kickass media 2014

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/javier-baez-and-the-anomalous-dinger

The best beer in baseball:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/sports/best-beer-in-baseball/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

No surprise that Toronto is near the bottom, in fact, I think we ranked #12 in "uniqueness" only because we offer Canadian beers (and not the best ones or anything close to it) that aren't available at other parks. That might have saved us from being ranked dead last overall.

A little surprised the Giants are so middle of the road.

giants clearly doesn't account for public house which is attached to the stadium but i guess isn't a 'vendor'. but you can take the beers in and they're cheaper than anything sold inside. had an alpine duet and russian river blind pig last time i was there...

Even without that I guess I'm surprised. Been a while since I've been though... but I always got the impression that they had better than Bud/Miller/Coors fare.

They do, but only a few kiosks and the lines are huge

idea stolen from jon bois, but still funny

http://www.fangraphs.com/not/dangerous-experiment-a-roster-of-25-adam-dunns

http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2013-10-23/mlb-team-values.html

Interesting:

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/why-mike-trout-and-the-rest-of-the-league-is-having-trouble-with-the-high-stuff-082914

some new dude @ fangraphs, secrete ilxor?

12:34
Comment From Daniel
The Royals, Mariners, and Tigers are fighting for two playoff spots. Who do you think gets them?

12:34
Kiley McDaniel: Probably CORPORATE AMERICA AMIRITE

http://www.robrains.com/CARDINALSBASEBALL/tabid/91/entryid/2009/whatever-happened-to-former-cardinals-infielder-khalil-greene.aspx

“I have nothing but fond memories of playing with him and knowing him,” Loretta said. “He was very quiet, an introverted sort of guy that took baseball very seriously. I tell a story pretty often about how he would be in the weight room maybe a half hour before a game. He had these mats set up and he would be diving and sliding, pretending that he was making great plays.

“I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘if you are going to make these kinds of plays you’ve got to practice them.’ I had never seen that before and have never seen it since.”

Mark DeRosa is already the best analyst on MLB Network.

xpost

didn't see the khalil greene article until just now - thanks for posting it bnw. khalil's social anxiety was sometimes mentioned obliquely by the cards' announcers but i didn't really understand the extent of his problems.

“It was unfortunate to see the way baseball can kind of weigh on you. Mentally it was very tough on him.”

Wainwright, and Schumaker, both saw Greene attempt to hurt himself on the field when he thought he had failed or made a mistake.

“He had some things he would do on and off the field,” Wainwright said. “On the field he would scrape his hands real hard on the clay and scratch himself. He would scratch his arms real bad with his fingernails. You could tell he was just battling so hard. He was really grinding mentally with the expectation to go out and get a hit every time. That can weigh on you.

“We didn’t know how to help Khalil. All you could do was try to be a good friend and good teammate and hope he would come around.”

That was all Schumaker and the rest of the Cardinals could do as well.

“I think music was more of his passion than baseball,” Schumaker said. “He really cared about baseball and really wanted to perform well, and when it didn’t happen he didn’t know what else to do except hurt himself. It was sad to watch and witness.

“He would just get really frustrated and not know how to react or show it without hurting himself a little bit.”

:-/

^^^

So this BP podcast is a 3-way discussion of what the postseason is supposed to "do," sort of inspired by the fact that the 2 or 3 best teams from the regular season have been sent home by "crappy" teams.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=24820

The highlight is this bit by Sam Miller which is sort of Bart Giamatti + Kierkegaard:

The point of this entire enterprise is to entertain us with baseball games. The point of it is not to decide who is the best team. The illusion that that is what we're doing has long been a powerful draw to sports. But, it is ultimately not the point. There is no scenario where the universe will care or remember who the best team was out of this collection of collections. It only matters inasmuch as we create this illusion that it matters.

If you lose even the illusion, then it becomes problematic. But the point is not to have the illusion, the point is to entertain people, and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other. That this is just this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis. That we are going to lose everybody we know, we are going to lose everything we have and the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions.

http://imgur.com/aHSUHpB

Haven't read this, but it looks like it could be really good:

http://www.si.com/longform/donnie-moore/

how Hank Conger, Michael Cuddyer and Gabe Kapler explain baseball right now

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/hank-conger-michael-cuddyer-gabe-kapler-mets-dodgers-astros-111814

i know framing really is important but i'm tired of hearing about

it

http://wheatleyschaller.com/dev/trade_trees/Dodgers.png

http://grantland.com/features/mlb-transaction-trees