Oct 09 2013 05:02 PM
Grantland's Baseball Dictionary
Some excerpts:
Beanball (n.) — tool used by overly sensitive/cowardly pitchers to police anything and everything. This includes but is not limited to: firing pitches at (defenseless) PED users/for getting snubbed at a party; teaching a rookie who has done nothing wrong some proper manners; slow trots around the bases; celebrating with teammates; smiling; and breathing. Some pitchers will drill a batter just for hitting a home run with no embellishment, because it's better to endanger an opponent's health and act like a ninny than it is to acknowledge that maybe you just suck.
#BlameBeltran (exp.) — cousin of #Belted; Mets fans use #BlameBeltran to mock those who criticized former New York outfielder Carlos Beltran for the team's woes. It's not uncommon for shortsighted fans and especially jealous and clueless media members to make highly paid players become scapegoats for a team's problems. A player like Beltran — who derived a good chunk of his value from underrated skills like on-base percentage, struggled at times with injuries, and doesn't make a show of fake hustle or faux-emotion on every single play — is an especially attractive target for the idiot masses.
Bunting (n. and v.) — lovely decorative touch for stadiums on occasions such as All-Star Games and World Series. Other than a few, rare exceptions, bunting has no other useful purpose in baseball.
Clutch (adj.) — the notion that certain players perform better in high-leverage situations. In large enough samples (i.e., multiple years or entire careers), very, very few players actually demonstrate an ability to put up better numbers in so-called clutch spots than otherwise. For example, Derek Jeter is widely considered to be a clutch player, but he has actually put up nearly identical numbers both with runners in scoring position and in the postseason as he has the rest of the time.
The myth of clutch hitting and clutch pitching remains alive and well — despite hard evidence to the contrary — for a few reasons. First, a player like Jeter will end up with many chances to produce in big spots because he has played for a highly successful team, so of course he's going to have some big moments. Second, human beings are highly vulnerable to confirmation bias, a phenomenon in which we remember events that support our preconceived notions about people and events and ignore events that contradict what we already believe. Third, many fans, teams, writers, and broadcasters like to make declarative statements without the benefit of evidence, because they like to hear themselves talk and because mythmaking is fun/considered good business.
Lineup Protection (n.) — the idea that hitters perform better when good hitters hit immediately behind them than otherwise. The concept has been studied multiple times. It has been found to be a myth.
Maddux (exp.) — a complete-game shutout requiring fewer than 100 pitches. Invented by baseball blogger Jason Lukehart, a Maddux is a start in which a pitcher shows both dominance and peak efficiency. As you can probably guess, the leader in Madduxes (which can be tabulated starting from only 1988, when pitch-count totals became widely available) is … Greg Maddux.
Operation Shutdown (exp.) — threat issued by former Pirates outfielder Derek Bell regarding what he'd do if he were forced to compete for a job in spring training, rather than earn one by merit. "I ain't going out there to hurt myself in spring training battling for a job. If it is [a competition], then I'm going into 'Operation Shutdown.' Tell them exactly what I said. I haven't competed for a job since 1991." This quote is more than a decade old, but we're reviving it here because it's amazing, and more outrageously self-entitled players need to use it for comedic purposes.
Proven Closer (exp.) — a pitcher who has received and converted multiple save chances in the major leagues, thus making him a better candidate to close games in the future, even if others have better stuff and put up better numbers in every other way. This concept ignores the fact that many top closers are nothing more than mediocre, repertoire-limited, or injury-prone starters (Dennis Eckersley, Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, Eric Gagne) who excel in short relief, because it's infinitely easier to throw harder, use fewer pitch types, and succeed when required to throw 10 or 15 pitches a night instead of 100-plus. The fetishizing of closers and the supposed closer mentality also leads managers to make counterproductive moves, such as saving their closer for when the team has a lead, especially on the road. That's how we end up with games going 15 innings and every scrub in the bullpen being used except the closer, with the end result being a loss.
#Toomanyhomers/Rally Killers (exp.) — a theory put forth by some misguided broadcasters and pundits, who argue that a team hitting too many homers can hurt an offense since home runs wipe baserunners off the basepaths and thus kill a rally. That's just … let's move on.
#Weirdbaseball (exp.) — phrase coined by former Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and ESPN contributor (now Astros pro scouting coordinator) Kevin Goldstein. Used to describe any baseball game that goes past midnight local time. According to #weirdbaseball customs, everyone watching such a game is encouraged to eat ice cream after the clock strikes midnight.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/959 ... dictionary