The Los Angeles Dodgers’ search for a second baseman continues. The solution might lie in the most obscure of places — a 1B/OF free agent. On many other websites there has certainly been a lot of debate about who the Dodgers should pursue to occupy second base. Ian Kinsler is clearly the focal point, and there’s good reasons for it. The Detroit Tigers publicly state they’re trying to get younger and the Dodgers need a second baseman. That’s about as natural a fit as possible.

And Ian Kinsler’s a really good second baseman. He just produced 5.8 WAR as a 34-year-old. That mark was the 11th-best WAR total in an offensively potent American League. In fact, the season he just turned in was a historic one as far as second basemen go.

There’s no denying Kinsler is a good player, and he’s definitely cost-controlled. He’s slated to earn $11 million in 2017 and he has a $10-million option for 2018 which would obviously be picked up by whatever team he plays for at that point. All this means that Kinsler is going to cost a fortune in a trade. Cody Bellinger’s name is being thrown around as the centerpiece. However, there have also been reports that Kinsler will not waive his no-trade clause should the new team not give him an extension. This wrinkle would make it easier to acquire Kinsler, but it would also undermine his best asset — a tiny contract.

But with everyone’s minds on trades, there’s another option the Dodgers could pursue and that option is named Steve Pearce.

In a way, Pearce reminds me a lot of Justin Turner. Both began their careers off slowly. Pearce never played more than 100 games until 2014 when he was 31 years old. Although Turner played more games earlier in his career, they weren’t that productive. The similarities start to come together when you notice they began to rake at the plate late in their careers. We all know about Turner’s numbers, but Pearce isn’t a slouch either.

In 2016, Pearce slashed .288/.374/.492 in 300 AB. Pair that with 13 home runs and a K% of 17.9% and you’ve got yourself a solid offensive player. He hits for average, gets on base, hits for moderate power, and doesn’t strike out much. So why hasn’t anyone been talking about him?

To begin with, people really only think of him as a platoon partner. Last year, FanGraphs even came out with an article stating “Orioles Reacquire Lefty Masher Steve Pearce.” As much as I love the writers there, I don’t buy the argument he only hits lefties. Just this year, Pearce posted a 176 wRC+ against lefties but still hit a well above-average 118 wRC+ against righties. Basically he goes from being a god against left-handed pitchers to being above-average against right-handed pitchers. And that’s crazy valuable!

With that problem being solved, he’s still not getting talked about. And that’s because he finished 2016 hurt. He actually underwent successful elbow surgery this year. So I’ll give the critics that.

But there’s another reason why no one’s talking about Steve Pearce as a second baseman. That’s because he doesn’t really play second base.

From 2007 to 2016, Pearce has played 33 games at second base, totaling a measly 242.2 innings at the position. But before you say signing a guy who has barely played second base to play second base all year long is dumb, I’ll explain. In those 242.2 innings, Pearce averaged 1.7 UZR/150 innings. Basically, he’s been about average defensively. Sure, it’s a ridiculously small sample, but it’s better than no data.

All I’m saying is that the Dodgers would be smart to look into Steve Pearce. MLBTradeRumors projects he’ll receive a 2 year, $20 million offer. With that price tag, he’ll be a lot cheaper than acquiring Ian Kinsler. And there’s definitely a reason for that. He’s coming off elbow surgery and isn’t a natural second baseman. But offensively speaking, Pearce is better than Kinsler. It’s just a matter of whether he could play second.

“Make baseball fun again” is Bryce Harper‘s outcry against baseball fundamentalists who continue to police emotions and enforce baseball’s expressionless professionalism.  “Shut up and play the game right” might be something you’d hear uttered from the fundamentalist’s side — ideally through tobacco-glazed teeth — and maybe by Brian McCann.  The discourse is of course more involved than that, covering everything from retaliatory plunk balls to bat flips, and anytime something marginally inflammatory happens, it’s beaten so hard that we’re reminded how boring our lives are that we have to discuss the same things over and over and over.  I know you can picture the media package that accompanies the discourse: a young, brash, exquisitely coiffed, generational talent, who was hit in the ribs in his first ever plate appearance (then proceeded to steal home), is unabashedly passionate about a “fun” revolution in baseball.  His eye black is adorned like war paint; he has emojis on the bottom of his bats; his helmet never stays on his head when he runs the bases; and yes, he “pimps” his home runs.  Cut to Joey Bats‘ ALDS bat flip and the ensuing brawl and then connect it with Rougned Odor’s haymaker; cut to Brian McCann standing at home plate waiting for Jose Fernandez after his first career home run; then enter the commentator: “Is this wrong?”

While baseball’s moral code on gaining an edge is unpredictable, there’s always been the idea that individuals conform to the game, not the other way around.  Harper’s sermon won’t shatter the code of conduct, but it might move the needle, if it hasn’t already.  For example, I can’t think of a standout incident this season because of a bat flip.  That’s good! Because bat flips are really fun!  There’s really no need to overthink it.  There were plenty of memorable bat flips this year, and in an effort to make some fun out of baseball when there is no baseball being played, I’m breaking out my bat flip tracking equipment (a ruler, a stop watch, and a parabolic trajectory calculator) that I introduced last year, and booting up BatCast for a look back at the year’s most memorable wood-chucking moments.

A brief recap: arriving at these numbers is a sloppy and wildly imprecise affair.  I pull videos, gifs, and stills of a bat flip and start by measuring the height of the player as he appears on my screen.  I convert that measurement into the player’s real-life size and reference this ratio, as well as measurements on the baseball field, and rough estimates, to arrive at some of the data I present to you in meters and feet: initial height, apex, and distance.  Using a stopwatch or the time stamp on YouTube, I can declare a fairly accurate hang time of the bat.  Angles are roughly noted using the batter and the ground to form a 90-degree angle and are adjusted in the parabolic trajectory calculator.

Let’s kick this off:

Exhibit A – The one that’s probably at the forefront of your mind:

Le Flip

How about in slow motion?

Ejaculatory!

How many of his teammates do you think saw that flip?  They may have seen the tail end of it, but I’m willing to bet zero saw the flip in its entirety because everyone in the dugout was gazing at the ball in flight.  But this was a no-doubter.  Edubray Ramos resigned to the outcome likely before the ball had reached its apex.  The Phillies weren’t playing for anything at this point, but the Mets?  Before this pitch, the Mets were tied with the Giants and Cardinals for the top wild-card spot.  Before this pitch, in the 9th inning, Jose Reyes erased a two-run deficit with a home run of his own, only to see that lead given up again when Jeurys Familia and Jim Henderson allowed two runs to score in the top of the 11th.  After this pitch, this game ended and they had a half-game lead on any team in the National League for the first wild-card spot.  That bat flip is a team effort.  There’s some “I did it” in there, but the way he looks towards the dugout and offers his bat up towards his teammates makes this feel like “We did it!”

The numbers:

Cabrera is listed as 6′ tall.  On the freeze frame I measured, he’s 1.9″ tall.  So our key tells us that 1″ on the screen is 37.9″ in real life.  When he releases the bat, he does so from about shoulder height and we’ll call 5′ (1.52 m) in real life.  The acme is, it appears, not a great deal lower than the top of Asdrubal’s head, so we’ll tally that down at 5′-7″ (1.71 m).  To me, the launch angle looks to be right around 30 degrees, and we’ll refine this number once we get them in the parabolic trajectory calculator.  The duration of flight I’m using is the average number I’ve come up with through timing the video 10 times — 0.79 seconds.

Parabolic Trajectory Calculator:

Exhibit B – A Man Possessed:

If this picture was part of an emotional intelligence quiz, I’m sure the answers given as to what facial expression is being displayed would vary greatly.  To accurately assess the information in this picture it may behoove one to understand that, in baseball, home teams wear white and that the man in the background is most likely a fan of the home team and that his hands are held high in jubilation.  If you’re only looking at the horrifying ogre in the foreground who appears to be screaming at 67 Hz+, the pitch only a dog can hear, you’d be hard-pressed to say that is a happy man.  In fact, he may not be happy yet — he’s likely evoking a form of relief, having just exorcised the demons one faces when up to bat in the 16th inning of a tie baseball game; he looks like pure adrenaline.  Most of us don’t get to experience a moment like this in our lifetime so we don’t have a really strong reference point for what he’s feeling, but luckily you know what this article is about and there’s a gif:

PUMP! PUMP! PUMP IT UP!

That’s all lizard brain right there.  It’s a little undignified, but that’s the beauty of it.  Matt Adams is a dense, hulking man, and that makes it a little scarier and a little sillier.  Look:

Sassy.

The numbers:

This one is especially hard to measure because of Adams’ primitive (yet graceful) movements.  I extracted these numbers using the still image and the video:

Exhibit C – Into the Batosphere

Yoenis Cespedes made it into my BatCast segment last year with his nifty flip in the NLDS.  This flip follows a similar trajectory but he varies his look this time with a cross-bodied toss.  It’s rude:

“Hold my drink, bitch.”

While the lesson here is obvious, the mistake is not as easily avoided: get the fastball ball UP and in on Cespedes.

Because of the evidence we have, the numbers for this bat flip will be even more rough than the others — by the way, I hope you’re not a mathematician, and I apologize if you are.  The data we can gather is the launch angle and at what time stamp the bat reaches it’s highest point.  Here’s a better view of the angle:

Can we agree on shoulder height for the initial launch height to make things easier?   Let’s call it 5′ since Cespedes is 5′-10″.  We’ll say the bat was launched at a 70-degree angle and in the gif the bat appears to reach it’s apex at just before 0.4 seconds.

Exhibit D – The “I probably didn’t even need this bat to hit this home run” flip

After my long-winded intro it’s fitting to get to feature Bryce Harper in this piece.  He probably didn’t have as much fun this year as he did in 2015, but he appears to have gotten some enjoyment out of this shot.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that is what the kids call “Swagadoscious.”  I’ll just get right to the point this time.

Those are the ones that stuck out to me as the best flips of the year and I hope you were able to move past the rough estimates and get some enjoyment out of that as well.  I should note that Joc Pederson’s bat flip in the NLDS is omitted because I cannot find substantial evidence of an acme or distance.  And while a lefty going across his body like he did is pretty exotic, the uncertainty he exudes, combined with his panicked sashay, makes this effort pretty uncool.

(Scherzer looks super imposed here)

So what can we pretend to glean from this?  Based on WPA, it’s probably not surprising that Harper had the most disproportionate bat flip.  Looking at the Statcast data, Harper’s home run was also the “weakest” out of the group.  So I guess even if Bryce Harper says what he says just so he can get away with being a little douchey, he’s holding up his part of the deal.  Of course, bat flips aren’t what make baseball fun.  Baseball is fun because we can see so much of our own lives in the game — it’s the humanity.  It provokes endless curiosity and it will reward you if you know where to look.  It’s the only game that can end, not because of time, but with one swing, and flip, of the bat.

Don’t be afraid to clue me in to bat flips in the future — my Twitter handle is in my bio (below).

In the spirit of awards season, I decided to take a look at the BBWAA decisions of the past couple decades and, my goodness, I could not believe my eyes when seeing some of the down-ballot vote-getters. Middle relievers, players who didn’t even play long enough to make it out of arbitration, below-average corner outfielders, you name it. I could not help but put some of these names in writing to maybe strike a little nostalgia into some curious baseball fans.

Brad Hawpe, Colorado Rockies, 2007, 2009

Mr. Hawpe shows up on a ballot in TWO different years. I haven’t heard this name since 2012. Hawpe last played for the Angels in 2013 and posted a .185 slugging percentage in 32 plate appearances. He never received another contract. His two ‘MVP caliber’ years were eerily similar. Hawpe is the prototypical product of Coors Field. Although he didn’t have too different of numbers outside of Coors Field as a Rockie, he completely tanked once he got out of their organization. If you are from some other planet and don’t believe that Coors Field has any benefit for the hitter, then Hawpe’s offensive numbers were outstanding. He posted an on-base percentage above .380 in both years and hit over 20 home runs in both as well. He did all of that while still maintaining a solid batting average. The problem with Hawpe, and most likely a huge reason why he didn’t get more chances in the majors, was how god-awful his defense was. Sandwiched between his 2007 and 2009 seasons, he posted the worst defensive season in the league according to fWAR. If he would have been merely a below-average corner outfielder, or even first baseman, there is a chance Hawpe could’ve resurrected his career and maybe would still be playing today.

Scott Eyre, San Francisco Giants, 2005

Growing up a Giants fan, this name is familiar to me. Yet 99% of other baseball fans might need to do some thinking before they can figure out who he was, let alone realize that he actually received an MVP vote once. In 2005, Scott Eyre became the first-ever relief pitcher to receive an MVP vote without recording a save. He was outstanding. He posted a 2.63 ERA in 63.1 innings, appearing in 86 games. Now, 2.63 may not be too sexy for a middle relief pitcher nowadays, but 2005 was still feeling the effects of the steroid era. It is hard to believe a middle relief pitcher playing on the 2005 Giants got enough attention to receive a vote. The only thing bringing any attention to those 2005-2007 Giants teams were the controversies surrounding Barry Bonds. Trust me, I lived through it. Sadly, this was by far Eyre’s best year in the majors. He posted a couple semi-solid years before and after his 2005 season, but was all but out of the league by his 37th birthday.

Nate McLouth, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2008

Probably the most recognizable name on this list, Nate McLouth. McLouth had a weird career. He posted a couple stand-out season with the Pirates, toiled with an almost career-ending stint with the Braves, had a a solid comeback season with the Orioles in 2013, then was out of the league after the 2014 season. That 2008 season, though. If it weren’t for his almost-terrible defense he would’ve received several top-five votes. He went 26-23, had over 200 combined runs and RBIs, had a .356 OBP, and was one of the best baserunners in the league. It would’ve helped if he played for a better team too. Mr. McLouth is one of the few on this list I’d argue deserved a few more votes than he actually got.

Antonio Alfonseca, Florida Marlins, 2000

I’ll admit I had to look this one up. Alfonseca received one tenth-place vote way back when in 2000. If he had the same stat line in 2016, he might have a hard time keeping a job, but 2000 was a different time. He posted a 4.24 ERA in 70 innings, which was right in line with his 4.16 FIP. He only struck out six per nine but he tallied a whopping 45 saves, which I assume was the kicker for him nabbing that tenth-place vote. Alfonseca, surprisingly, was a perfectly viable middle reliever throughout the steroid era. Oddly enough, his 2000 season was probably his third or fourth-best season. Although he never came close to topping his 45-save number. Long gone are the days of average closing pitchers with high save totals receiving MVP votes.

Travis Fryman, Cleveland Indians, 2000

How I have never heard about this guy before this exercise is beyond me. He had a great career! Over 30 career WAR. Sadly for Travis he played through the steroid era and his skillset was completely overlooked, or else he may have seen a few more MVP votes. A slick-fielding third baseman with a solid walk rate was underappreciated in the years before Moneyball and modern defensive metrics. I’d describe Fryman as the very poor man’s Adrian Beltre. His 200o season was very Beltre-esque. He hit 22 bombs while sporting a .321 BA and a .392 OBP with solid defensive numbers, a type of season that gets overlooked when you think about the absurd numbers being put up around the league around the turn of the millennium. Unfortunately for Mr. Fryman, he was born 20 years too early, or else he would be heralded as one of the top three-baggers in the league and would’ve been in for one or two hefty paydays.

Bob Wickman, Cleveland Indians, 2005

Don’t get me wrong, while big Bobby Wickman is an easy player to overlook, he had an outstanding career. He recorded 13.7 WAR over his 15-year career, outstanding for a relief pitcher. He notched a career-high 45 saves in his 2005 season. What is so unbelievable about that particular season was that it was by far his worst season of his career. He was worth -0.3 WAR. And yet he received an MVP vote. You can make an argument he has had two or three different seasons where he warranted an MVP vote! But he never had the gaudy save total that he did in 2005. That along with the Indians’ solid 93-win season and Wickman takes some of the credit despite being worse than their best AAA pitcher. Maybe this was some kind of career achievement award for an underappreciated closing pitcher.

Who’s going to be 2016’s Antonio Alfonseca? My guess is Wilson Ramos, but that might be cheating with his season-ending injury already in the books. All in all, it is pretty amazing the types of names you can come up with just by looking at the historical results of baseball’s most prestigious award.