Such Luminaries

Let's check in on some former Nationals, even though nobody's played hardly any baseball yet!

Jordan Zimmermann made the most of the one game he got to play, pitching seven scoreless innings for the Tigers. Also, it was cold but he didn't wear long sleeves because he's from Minnesota or Wisconsin or Manitoba or somewhere like that.

Ian Desmond has been playing (badly) every day in the outfield for Texas - he even got a couple starts in center. Should the Nats have kept him? Nah. There's only room for one .100-hitting outfielder at Nats Park!

Doug Fister's debut for Houston saw him pitch five kinda-lousy innings to get the win. He anointed a new Doug's Dude in Milwaukee second baseman Scooter Gennett, who was obviously hungover on photo day.

Someone get this poor man a Bloody Mary STAT!

Drew Storen picked up with the Blue Jays right where he left off in Washington! He lost out on the closer position, and with a 7.71 ERA over three appearances, he's not about to win it now. I mean, Papelbon's a pretty hateable guy, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the year his pitches stop working, but the Nats clearly got rid of the correct closer.

Livan "¡Livan!" Hernandez is returning to Cuba to play golf with his brother. They'll be joined by such luminaries as Luis Castillo and Rey Ordoñez at a charity golf tournament in May. Also, he bought a giant dog to protect his house, so don't get any ideas while he's out of town.

I can't tell if this is an artist's impression of Livan and his brother in golf attire or a photo of Livan and his brother in golf attire.

I couldn't find anything about Austin Kearns.

Burden

Here's an awkward question: Are we bad fans?

By "we," I mean "y'all." "All y'all," to be less specific. Not me - I'm definitely a bad fan. One of the worst. I only go to games when there's a Livan-related trinket available.

The evidence that Nats fans are bad at being Nats fans is mounting. Sure, it's all circumstantial, but we're not looking at whether the fan base is going to prison, only whether it has bragging rights over Cincinnati or Phoenix or wherever. The burden of proof on this one is light as a feather.

We call it the fan base to make it seem bigger, by the way. You don't want to call and say the fan is going to be there. We put "base" on the end of it.

Some blog intended to help the SEO of a site that's trying to sell you after-market tickets put together a hell of scientific study about fan base enthusiasm, factoring in attendance and ticket price and even diseases of the modern age like Facebook and Twitter engagement.

It's the .48 that gets me. You can't round up.

We're terrible at this stuff! Are you doing your part? Make sure to follow @Nationals on Twitter with both the real account with your name on it AND the one with the funny pseudonym you use to troll desperate semi-celebrities.

Then there was this story about TV ratings. Ratings for baseball are pretty great everywhere, and the good news is that around here they're well up from back when they were under nine thousaaaaaaaaand.

The bad news is, on a per capita ratings-type basis, we're getting outdrawn by damn near everyone. Even Baltimore! Have you seen what they're doing up there? Playing in an empty ballpark, Steve Pearce at second base, running out of Hawaiian shirts before I got there - it's been a complete debacle.

It looks a little better as a counting stat rather than a rate stat - 67,000 butts in their own seats per game - but still. We're 19th out of 30.

The attendance is actually pretty good. After a pretty rough start (2005: 8th out of 16) and rougher middle (2010: 14th out of 16), we're up to 4th. We're number four!

Based on the available facts, I conclude that Nats are not terrible at being Nats fans. Rather, they are rational actors who respond to incentives and whatever you call the opposite of incentives.

If you offer them Shake Shack and Livan bobblehead dolls, they go to the game. If you offer them Bob Carpenter, they switch over to Ancient Aliens.

PS Make sure to check this out, where Wm. Yurasko makes a pretty convincing case that Aroldis Chapman would be only the third-greatest Cuban in Nats history. He also has a line about Chapman's fastball vis-à-vis Jayson Werth's reckless and imprisonable disregard for all living things that I wish I'd thought of and which I now cannot rip off since I've made it clear that I know about it.

"Chapman" Means "Peddler." "Aroldis" Doesn't Mean Anything.

The Reds have given up, and that could be good news for the Nationals. It won't them from stop beating the hell out of the Nats all the time, but they might be convinced to disgorge a Cuban for us.

They've made it clear that they wish to be done paying Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, but we don't need either of them. We got so many starters. Joe Ross isn't in AAA if he's in an organization that needs starters.

What we need is Cincinnati's slow-walking, smooth-talking, triple-digit-fastball-throwing closer, Mr. Aroldis Chapman.

The important thing here is the numbers on the left. They all start with a 1 and have three digits.

I know what you're saying - We have a closer! Drew Storen isn't the kind of guy you trust to close a game you really, really care about, but he's a proven closer.

I'm totally with you on that. The bullpen is, in my opinion and why would I have anything other than my opinion on this here blog, this team's third-highest priority.

Priority number one is offensive production from left field/first base. We're hamstrung here because Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman are 1. Going to come back sooner or later and 2. Have too much seniority to replace.

Do you remember when they called up Zimmerman and made him play shortstop because they didn't want to insult Vinny Fricking Castilla? It's been ten years, and I'm still holding a grudge. It's not the same people making the decisions these days, but some of the ideas linger. They're not going to make Werth park his jailbird ass on the bench just because they have someone who can hit to play left. Therefore, what point is there in acquiring someone who can hit to play left?

Priority number two won't be addressed because it would be really weird to fire a manager at this point in the season, even if he's Matt Williams. I think even I might be against it. Tony La Russa isn't walking through that door.

So that leaves us with priority number three: the bullpen, and that's why I want Aroldis Chapman to become the second-greatest Cuban in the history of the Washington Nationals.

You can work around having two closers. Let them take turns. Get the platoon advantage. Tell Storen to deal with it because the other guy is way better. Just do it. I don't care what it costs.

I ask the Nationals: Do you want a World Series, or do you want us to think you want a World Series?

Wouldn't it be nice to see this at Nationals Park? Feed your bullpen. Feed it.

Psephography

We're starting to get early results from the All Star voting, which reminded me that I'm boycotting it this year and probably forever.

They announced before the season that there wouldn't be any more paper ballots. This news, along with a neat reminder of why the internet is terrible, can be found in a piece by Ted Berg on "For the W!N," USA Today's attempt to show how hip and snarky it can be.

Bad news for people who aren’t reading this: Major League Baseball will eliminate its paper All-Star ballots in 2015...

Only people who don't know how to internet because reasons use paper ballots. For teh Epic W!N LOL!

This is terrible news for people who love paper chads but great news for inevitable Justin Bieber write-in campaigns.

OMG Justin Bieber amirite! Such chad very ballot wow. Something something bacon.

And moving to an online-only ballot might help the league keep it a bit more current, rather than frustrate fans with a list half-full of guys who are hurt or haven’t played regularly.

Look at the ballot, you meme-spewing halfwit. Jonathan Schoop has played nine games this year, and he's on there. Scooter Gennett is back in the minors, but you can still vote for him. Anthony Rendon is on the ballot.

So anyway, I'm sitting this election out. I love paper ballots. We all enjoy baseball, but let's not act like there's not a lot of downtime. Poking out a little piece of paper next to "A. Rendon" forty times is second only to drinking when it comes to filling that downtime. It's to the point where I don't even want to go to a game after voting ends. Part of that is because I try to avoid going outside in August, but the lack of ballots has something to do with it.

I don't like not having the paper ballot option, because signing up for things on the internet is creepy. I've given MLB my information enough times that it probably doesn't matter at this point (I weighed my options, and writing in Livan was worth it), but it's still not something to be encouraged.

Look at this privacy policy. It doesn't come out and say, "We need you to sign up for stuff so we can mine rich veins of data," but I can read between the lines.

Livan: Now More Than Ever

Today is the last day to write in Livan in the Franchise Four vote. I'm not expecting everyone to show the dedication that I did - I did actually write him in for every one of the nine teams he played for (I had completely forgotten that he was on the Rockies, and I bet they'd like to), along with Greatest Living Players and MLB Pioneers.

I didn't write him in for the Negro Leaguers vote. Outta respect.

While I don't expect anyone else to go through that rigmarole (much less to find the url for each team and paste them into nine consecutive words in a sentence that you've gone back and lengthened just so you have nine words for the urls), I do think it is the duty of every Nats fan to:

• Vote for Ryan Zimmerman
• Write in Livan
• Or at least someone who played for the Nats - Keith Osik or Levale Speigner or someone

Every vote that doesn't go to Dutch or Livan (or Deivi Cruz or whomever) goes to some damn Expo. I mean, Tim Raines is the poor man's Rickey and that makes him pretty great, but I'm not exactly burning to see him honored at the All Star Game in place of someone - anyone - who played in DC.

Write in ¡Livan!

We're Rolling We're Rolling We're Rolling We're Rolling-uh

Imagine how confused the Phillies were. "This . . . this can't be possible," Ruben Amaro muttered as he scanned the National League East standings. "We took every precaution; our calculations were exact. We even signed Jeff Francoeur. The experts said there was no way we weren't finishing last!"

I don't know why the Phillies are so desperate to finish last, and I don't much care. I will say that their plight reminds me of the mid-1990s, when the Phils weren't trying very hard to win and we were supposed to pretend that Philadelphia was a "small market." I remember standing around in my giant baggy pants listening to Soul Coughing and trying really hard to ignore that Philly had, like, three times as many people as Atlanta.

Amaro no longer has to worry that he should have tried harder to give away Chase Utley: the Nats are no longer in last place, and the Phillies can settle in there for the long haul.

Meanwhile, in the higher reaches of the division, the Mets got taken down a peg just like I wished for. They're still in first, but they know it won't last. Previously unbeaten at home and with a winning record against their superiors (i.e., us), they are now very much beaten at home and with a losing record against their superiors. Ha ha.

Now the Marlins come in with their weirdly Nationals-esque narrative. Terrible at the start of the season, they're currently on some kinda hot streak. If we can win this series, we'll be at least in third place and maybe even over .500. If that happens, I won't be talking so much about firing Matt Williams, although I will still be thinking it every moment I'm awake.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get me a Livan bobblehead.

Update: Success! Looks just like him.

Lucky Number

That's how it's supposed to go: They are a bad team, and we are a good team.

The Braves gave up on this season before it started (right before it started). They're the Philadelphia Phillies of baseball.

Thus they are exactly the kind of team - and as someone paying attention in the 90s, this is still amazing to me - that you have to stomp all over if you want to win a little flag at the end of the year.

And the Nats did. And that's good. And Jordan Zimmermann's good-but-not-great pitching performance combined with his three-RBI day at the plate . . . well, he's like some kind of grim-faced, normal-shaped Livan.

For whom there's still time to vote, by the way.

Reversal

I guess it wasn't about getting Desmond out of the leadoff spot after all.

Ian Desmond will return to the leadoff spot tonight rather than swapping places with Danny Espinosa as Manager Jim Riggleman had originally planned. Espinosa will play tonight against the Marlins, but Riggleman simply changed his mind after saying yesterday he planned to hit Desmond, who began the season 0 for 13, seventh in the lineup and move Espinosa to leadoff.

It's been a bad day and a half for the two levels of management just above the players. Let's review!

• Jim Riggleman reverses his own inexplicable mistake and moves Desmond down in the order.
• Riggleman makes me watch a couple old men in the middle infield instead of playing the starters.
• Third base coach Bo Porter kinda loses the game by faking out Jerry Hairston with all the ankle-breaking elan of a prime Allen Iverson.
• Riggleman, concluding after less than one try that his new lineup wasn't optimal, moves Desmond back to leadoff.

So yeah, that's a pretty sour mixture of indecisiveness and incompetence, like a cocktail made of Coors Light and dishwater. Jayson Werth kinda lost the game too, but at least he hits doubles.

But none of that matters, because ¡LIVAN!'s pitching tonight. There should be a name for beautiful days like today. I mean, we had Strasmas last year, but ¡LIVAN!'s been bringing us joy since day one. Livanoween? La Fiesta de Santo Gordo? National 82 MPH Fastball Awareness Day?

Is It Just Me, Or Did It Get Fatter In Here?

It ain't just me!

Spanish, Guitar and Awful Hair, Manny, Sugalumps

You'd think that just posting once a week I'd be able to come up with something. But thinking like that is what led to the Spruce Goose, Daikatana, Communism, and Lenny Harris: Hitting Coach. Julian Tavarez said some funny stuff, but the only jokes I could come up with about it are far too edgy for a space as high class as Distinguished Senators. So here's some Youtube videos, some of which I haven't watched.

Here's ¡LIVAN! talking in Spanish about . . . hell, I don't know. Even if I had watched the thing, my Spanish is as bad as my Akkadian. Enjoy!

Hoo boy is that guy ugly. Did he say anything rad? Anyone?

Here's Cristian Guzman performing a tune for us - he's our very own Bernie Williams! I don't understand why when "doing" a "gig," as they say, he looks like Moqtada al-Sadr, but I'm sure he has a good, artistic-type reason.


And here's Manny Acta talking about Toby Keith and related issues.

That's really endearing, actually. Manny deserves better than this shit-making team.

Finally (and I shouldn't have saved this for last, since I can't imagine that anyone's still with me at this point), the greatest thing English-speaking culture has ever produced. Seriously, I cannot overstate how awesome this is. I have tried, and it didn't work.

Whims

It's Chris Snelling Day! The Post, the Times, and the Official Propaganda Organ all covered the wild card in the outfield horse race, if you don't mind me mixing my metaphors. Snelling is making the most of his opportunity: Ryan Church isn't hitting, Nook Logan isn't hitting, and Snelling is healthy, which is really the only problem he's ever had. Of course, that's like saying that the only problem with the Nats is that their players aren't any good.

Given the occasion, this seems to be the right time to announce a very important conclusion I came to some time ago: Chris Snelling is now my favorite National.

It's been hard for me since ¡Livan! was traded. I weighed all the possibilities, and I came up with nothing. Ryan Zimmerman's the obvious choice, but he's going to be everyone's favorite player for the next ten years, destined to be wildly overrated by everyone within a fifty mile radius. It's the same thing that turned me against Cal Ripken. As good as Zimmerman is and will be, he's not a very interesting story. Great baseball player kicks ass in college, kicks ass in the minors, kicks ass in the majors. I can't relate to that, and it doesn't lend itself to insights on the human condition, which is what we're all after when we watch baseball. Right?

Nick Johnson is a marvelous, efficient player, but he's as exciting as watching George F. Will watch Ben Stein watch paint dry. So forget that.

John Patterson kind of lost me with the whole "Call me Big Nasty! Everyone call me Big Nasty!" thing, and my near-clinical pessimism makes me suspect that he's never going to be very good for very long.

All other candidates -- including Chad Cordero -- are out because they're either likely to be gone too soon or unlikely to be in the majors this year. Absence does not make my fickle heart grow fonder.

So what was it about Livan Hernandez that made me such a fan? It came down to three factors: ¡Livan! is unique; my team screwed over another team to get him; and he required my advocacy. I hope we remember what it was that made ¡Livan! so unusual: his girth, his Cuban raftiness, his much much better-looking half-brother, his hitting ability, his uncertain age, and his lackadaisical pitching style. This was before my time as a fan, but he was acquired for pretty close to nothing as far as talent goes (Jim Brower and Matt Blank in case you're curious), so ha ha take that Giants. And finally, ¡Livan! was criminally underrated for most of his Expos/Nationals tenure. Despite being completely awesome in 2003, even better in 2004, and still really good in 2005, he didn't receive even one Cy Young vote over that span. Naturally, this brought out my pronounced activist streak, and I spilled far too many words trying to convince the world of his radness. Like here (special guest stars in that post: a Replacements reference, a long-defunct blog, Will Carroll being well over 100% wrong about something, Yuda).

Chris Snelling, despite lacking in physical size, fits quite neatly into the ¡Livan!-shaped hole in my fandom. Uniqueness? Well, he's Australian, which, though not unique, is at least out of the ordinary. Given the endless catastrophe's of Snelling's career, you'd hope he has someone to offer him the spiritual guidence he needs to keep going at it. And he does: Yoda.

The Yoda thing. Well, many people have asked me this and it's hard to explain to a person why I write the name of an ugly looking green guy in my autograph. I do it not because of what he looks like. It started back when I watched Star Wars every day for about 5 years, all through my high school years. I do it because it's my focal point. To me a focal point is something to get your mind off worrying about your technique. When I'm feeling down or unconfident I go back to what he said to Luke Skywalker on planet Endor just when Luke is about to fight Darth Vader in 'Return of the Jedi'. He says, 'Try not, do or do not, there is no try'.

How's that for unique?

And that kind of quirkiness is one reason Mariners fans were so sorry to lose Snelling. The main reason, though, is that a suddenly and unexpectedly cutthroat Jim Bowden plundered the Mariners to get him. Hell, I would have given up Jose Vidro just for the three-fourths of his salary Seattle sent over. To get that plus my new favorite player plus a pitcher who has a pretty good chance to replace Livan at least lardwise . . . well, that's one for the ages.

As for advocacy, the recent turn of events detailed in the articles I mentioned up top make mine much less essential as well as putting me in a difficult position. Thanks to Manny Acta's and Jim Bowden's stubborness about letting Nook Logan play every day, my favorite player is competing with my sacred cow, Ryan Church. I can hold out hope that Logan takes his proper seat on the bench before too much damage is done, leaving us with our correct Snelling-Church-Kearns alignment. But until then, Snelling should be the starter, if only because he can probably lift a bunch of rocks with his mind while balancing on one arm.