Unraveling records
This is a work of fiction. See the end for a detailed note on this.
“I wish we had a time machine,” the Commissioner of Major League Baseball said. Sitting on the couch made of bats and bases, Major League Baseball President Bob DuPuy nodded slowly. “Bob, you don’t have a time machine, do you?”
“If I had one, I’d already have gone back and told you not to buy the Brewers.”
Selig didn’t smile, but looked off. “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
Selig sighed slowly. DuPuy watched, waiting.
“Well, let’s start making calls and get the team together,” Selig said quietly. “I’ll talk to the press tonight.”
“The Commissioner has always held wide power to act in the best interest of baseball,” Selig said, his eyes watering. The camera flashes were so constant all he could see nothing but white and, in some moments, the white-and-grey afterimage. Rumors of the announcement, true and false, had spread all day, and the room had been packed since morning. He couldn’t see the reporters or even his notes. “Following the release of grand jury testimony and an in-depth investigation by Major League Baseball, we have decided that we must act decisively to restore fan faith and integrity in the game. We will be removing from the record books the statistics-” he closed his eyes against the light “-of those players we have reasonable evidence to believe have used performance-enhancing drugs that were or are illegal or banned, and we will issue new statistics that will reflect the game that should have been, that fans wanted and deserved to see.”
George Will argued for deterrence. Players who’d used drugs should have their stats removed entirely, even parts of their career where they were known to have been clean. The other members of the Commisioner’s blue-ribbon panel disagreed. Two former players pushed for known users to only lose their record titles while leaving career and season statistics intact. Others argued for more statistical approaches that would result in overall statistics that matched pre-steroid years. The draft report to the Commissioner ran over two thousand pages with five separate and irreconcilable plans, and was filled with long math proofs and overwrought rhetoric.
“The problem,” Jeremy said, in the basement of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, “is that it’s not park adjusted.”
“It is soooooo ridiculously park adjusted, you wouldn’t even believe,” Aaron replied, tossing an official baseball back and forth from hand to hand, feet up on his desk.
“Go look it up then, prove me wrong.” Jeremy looked from his book to the screen and back again. “Why won’t this stupid thing of crap compile? All I want is hit location weighting. That’s not too much to ask.â€Â
“You look it up, you’re one that’s wrong.”
“Yeah, just like that time you wanted to argue range factor, you moron,” Jeremy said. Aaron stood up, his face red. “Ah.” Jeremy bent over to look at the O’Reilly book again and the ball cracked into his monitor, knocking the LCD off its stand and into his lap.
“What the hell!” Jeremy yelled, standing, monitor crashing onto his feet. Seeing their boss watching from the door, he bit off the next set of curses.
“Good news,” their boss said. He carried a bound volume that looked like a phone book in front of him, holding its bulk with both hands.
“What?”
“You two get to fix the stats.” Read more
Kirby Puckett (1960-2006)
Puckett died today after suffering a stroke over the weekened. I know you guys are going to talk about this regardless, so rather than have it take over the comments, here’s a place to keep it on topic.
Why I don’t like the WBC
I’ve been sitting on this post, but given that the games are starting up, now is as good a time as any.
I think the World Baseball Classic is a bad, bad idea. For starters, playing games that matter is a poor substitute for spring training, when the games don’t matter and you can gradually ease players into playing a full nine innings. The players, particularly the pitchers, aren’t in shape enough for this kind of thing, and it’s only a matter of time before some team’s star gets hurt and their pennant chances go out the window (we should thank our lucky stars Felix isn’t pitching, while at the same time crossing our fingers for Ichiro).
Even if you can get past that, the idea that this will determine anything is absurd because many of the best players in the world — wasn’t this the WBC’s #1 selling point? — aren’t even playing. Pedro? Out. Manny? Ditto. Vlad? Likewise. Japan’s top catcher, in camp with the M’s, isn’t playing. Melvin Mora, Billy Wagner, CC Sabathia, and Aramis Ramirez are among others who have pulled out of the tournament recently. Wagner and Sabathia were replaced on the US roster by — this isn’t a joke — Al “6.13 ERA” Leiter and Gary Majewski.
Throw in some far-fetched national eligibility — your great-grandfather once vacationed in Rome? Welcome to Team Italy! — and the whole thing is a sham, contrived by Bud Selig in an attempt to get us to care about the results of what amount to glorified spring training games.
For me, baseball started today because I heard Dave Neihaus on the radio, not because Korea beat Chinese Taipei in front of a mere 5,193 fans at the Tokyo Dome.
SI on defensive metrics
Attempts to answer the question “Is Jeter any good defensively?” Includes a really good, long, early quote by this really smart baseball guy I know, “Dave Cameron”.
One thing the article seems to omit, though, is that Jeter’s long-term numbers have been much worse. There’s a lot of speculation that Alex’s presence at third has allowed him to play farther up the middle, which suits Jeter’s skill set much better. But all in all, it’s a nice article about new stat methods and what they offer.
Will Clark and the Hall of Fame
I picked at this post for a long time and never really felt like it was done until the vote happened and Clark only got 4.4% of the vote (23 votes out of 520 cast). That means he’s not eligible again until he goes up for Veteran’s Committee consideration, and I don’t see that he’ll get much support there either. Of course, Albert Belle only got 40 votes, and… unless this is a first-ballot punishment thing, I don’t understand that, either. But that’s another post.
This is about me and Will Clark. Read more
Friday funny
From McSweeny’s: “HISTORY’S MOST LOPSIDED TRADES, AS RENEGOTIATED BY OAKLAND A’S GENERAL MANAGER BILLY BEANE.”
Original Trade: Boston Red Sox trade Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 (1920).
Beane Trade: Red Sox also acquire rights to high-school star Lou Gehrig, California kindergartner Joe DiMaggio, and unborn son of semipro player and zinc miner Mutt Mantle; as part of three-way deal, the word “curse” is expunged from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Was Franklin mostly good? No.
O’er at the Hardball Times, there’s an article that takes a look at Pat Gillick’s contention that Ryan Franklin’s actually a good pitcher who just had some bad outings (no and yes, he certainly had bad outings).
It’s interesting to see what happens when you subtract those “couple bad starts” from pitcher lines. I do disagree with where he starts to go when trying for an explanation, but as it’s admittedly not a serious study, there’s no need to get worked up over it.
And I love putting “general baseball” as the tag on a Ryan Franklin-related post.
Baseball Between The Numbers
Friend of USSM and general man-about-town Jonah Keri has a new article at Baseball Prospectus about their new book, Baseball Between The Numbers. Jonah uses Bruce Sutter’s election to the Hall of Fame as an opportunity to talk about some of the chapters within.
You’ve heard us talk about the new volume before, at and immediately after the BP/USSM event a while back. Now, you can pre-order the darn thing.
It’s too bad we don’t have a post category for “commercialism,” because I’m going to use this same time-hook to plug the book again. If half of Jonah’s excitement about the project is justified, then I’m sure I’ll enjoy it twice as much as anything I’ve read lately, non-Okinawa category.
Here’s a summary excerpt:
Baseball Between the Numbers covers 29 seminal baseball debates that will get both casual fans and hard-core statheads whipped into a frenzy. The book includes the chapter “Are Teams Letting Their Closers Go to Waste?”, which tackles the very topic that sparked huge differences of opinion in SutterGate. Following in the tradition of John Thorn and Pete Palmer’s “The Hidden Game of Baseball,” the work of Bill James and other influential thinkers, Baseball Between the Numbers brings new analytical tools to bear, with BP’s unique writing style adding a twist.
That ‘graph’s not my favorite bit from Jonah’s article, though. That would be this:
If you’re a member of the media and would like to request an advance copy of the book, please e-mail Jonah Keri by clicking here.
Ah, the fringe benefits of being a world famous baseball blogger/freelance writer/whatever. Jonah, just dial 1-900-2-JEFFY and I’ll give you the address.
Between The Numbers has jumped in sales over the past few hours, and so has Baseball Prospectus 2006, which is offered as a package with the forthcoming title. You can be the first kid at your school, house, basement or block party to have read it.
Unless you invite me to your block party. Which you should.
Portland mayor scoffs at stadium for Marlins
Tom Potter got into the headlines on a slow news day by stating (again) that he and Portland have no interest in helping to build a ballpark for the Marlins.
The Marlins are on a ridiculous tour of possible new locations for their franchise, and team reps met with him yesterday.
So good news and bad news: no local competition, which would have been cool, also means the M’s continue to enjoy their massive regional media deals, so they’ll keep making tons of money.
Marlins president David Samson said:
“Governments do make decisions when they attract businesses to the community,” Samson said. “Baseball is not the only industry, by any stretch, to ask for government help when deciding where to have its corporate headquarters.”
That’s true, but that doesn’t make it a good deal. Long-time readers will recognize this from Jeff’s logical fallacy post as “Argumentum ad numerum” — the appeal to numbers (“everyone else is doing it, so it must be right”).
Chiba Lotte Marines beat Chicago White Sox in Game One
Baseball Prospectus is using Diamond Mind Baseball and translated Japanese baseball statistics to simulate a real World Series. It’s really quite interesting.
Here’s the preview which talks about what they’re doing, and why.
And in Game One, the Marines beat the White Sox 10-1.