Don't Worry. Be Happy.

I've mentioned before that I'm also a baseball fan and one of my favorite podcasts is Effectively Wild which has just the right mix of analytical baseball talk and nonsense to keep me coming back. Thinking more about it, analysis and nonsense seems to be my preferred podcasting style as before Effectively Wild, I was a fan of ESPN's Fantasy Focus back when Nate Ravitz and Matthew Berry hosted, which also fused those two things together in a entertaining and informative way.

On a recent episode of Effectively Wild, they discussed a computer program written by someone to calculate who has the best smile in Major League Baseball based on their headshots on the league's website. While there are admitted problems with using this kind of facial technology (it doesn't always work well on non-white faces, facial hair can cause it problems), it was a fun little segment that had no real significance but was enjoyable nonetheless. In other words, exactly the kind of thing I'm going to like.

Here's the story by Thomas Nestico about how he went about creating a program to calculate MLB players smiles (and a link to the smiles leaderboard if that's your thing.)

But this is not a blog of my podcast habits, it's, theoretically, a Tormenta blog. And because I'm always on the lookout for content down here in the content mines, I thought a smile story would be fun. I'm not going to write a computer program to rank all the smiles for League One, but you know, just ranking the Tormenta players smiles based on their photos on their website would be a simple and fun thing to do that you all might enjoy.

So that's what I set out to do. And friends, let me tell you, it did not take long.

Tormenta, are you guys ok?  (click expand all to get the full roster)

Look, I know the season hasn't gone as hoped and a loss to Fuego this past weekend is the latest in a disappointing run of late. But there's still plenty of time left in the season. A little three game run and things suddenly look a lot better. I get that you're not necessarily happy right now.

But that doesn't explain these photos. They were taken in the preseason, when hope springs eternal and you had your whole season ahead of you. And not a single player looks happy to be there. 

I had to double check with my oldest to make sure I wasn't missing anything. He looked too and if we were being extremely generous in our definition of smile, maybe one person made the cut. 

At least the coaching staff looks happy to be there. Well, maybe not Manager Ian Cameron, but the others do. Granted, Jordan Melia isn't with the team any more, but Jordan Bell looks like he's just found out McDonalds is bringing back the Shamrock Shake. (I don't actually know if Bell likes Shamrock Shakes and while I think the Tormenta media relations people like me, I'm not sure I want to risk any goodwill on having them find out if Bell does enjoy them. I'll try to ask him myself next time I've got a chance to ask him.)

Cameron looks like I just disappointed him by misplacing a comma and leaving out a word in my story  and he's about to go make me run laps after practice . 

The front office team, on the whole, are smiling, or at least don't look angry in their photos with the Marketing and Events team just edging out the Sales and Fan Engagement team for first place among that group. 

The W-League squad (I'm still annoyed they didn't get a chance in the playoffs) all look excited to be in Statesboro but I don't want to do rank those smiles and risk being the guy who told women to smile more. No good can come from being that guy.

Some very quick research (I skimmed the roster pages) shows that Tormenta and Knoxville seem to be the least happy teams based on their headshots, while Richmond and Spokane appear to have the most smiling faces, though that was just perception and I didn't actually count the smiles.

Have a great day everyone and we'll be back Friday with a preview of Tormenta and Spokane.