The Dustypocalypse

Now that everyone in DC is done freaking out, eight thoughts on the reality of Dusty Baker as manager

Things We Have Learned From NatsThroatGrabGate

Because these days, everything in DC has to be a "gate".

Why All Your Complaining About The Max Scherzer Contract Is Wrong

Former Detroit Tiger and possible Best Pitcher On The Planet Not Named Kershaw Max Scherzer signed a 7 year deal with the Nationals over the weekend with a reported dollar value of $210M. This has produced the usual freaking out from all quarters, all of which is conspicuously absent when an NFL player signs a big deal and all of which is complete hooey. To wit:

10 Things We Learned From Last Night's Giants-Nationals Game

Nationals/Giants pre-game photo. Note the beards.

The short version of last night's Giants-Nationals playoff game is: Nationals blew a 1 run lead in the bottom of the 9th and then lost it on a home run in the 18th. Which, of course, is saying The Hobbit is about a hiking expedition. Scratch the surface of an 18 inning game and you'll find plenty beyond the score; dig deep and you'll find really interesting things like:

1. At times the game resembled the old "Action Hank" episode of Dexter's Laboratory. You kind of expected Jayson Werth's beard to charge the mound and attack Yusmeiro Petit's remarkable facial foliage. Just remember, Little Hank - It ain't the beard on the outside, it's the beard on the inside. Unless it's elevated, in which case a left-handed batter can turn on it.

Zimm Zimminy

Once upon a time, it went like this:

Analytics-friendly baseball writer/blogger said something, mainstream baseball establishment jumped on them, and everyone got a good laugh piling on.

These days, it goes like this:

Baseball player, manager, or front-office type says something goofy and analytics-unfriendly, online baseball fandom jumps on them, and everyone has a good laugh.

The worm, she has turned. Today, it's turned on Nationals 3B Ryan Zimmerman, who's upset about predictions made by, and I quote, "nerds". Like I said, everyone's getting a good laugh, pointing to what the predictions actually say, and so forth, which is to say "come on, people, give it a rest already".

We have just been called "nerds" by Ryan Zimmerman, and we're acting like, well, nerds. Look, Ryan Zimmerman is paid to do a couple of things: hit baseballs, catch baseballs, and send baseballs sailing past the first baseman so we can make humorous animated jpegs of someone in the third row taking an E-5 off the noggin. He's not paid to do math, make eloquent speeches, or discuss the finer points of Bayesian statistics. Of course he's going to call analytics types nerds. This is a "General Franco is still dead" kind of story. And yet, predictably, we dogpile on with a ferocity normally only reserved for comments section debates over whether Batman's installed Ubuntu on the Batcave computers ('cause everyone knows the JLA Watchtower uses Red Hat).

Look, I'm a nerd. I have committed LARP professionally, and on nationally syndicated television. And God knows it's fun to get back at the bullies. But really, do we need to jump in every single time, giving these guys ammo for their persecution complexes? Or is it better to nod sagely, grin to ourselves, and let these guys rage to each other in their ever-shrinking circle?

Because it ain't nerds flinging three-hoppers past the bag at first on routine grounders. It's the jocks.

2013 MLB Predictions - NL East Edition

And now in first place, the Miami Marlins!

There are blogs and publications that spend thousands upon thousands of words writing up minutely granular predictions of the upcoming season. They use advanced statistical packages like ZIPS and PECOTA, they spend countless hours scouting A-ball LOOGY types who might make a six-inning contribution in mid-August on the back end of a day-night doubleheader, and they generally pour their hearts, souls and minds into their previews.

We are not one of those blogs.

Cardinals 9, Nationals 7

Somewhere, in the smoldering, sulfurous pits of hell, there's an empty director's chair with the name of someone associated with the St. Louis Cardinals on it. Other than the Faustian bargain, there's no explanation for what happened last night in DC - or, for that matter, what happened against Atlanta, or what happened against the Rangers last year, or the Phillies, or...
In any case, that just happened. And let's be clear - Stephen Strasburg would not have saved the Nats last night. Gonzalez, not Strasburg, was the Nats' best pitcher this year, and when he got a case of the yips it opened the door for St. Louis to come back. And to their credit, the Cardinals took advantage. Their bullpen shut the Nats down with power arm after power arm, and in the ninth, well, you could see guys so desperate they were trying to hit three-run homers off Grizzly Adams-alike Jason Motte with no one on base.
In football, in basketball, in hockey - the Nats would have been able to just run out the clock. Not so here.
And thus, baseball.

Reasons to Root For Each Team In the MLB Playoffs

Jim Leyland on Casual Fridays

The New York Yankees
Another chance to watch the ageless Derek Jeter and resurrected Andy Pettite on the big stage. And, err, that's about it. Screw the Yankees. They've won enough already.

The St. Louis Cardinals
Overcame a staggering number of injuries to reach the postseason. Made it in despite losing one of the best players in baseball history to free agency in the off-season, and filling the gaps with guys named Kozma and Craig and (the other) Carpenter. No brawls with the Cincinnati Reds all year. Rookie manager Mike Metheny had the stones to start Kyle Lohse - THE Kyle Lohse - in a win-or-go-home playoff scenario. And the chance that this might be the last go-round for Fat Elvis Berkman.
Plus, they're not the Yankees.

The Cincinnati Reds
They're the best team nobody's heard of. Their closer throws faster than Sammy Hagar is capable of driving. Bronson Arroyo rocks (literally). Joey Votto is a beast. Jay Bruce is a slightly smaller beast. Brandon Phillips is the second-funniest tweeter still playing (sorry you're home, @TheRealTPlush). Johnny Cueto had the best season by a pitcher you didn't hear about. All they do is win ballgames. They had the stones not to overload their playoff roster with starting pitchers they'll never use.
And of course, they're not the Yankees.

The Detroit Tigers
Miggy and Prince shouting "Si, motherfucker!" as they jack bombs in batting practice. The Koufaxian transcendence that is Justin Verlander - and the fact that he's damn funny in commercials, too. Closer Jose Valverde's untucked shirt and obvious love of pie. All other arguments aside, Miggy won the Triple Crown, and that's awesome. They finally divested themselves of Brandon Inge. Doug Fister, and the agony a simple typo caused Craig Calcaterra. Jim Leyland looks more like Solid Snake every year - or is it that Solid Snake looks more like Jim Leyland?
And they ain't the Yankees.

The Baltimore Orioles
A streak of 14 straight losing seasons snapped unexpectedly and astonishingly. An army of scrap-heap pickups like Nate McLouth and Joe Saunders rising to the occasion. Manny Machado, stealth third baseman, who in a year of no Trout would be the big rookie fish - he's that good. Adam Jones, putting it all together. A closer out of nowhere, with more saves than strikeouts. An astonishing job of shuffling personnel between Baltimore and AAA by former punchline GM Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter. The damn bird logo, which should beat the Cardinals bird up and take its beer money. And they're not the Yankees.

The Oakland A's
Because they have no goddamn business being there. Because Brandon McCarthy won Twitter when he got out of the hospital after taking a line drive off the face. Because wearing green and gold on national television when you're not a leprechaun takes balls. Because Yoenis Cespedes is in fact Batman. Because Chris Carter finally got a real shot. Because of the terrible, terrible thing that happened to Pat Neshek and his wife. Because of a rotation full of rookies and because there needs to be a giant "Screw you!" to all the troglodytes who routinely use Moneyball as a blunt weapon because reading it is too damn hard.
And as you might have guessed, they're not the Yankees.

The San Francisco Giants
Because every night, somebody's getting Poseyed. Because The Freak had a bad year, but he's still The Freak, and you can't not root for the guy. Because of the ongoing train wreck that is the Barry Zito contract. Because nobody's going to be talking about that goddamned beard. Because Matt Cain is a walking, talking statistical outlier, and because his perfect game was a masterpiece. Because the universe still owes Willie McCovey one.
And because they're so not the Yankees, they left New York half a century ago.

The Washington Nationals:
They've got a $126M caveman in right field. They're a year ahead of schedule. Their oh-so-brash underaged superstar spent the pennant-clinching celebration drinking apple juice with one of his teammate's kids. And most of all, if the Nationals don't win it all, we will never, ever hear the end of the armchair pitching coaches chewing on Nats GM Mike Rizzo for his decision to sit down Stephen Strasburg.
Also, they're not the Yankees.

Harper Dugout P.T.A.

So Bryce Harper, wunderkind, had himself an 0-5 night tonight, and in response, he took a swing at the clubhouse tunnel wall. This is, of course, being jumped on by various folks as proof that Harper is a "punk" - that memorable word that got mild-mannered Lenny Randle to punch out his manager - and seventeen kinds of horrible human being. The same reaction, from a different player, might be cast as "competitive" or "he really hates to lose" or "fiery". But with Harper, it's more proof that he's Jerkimus Maximus, because, hey, that's the narrative.
I think it was Bill James who once famously described titanically noggined former Phillie Dave Hollins as "intense", and then added that you're intense only as long as you're playing well, you're the same guy, only now sportswriters feel free to call you a jerk. One gets the feeling that if Harper were hitting over .300 and had blown up after a bad night, some of the people now burying him would instead be lauding his "intensity" and his "fire", and talking about how it brought a needed spark to a veteran team that could use some of that energy. It's happened before, after all. Ask Dave Hollins.
It's not surprising that the knives are out for Harper. He's been touted as The Next Big Thing since he was young enough to unironically like Justin Bieber, his prodigious talent and career-minded upbringing have kept him from being anything like a normal teenager, and he's making a lot of money. Also, he's done a few jerky things, some of which appear far less jerky in full context.
But really, the most important number here is 19. As in, the kid is playing, and holding his own, at the highest level of competition in the world at the age of 19. How many of us would have done so well? How many of us were still trying to figure out when exactly you started "Dark Side of the Moon" in order to sync it up perfectly with The Wizard of Oz at that age, not shrugging off a Cole Hamels fastball to the meat?  How many of us wouldn't have punched something if we got frustrated at failing, especially after failing at something that we've been able to do effortlessly our whole life?
That's not to say that I think it was brilliant of Harper to accidentally Stoudamire his face. He is going to have to learn to control that temper if he wants to achieve the greatness his talent seems to promise. At the same time, he's 19. I'm not quite willing to consign someone to the reflexive hatred bin because he's got his emotions on his sleeve two years before he can legally drink. At least he's not writing bad poetry, right? A dugout tantrum is one night, a bad rhyme scheme is forever.
So come on. Look in the mirror. Then think about yourself at 19, and cut the kid - and he most surely is a kid - some slack. And while you're at it, try to be a little less "intense".