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.

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.