Rogue Culture: Film Eye

March 10th, 2010 comments 0

The Rogue continues what he started on Monday, this time delivering to his adoring public a set of film-related terms. Behold!

2012

The OPS that Diamondback wunderkind Justin Upton will likely post in his age-27 season.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The sort of player Jake Fox would be if he knew how to operate a baseball glove.

Independence Day

The day on which a player is released by, or traded away from, the Kansas City Royals. Mark Teahen, for example, celebrated Independence Day on November 6, 2009.

Julie & Julia

No baseball reference here. Just a beautiful, beautiful film by the lovely and talented Nora Ephron.

The Tailor of Panama

Appellation for Panama native Mariano Rivera, known for his ability to thread his cut fastball into the corners of the strike zone.

Transformers

A Transformer is any sort of mediocre pitcher who has found his way to St Louis, had his baseballing DNA altered by coach Dave Duncan, and proceeded to subdue batters far and wide — typically by means of a nasty sinkpiece. Ryan Franklin, Kyle Lohse, and Joel Pineiro are all Transformers.

Does Joel Pineiro look different to you?

Visit the new Rogue Culture section of the RBI Wiki

Rogue Culture: TV Eye

March 8th, 2010 comments 0

The Rogue is hip on more than just baseball. This batch of brand new terms brings you his usual unusual insight through the lens of modern television:

The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory holds that the home run is a more effective offensive outcome than the sacrifice bunt. It was first put forth by Jon Miller during a discussion with his Sunday Night Baseball partner Joe Morgan on the finer points of sabermetric analysis.

Two and a Half Men

Two and a Half Men is the number of Yankees clubhouse staff it takes to fold CC Sabathia’s uniform.

Lost

Manny Ramirez is Lost.

CSI: Carlos Silva Investigation

CSI is an advanced unit of major league scouts, trainers, and statistical analysts  assembled by Bill Bavasi who use cutting edge technology to solve the mysteries of players whose performances drop off in the year after a hefty contract is signed. Normally, this can be accomplished within an hour, or 44 uninterrupted minutes.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

A cleansing ritual involving beer, sarcasm, and heaps of barbecue, it is practiced each spring by despondent fans of the Kansas City Royals.

American Idol

For more information on American Idol, please see The Joe Mauer

Howard Beale has had enough of the damned sac bunt.

See all these terms in the new Rogue Culture section of the RBI Database

The Cycle Paradox

March 5th, 2010 comments 0

Hitting for the cycle is the pinnacle of cool, satisfying one’s urge to see disparate objects align unexpectedly, like the planets into a prophecy-fulfilling doom machine or a poker hand into a straight flush. But unlike, say, a straight flush, hitting for the cycle is not actually the best possible outcome. It would be far more fortuitous for a slugger to hit four home runs. Or four triples, or four doubles, or three home runs and a triple, or two home runs and a triple, et cetera. Nonetheless, despite the extensive room for improvement, the cycle maintains its place in lore, and the most modest fan still finds his palms sweaty when Kevin Kouzmanoff strides to the plate with a homer, a single, and a double under his belt.

Hence The Cycle Paradox, when something emotionally rewarding is not actually the best way to win a baseball game. The Cycle Paradox can apply to many of the golden rules from the pre-sabermetric golden age of baseball, including:
  • the sacrifice bunt
  • the intentional walk
  • slap-hitting
  • making a diving play on ball that a better player would have been standing in front of
  • David Eckstein

Throwing a Pie in the face of detractors, Felix hit for the cycle on August 14, Two-Thousand-and-Optimistic.

Visit The Cycle Paradox at the RBI wiki

Pie in the Face

March 3rd, 2010 comments 1

1. The inevitable headline of the Chicago Sun-Times‘ sporting section were former Cub prospect and current Baltimore Oriole Felix Pie (pronounced PEE-ay) to record the game-winning hit in a contest against his former club.

2.  A blanket term to denote the unwavering tendency of American dailies to shoehorn a pun into a headline if at all possible. Alternatives include either (a) Jeters Never Prosper, were Derek Jeter ever to be caught using steroids, or (b) Mo Better Blues, were historically great closer Mariano Rivera ever to sign with the Kansas City Royals.

As American as Felix Pie.

The Baseball Annual in the RBI Database

Career Mode

February 26th, 2010 comments 0

All of today’s best baseball video games include a Career Mode. In these Career Modes, you create a highly accurate video game version of yourself–forgoing your beer belly for let’s say the “Buff” body-type–and advance through the trials and tribulations of a pro baseball career. Start in the low minors and slowly inch your way to the big leagues: it’s all of the man hours of the baseball life without any of the chicks or the cash.

In Career Mode, your creepily accurate avatar–born in 1991–can toil in Double-A obscurity as a crowd of hundreds ignores its singles power. And rather than virtually inhabiting the body of an already amazing athlete, you can experience the joy of slowly accruing enough Drag Bunting and Plate Vision skill points to earn the starting job in Altoona.

Notable examples include:

Note: The virtual advancement of a Career Mode player is inversely related to the gamer’s real-life career advancement.

Roguish minor leaguer thaMADHitta232 works on his swing in the cage.

Visit Career Mode in the RBI Wiki

The Baseball Annual

February 24th, 2010 comments 0

The Baseball Annual represents the height not only of baseballing analysis, but all known literature. The Odyssey? Never heard of it. Madame Bovary? More like Madame Boringry. Just as winter shows the first signs of breaking, The Baseball Annual appears — on the shelves of local bookstores, in our mailboxes — with hundreds of pages of analysis written almost exclusively by pale, bespectacled men. In its pages, we’re invited to celebrate Player X’s breakout potential, but cautioned against Player Y’s “old man skills.” We’re introduced to a glistening future, even as we’re asked to temper our expectations about its excellence. Like American poet Walt Whitman, The Baseball Annual asks, “Do I contradict myself?” And answers without shame: “Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large and most certainly contain multitudes.”

Nostradamus: One of the founding editors of Baseball Prospectus.

Pie in the Face in the RBI Wiki

The Shadow Legend

February 22nd, 2010 comments 7

The Shadow Legend is a ballplayer whose early on-field exploits are so heroic that they become unsustainable. He has the capacity to draw out superlatives from the broadcast booth and expletives from the opposing dugout. With a twirl of his bat, a kick of his front leg, a knowing grin, he wraps the collective imagination around his fingertip. Then real life gets in the way.

When transcendence is expected, mere excellence becomes unsatisfying. He gets hurt. He slumps. He drinks too much. The Shadow Legend is one hell of a ballplayer. But he is never able to hit that 800th home run, strike out that 6,000th batter. He is never able to escape the shadow of his own mythology.

“One of the best ever,” fans might say about the shadow legend, “but imagine if he managed to stay…”

The Shadow Legend is Tony Conigliaro, Ken Griffey Jr., Juan Gonzalez, Herb Score, Dick Allen,  Rocky Colavito.

Dick Allen passes the Raines Delay with a cigarette.

Check out The Shadow Legend in the RBI Database

The Pitchers and Catchers Report Report

February 19th, 2010 comments 0

For baseball-starved fans in early spring, no news is still news, especially on the day that players actually arrive at their spring training site. Therefore, sports reporters nationwide, from the big-time beatniks to the local scribes, head to Florida and Arizona to file their annual reports about pitchers and catchers reporting.

In this day and age, most newsworthy stories have already been beaten to death in the off-season sandblasting, so The Pitchers and Catchers Report Reports amount to sun-drenched rehashes of stale trade news and mundane injury updates.

These reports include thrilling footage of such momentous events as:

  • Baseball players sitting on the ground stretching their legs
  • People walking into buildings
  • Chicken-legged coaches standing in circles and talking to one another

"...and Mota rode it all the way from Tuscon. Next up, we watch as Steve Garvey asks the equipment manager for a whiter pair of socks."

Visit The Pitchers and Catchers Report Report in the RBI wiki

Trusting the Process

February 17th, 2010 comments 2

Trusting the Process is to baseball what jumping the shark is to television — which is to say, the point at which one’s suspension of disbelief is challenged to such a degree as to reveal the absurdity of life and cruel randomness of the universe. The term is most famously attributed to Kansas City Royals General Manager Dayton Moore, who, after a series of mystifying acquisitions, spoke to the Royals faithful, saying, “Let’s just trust the process. If other people don’t want to trust the process, that’s fine. If other people want to abandon the process, then abandon it. I’m not abandoning the process. I believe in the process.”

Let not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

Visit Trusting the Process at the RBI wiki

Custer’s Last Transaction

February 15th, 2010 comments 2

The final, desperate maneuver of a baseball executive whose miscalculations and bad assumptions have left his franchise surrounded by ruthless warriors bent on its destruction. This inevitable blockbuster trade or free agent signing has no positive impact and only serves to momentarily delay said General Manager’s dismissal while further etching his legacy of ineptitude into the minds of future generations.

Examples:

  • Billy Bavasi trades The Tacoma Rainiers for Erik Bedard

Send us your own Custer transactions!

"I wonder if Joe Carter is still available..."

Visit Custer’s Last Transaction at the RBI wiki

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