastic idea that he has executed remarkably well this year especially. Jake and I were both fortunate enough to be asked to contribute to the guest post portion of the blogathon, and we were happy to oblige.

Link to donate (and you should really donate!)

Jake wrote about the 2004 Baltimore Orioles’ role in The Wire:

http://oldtimefamilybaseball.com/post/73874479861/the-wire-baltimore-orioles

I wrote about Barry Bonds and my 25 favorite Bonds facts:

http://oldtimefamilybaseball.com/post/73935637744/25-greatest-barry-bonds-facts

2013 World Series Drinking Game

by jakemintz

We already created a drinking game once this postseason back during the Tigers-A’s ALDS series. We weren’t planning on making another until we realized how necessary it might be for this World Series. Game one was a puke-inducing shitshow of doom and while we hope the Cardinals show up for Game 2, we want to offer you another entertainment option for the rest of the series. Enjoy and drink responsibly.

DRINK ANY TIME…

In-game Cardinals:

  • Pete Kozma derps
  • You realize that Shane Robinson exists
  • You see Tony Larussa
  • You see Tony Cruz
  • You see Tony Hawk
  • Shelby Miller sighting
  • Trevor Rosenthal throws an off-speed pitch
  • Daniel Descalso exhibits “grit”
  • Matt Adams infield hit
  • Matt Adams steal
  • Close up of Matt Adams’ face
  • Albert Pujols hits a home run
  • Adron Chambers bats because the Cardinals have no other good bench options
  • You wonder if Joe Kelly really needs those glasses

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