Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
So Mike Trout stole home today. The Yahoo box score lists the theft as "4th base, off D Floro / H Conger." "4th base" -- first time I've ever seen it as anything other than "home."
Asked by: matt_okeefe
Answered: 7/8/2016
Conger was confused by the guys from dugout yelling "Throw to 4th! Throw to 4th!" By the time he figured it out it was too late.
Re: evolution—lots of people tinkered with the idea before Darwin took his trip. The first fully formed (but ultimately wrong) theory of evolution was proposed by Lamarck, who believed animals evolved but through transmutation rather than natural selection.
Asked by: rpmcsweeney
Answered: 7/8/2016
Well. . .finding the right question is more important than finding the correct answer. When you reach the point of asking the question "How does a new species of animals form from an old one?", it is by then inevitable that someone will figure it out. What really matters is posing the question.
You once wrote about "families" of managers, the idea being that managerial philosophies are handed down to coaches and players by certain managers. The granddaddy of the largest "branch" wasn't known for his managing, but Branch Rickey is the guy, right? I'm not even looking here, but I am guessing that Rickey might have been the root cause of the National League issuing more IBB right down to the present day. What do you think?
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 7/8/2016
John McGraw would be a better guess than Rickey.
A fellow named Sam Wang has done a lot of work studying gerrymandering and I'll link his NYT article about its effects in 2012. In total, the Democrats received 1.4 million more votes in House elections but lost that chamber 234-201. But he also looks at a more granular level at the effects in recently redrawn districts, etc.
Asked by: PB
Answered: 7/8/2016
That's just completely Wang. Sorry.
Hey, Bill, there were a lot of antecedents to Darwin, going way back, but they mostly weren't thought through. There were a couple brief descriptions of the idea shortly before Darwin's main publication (they were in the early 1800s) but they were mostly published in obscure places, for example one in a treatise on naval timber and arboriculture. It's hard to take them very seriously. Alfred Russel Wallace did have a well-developed theory of evolution, which he sent to Darwin, and they ended up publishing together in 1858. Wallace name survives in geography and in evolutionary theory. But even his work pales in comparison to what Darwin did, and anyway, they were contemporaries, so the same historical context applied to both.
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/8/2016
Thanks.
Does Hoyt Wilhelm's terrific age 29 rookie season disqualify him from your late-bloomers list? He went on to have about 20 more.
Asked by: DavidHNix
Answered: 7/8/2016
Well. . .all the knuckleballers can be on the list, basically. I thought it was too obvious.
So you've completely given up on the security guard gig?
Asked by: Rcrout
Answered: 7/8/2016
They won't hire me anymore.
The Russian guy was Trofim Lysenko. A lab technician in a genetics lad where I worked as a graduate student said she'd throw me out of the lab if I mentioned his name again.
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/8/2016
I think it would have worked; you just have to stay with it for about 2,000 years. . . .
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck may be the evolutionary biologist you were thinking of. He died about 30 years before Origin of the Species. As best I can figure, Lamarck was of the opinion that evolution occurred because the animals had desires that were just out of their reach, so the species would evolve. Like, say, giraffes wanting to get to that next higher branch on the tree, and evolving long necks. The guys who did things like with bells, and another one who cut off the tails of generations of mice, expecting to find that the mice would evolve shorter tails, were the guys who Lamarck, and then Huxley and Darwin, discredited. Eventually, Darwin's supporters were able to demonstrate that Lamarck, while not an idiot, had just taken a wrong path.
Asked by: Brock Hanke
Answered: 7/8/2016
Thanks.
"shthar" is basically right; Young's given up 26 home runs in 60 innings thus far and unless I botched Baseball-Reference's Play Index search, he's by far the record holder for most home runs allowed per nine innings (3.9) with a minimum of 50 innings pitched. No one else has allowed even 3/9.
Asked by: kingferris
Answered: 7/7/2016
OK.
Re: Chris Young. It all depends on where you draw the innings cutoff. At 30 the record is 4.02 HR/9 by Erik Johnson (this year, so far, in 31.1 IP). At 32+ it's Young, at 3.9. At 100 IP the it's 1987 Ken Dixon at 2.66 (31 homers in 105 innings), which I remember well as an Orioles fan. Dixon must have been hurt, as he was traded to the Mariners, never pitched again, and I remember some kind of grievance being filed by Seattle afterwards.
Jose Lima in 2000 holds the record for an ERA qualifier, with 2.2, or 48 in 196.1 innings.
Asked by: jwilt
Answered: 7/7/2016
Thanks.
Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus, put forth some ideas that we would consider proto-evolutionary. I think it's similar to Voros McCraken introduction of Defense Independent Pitching stats and the idea that pitchers have no repeatable effects on non home run balls in play. Other people, most notably you, came close to that position-McCracken was the one that fully demonstrated and articulated the idea. Further research has indicated that pitchers have some effect on batted balls but it is not the determinate factor in their success.
Asked by: tate
Answered: 7/7/2016
Thanks. Leaving me out of it, I think the Voros example is relevant and instructive. Many of us had come CLOSE to the point of that realization, but we just didn't step over the line. Voros stepped forcefully over the line, and made an argument that the line had been drawn in the wrong place. When the rest of us looked at the issue we had to basically agree that he was right.
Bill: I understand you don't do WAR ("What is it good for? Absolutely nothing."). But the question on RA Dickey and Jamie Moyer did get me to thinking about players who had done absolutely nothing until their 30s, and then went on to have really good careers. The two prime example I think of are Dazzy Vance, who won his first game at age 30, went on to win 197 games and lead the NL in strikeouts 6 years in a row; and Hank Sauer, who hit 288 home runs, 281 of which came after he turned 31. Is there anyone, other than maybe some black players who were kept out of the majors by segregation (and I assume were playing great baseball in the Negro leagues) who can match them as late bloomers who played quality ball almost all after their 30th birthday?
Asked by: TigerTim
Answered: 7/7/2016
An all-star team of late bloomers, played most of their good ball after the age of 30. Catchers, Ernie Whitt, Al Todd (1930s National Leaguer), Aaron Robinson (1940s/1950s American League.) First base, Raul Ibanez and George McQuinn (St. Louis Browns of the 1930s, 1940s. . .was buried in the Yankee system behind Lou Gehrig until he was almost 30.) Second Base, Davey Lopes. Third Base, Jimmy Austin. Shortstop, Gene Michael (Stick). Left Field, Matt Stairs. Center Field, Minnie Minoso; if you don't count Minoso because of the color line and disputes about his actual date of birth, then Otis Nixon, Jim Eisenreich or Ken Williams, 1920s superstar. Right Field, Jose Bautista or Socks Seybold, a hundred years ago; almost all of his career is after his 30th birthday. DH, Edgar Martinez. Utility, Rich Amaral. Pitchers. . . Randy Johnson, like Bautista, didn't put his game together until he was 29. Pitchers, Charlie Hough, Curt Davis (1930s/1940s), Mike Cuellar, Geoff Zahn (barely pitched before he was 30), Woody Williams, Murry Dickson, Jeff Fassero, Kenny Rogers, Rick Reed, Cal McLish.
Not sure what you mean by saying gerrymandering doesn't work. Do you mean it doesn't help a particular party win seats? I'd like to see some documentation for that.
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 7/7/2016
One doesn't need documentation for skepticism. You asserted that it DOES work. What evidence have you given me for that? The burden of proof is on you. All you have said is that a lot of people THINK that it works. I think that it doesn't.
About the question regarding Darwin Barney and natural selection, the work of Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian Friar, proved that certain characteristics were dominant and others recessive. At the time it was seen as an essay on hybridization rather than genetics. Farmers had long used crossbreeding to bring out the characteristics they most wanted.
Asked by: DavidTodd
Answered: 7/7/2016
Yeah. . who was that Russian guy who spent 30 years tying little bells to plants to prove that eventually the plants would start to grow with little bells on them all on their own? But Mendel was YOUNGER than Darwin, a little bit after him. . . I was trying to think of the guy who was before him.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
HeyBill: in a previous question (paraphrasing) you asked if given 2 teams with same runs scored and and runs allowed but one of the teams won 10 more games - would a person say the teams were equal or the team that won more was games better? At first I thought that I'd say the teams were equal but one was unlucky. However in '49 Boston R = 896, RA = 667 and '49 NYY R = 829, RA = 637 ..... '51 Brk R = 855, RA = 672 and '51 NYG R=781, RA = 641. In each case the team with worst Pythogorean projection went on to win the pennant by beating the other team listed in last games of the season. So, now I would argue that '49 NYY better than '49 Bost and '51 Gints better than '51 Bums because, in the end, they won the pennant in head-to-head competition. I don't know if this issue can ever be resolved but if they played same season schedule, I'm going with the pennant winner. But it does lead to great bar debates: even more so when you look at '87 Twinkies - champs with weak record.
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 7/15/2016
Well, I would agree, basically. The winner is the winner. Run ratios are interesting and instructive, but. . .the winner is the winner.
Well, the name issue isn't just confines to basketball. The LA Dodgers also have a relocated name that makes no sense. And there probably aren't a whole lot more Tigers in Detroit than there are Grizzlies in Memphis. There is probably as much Jazz in Utah as there are Giants in San Francisco. And there may be no Angels in Anaheim. There may be a lot of Brown in Cleveland, however.
Asked by: raincheck
Answered: 7/15/2016
However, many Royals live in Kansas City. Not.
re Showalter's pitching changes in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS, as discussed by Kseesar1 (who knows how to spell seesar better than Matt Szczur does): I remember that game and the pitcher sequence all too well; it's my most painful game. I was looking for Rivera to stay in longer (the whole rest of the game, I thought and hoped), but it's not odd that he didn't, and I wouldn't think there's much reason to suspect anything like injury. Mo wasn't Mo at all yet. As Kseesar said, the Yankee bullpen in general had been shaky and I did think Mo seemed the strongest, but he hadn't established himself. He was just a rookie who had been seen as having failed as a starter a few weeks before and then had modest success in a few relief appearances; not unusual to bring in a starter at that point in such a game. BTW another pitching move of Showalter's that was debatable was just before this, when he left Cone in the game many pitches longer than most people thought he might have.
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 7/15/2016
OK. You're over my head. I had children at the time.
No native New Yorkers have ever called Sixth Avenue "Avenue of the Americas" because they would have been struck down dead the second those words formed in their mouths--transplants may do it for a while until they catch on. Even the subway announcements telling commuters that their 8th Avenue trains are being re-routed (which is happening a lot this summer) say that trains will run on the Sixth Avenue line from Rockefeller Plaza to West 4th Street (or wherever), and that's an official NYC governmental announcement. My girlfriend in college (in NYC) was from Boston, and she tried fitting in, btw, but she kept marking herself as an outlander because she abbreviated "Avenue" as "Ave." (she would say "Madison Ave." on the model of "Commonwealth Ave," which we don't do at all for some reason), no matter how often she was corrected, and would then complain that everybody treated her like a non-native, after four years of living here.
Asked by: Steven Goldleaf
Answered: 7/15/2016
Why did she want people to think she was from New York?
It would be a lot more impressive if someone like Cobb, Boggs or Suzuki said in spring training they were changing their hitting styles to hit more home runs...and actually do it. I remember Dave Kingman in 1977 talked about going to right field and being a more complete player. He actually had a good April (.294 with 6 HR) but a dreadful May (.151 2 HR) and June (.195 2 HR) before being traded on the same night Seaver was. Kingman went back to his usual hitting philosophy of swinging at 3-1 pitches a foot outside. I'm very skeptical that some one can radically change their hitting style and be successful.
Asked by: ZachSmith
Answered: 7/15/2016
I am as well. Good hitters use different approaches to different pitches; you can make changes like that. A hitter can say, to an extent, "I'm going to focus on going to right field to try to get out of this slump," and can sometimes do that. But a hitter has to work within his skill set. He can't work with PART of his skill set ALL of the time. The game just doesn't work that way.
The New York Times did a story where they mailed letters to places like "Leonard Bernstein Way" (a stretch of West 57th street) and "Alvin Ailey Place" (West 61st) and "Edgar Allen Poe Street" (West 84th) and other totally unused names. 6 in 10 arrived.
Asked by: PB
Answered: 7/15/2016
Thanks.
One of my more famous colleagues now claims he has solved the Martha Moxley murder case: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/nyregion/robert-kennedy-jr-in-book-says-michael-skakel-is-innocent-of-75-murder.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=nygeo-promo-region®ion=nygeo-promo-region&WT.nav=nygeo-promo-region
Soaking wet, moderately wet, or dry as a bone?
Asked by: Steven Goldleaf
Answered: 7/15/2016
I'll look at it. I think Michael Skakel is innocent. I have always thought that, and I think I probably said that in Popular Crime. I watched his trial, and I think it was substandard. What was the name of his lawyer . . ..Mickey something. Was a famous lawyer, but there wasn't much he could do given the court's admitting a lot of spurious evidence.
The Spelling Bee had co-winners last year (or maybe two years in a row), so they changed the rules this season to double the number of rounds. And as these kids were nailing it extra round after extra round, I was thinking how terrible it would be that one of these kids will get knocked out. Basically, there never was a problem, except for the adults who think we need to crown ONE winner. And STILL these kids tied this year, and they were both happy, not thinking that they won half a championship: they each were champions. (As an aside: they didn't give these kids a break, or water, or anything. They were so focused on changing the rules to increase the chance of a single winner that they forgot they were dealing with kids.)
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 7/15/2016
They should have made them spell words in Icelandic.
Re: being fired for sexual orientation
Understand if we need to stop talking about this. I'm a (mostly plaintiff's) employment lawyer practicing in Ohio and Indiana. The best answer? Probably we are in a very gray area. Wrongful firing claims are almost always a creature of legislation -- state or federal -- and there is no Indiana or federal legislation which prohibits a firing based on sexual orientation. (There is a federal statute (the Civil Rights Act) and a ususally-slightly-different state statute for each state). Absent a statute, there is no claim, even if the employer admits that sexual orientation was the basis for firing. And courts in Indiana and Ohio have rejected claims that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of gender discrimination otherwise outlawed.
HOWEVER, a couple of years ago, the federal agency, the EEOC, issued a persuasive ruling that the law ought to be interpreted to bar sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. The courts have not yet adopted this line of reasoning, but probably will someday, perhaps soon. Also, many large MUNICIPALITIES have outlawed sexual orientation discrimination (although most don't carry much consequence.) And, in Ohio (not sure about Indiana) Gov. Kasich signed an executive order outlawing sexual orientation discrimination for state employees.
Bottom line, we are in a gray area here.
Why do I care? Because, like you Bill, most people think that it is unlawful (or could be shown to be unlawful) if you are fired for your sexual orientation. And most are shocked (rightly, I'd say) to realize that, if anything, it is probably perfectly legal.
Asked by: deberly
Answered: 7/15/2016
Thanks; appreciate your insight. For what it is worth--which is not much, because this is not about me--but I think you can read back through this discussion, and you'll find that I have never SAID that it was presently illegal to fire a gay worker. I don't think I ever thought that. The proposition that I was defending is that, in a modern legal environment, employers have a responsibility to deal fairly with employees. An UNLIMITED responsibility? No; it is not unlimited, and should not be. But that something is PRESENTLY legal doesn't mean that you are going to get by with it in the real world, and I don't think you would. Thanks again; I appreciate your writing in.
I think the firing discussion got bogged down when the gay firing question came into it. In most (maybe all) right-to-work states, you may be fired without cause. As someone mentioned earlier, if the boss doesn't like your shirt that day, he can fire you without saying why. If the fired employee thinks it was because he or she was gay (or black, or on religious grounds, or whatever) it's on them to prove it. The employer has no burden to prove why the firing took place.
Now, if I were gay and got fired for no good reason, damn right I'd want a lawyer who was willing to fight that on sexual orientation grounds. (Just as if i were black I'd want it fought on racial grounds, etc.) What the lawyer owes the client is an explanation that the burden of proof is entirely on the plaintiff in such cases.
Asked by: DanaKing
Answered: 7/15/2016
OK.
Keeping records on hits was spotty enough a century ago. You will see pictures of Nap Lajoie with a giant horseshoe with silver dollars when he got his 3,000th in 1914. The G. H. Fleming book of newspaper clippings of the 1908 has a brief column on Honus Wagner getting his 2,500th hit and speculating that no one, not Ty Cobb or George Stone, will get that many. Cobb himself always said he couldn't remember his 3,000th or 4,000th hi. Apparently if they were mentioned, it was not a big story.
Even in the mid 1950s Ted Williams said in his book that he was astounded to meet a fan who knew how many doubles, home runs, rbis etc he had and where Williams was on the all time list...in later years the man would send him notes telling who he just passed and he was in front of him.
I suppose Cobb could have known who led in stolen bases but it is quite likely he didn't...he stole more because he was getting on base more, learning the pitchers and catchers and thought it helped his team win.
Asked by: ZachSmith
Answered: 7/15/2016
Well, yes, but the newspapers MIGHT have been printing the league leaders for that year. Unless I know that they were not doing that, I won't assume that they weren't doing that.
I loved the All Star Game, particularly the quality of video on Fox. The bats of Kris Bryant, Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez kicked back with such clarity on replay. You mentioned the balls are getting livelier, but have bats gotten better?
Asked by: schoolshrink
Answered: 7/15/2016
Not in the last 12 months, no.
A couple of things about the Cobb home run games:
1. This story originated in the early 60's, in the Sporting News. There's no contemporaneous quote from the sportswriter, who also happened to be a HOF voter (and said this as Cobb was being voted in).
2. Do we even know if any of those 5 home runs were inside the park? Every story I can find on it calls them home runs, but doesn't specifically state they went over the fence. While he was 38, Cobb also hit 12 triples that year.
If someone told us that Cobb had decided to try to stretch hits into home runs by being super aggressive to prove the point that you don't have to hit the ball out of the park... well, that actually sounds like plausible Cobb behavior.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 7/15/2016
A little confused. ..Cobb was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1938, inducted 1939, I think; a quote from the early 60s would be from the time of his death. What I was trying to say is that you can't DECIDE to be Babe Ruth for 48 hours, and make it work.
Just FYI; my Braves don't have an RoY award, per se. They used to have, however, a Rookie Nickname of the Year Award; the Larvelle "Sugar Bear" Blanks Award. In the early 80s, it was awarded in perpetuity to Pascual "I-285" Perez.
Asked by: kimchi
Answered: 7/15/2016
All he needs is a historical marker. . .
My current physician's name is Dr. Bonebrake. Sorry this isn't a question.
Asked by: jaybracken
Answered: 7/15/2016
His rival is Dr. Cast?
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Hey, Bill, back to Ellsbury again, but just as an example. The question was raised about the average annual value of a contract as a function of its length, or at least your answer was put in those terms. Lets look at a contract of $180 million for 7 years for a 32-year-old slugger (a bit more than $25 million a year). Maybe after about 4 years the player will be worth less than $25 million a year, but perhaps for the first three years he's worth MORE than $25 million a year. But a club doesn't want to pay say $45 million a year for 4 years (same total of $180 million), because that sets a crazy precedent and messes up the near-term finances. So they get around that problem by offering $180 million for 7 years, knowing they really are getting 3 or maybe 4 good years for $180 million but not calling it that. Is that a reasonable way to think about long contracts?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/20/2016
Yes. That is how contracts are negotiated, yes.
Hey Bill, did you know ellsbury just broke the season record for reaching base on catcher's interference? Is that just a function of standing far back in the batters box? Did he do that a lot in Boston too? It seems unfair to penalize the catcher when that happens, since he's the one who's in danger of being injured.
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 7/20/2016
I think I remember it happening some, yes. But it IS the catcher's fault, isn't it? The catcher has a responsibility to stand far enough back from the batter that he doesn't interfere with the swing. If he DOES interfere with the swing, it's his fault.
Re sentencing, bill is right. One has nothing to do with another. When laws are passed, no one compares the sentence for one kind of crime against another. Each law has its separate rationale. Moreover, circumstances differ in each particular case. You can't simply say, one guy got four years for hacking and the other got six months for rape. You have to look at the circumstances in each matter; there are often extenuating circumstances. In most cases, sentences for violent crimes are longer than for white-collar crimes but that doesn't mean they always should be. For example, should a simple mugger get more time than Bernie Madoff? I don't think so.
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 7/19/2016
Well, but injustices DO occur, certainly, and I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that we should not balance one against another in assessing what is right. But what you CAN'T do is take atypical cases and represent them as typical cases, and make accurate (or even reasonable) inferences from that.
HeyBill, I would think that much of the sentence was based on the $1.7 million figure given as the amount "stolen", that formula being given by the prosector as:"..... since much of the data that we looked at focused on the 2013 draft, what we did was we took the number of players that he looked at by(as?OBS) 200 and we divided that by the number of players that were eligible to be drafted that year, and we multiplied that times the scouting budget of the Astros that year. That comes to $1.7 million," he said.
So, apparently, the court assessed the crime as if it eliminated at least part of the need for the Astros scouting budget that year (which I assume they paid anyway.)
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 7/19/2016
Perhaps we can get him to do a presentation on that approach at the Sloan conference.
Hey Bill,
Teams in the AL compete with other AL teams for playoff spots. Within divisions, the only differences in schedules are in interleague play. Within the league, teams in separate divisions competing for the same wild card spots play schedules that are very different. [paragraph] Two questions: How much of an influence do differences in schedules have on division titles? How much of an influence do differences in schedules have on qualifying for wild card spots?
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 7/19/2016
Well, I have an opinion, but it's a factual question, so I'll hold off on the opinion until someone comes forward with the facts.
Hey Bill,
Home vs. away stats can vary widely, an issue you've discussed for 30 years or more. In comparing players, a main problem is that home-park stats are over-represented. I understand park-effect corrections. But wouldn't a better solution be to decrease the sample size of the home stats while increasing the size of the away stats so that we have equal sample sizes from all parks, including the home park?
E.g., in the pre-1962 era, with 8 teams/parks (1 home; 7 away), home stats would be decreased from 1/2 to 1/8th of the total, and away stats would be decreased from 1/2 to 7/8ths, to represent 7 away parks. E.g., Ken Williams in 1922 goes from 39 HR (32 @H; 7 @A) and 155 RBI (102 @H; 52 @A) to 17.8 HR (8.0@H; 9.8 @A) and 98.3 RBI (25.5@H; 72.8 @A). 18 HR & 98 RBI is more indicative of of William's results than 39 HR,& 155 RBI, numbers inflated by over-sampling Sportsman Park (his home park) in relation to the other parks.
Why isn't this done? What am I missing? Thanks!
Asked by: grising
Answered: 7/19/2016
Unless I am missing something, this would get the same answers as the methods presently used, in the relevant area of runs scored. In the LESS relevant areas such as triples, you might get different answers because you might hit a case where something is magnified to some fantastic extent. I think. . .this is from memory. . .but I think in 1944 the Washington Senators only hit 1 home run in their home park, which I think may have been an inside-the-park home run on the last day of the season. . .let's say it was by Joe Kuhel; I don't actually remember. But using the method you suggest, this might make Joe Kuhel the season's park-adjusted home run leader. I'm not saying that it would. . .it just seems to me like it might. Other than a fluke situation like that, I don't see how this is different than the current methods.
Ellsbury signed for 6 years at $23 million per year. How does the length of contract factor into the price per season? If Ellsbury had signed a 4 year deal would the cost go up to say $25 million per or $30 million per? Or does it not effect the cost per season?
Asked by: whc1999
Answered: 7/19/2016
Different guys look at it differently, but if he signed for six years at $23 million, you certainly would not get him for four years at $25 million. You CERTAINLY, in all cases, would have to go up more than that. At that level he would turning down $138 million to sign for $100 million, and I don't think anyone would do that. Now, if you said $30 million a year for four years, different guys would see it differently. One guy might say "it's $138 million against $120 million; I'll go for the two extra years", but another guy might say "that's only $18 million for the last two years, or $9 million a year. I'll only be xxx years old then; I'd rather take the chance of getting another good contract then, rather than sell off those last two years for only $18 million."
I'm pretty sure the divide in sentencing has to do with Federal vs. Local enforcement. Since hacking is enforced by federal agencies (led by the Secret Service oddly enough), there's not much difference between the proscribed sentence and the assigned one.
But yes, it certainly is maddening that someone can get multiple years for breaking into intellectual property, but violation of someone's body can result in a slap on the wrist. Our priorities in this society are screwy.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 7/19/2016
No; YOU are screwy for joining together two issues which don't have anything to do with one another. If you really want to learn to see things as they are, you have to discipline yourself not to do that. These two cases don't have ANYTHING to do with our priorities as a society--NOTHING. It is precisely like saying that because my neighbor has bad teeth, our society places no value on dental care. I have a neighbor on one side who has bad teeth; I have a neighbor on the other side who has had plastic surgery, and now has a great. . . .um, upper body. Can I conclude from this that our society values tits over teeth? Of course not. What you can ACTUALLY conclude is that the two things don't have anything at all to do with one another, so that, when you put them together as if they were unified, you reach an illogical conclusion.
With regard to the Astros' database hacking case vs. the Stanford rape case, I hear what you are saying about comparing relative injustices. But setting that comparison aside, doesn't a four-year sentence for a non-violent offense seem excessive to the purposes (deterrent, retributive, whatever)? Even crediting the prosecutor's argument (apparently) that the Astros had draft data exposed that was worth $1.7M . . . four years of taxpayer money hosting the convict in the federal pokey? Now, if we were talking four years at hard labor for the folks who are leaving the "IRS is about to sue you" messages on my home voicemail . . . but no one even seems to be chasing those guys, who now doubt are managing to scam millions from credulous old folks . . . that would be a different story.
Asked by: tkoegel
Answered: 7/19/2016
Well, there again, you muddy the waters by raising an irrelevant issue. Do you want to focus on the real issue, or not?
Just came across something interesting that I thought you might like. In 1963, with Indianapolis in the International League (the American Association having folded in the offseason), Warren Hacker pitched 45 games in relief and made 2 starts, for a total of 110 innings. He struck out 104, which is outstanding -- and he walked only FOUR, giving him a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 26 to 1. I wonder if that was the best ratio up to that time at such a high level. It wasn't exactly a fluke, either. A year later he struck out 90 and walked 18, and I think ten of the 18 walks were intentional. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.
Asked by: BobGill
Answered: 7/19/2016
We'll consider it mentioned. Was Warren Hacker any relation to Chris Correa?
Correa broke the law, and Federal law at that. He certainly deserves punishment.
I just have this compare and contrast firing off in my head between this situation and the Stanford rape case.
Doesn't It feel like we should switch the two sentences?
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 7/19/2016
My friend, that is not an approach to reason, that is an approach to madness. Since some injustice somewhere is nearly inevitable, tying our present issues to the worst examples of injustice is merely an argument against justice.
Hey, Bill, back to Ellsbury. You did in fact answer, and I think in the only reasonable way: the bidding got too high for Ellsbury's value to the Red Sox. I think exactly the same is true of the Cards' letting Jason Heyward go to the Cubs for way more than they were willing to pay (and than he's been worth so far this season). But do you agree that at times it can make sense for a team to "overpay" a particular player in a particular situation?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/19/2016
Well, somebody suggested $35 million for one year of Ellsbury. That would never make sense, no, because the secondary costs from the signing would be much higher. Once you signed THAT contract, that's where the negotiations would begin for any other pretty good player.
HeyBill re: run differential vs W/L. Your answer is absolutely correct and one I didn't think of. If we didn't have the boundary of a W/L over the short time of audience viewing, we would lose all the drama and all the entertainment of each game. Many have said that the beauty of Baseball is that it's play where we don't know the outcome. But: to some extent, aren't stats a pooling of these acts of drama? And thus, to some extent, removing the beauty/entertainment/essential parts of the game?
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 7/19/2016
Do these things cease to exist, merely because we focus on something else?
I remember in the 1988 Abstract it was written that Wade Boggs had stated he was going to try to hit more homers in the 1987 season. Then he did so. Then he was back to his normal level. Anyone else remember this? Do you remember that Bill? Just wondering.
Asked by: nettles9
Answered: 7/18/2016
I don't remember anything from before 1997. . .
HeyBill: If MLB used a different criteria than W/L, such as some run differential (Runs Scored - Runs Allowed), to determine champion how do you think the game would be changed? Since every run was important teams would be aggressive throughout the game despite score. Managers would pull pitchers - not leaving somebody in to get shelled, in lopsided games. Since pythorgorean calculation does predict W/L % fairly well, maybe the change would not have as great effect as I think. College football, and I think the NFL at times, have used point differential as tie-breakers without much acceptance by fans .........
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 7/18/2016
I think it would fundamentally undermine the game. If all the runs are poured into a pool, then nothing happens today that cannot be undone tommorrow. We've got a game on June 18 . ..why worry about it? All it is is a few points that are poured into a vast lake of points. So basically, if that was the way the game was, there would be no game because nobody would watch.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
HeyBill: first a small rant: All this repeating of Cobb doing/saying he'd be a slugger if he wanted to is crapola. Nobody studied the game, flaunted conventional BB wisdom, or played as hard as Cobb to win. IMHO if he could HR like Ruth he surely would have - that leads to wins, the only thing in Cobb's mind.
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 7/23/2016
Well, it seems to me that that begs the relevant question, which is whether or not Cobb ACCEPTED that Ruth's game had more value than "his" game. I doubt seriously that he did. I know in the 1970s SABR members tried to argue to me that Cobb's game, of hitting .400 and stealing bases, had more value than Ruth's game of "just" hitting home runs. You're assuming that it is obvious even to Cobb that Ruth's game had more value, but I doubt that that is true.
Here's an excellent article on the SABR site about the history of the trading deadline: http://sabr.org/latest/many-twists-and-turns-history-mlb-trading-deadline I was surprised to see that it was so recent that the deadline became July 31 (from June 15): just 30 years ago, 1986
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 7/23/2016
Thanks. I was going to guess 1990s. . thanks.
Hey Bill, sorry this is late with the name game discussion, but...True Story: when I got my vasectomy a number of years back I went through the urology group in my insurance network. I was originally assigned to Dr. Chopp. Hmmm. Really? I asked who else was in the network. After studying the list, I chose Dr. Hardeman. True story, trust me.
Asked by: paulw112
Answered: 7/23/2016
I am taking it on faith.
I first became aware of the trading deadline in 1957, when the Braves, in serious need of an upgrade at 2B, picked up Red Schoendienst in a deadline deal--on June 15. Do you have any understanding of the history of how (and why) it got from June 15 to July31/Aug. 1?
Asked by: wwiyw
Answered: 7/22/2016
Let's see. ..when did that happen? I don't remember. Anybody?
Hey Bill,
Thanks for answering my question about home vs. away stats. I appreciate it!
On a team level, using park factors is a plausible solution for adjusting runs/RBI. But it's not the best solution for adjusting stats on the player level because different parks affect different hitters differently. Using a park factor of 104 (from B-R), K. Williams of the 1922 Browns would lose about 4 RBI (I think). However, he would lose 57 RBI if he had played a 154-game schedule spread equally among all 8 parks.
Also, I do think it's enlightening to examine stats beyond runs/RBI. Stan Spence hit 18 HR (1 @H) and 100 RBI (37 @H) for the 1944 Senators. However, if had played 1/8th of his games at Griffith Stadium (instead of 1/2) and 7/8th at the other 7 parks, he would have totaled 28.5 HR and 119.5 RBI. And yes, he would have led the AL in both categories (he really was T-3rd in HR and 4th in RBI).
My question: Have I convinced you to switch from park factors to equal sampling of parks? :)
Asked by: grising
Answered: 7/22/2016
I think I can give you a better answer than I did before, so let me take a shot at that. The question of "How good is this player?" is a free-floating question, way out in the ocean. As it approaches the rocky shore of statistical information, however, there are two bays into which it may sail. Wins and Losses are the Holy Grail; winning is the object of the enterprise. One approach is to ask "How many games did this player win for his team, and how many losses should he be held responsible for?", and the other is to ask, "How many games would this player have won for his team, in a theoretically neutral context?" In other words, one approach places the player IN his historical context, his time and place, and the other takes him outside of his time and place, and attempts to discern the pure essence of his ability.
Now, there ARE occasions in which we have to try to look past the issues of time and place, and look for the essence of his ability—for example, with regard to the Negro League players, and with regard to the players like DiMaggio and Williams (and Whitey Ford and Willie Mays) who missed playing time with wartime military service. You DO have to do that sometimes, but that is (a) rare, and (b) a non-statistical undertaking, in the main, although you can make up a statistical image as a place holder, but it is a made-up image. In the normal case, we deal with REAL wins and losses, rather than the theoretically pure image of a player.
Why? BECAUSE YOU CAN’T ADJUST REAL WINS AND REAL LOSSES OUT OF EXISTENCE. Wins are Losses are North and South in baseball; you can’t get rid of them and still make a coherent map. Each thing that a player does, each single and each strikeout, is a piece of a win or a piece of a loss—a REAL win or loss, rather than a theoretical one.
You haven’t realized it, because you haven’t yet thought long enough and hard enough about your approach, but what you are doing demolishes wins and losses, throws them out the window. Maybe the Yankees weren’t the AL Champions in 1950; maybe it was Detroit. Maybe the Yankees aren’t the best team in 1964; maybe it is the Orioles or the White Sox. WE NO LONGER KNOW. You are asking not "What is the value of what this player actually did?"—the safe harbor—but "What would this player theoretically have done in a neutral place?". This is the rocky bay; if you approach the shore in that way, you will quite certainly be dashed to pieces on the rocks.
IT ISN’T ONE THING THAT CHANGES WHEN YOU GET RID OF THE REAL CONTEXT, IT IS EVERYTHING. You are asking us to assume that you can adjust out of existence ONE fact about the player without everything else also changing, but you can’t. You have lost north and south; you have no borders, you have no boundaries.
Elston Howard is the illustrative case. If you do what you want to do, you make Elston Howard a much better player (in your theoretical numbers) than he was in the real universe. He was a very good player in the real world, an MVP, but not a Hall of Famer. But suppose that you make his numbers context-neutral. He goes from hitting 28 homers and driving in 85 runs in 1963, or whatever the numbers are, to hitting .310 with 37 homers or whatever the numbers WOULD BE.
But wait a minute. If you are going to take Elston out of his time and place, why stop there?
Elston Howard quite certainly had Hall of Fame ability, but there are four things that kept him from having a Hall of Fame career. First, he arrived with the Yankees at a time when Yogi Berra was very completely in control of the catcher’s position, and he had to wait about six years for Berra to grow old enough that Howard got to play regularly. Howard was past 30 by the time he got to play regularly.
Second, he had some injuries that he had to fight through in the late fifties.
Third, Yankee Stadium was an absolutely terrible park for him.
Fourth, his best years were in the 1960s, when hitting numbers were very low. If you get rid of the "park" context you WILL soon enough get rid of the "year" context, so you’re going to wind up saying that Elston Howard hit not 37 homers and .310 in 1963, but 46 homers and .330, or something like that.
If you get rid of ONE element of context, you have no reason to hold on to the others. The question you are asking is a subset not of the question "How good WAS he?", but of the question "How good WOULD HE HAVE BEEN playing in a neutral context?" But if you get rid of THAT element of context, do you continue to suppose that he backs up Yogi Berra for six years, or not? Why would you? Why not get rid of THAT assumption, as well? Do you continue to assume that his best seasons are in the hitting drought of the 1960s? Why would you keep THAT assumption, when you have gotten rid of the other?
So you wind up sailing aimlessly around the ocean, with no north and south, no map or compass, until you crash into the rocks and go down; you thought I was mixing up metaphors at random, but I had plans all along to bring them back together. I’m not saying that what you want to do has NO value or no interest. If you want to use that approach to re-figure the career numbers for Elston Howard or Gil McDougald or Al Kaline or whoever, feel free to do so; we’ll be happy to publish the results for you, and they might be very interesting. The question of how good a player someone might have been in some other context is an interesting question.
But you said that we should REPLACE the other approach to park effects with THIS approach, and the answer to that is "No, we shouldn’t." We’re dealing with the real world, with actual wins and actual losses. The approach we use keeps us in the real world.
OK, I was just being facetious with the reference to the "IRS is suing you" scammers. And I agree that one cannot compare one particular sentence with another to consider justice. What many of us are concerned about, and the thing I was interested for your reaction to, is the sentencing range for the hacking crime. This SI article sets up the Correa issues, and a lot of the problem (for me, at least) lies in the combination of very stringent Federal anti-hacking laws (which provided a maximum of five years per offense and the possibility of running 5 Correa violations into 5 consecutive sentences of 25 years total) and the federal sentencing guidelines (which tie a federal judge's hands in a way that the Stanford case judge was not tied under California law). To your point, the comparison here should be to the sentencing range (in California for rape) of probation to 14 years, whereas computer hacking seems to be 36 to 60 months. If I were king, I would set different ranges. You?
Asked by: tkoegel
Answered: 7/22/2016
36 to 60 months seems a little high for the specific offense Correa committed. One suspects that he was over-charged due to the high profile nature of a crime committed within the baseball community, and had to accept a bad deal because he was in the cross hairs of a high-energy prosecution. I don't know that 36 to 60 months is inherently unreasonable for the crime of hacking a private computer; it's a serious transgression in my view.
People want to take the latitude away from judges in sentencing because of occasional situations in which judges are too lenient, but if you take the latitude (the ability make adjustments) away from judges, then the only latitude in the system is in the hands of the prosecutors, who can charge the same offense 25 different ways or not charge it at all. I don't necessarily see that that is better.
bill, where can I find the sites 2015 starter pitcher ratings?
thx
Matin
Asked by: dmbbmartin10
Answered: 7/22/2016
On the main page, click on "ratings", and then click on Starting Pitcher Rankings on the left side of the page. . .maybe it says "World's #1 starting pitcher" or something. Once that comes up you may have to alter the number of pitchers displayed to get to the guys you want to see.
As to whose careers were hurt most by the strikes, I suspect the 1981 strike cost Tommy John a shot at Cooperstown. He was 9-8 in 1981, having been a 22-game winner in 1980 and a 14-game winner in 1982. Penciling in another 5 victories to his 1981 record would have gotten him to 293 career victories in the spring of 1989, at which point SOME team would've put him in their rotation to get to #300 and a guaranteed plaque.
Asked by: ajmilner
Answered: 7/22/2016
Maybe he could be transplanted on to somebody else's plaque. . . .
Baseball fans should be grateful that very minor changes can be made to (I think) improve the game. I am of the opinion that more men on base leads to more excitement. I believe (although I don’t know for sure) that just legislating the circumference of bat handles alone would lead to less home runs, more inside the park hits and more walks. But in hockey and basketball (especially basketball), where proximity of players to each other is a key characteristic of play, both games are having the life choked out of them, more and more dominated by the very best players in the game as compared to baseball. In baseball defensive play depends on spreading out the players to cover the possibilities; in hockey and basketball, it’s just the opposite. Your thoughts?
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 7/22/2016
I'm not good with open-ended questions.
Whenever I think of players salaries, I think of Ian Desmond. He turned down over $100 million from the Nationals last year, then he turned down the $15.8 qualifying offer, before deigning to accept the Rangers lousy $8 million. He'll be a free agent again this year, and I can't help rooting against him for being so greedy.
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 7/22/2016
Man, I don't see why you would interpret that as greed. Desmond took LESS money--a lot less money--to get a chance to play where he wanted to play, and to show people what he could do. God bless him. Why would you interpret that in a negative way?
There is no way in hell I'm going to a BJOL reunion in the Lizzy Borden house without knowing EXACTLY where GlKanter is. Can I even get ax murder insurance if I'm booked for the Lizzy house?
Asked by: ventboys
Answered: 7/22/2016
Oh, come on, there hasn't been a murder in that house in 120 years. . ..
With respect to players taking less money, didn't Andre Dawson take a 50% cut to play with the Cubs? But in general, I think you are right. The same doesn't seem true for basketball, however, where players seem more and more to choose a team (and a chance at a title) over pure dollars. David West, for example, got a lot of attention for choosing to play for the Spurs for $1.6 million when he could have chosen the Pacers for $12.6 million last year. Any idea why this is more prevalent in basketball? It can't just be the salary cap.
Asked by: pbspelly
Answered: 7/22/2016
In basketball you know who is going to play in the NBA finals a year in advance. We have no idea who will be in the World Series next year.
Tim Raines is my candidate for most affected. His rookie season was 1981, and he could have put some eye popping SB numbers, and MAYBE made a run at rookie of year and ousting Fernandomania. 1994 has the WhiteSox maybe challenging the Expos for the World Series. So, in addition to counting numbers, he might have built more narrative. For a guy right on the cusp of the HOF, I'd think the butterfly effect is most pronounced with Raines. I'd love to hear any Raines stories that pop to your mind, besides the terrific urinal one.
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 7/22/2016
Thanks.. . .
OK, here's my idea for the first (and last) actual gathering of BJOL folks: we all book a private tour of the Lizzie Borden house. At the first moment the guide says something wrong, you begin to absolutely demolish them verbally. We'll all back you up. I'm expecting we can reduce any guide to tears within 20 minutes. Then we'll all go to the nearest pub. Thoughts?
Asked by: rtallia
Answered: 7/22/2016
Pre-planned cruelty. You guys go ahead without me.
David Cone went 16-5 in the strike-shortened 1994 and followed that up with 18-8 in the slightly less strike-shortened 1995. It's not hard to imagine him winning 20 games both seasons if they had been 162 games, which would have given him four 20-win seasons and vaulted him over 200 wins for his career. I think that would have at least put him in the Hall of Fame conversation, rather than him being one and done.
Asked by: TJNawrocki
Answered: 7/22/2016
Thanks. I agree; Cone is borderline Hall of Famer already for me.
©2016 Be Jolly, Inc. All Rights Reserved
15 Most Recent Questions
Hey Bill,
I noticed that we haven't always gotten the underlining to work, but I think we've fixed the problem now. Can you please publish this comment with the following text underlined? Feel free to add a brilliant remark.
Asked by: studes
Answered: 7/26/2016
I would, but you've already used all the underlining fluid.
No question.
I very much enjoyed reading the last weeks worth of Hey Bill, a number of very good questions and answers. Sing a song of sixpence, apocryphal awry. and your observation on a British track meet on TV, and the 1970 players seasons, and of course the bunting contest ruining players timing on their bunts after the All Star game.
Great stuff.
Asked by: DavidTodd
Answered: 7/26/2016
Thanks, David. We have good weeks; we have slow weeks. It all depends on the readers.
I completely agree about the benefits of minimalism in a sports TV broadcast. When the MLB Network went on the air, it showed the TV broadcast of Larsen's perfect game in the World Series. Mel Allen did the first part of the game, IIRC, and Scully the second part. And that's all it was, no histrionics or nonsensical features. It was great. And I love the original 1959 Home Run Derby, without the theatrics of what we have today. The Super Bowl, of course, has long since jumped the shark. Similarly, I liked it when the NCAA tournament was just a nice little event rather than "March Madness."
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 7/26/2016
Thanks.
More of a comment: Thank you deciding to write about baseball. I have read a lot of your work back to the early 80's. It has immeasurably increased my pleasure in watching and thinking about baseball.
Asked by: SFGFAN1947
Answered: 7/25/2016
Thank you, sir. It wasn't really a decision; I don't know how to do anything else.
HeyBill, in a pragmatic sense, a Libertarian POTUS wouldn't be able to order an egg on toast because he caucuses in the Inauguration limo. Given the popularity of the other two, they might not make it many years in....
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 7/25/2016
Well, everything breaks apart sooner or later, and the two-party system will collapse and get pushed off the road at some point. Gary Johnson could win this thing if he would stop saying stupid stuff. But he'd better quit pretty soon.
Actually, "Webster" spells it correctly, as you do, Bill, as apocryphal.
Why the quotes? Because "Webster" is not trademarked or copyrighted and in this country, most dictionary makers, even those who have no connection whatsoever to Noah Webster, use "Webster" in the names of their dictionaries because dictionaries sell better that way. At least they did when people were still buying books.
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/25/2016
. . .
I'd love to hear three hours of Chris Berman doing the All-Star Bunting Derby. Almost as enjoyable as a three hour root canal.
Asked by: wilbur
Answered: 7/25/2016
Well. . .vaguely related point. In 2002 we went to Europe with the kids, and after an exhausting day bumping around London we turned on the telly. British TV at that time was still in the four-channels stage, so we settled in to watch a track meet on TV, the Commonwealth games, and. . .it was delightful. It was tremendously fun. American track meets on American television, you can't watch them; this thing was actually fun.
It had to do with production values. They had like two cameras, probably, maybe three, so all they did was line up the events and run them. No "packages", no production values. The LACK of production values was actually a tremendous benefit. They didn't interrupt the coverage with Up Close and Personal profiles, interviews with the coaches, tear-jerkers about athlete's moms who had cancer, and constant promos about the superstars who were going to be coming up later in the show and interviews with the childhood friends of the superstars who were going to run tomorrow, because they didn't have the budget to do any of that, so they just showed the competition. . .that's the guy from the UK in that lane in those colors, and there's the guy from Canada, and there's the guy from Austalia, and there's the guy from Scotland; boom, there's the starter's pistol.
Track events have that problem: it is difficult to stage them without the TV people over-producing them to the point at which you can't watch. This week are the conventions, but you can't get the TV analysts to shut up and let you watch the convention. Joe Garagiola said that when he worked for NBC they would have production meetings every week about what packages they were going to force into the broadcast and where they were going to run them, and he would always say "Why don't we just follow the ball?"
My own personal lexicon says that "apocryphal" means "no good sourcing for this one" and "possibly apocryphal" means "some weak sourcing for this one." Sing a song of 6p, apocryphal awry.
Asked by: 337
Answered: 7/25/2016
. . . ..
Hey, Bill, if Clayton Kershaw doesn't pitch again this season, do you think he will lose his #1 pitcher ranking? If so, who do you think is mostly likely to catch him? Max Scherzer is currently #2.
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/25/2016
Yes, if he doesn't return from the injury he will quite certainly lose the #1 starting pitcher position before the end of the season. You can't be the world's #1 starting pitcher if you're not pitching for a sustained period of time; that just doesn't make sense. Any of ten pitchers could replace him. Scherzer and Bumgarner are currently very close for 2-3, well ahead of everybody else, but by the end of the season any of ten pitchers could catch up. Arrieta is fourth; I think he was second before he had his little slump.
Vis-a-vis Gary Johnson not operating in the real world - the guy was the Governor of New Mexico from 1995-2003, so it's not like he just fell off the turnip truck. I think that he recognizes reality differs from his ideal vision. Many of his comments over the years in interviews on immigration reflect a more nuanced approach than what you cited.
From a 2012 Rolling Stone interview:
Q: You were a border-state governor. What would your approach to immigration be?
A: Because of our convoluted immigration policies we're educating the best and brightest kids from all over the world and we're sending them back to their countries of origin...We should make it as easy as possible to be able to get a legal work visa--not citizenship, not a green card. Just a work visa, with a background check and a social security card so that applicable taxes would get paid. And then legalize marijuana. 75% of the border violence with Mexico would go away."
Asked by: Ben from New York
Answered: 7/25/2016
No, I've seen at least three RECENT interviews with him in which he expressed just absolutely jaw-dropping opinions about borders. He doesn't see poorly supervised borders as a prohibitive problem. I do.
Webster agrees with your definition of the word "apochryphal." Defined as a story of doubtful origin. In two of their three ensuing examples of the use of apochryphal in a sentence, it is used in the manner in which you did - "possibly apochryphal" in one example, and "perhaps apochryphal" in the other. So you're right about the definition, and you're right about the redundancy of the manner in which it is commonly used.
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 7/25/2016
Thanks. But I am far too arrogant to consider Webster's a superior opinion. . . .
People often wonder why I put stupid 'smilies' on almost all my posts. I wonder how many people will think your answer about a bunting competition is serious because you didn't put one of these :-) or better yet, a few of them......
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 7/25/2016
Yeah, I worried about that m'self. But a dry sense of humor requires a straight face.
Hey Bill, on these questions regarding pay for performance, and even on the system you suggested, wouldn't the biggest issue be that teams cannot accurately budget? Every team has a "band-with" where they operate and by this I mean a budget at the start of the season, and (some teams at least) also a cushion for potential mid-season trades. The payroll may look different at the end compared to at the start of the season but the range is small and known. The big problem with these other systems mentioned is that a team can have a great season, win the World Series and lose a lot of money. This wouldn't be good in the long term. Thanks-
Asked by: llozada
Answered: 7/25/2016
Well, there are two assumptions there that are not necessarily correct. One is that the player payroll is at the level that it puts pressure on the organization. This is true of modern baseball, but it wasn't true of baseball 1950 to 1975, for example; in that era player payrolls were at such a level, relative to the rest of the team's expenses and income, that that concern would never have arisen.
And second, you have assumed that the TEAM is responsible for the payroll. But if I was designing a new system, I wouldn't make the TEAM responsible for the payroll, but the LEAGUE. Let's say you have an 8-team league with an average payroll of $100 million; each of the teams has to put $100 million into the pot over the course of the year, and then that $800 million is divided up among the players based on experience, draft position (or some other indirect measure of quality) and the team's wins.
Draft position or some other indirect measure of value. . .. you could, for example, require each of the eight teams, at the conclusion of the season, to rank all of the players on every team 1 through 25 as to their perception of the player's value. Then you can combine the ratings; the players who are perceived by the league as having the most value receive the largest share of that portion of the salary money. Or maybe you don't have ONE rating from each team; maybe you require the manager, the General Manager and one "independant observer" from each team to file a 1-to-25 list, so that you have 24 looks at each player rather than 8, and personal biases and conflicts are less of an issue.
Can you make superstition work for you? If another team has a ballplayer who's missed a lot of games with unrelated minor injuries the past few years, and that team is down on him for being "fragile", is that a chance for you to get that player cheap? My real question (sorry for the fake one) is: where is the point at which you too start saying "Hell if I know what's going on here, but I ain't acquiring someone who's missed that many games in that little amount of time, and I don't care if it's bad luck, or poor conditioning or if was born under a bad sign"?
Asked by: 337
Answered: 7/25/2016
The essence of the question is organizational character. It's probably too complicated a question to try to address in this format, but. . .well, let me take a brief shot at it (knowing in advance that this will lead to slew of ill-informed questions, because I can't really straighten it all out.) But in any organization and every organization you have people who believe in "toughness", and this is not inappropriate. "Toughness" is a real thing, a real virtue, a real characteristic; it means "the ability to keep moving forward in the face of difficult circumstances." Baseball teams DO need people who can keep moving forward in the face of tough losses and injuries and bad news stories and slumps, etc.; that is true. Any organization does. . .a warehouse. A warehouse needs SOMEBODY or somebodies who can keep things working when everything is going wrong.
The problem is that SOME people in an organization will exaggerate toughness, and will interpret EVERYTHING that happens as a consequence of toughness or of a lack of toughness, and this causes problems for the organizations, causes misjudgments and mistakes. In my youth, pitchers would routinely try to pitch through injuries, which, in many, many cases, caused small injuries to explode into career-ending injuries, but they would try to pitch through injuries to show how tough they were. We know better than to do that, now. Pitchers now are trained from a young age to accept that if they have a little injury and they try to pitch through it, they're going to ruin their arms.
But if you have a player--and we certainly have had this happen many times--you have a player who has a bunch of little injuries, you WILL have a coach who thinks he isn't tough enough and we need to get rid of him and get some guys in here who are tough enough to work through the season. Let's say that he is a younger player, trying to break into the lineup; there is competition for the position, you have other players competing with him. . .there is pressure to trade that player, anyway. The "toughness" bias becomes another factor pushing you to trade him, rather than to bet on him to develop into something he isn't yet. And you can't bet on EVERYBODY to succeed; you have to pick and choose.
Your organization simply has to be smart enough, disciplined enough, to resist exaggeratiing the value of that kind of "toughness input" into the discussion. You have to think clearly about "toughness" in the same way that you have to think clearly about control of the strike zone, or speed, or experience, or any other element of a player's game. You can neither ignore it, nor exaggerate it. You have to try to see it for what it is, and this is very challenging.
Bill, the South Korea league has a bunting competition at their all star game. Players try to hit painted targets on the field. Do you see the MLB trying this?
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 7/25/2016
No, because the players who competed would mess up their bunting skills, and then they wouldn't be able to bunt normally for the next several weeks.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
I absolutely believe America is in good shape. It seems to me that all the recent so-called turbulence is an illusion, amplified exponentially by the relative novelty of social media. The social web is like a boom town, with lots of excitement but few marked roads and far too many watch salesmen.
Society has yet to make the mental adjustments necessary to put social media's bombardment of information in context, so every social effect is magnified, creating the occasional spike in reality - an outbreak of mass killings here, an increase in self-important protest movements there - but mostly creating a wildly decentralized perception of reality - and a dizzying increase in perceived empowerment.
In other words, we's all gettin' a little bit too full of ourselves. Put an ant under a magnifying glass, it's still an ant. Well, until it bursts into flames. Then it's a screaming alpha.
Asked by: ventboys
Answered: 8/1/2016
No, then it's a Trump voter. . . .
"Who led the National League in sacrifice bunts during the 1950s?"
I'd guess one of these four: Red Schoendienst, Junior Gilliam, Warren Spahn or Robin Roberts.
Asked by: wilbur
Answered: 8/1/2016
I think it was actually Richie Ashburn.
HeyBill: in your analysis of serial killers have you ever done any research on Canada's
Highway of Tears?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/world/americas/canada-indigenous-women-highway-16.html?_r=0
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 8/1/2016
No. I've seen shows about it, but that's all.
Hey, Bill, it occurred to me that Trump might decide he doesn't want to debate Clinton. I can imagine him saying "Crooked Hillary will just spread lies about me and the country, and nothing good can come of it. Therefore, I think it is in the best interests of the country not to have a debate, and so I won't."
Most of my friends think he'd never "get away with it." I actually think he would. What do you think?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/31/2016
I think you really have ZERO understanding of Donald Trump. Trump is a narcissist above all else, and he thinks that he is going to CRUSH Hillary Clinton in those debates. He can't WAIT for the debates. He is lying asleep at nights just fantasizing about how badly he is going to cream Hillary in the debates.
FrankD said, "I think it’s like the Titanic: on the same course we're gonna hit the ice berg. A radical change of course could roll the ship or save it."
A better analogy might be that we are doing fine, flying along in relative safety, but we have entered into a few clouds and the backseat drivers want us to turn off the autopilot. John Kennedy, Jr. stopped trusting the fail-safe mechanisms built into his plane, and he tried to manhandle something he didn’t really understand. A perfectly functioning plane, driven by an inexperienced pilot with its built-in safeguards removed, plowed straight into the ocean.
Asked by: ventboys
Answered: 7/31/2016
A good illustration of why I think the Democrats are in more trouble than they realize. In a salary arbitration case, whenever you find yourself making arguments that you know are not true, you are in deep trouble. I remember a Tony Pena arbitration case about 1983, in which we asserted that Pena was a good defensive catcher--unquestionably true--and the Pirates' representatives tried to muddy the waters on the issue by talking about his error rates, which were a little high. As soon as they did that I thought, "OK, we won." When the other side starts saying something that they KNOW to be untrue, you win. When YOU start saying things that you know to be untrue, and I've certainly had that happen to me, you have lost. The Pirates would have been much smarter to simply concede the point that Pena was a fine defensive catcher, and argue about something else.
I wonder whether you really believe this? It seems to me that the Democrats believe that they HAVE to say that things are going super well, because otherwise it becomes difficult to defend keeping in office a person long associated with the current policies. I don't think anyone really believes it, including you. And I don't think you want me or need for me to start ticking off the problems. I think Hillary's supporters should concede the point and argue about something else.
Just a little 'administrative' suggestion: People sometimes complain when their "Hey Bill" questions/comments are truncated. I'd guess that the main thing that bothers us about it isn't exactly that we were truncated (so to speak), but that the truncation makes the question/comment look stupid, because it's not clear that what you show is just part of what we submitted. I think it would bother us a lot less (maybe hardly at all) if you just always indicate when a posted submission is shortened. What do you say?
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 7/31/2016
When you offer a debatable premise as a foundation of a question, I'm much more likely to debate the premise than to consider the question. It's improper, in my view, to "answer" a question which is founded on a mistaken premise, because this constructs a "castle" built on false assumptions. Most political analysis and most sports analysis, in my view, is merely castles built on false assumptions.
It is my opinion that more truth is revealed by working backward from false assumptions than by allowing the discussion to proceed forward based on false assumptions. If you don't want me to cut off your question after a few words, then don't state a questionalble assumption as a premise for the question.
I found your comment interesting which I'll underline because now I can: I think that on several issues--education, gun control, climate change, border control, international relations--Trump's supporters actually have a more nuanced and more sophisticated argument than does the left, *** I like the point, but my view differs slightly. The word I thought was interesting was "nuanced". I don't look at their approach as nuanced so much as direct and clear.
Asked by: lidsky
Answered: 7/31/2016
I think this only proves that you are missing the nuances.
Trump is overall a liability for the Republicans, but people overestimate the liability. If you watch the polls, which have been more accurate than people's assumptions, what they seem to indicate is that a race that figured to be a toss-up has a three or four point Democrat lean instead.
Asked by: bobfiore
Answered: 7/31/2016
I'm not sure which polls you are looking at, but your general point is accurate. Of the last 16 Presidential elections, the candidate who was ahead in the polls before the conventions went on to win election 13 times. The long, long election battles that we have now leave us with this period when, in all probability, the election has already been decided because 95% of people have made up their minds, but we just yell at each other for 100 days or so trying to persuade the last 5%, who in all probability are not going to change anything anyway.
Hi Bill,
Just as a follow-up to my memory about the Dodgers broadcasting a game illustrating the advances in television, I found a bit more info. It turns out it was a Fox national game of the week (Buck and McCarver rather than Scully) between the Dodgers and the Cubs on August 26 2000 and was called the Turn Back the Clock broadcast. It seemed well received based on contemporary reports, so of course it has never been done again. I have been unable to find footage or a link but perhaps others might be more successful.
Asked by: Michael P
Answered: 7/31/2016
My boys were playing Little League baseball at that time, so I suspect I was at a kid's game when it happened. Thanks.
Regarding minimalist announcers. Kirby Puckett hit a walk off home run in the tenth or eleventh inning of game 6 of the 1991 World Series. As I recall it, Skip Caray's call of the homer was as follows:
Puckett hits a deep drive.....It's gone.......Same teams here tomorrow night.
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 7/31/2016
Denny Mathews has been criticized for a similarly minimalist call of the ending of the 1985 world series. But I don't recall the details. . .thanks.
Whomever picks the stats for the player cards at Dodger Stadium should get a lifetime term in sabermetric prison. Today's was "Of Justin Turner's 22 career steals, three have come against Arizona, more than any other team." I challenge you to come up with a more useless stat than that.
Asked by: JK
Answered: 7/31/2016
Who led the National League in sacrifice bunts during the 1950s?
Bill: checking interleague play results as we near the 2/3 mark of the seaso, I see that the Americal League has a cumultive 115-98 record in interleague play, a .540 percentage. As I recall, the AL has had the better of interleague play for at least a decade. Do you have an explanation -- well, maybe the better question is can you surmise -- why the National League hasn't done better. (The easy answer is that the American League is the stronger league, but if so, why hasn't the NL caught up?)
Asked by: TigerTim
Answered: 7/31/2016
I don't believe there is any reason for it, other than that the American League has more strong franchises. It's unclear why you would expect the National League to catch up quickly. Franchise strength is a durable tendency. You look at the teams that are strong in any decade and look two decades later, SOME of them will have changed, but many of them won't have changed.
Hey, Bill, Seattle (and former Red Sox) pitcher Wade Miley just pitched a gem against the Cubs, and at Wrigley Field no less. He was perfect through 5, ended up pitching 7 innings, one hit, one walk, one run, 9 strikeouts; pretty dominating stuff, especially for a guy who normally isn't dominating. And against a strong team. Is this the kind of thing you expect once in a while or is it really extraordinary?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 7/30/2016
What does that have to do with Politics?
Well, let’s see; Wade Miley is now 7-8 with a 4.98 ERA, which means he is headed for a season that would rank about the 30th percentile among all starting pitchers, and he had a Game Score of 79, which would rank about the 91st percentile among all starts, so I would say that a fair characterization of your question is "How many times a year does a starting pitcher who ranks in the bottom third of all starting pitchers pitch a game which is in the top 10% of all starts?" The answer to that question is that it happens about 30 times a year in the major leagues, or once per season per team.
I am sorry I don’t have 2014-2015 examples to give you, but in 2013 Aaron Harang (5-12 with a 5.40 ERA) pitched a 2-hit complete game shutout in which he struck out 10, and also pitched a 4-hit shutout with 8 strikeouts. Also in 2013 Andrew Alberts (2-5 with a 4.05 ERA in 10 starts) pitched a 2-hit shutout with no walks, and Ryan Vogelson (4-6, 5.73 ERA) pitched 8 shutout innings, giving up only 2 hits.
In 2012 Philip Humber Humber, 5-5 with a 6.44 ERA, pitched a perfect game. Also in 2012 Ervin Santana (9-13 with a 5.16 ERA and a silly looking haircut), pitched a 1-hit shutout, and Luke Hochever (8-16 with a 5.73 ERA) but 8 innings of 1-hit shutout baseball, striking out 10 batters.
One part of my brain is still rational. But the rest of me, the emotional me, finds Trump so repellent that I think I'd rather see earth destroyed than have Trump save it and have to endure his smirking self celebrations. Well, not quite, but oh-what-a-bitter-pill-to-swallow that would be.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 7/30/2016
Right. . . having him as President would be like having Milton Bradley on your team, only worse. You HAVE to root for him to do well, but you have a difficult time enjoying his success.
HeyBill: a more nuanced take on Washington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06103o2dv5c
and then they moved to MN and started winning for a while ....
but to get my 2 cents in: we know what we'll get with Hillary, same old crap .... with Trump: possible scary or possibly better than the status quo .... I'm for change.... I think its like the Titanic: on the same course we're gonna hit the ice berg. A radical change of course could roll the ship or save it
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 7/30/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Hey Bill!
Huge Dylan fan, and while there are many wonderful covers, I think my favorite may be Nanci Griffith doing "Boots of Spanish Leather," with Dylan himself backing on harmonica. It's gorgeous. Not really a cover, but Johnny Cash's "Wanted Man," which he wrote *with* Dylan, is terrific. Stevie Wonder's "Blowin' in the Wind" was pretty great.
Asked by: mikeclaw
Answered: 8/8/2016
Well. . .I think "Wanted Man" is just kind of a silly little song that reflects the limitations of the two men more clearly than their genius. I mean, it's kind of fun; it sounds good, something you can hum a little bit. But it's really nothing. . . .Baez' version of Boots of Spanish Leather is the weakest thing on that album.
We're going to have to cut off the Dylan thread, because I am sure we are annoying the people who aren't Dylan fans, but on the subject of Johnny Cash. . .Johnny had a place in Jamaica about a mile or two away from Paul McCartney, and Cash and McCartney would hang out together sometimes. There is a song that Cash wrote and sang with McCartney and Tom T. Hall which is sort of the same thing; it is fun, but it sounds more like a couple of buddies having a few beers and making up a song on the front porch than it does like great art. What is that. . .it has "Moon" in the title, or "New Moon" or something. . . .
Diamonds and Rust provided two memorable moments: Baez's pitch-imperfect Dylan imitation on Simple Twist of Fate, and the line "my poetry was lousy, you said," which isn't hard to imagine Dylan sharing with his former girlfriend. Also, the four disc set, Chimes of Freedom, contains some interesting Dylan covers from an eclectic group, including a surprisingly good cover of You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go by Miley Cyrus, of all people.
Asked by: tampabob
Answered: 8/8/2016
Hate the Dylan impression. She does that in concerts sometimes; I think it just ruins whatever she is singing.
Hey Bill, I find it interesting that you love the Joan Baez sings Dylan album, but I find it tedious and dull. Yet we both love Bob Dylan. Most likely you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine, but sooner or later one of us will know the truth.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 8/8/2016
It isn't the Dylan I love about this album as much as the Baez.
Don't know if you want to print this but thought you might enjoy this interview with Steven Pinker on writing well and not like an academic know-it-all: http://chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Talk-Writing-Steven/237315
He cites WIlliam James, the other one, as his model of good clear prose.
Asked by: Steven Goldleaf
Answered: 8/8/2016
Thanks. I am a great admirer of the real William.. . .
While we're at it, here's a link to the "Baseball" episode of Dylan's radio show, "Theme Time Radio Hour." Streams free. Some great old tunes (1950s-heavy), and Dylan's cheerful, growly DJing. http://www.themetimeradio.com/episode-4-baseball/
Asked by: PB
Answered: 8/8/2016
Thanks.
HeyBill, if we are discussing the 1999 grand jury, what came out in 2013 was that the grand jury indicted on "child abuse," which was explained as placing JonBenet in jeopardy. The prosecutor gave that a pass...any insight as to what the grand jury was thinking?
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 8/8/2016
None at all.
The famous version of Hendrix doing "Like A Rolling Stone" is from Monterey. Jimi says "I'd like to do a song by Bob Dylan. That's his grandma over there." He's referring to bass player Noel Redding's hair. They used to tease him that he looked like Bob Dylan's Grandma. Could this be what you're thinking of?
Asked by: Steve
Answered: 8/8/2016
Could be. I'd go find it, but I just listened to it a few weeks ago, and don't feel ready to hear it again yet.
About the minors mirroring the majors: It certainly happened in the deadball era and the big-hitting '20s and '30s, at least in what later became the AAA and AA leagues (American Association, International League, Pacific Coast League, Southern Association and Texas League). In the deadball days, two or three of them had batting leaders with averages in the .290s, and in the '20s they had guys like Ike Boone and Ox Eckardt (and Paul Waner) hitting .400, plus home run sluggers like Joe Hauser and Buzz Arlett. Not to mention pitchers who went 22-16 with 4.73 ERAs.
I think your "three years later" principle applies to the use of pitchers exclusively in relief. In the majors that seemed to catch on during World War II, but it seems to me that in the minors it occurred in the early 1950s.
Asked by: BobGill
Answered: 8/8/2016
Thanks.
With regards to teams playing their home games in more than one city, the Philadelphia Warriors of the early sixties played some games in Hershey, PA. Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game (March 2, 1962) was a home game played in Hershey.
Asked by: LanceRichardson
Answered: 8/8/2016
I think it triggered 3 mile island. . . .
There are lots of great Dylan covers, of course, but recently I have taken a shine to Fairport Convention's version of "I'll Keep it With Mine" (which Dylan never has officially recorded, as I recall, though there are a couple of bootlegs at least available). Fairport did a lot of Dylan on their first couple or three albums, including a neat version of "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" in French ("Si tu dois partir").
Having Sandy Denny sing and Richard Thompson play guitar is a great place to start, mind you!
Asked by: hortonwho
Answered: 8/8/2016
Thanks.
Especially horrible since the first line, "My Love, She Speaks in Silence," is a beautiful title. Dylan's genius is his perversity--sometimes serves him well, sometimes amazingly poorly. Personally, I have a hard time understand his vocalizations the past couple of decades, or the choice to sing like that--the man obviously knows how to sing and to enunciate, but chooses not to. He could call some of his songs "Mumble Mumble Mumble" for all I can make out. Maybe just "She Speaks in Silence" is even better. Or "The Bridge at Midnight." Or anything else.
Asked by: 337
Answered: 8/8/2016
Yeah, my wife says she can't understand a word he says. But I have no trouble with it. Part of what Baez doez that brings the songs out is that she enunciates so, so clearly--as if she was deliberately doing with the song what Dylan would never do. "Si-len-ce becomes three clear syllabels, rather than "was he saying "signs" or "science"?"
Dylan, as you probably know, is a pretty big baseball fan, if you've heard the song "Catfish" or seen this picture of him reading USA Today Baseball Weekly in a convenience store: http://s199.photobucket.com/user/stinkingbadges2/media/BobDylanreadingBaseballWeeklysm.jpg.html
I'd be shocked if he was unfamiliar with your work; have you ever heard anything about that?
Asked by: TJNawrocki
Answered: 8/8/2016
Nope. I'd be very surprised.
Hey Bill, when A-Rod first joined the Yankees they really couldn't move Jeter off shortstop to accommodate him. But can you venture a guess as to how many games that probably cost the Yankees? Any pennants?
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 8/8/2016
As opposed to playing Shane Spencer at shortstop all these years?
In 2003 and 2004 phe Expos played in San Juan Puerto Rico, not the Dominican
Asked by: Odieman
Answered: 8/7/2016
Thanks. Should have known I would screw that up.
Hey, Bill, just would like to second you re: Joan Baez's superlative Dylan covers. I'd nominate her version of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" (great version of a great, great song) as BDCE (Best Dylan Cover Ever), but really it's just one of many wonderful recordings she did of his work.
Asked by: Jack
Answered: 8/7/2016
That's right. . .horrible title, isn't it? But it's a great version of a great song.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
I was just checking Willie Davis' stats and noticed an oddity. Right smack in the middle of his career--age 29 in 1969-he had a K/W ratio of almost 1:1. But in every other season both before and after, his K/W ratio was 2:1, 3:1, even 4:1. Any idea what was going on there?
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 8/16/2016
Well, point a, you have overstated the effect a little; Davis' strikeout/walk ratio was not 1:1 in 1969, and he had I think four other seasons when it was better than 2:1 (although he also had seasons when it was 5:1). In 1963, as most of you know, major league baseball (abbreviated MLB by people who are too lazy to type). . .major league baseball redefined the strike zone to help the pitchers. This (and other factors) pitched baseball into a six-year run drought. It effected different hitters differently, and Willie Davis appears to have been heavily impacted. Davis' OPS in 1963 dropped from .787 to .646, and his strikeout to walk ratio in 1963 degenerated from 72-42 to 61-25.
In 1969, realizing that the domination of the game by pitchers was negatively impacting attendance, baseball reversed itself, and restored the old strike zone. This helped Davis and every other hitter, but also, the mound was lowered at that time, and, perhaps of equal importance, the policy was adoped of MEASURING the mound before every series so that teams did not build their mound up higher than the rules allowed. The Dodgers had done that for years, helping out their tall pitchers (Koufax and Drysdale). So the effect on Dodger hitters may have been even greater than on other teams--and it was a major change everywhere. Dodger hitters had struck out 980 times in 1968, and their pitchers had struck out 994 hitters. In 1969 those numbers dropped to 823 and 975.
J. J. Hardy, who has the same career strikeout walk ratio as Davis (23-10), had a better strikeout/walk ratio than Davis in '69 in his rookie season, 2004 (Hardy was 48-44; Davis was 39-33). Bill Skowron, who also has the same 23-10 strikeout/walk ratio, also had good strikeout/walk ratios early in his career, and he, like Davis, was strongly effected by the 1963 strike zone revision. But no player with a 23-10 strikeout/walk ratio has ever had a better strikeout/walk ratio than Davis did in 1969 with 500 or more plate appearances. Omar Moreno was close in 1978, and Lou Brock was close in 1971.
Hey Bill,
Back in April there were a few questions about Jose Altuve's apparent improvement in the areas of drawing walks and hitting for power, which you dismissed at the time. What do you think now? I see part of it is luck, as his BABIP and HR/FB are above his normal levels, and his walk rate has dropped off a little lately. Still, is he truly a better/different hitter now?
Asked by: W.T.Mons10
Answered: 8/14/2016
Yeah, but since the All Star break he has hit only .444.
Hey, Bill, in today's game against the Red Sox, Zack Greinke gave up 10 hits and 9 runs, all earned, in 1 2/3 innings, for a game score of -12. It's hard for me to imagine a worse start and hence a worse game score; is they in the 99th percentile of bad starts?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 8/14/2016
Yes, certainly.
What is more common, a minor league second baseman moving to the outfield in the majors, or a third baseman in the minors moving to the outfield in the majors?
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 8/14/2016
I would say a second baseman, but I haven't studied it.
Is it more likely for a starting pitcher or for a reliever to hold the crown for longest active streak of scoreless innings? Is there a certain number of innings that tilts it in the favor of SPs and vice versa? Thanks.
Asked by: crainm
Answered: 8/14/2016
No idea.
I can further recommend Caro's 5-volume LBJ bio, a sympathetic portrait of a monster (the fifth volume is still in preparation--I await it and your forthcoming crime book with equal anticipation). Caro, like some other excellent writers I could name, seems to disregard editorial suggestions to cut back on digressions--some of the best sections don't concern LBJ at all. Maybe the section I learned the most from in the Master of the Senate volume (which is the best one so far, I agree) is the 100-page digression on the life of Richard Russell, another brilliant monster, a scholar, a gentleman and a dedicated segregationist crucial to LBJ's rise. I learned more about how the Senate works historically (and why it doesn't work, in any practical sense) from this book than I learned in several PoliSci courses.
Asked by: Steven Goldleaf
Answered: 8/14/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill,
Regarding the breakeven point for the success rate of attempted stolen bases: Is the breakeven point different for steals of third than it would be for steals of second base?
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 8/14/2016
Sure. The percentage is higher if you're stealing third. But what is that.. .5% of stolen base attempts?
Re Willie Davis: you once wrote that his stats are unfair since he played in a terrible hitters park in a pitcher-dominant era. It's fun to speculate about these things. Say he played in fenway park in the 1990s. How good would he have been? Hall of famer?
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 8/14/2016
Oh yes, certainly. You don't have to adjust him in to a high-run context to make him a Hall of Famer; all you have to do is get him OUT of Dodger Stadium in the 1960s. The numbers of the 1990s are inflated because a lot of players were using steroids. What you're adjusting for there is not JUST the era; if you adjust the context you are implicitly assuming that he would be using steroids, which we don't KNOW to be true. Willie was never well liked, was disrespectful to the media and to teammates, and these things hurt him in Hall of Fame voting. But in. . .well, Cincinnati in the 1970s, Detroit in the 1950s, Pittsburgh in the 1980s; he'd be a Hall of Famer because his numbers would demand it.
Bill - I seem to recall once reading, in a discussion of yours concerning a famous base stealer, or of base stealing in general, that below a certain success rate (in the neighborhood of 75%, if memory serves) baserunners do more harm than good to their team's offensive production. Is it indeed possible to calculate such a cut-off figure, and if so, what is it? Thanks for your time.
Asked by: Estienne11
Answered: 8/14/2016
There are some disagreements as to how we should calculate that number, but 75% is probably too high. The LOWEST number that could be the breakeven percentage is 65%; most people say 65 or 67%, some as high as 70. Below that percentage, you're costing your team runs by attempting to steal bases.
Was watching the Indians-Angels game earlier (with Mark Gubicza joining CLE's Matt Underwood in some kind of joint FOX telecast), and I got to thinking about Andrelton. I looked him up and it somehow escaped my attention that the man had hit 17 HRs in his first full season -- and garnered MVP votes. In the two and a half seasons since then, he's got 12 HRs. Shades of Boggs in 1987 although the comp is far from exact. I know you might get tired of this form of question (good old Cliff Lee) but is that early power spike distinctive, worrisome, weird, or what?
Asked by: wovenstrap
Answered: 8/14/2016
Well, I would put it that way: that there are 100 or more seasons in baseball history that I would have to regard as fundamentally similar to this. Bill Mazeroski (aged 21) hit 19 homers in 1958, 8 the year before, 7 the year after, never hit as many as 19 again although he had a Hall of Fame career. Whitey Lockman hit 18 homers at age 21, then 11 and 6 the next two seasons, never hit as many as 18 again. Sam Crawford in 1901 hit 16 homers at the age of 21, then hit 3, 4 and 2 the next three year, never hit as many as 16 again although he had a Hall of Fame career. Willie Davis hit 21 homers at age 22, then hit 9 and 12 the next two years, never hit as many as 21 again although he had 2500 hits in the major leagues. Aurelio Rodriguez hit 19 homers at age 22, never hit as many as 19 again although he had a long career (and, like Mazeroski and Simmons, was a brilliant defensive player.) Omar Infante hit 16 homers at age 22, then never hit as many as ten again under 2012. Dixie Walker hit 15 homers in half a season at age 22 in 1933, then never hit in double figures again until 1944, hit as many as ten homers in a season only one more time in a long career. Denis Menke (shortstop) hit 20 homers at age 23, never hit that many again although he played 1600 major league games. Jose Reyes hit 19 homers in 2003 at age 23, has never hit that many again. Boob McNair (shortstop) hit 18 homers at age 23 in 1932, never hit that many again and sometimes hit less than ten in a season. Angel Berroa (shortstop) hit 17 homers in 2003, aged 23, had only one more season in double figures in home runs, that number being 11. Edgar Renteria (shortstop) hit 16 homers in 2000, aged 23, never hit that many homers in a season again (although he was usually in double figures.) Tony Kubek (shortstop) hit 14 homers in 1960, aged 23, never hit more than 8 in any season. Eddie Miller, a great defensive shortstop, hit 14 homers in 1940, aged 23, then hit 6, 6, 2 and 4 over the next four seasons, playing regularly every year; he did later hit as many as 19 homers, as Simmons might do as well. It seems to me a relatively common phenomenon.
I agree about the M*A*S*H tv series. I saw the movie a few years ago. It still works for me. My good friend was in Korea in 1972. He was a Colonel's driver. The reason you didn't see too many officers, was that they were all busy getting stereo's, camera's and other electronics from Japan and shipping it home. Once he had to take a deuce and half to pick up a load. What 'villa' forgot to mention and maybe it's because he didn't experience it, when Hawaiians get drunk, the combination of slang, accent, pidgin and a Hawaiian word tossed in, you're lucky if you can understand half of what is being said. It can be very funny. The bruddah get so jacked up, you no can tell what he talking. Get puka in the head sometimes I thinking.
Asked by: mauimike
Answered: 8/14/2016
I was in Korea in "72. . .September '72 to October '73, as I recall. I vaguely remember the Japanese shopping trips. . .thanks.
Hey Bill, I liked the movie just fine, it was the tv show that influenced me...negatively...because of its political posturing, even though I was in agreement with it. It's influence was that I came to realize that my own positions (and theirs) were also somewhat simplistic and even ridiculous.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 8/14/2016
I hardly ever watched the show. I remember that my sister and her kids had some school event in the small town where I was living on the day of the show's last episode, and they wanted to run by my house to see the last episode as soon as their school event was over. I was very surprised to learn that it was still on the air, as I hadn't seen it (or thought about it) for years.
Just wanted to chime in about Robert Caro. Master of the Senate, the third in the LBJ series, is one of my favorite books; I've read two of the other three, and they were good but not on the same level. I recall reading that Caro loves Dickens, and that certainly seems to influence what he's doing: it's literature, more than biography. He doesn't invent facts -- everything in there is true, to my knowledge -- but he sculpts the facts in such a way that you get a gripping story, which seems to be the intent. (I haven't read In Cold Blood, but from the way you talk about it in Popular Crime, it may be similar in that regard.) Anyway, Master of the Senate is fantastic reading.
Asked by: RipCity
Answered: 8/14/2016
I know many people who admire the book greatly. Thanks.
During Wednesday's Yankees/Red Sox game, Fernando Abad was pitching to Chase Headley at one point during the game, and while behind in the count, Abad, throwing left, delivered an eephus like offspeed pitch to Headley, batting right. You once said that one of the things you learned from being involved with the baseball insiders with the Sox was that lefties never throw changeups to righthanded hitters. Is this now changing?
Asked by: mrm10128
Answered: 8/14/2016
I doubt that I said that lefties NEVER throw changeups to lefties. If I said that, it was inartfully stated. Lefties traditionally throw changeups to right-handed batters much much more often than to left-handed hitters. Probably 80% of changeups thrown are to off-side hitters (rather than same-side hitters), but not 100%. And yes, this IS changing. Pitchers use the changeup to same-side hitters much more now than they did ten years ago, I believe.
Hey, Bill, I was listening to a baseball game on the radio today and one of the announcers said that in pennant races, teams really value veterans because they know how to hit when an important game is on the line. If that is true, it must mean that veterans tend to hit better with respect to their season average in such games than players with less experience do. Is there evidence on that one way or the other? Just watching and listening to games, it doesn't seem true to me, but that's not even anecdotal.
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 8/14/2016
No one can demonstrate that there is such an effect, no. If you look at 22-year-olds and veterans of the same ability, same average and OPS, there is no evidence of there being any separation in performance in big games.
©2016 Be Jolly, Inc. All Rights Reserved.|
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Speaking of Kimbrel, do you know why (or can you say why) he was traded by Atlanta? I never understood that trade. Although as a Nats fan, I can't recall ever being happier about another team trading someone.
Asked by: pbspelly
Answered: 8/23/2016
No; in fact, I am totally mystified by what happened to Atlanta. All I know is, one moment they had Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward, Craig Kimbrel and Andrelton Simmons, and it looked like they were headed for 100 wins a year, and it seemed like 20 seconds later they had nothing. But I have no understanding of what happened.
Speaking of platoon differentials, I remember reading once that there could be some advantage gained regarding specific platoon matchups when considering flyball/grounbdball hitters vs. groundball/flyball pitchers. Do you know if there is any validity to this?
Asked by: Jeff (Chicago)
Answered: 8/23/2016
I remember the theory. It is easy for people to CLAIM that things like that are true, based on small samples of data. But advantages like that virtually always disappear with more research.
Found online some book called "100 things rangers fans should do before they die". #63 in that gives some background on Burkett.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 8/23/2016
Thanks, but I'm just not following this. Your "explanation" (which I cut) assumes that I know things that I don't actually know. . ..
Is it possible that there is a skill in platoon, but that there's a ceiling that's reached quickly by major leaguers? Analyzing a huge data set we might be able to test for that. If players have a larger split (on average) for the first couple of years, and this fades as they (as the group of all players) get experience it should leave a footprint.
While platooning in the right situation can be advantageous, other choices can probably hinder player development. Some teams used to push switch hitting on people who had never done it before... With poor results.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 8/23/2016
Pretty sure that has been studied, but. . .well, more studies are always welcome.
According to Wikipedia, John Burkett is "a part-time professional bowler, and has 12 perfect games to his credit. He finished 15th in the 2015 Suncoast PBA Senior US Open."
I was actually looking for why Burkett was granted free agency just as the strike was settled (April 1995) AFTER the Giants traded him to the Rangers the previous December for a couple of decent players (Rich Aurilia and Desi Wilson). Instead the Marlins signed him and eventually traded him to the Rangers a year and a half later for Ryan Dempster and Rick Helling. I could not find an explanation that makes sense. Baseball-Reference's Bullpen says the Rangers preferred to keep Kenny Rogers - as if that was their only choice.
Asked by: hotstatrat
Answered: 8/23/2016
No idea.
I have no questions about what you are saying about platoon differentials. I understand what you are saying. I am sure this means I'm missing something. What can I do? I don't know what I don't know. The only way to learn something is to have a question about it.
Okay, here's a way to test your assertion: If true, then the smaller the sample size, the more volatile the differentials should be; as we we look at a players career differential, it should get smaller at each age (as his career totals get larger and larger). Given what you have written, I assume this is true.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 8/23/2016
Yes, it certainly is, but the flaw in that argument is that the conditional outcome you suggest (diminishing volatility of platoon differentials) might very well be present, even if the initial assertion is false.
Do you think some of the reason people assume the platoon split is more important is that its been a successful strategy for so many teams? In other words, does the fact that two above average players can produce better numbers together if used the right way make fans want players to be platooned more? I've also always liked it as a strategy because you get bench players who are playing regularly.
Asked by: williamhfloyd
Answered: 8/23/2016
It's a consistent bias which is usable in strategy. You can't really platoon players home and road, because that would mean players sit for a long time and then play for a long time, which is impractical. You can't platoon against power pitchers and off-speed pitchers, because the classes are difficult to define. A platoon advantage is there, is real, and can be exploited. You're looking for a DAY on which to sit a player down, the day on which a lefty is coming up is an obvious choice for a lefty hitter. You're looking for a chance to get somebody in the lineup, the lefty is an obvious choice.
I am not in any way suggesting that the advantage is not real or is not meaningful. It is both real and meaningful. I'm merely arguing that it is not an individual variable.
So would you say that season of Kimbrel with the 27 hits and 116 strikeouts was the greatest season any reliever has ever had, based on season scores, war or however else you want to measure it?
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 8/23/2016
Oh, no. Kimbrel was fantastic, but pitched only 68 innings. He's not equal in value to relievers who pitched at a high level of effectiveness in 120 or more innings.
Hey, Bill. May years ago, I was thinking about the platoon advantage for submarine pitchers (actually, I was thinking about the Carl Mays pitch that killed Ray Chapman). It seemed to me at the time that a submariner's curve ball would break the opposite way from an overhander's or even a sidearmer's. This would tend to make the platoon differential the opposite, too. A righty submariner's curve would break "up", maybe actually up instead of just perceptually, and in to a righty hitter, rather than down and away (Until I found some contemporary accounts, I just figured that Mays had thrown a curve that sailed on him). Skipping anything more about Mays, which is one incident, is the principle true? Do submariners have opposite platoon splits from other pitchers?
Asked by: Brock Hanke
Answered: 8/23/2016
Definitely not. Submariners, almost without exception, have HUGE platoon splits going in the normal direction. Ted Abernathy, Kent Tekulve and Dan Quisenberry had career OPS against right-handed hitters of .621, .557 and .598, but OPS against left-handed hitters of .760, .758 and .718.
After reading your answer to Flyingfish regarding the platoon factor, I might argue that pitch movement is not quite as large a factor as the other factor you listed (the angle of engagement, for lack of a better term). When a batter has the platoon advantage he has the pitcher's arm lined up with the strike zone in his vision. Without the advantage he has to move his eyes in the opposite direction as his swing, in effect giving his swing one more complicated (or complicating) moving part to deal with.
I had never really thought about it that way before. Now that I have, I am surprised that the natural platoon advantage isn't much larger.
Asked by: ventboys
Answered: 8/22/2016
Pat Venditte for Cy Young.
Bill, if I understand what you are saying about platoon splits, it means that every hitter's differential is about the same but the absolute numbers will be different. IE, Ted Williams will have the same relative differential in performance between righty and lefty pitchers as, say, Jay Bruce, but his absolute numbers against lefties will be better because his overall numbers are better. So, Williams' numbers against a left-handed pitcher will decline as much as Bruce's but, since he is (was) a much better hitter than Bruce, his absolute numbers against lefties will be better. Do I have that right?
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 8/22/2016
Yes, but of course, we need to be careful about absolutes. A player's platoon differential does expand proportionately with his hitting ability; that is, a player with a .900 OPS will have a larger platoon differential than a player with an .800 OPS, .800 higher than .700, etc.; the platoon differential is proportional to the ability. Also, the platoon differential occurs on the "true outcomes" (strikeouts, walks and home runs), rather than on the balls in play, so that if you compare an Adam Dunn/Mickey Tettleton/Chris Davis/Joc Pederson type hitter to a Juan Pierre/Daniel Murphy/Jose Iglesias/Erick Aybar type hitter, you'll get a smaller platoon differential when there are more balls in play, given the same OPS. And of course there is SOME individual variation in the tendency. But the individual variation in the tendency is trivial, and baseball men would be ahead of where they are if they would simply ignore it, and assume that there is no such factor.
Hey Bill, I wonder where a season like Kris Medlen's 2012 fits into the split-role Cy Young candidate discussion. Transitioned halfway through that year from being a good reliever to absolutely dominating as a starter. He didn't get a vote: Almost a hundred innings fewer than Dickey and Kershaw (who finished 1-2) isn't going to earn him an award over those guys, but it seems like he was perhaps a better pitcher than Kimbrel (5th) or Chapman (8th), or a couple of the down-ballot starting pitchers. I don't really have any good perspective from which to compare a split-role guy to the best starters or the best relievers, though.
Asked by: Edward
Answered: 8/22/2016
I became a baseball fan in the spring of 1961, and was an obsessive fan within weeks, but my "encyclopedia" of the game at that time was basically what was on the player's baseball cards. I didn't have any understanding of what had happened in 1927 or 1955 or 1957 or 1959; I knew 1960, then 1961, then 1962. I remember noticing in the summer of 1963 that if you took took HALF of the MVP from each league in 1960 or in 1962, you would not have an MVP season. In 1960 the MVPs were Maris and Groat. If you took half of Maris' season and half of Groat's, you would have a player who hit 20 or 21 home runs, 22 doubles, 6 triples, drove in 81 runs, hit .304, stole one base and scored 92 runs, drew 55 walks. . .a good player, but certainly not an MVP candidate. In 1962 the MVPs were Mantle and Maury Wills. If you took half of Mantle's season and half of Wills', you would have a player who hit .310 with 18 homers, 69 RBI, 14 doubles (!), 165 hits, 57 stolen bases. . .a good player, but certainly not an MVP. On the other hand, in 1961, if you combined Maris and Frank Robinson you WOULD have an MVP season, because Maris and Robinson were enough alike (both being power-hitting right fielders) that they made a cohesive package, and in 1964 Boyer and Brooks Robinson were enough alike that you could combine them and make a strong MVP candidate.
The body breaks down simple chemical compounds into energy much more rapidly than it breaks down complex chemical compounds. The mind makes sense of simple combinations much more easily than it makes sense of complex combinations. A half-and-half season is a complex combination.
Regarding Medlen, I think you're a little bit high on him. Medlen had 12 starts, which is a third of a season as a starter, and 38 appearances in middle relief, which is half of a middle-relief season. Adding it together you're a little bit short; there isn't QUITE a full season there, although he did pitch very well in about 84% of a full season. I credit him with the 10th best season score among NL pitchers, and I could not agree that he should rank ahead of Kimbrel or Chapman. Kimbrel struck out 116 batters and gave up 27 hits, which is kind of an astonishing thing. Chapman struck out 122 batters and gave up 35 hits. Medlen struck out 120 batters and gave up 103 hits. Kimbrel's ERA was 1.01; Medlen's was 1.57. Medlen pitched twice as many innings as Chapman or Kimbrel, yes, but Chapman and Kimbrel were pitching high-leverage innings, innings when the game was on the line. Medlen, I would guess, pitched very, very few high-leverage innings--certainly fewer than Kimbrel, Chapman, Dickey or Kershaw (gesundheit.) It's a good season, but I don't see him as a Cy Young candidate.
Hey, Bill, on platoon differential, here's how I figure it. There is a basic platoon differential that causes hitters to hit less well (lower average, less power) in general against same-side pitchers. This is caused by the asymmetry of the mechanics of pitching and hitting. There are a few outliers--hitters who hit unusually well or unusually poorly against same-side pitchers, and pitchers who don't produce a platoon differential or have an unusually large platoon differential--but as a general pattern, the platoon differential is real. However, looking at a player's statistics from only one season is misleading and hence a waste of time, because the sample size is too small. You have to look at what happens over players' careers.
Is this about right?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 8/22/2016
Well, no, I would say that it is 70 to 80% wrong, but it is specific enough that it contributes to the progress of understanding, so I appreciate it all the same.
To say that it is caused by the asymmetry of the mechanics. . I don't think that's EXACTLY right unless it is interpreted in vague terms. It is caused by the break of the pitch and the line of vision of the hitter. A right-hander's pitch normally breaks away from a right-handed batter and in to a left-hander. It is just a little bit easier to hit a pitch which is moving toward you than it is to hit a pitch which is moving away from you, but in the high-expectations business of hitting a baseball, that little advantage seems must larger. Also. . .well, a person waiting for a taxi will not normally stand with his feet both on the curb; he will normally turn his body at a right angle from the street so that he can see the taxis coming. Having both feet up against the street and craning your head to the right is a more awkward position. The hitter, to hit the ball, HAS to stand in the more awkward position, and thus is less able to see the pitch, but has a better look at the pitch if it is from an opposite-side pitcher.
To say that there are "a few" outliers creates the impression that there might be 15 or 20% of hitters who are outliers, when in fact it is probably less than 1% (among hitters), and may be less than 1/10th of 1%.
In general your third point is accurate. To say that it is "misleading and therefore a waste of time" is not completely inaccurate, since many people are misled by this and much time is wasted on it, but I wouldn't go so far as to phrase it that way, but in general your third point is accurate.
Hey, Bill, I don't understand your answer to rtayatay about hitters' abilities to hit left-handed versus right-handed pitching. At the end of your answer, you wrote: "But if you focus not on single-season data but on the CAREER data, and you focus not on the exceptions but on the patterns, you see that everybody tends to have about the same platoon differential over time." First, your answer seems to say that a differential ability to hit opposite-hand or same-hand pitchers ("platoon differential"?) isn't a real thing. Second, the part of your answer I quoted seems to say that everyone's platoon differential is the same over a career, so all hitters roughly have the same amount lower hitting statistics against same-side pitchers as compared with their statistics against opposite-side pitchers when you consider their whole careers. Would you be willing to try to explain it again?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 8/22/2016
Pretty sure you can figure it out.
Should Danny Duffy be getting some love for the Cy Young, or does he have either too few starts, or too few relief appearances?
Asked by: 77royals
Answered: 8/22/2016
I'd have to think that he is becoming a candidate, but it's getting late in the year and he'd have to continue to pitch well. No one in a split role has ever won the Cy Young Award, with the arguable exception of Dean Chance in 1964; Chance had 11 relief appearances. In both 1959 and 1960, it may well be that pitchers in split roles DESERVED the award, but didn't win it. Sam Jones in 1959 made 15 relief appearances as well as 35 starts, and Jones may well have been the best pitcher in baseball, pitching 271 innings with a 2.82 ERA, both figures better than the Cy Young Award winner, Early Wynn. Jones struck out more batters than Wynn and walked fewer, led the National League in ERA and was tied for the lead in wins (21), but finished a distant second in the Cy Young voting, Wynn getting 13 of the 16 votes, Jones 2. One can ALSO argue that the man who got the other vote, Bob Shaw, was more deserving that Wynn; they were teammates, and Shaw had a better ERA and winning percentage, more runs saved. Shaw had 26 starts and 21 relief appearances, could have won the award.
In 1960 Ernie Broglio finished 21-9 with a 2.74 ERA, while Vern Law went 20-9 with a 3.09 ERA, but Law won the Award. . .I think for a long time that was the only time one pitcher had won the award when another pitcher had a better won-lost record AND a better ERA. Broglio had 24 starts and 28 relief appearances, probably should have won, but didn't. That year the Cardinals started the season with Lindy McDaniel in the starting rotation and Ernie Broglio in the bullpen. Both failed, switched to the other role--and they were perhaps the two best pitchers in the National League. They got one vote apiece in the Cy Young voting.
Since then, no split role pitcher has a strong Cy Young case. In 1962 Hank Aguirre had a very good year, starting in the bullpen and moving into the starting rotation, but he wasn't going to take it away from Don Drysdale. In 1972 Luis Tiant had a year like that, but was competing with Gaylord Perry, who had a season in the top 30% of all Cy Young years.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Hey Bill,
I've watched the As for a few years. Is it my imagination, or selection bias, or do they have more pitcher injuries than other teams?
Thanks
Steve
Asked by: SteveN
Answered: 8/31/2016
It is possible they do. The A's try to create value by taking pitchers out of the minor leagues and leading them across the bridge into the major league population. This creates value for your organization if you can do it, since a proven major league pitcher is of greatly more value than a pitcher who is merely perceived as having potential. The A's do this all the time, and have done it successfully many times. . . for example, Gio Gonzalez was regarded as having potential. The A's traded for him as a prospect, let him prove that he could pitch in the majors, and then traded him as a major league pitcher. But a risk inherent in doing this is that young pitchers who are unproven at the major league level may well be vulnerable to injuries when they are exposed to the high-arm stress environment of major league pitching.
Is there any way that baseball can reduce the number of strikeouts in a game without massive changes in other areas? By that I mean suppose they increased the distance to home plate to 65 feet. I imagine strikeout would go do but offense would jump a lot as it did in the 1890s
Asked by: ZachSmith
Answered: 8/31/2016
Yes, I have been meaning to write an article, "50 things you can do to decrease strikeouts without messing with the strike zone", but I haven't made time to write it. . .probably aren't actually 50 things you can do, anyway. There are many, many things you can do to reduce strikeouts.
Hey Bill,
When I was a wee lad my buddy and I used to pretend to award expansion cities new teams and design stadiums and uniforms for them. Architecturally, we liked to rebel against the prevailing multi-use cookie cutter stadiums of our youth (we grew up with Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati). In what we thought was a clever design, my friend drew up a stadium which had fair territory which was a perfect 1/4 of a circle - the wall was a uniform 360' from home. We were laughing about it the other day, when I said, hey, why wasn't this ever done? Why are fields uniformly deeper to center? Is it because older stadiums used to have to fit in a city block and nobody changed? Anyway, we thought if anyone knew, it would be you. Any ideas?
Asked by: deberly
Answered: 8/31/2016
Well, think about it. It's 90 feet from home plate to first base. It's 126 feet (I think) from home plate to SECOND base. If center field was as close as left field, you would have (a) very little center field area, and (b) many, many home runs to center field. Not saying that it would be a BAD game if the center field fence was that close to home plate, but it would be an entirely DIFFERENT game than baseball.
About the picture of the pig. It always goes back to pork and beans.
Asked by: mauimike
Answered: 8/31/2016
The pig was Wilbur.
Hey Bill. I love your recent use of the photos in Hey Bill. Please continue.
Asked by: wilbur
Answered: 8/30/2016
HeyBill, so talking about Kaepernick in Reader's Posts...ever remember anything like that in baseball? How would that play in Boston with the Pats or the Red Sox?
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 8/30/2016
I can't speak for Boston; I'm not even a Bostonian. You may remember that Carlos Delgado refused to stand for the National anthem, and this was ten years ago when Post-9/11 patriotism was higher than it is now. It wasn't as big a deal, because Delgado was not a US citizen and was not playing for a US team, but he did get booed in some cities for a year or so.
Of course the example of one team doesn't argue a general point, but, re whether the best players are less apt to have a good burst when a team that's going lousy gets a new manager, my first exposure to such a situation was the 1966 Yankees, when they replaced the mismatched Johnny Keane with Ralph Houk. The team had been 4-16, then went on a 13-4 run in Houk's first 17 games. I checked Mantle and Maris, and they both had big bumps during those games. Mantle, previously .280/.368/.360 (very good numbers except no power), went .268/.380/.585 in those next 17. Maris, previously .190/.309/.276, went .326/.377/.522. Not suggesting anything general, just mentioning.
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 8/29/2016
Thanks.
I think the scenario you described (about releasing a player but telling him he'll be welcomed back when the situation changes) is exactly what happened with Steve Pearce in 2014; the announcers on the Orioles' games used to talk about it later that season. In this case he apparently got an offer or two after being released, but turned them down because he wanted to stay with the Orioles.
This seems like one of those cases you've mentioned before, where it's in the team's interest to be honest with a player -- not just because this time they got Pearce back and he had a career year, but because the story gets around and then other players might be more likely to sign with Baltimore because they believe Showalter and Duquette are straight shooters.
Asked by: BobGill
Answered: 8/29/2016
Another thing that can happen is that the manager sometimes likes a player, but the front office isn't sold on him, or the GM may like a player but the manager may not like him. Then the player may be listening to the party who is on his side--but you know there's a clock there. If the manager can't get him back on the roster within a few days, he's probably going to move on.
Steve Pearce has a little Carl Sawatski in him. .677 OPS in his 20s, struggled to get playing time. .838 so far in his 30s.
Also the only player I can recall who was released early in a season like his 2014 (.930 OPS, 5+ WAR). The Orioles had a roster crunch, he wasn't playing that well and they waived him, only to resign him when circumstances changed and nobody'd claimed him two days later.
Asked by: jwilt
Answered: 8/29/2016
Yeah. . .it's easy to say now, but I always liked Pearce. There's another guy like that, used to be with Oakland. . .catcher. Can't think of the name. Stephen Vogt. . .had to look it up.
Many times when you release a guy like that, you explain to him that you believe in him, as a player; you haven't given up on him, you're just caught in a numbers crunch right now, and you have to cut somebody to have enough healthy bodies. If he wants to sign somewhere else, of course he can, but if he doesn't sign somewhere else he is welcome to return to the organization as soon as he is clear of waivers, and if he plays well maybe you can get him back on the roster in a couple of weeks. I think we cut Sandy Leon last winter, but Thank God nobody else realized how good he could be.
Bill, would changing managers twice in a season create 2 improved stretches of performance?
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 8/29/2016
Only if the second manager was as bad as the first one. It has to do with the power of hope. When a manager is fired, players think, "OK, I've got a chance to show what I can do here. There's an opening for me now." Sometimes guys have a burst of energy. I would predict that more detailed research would show that the Stan Musials, the Ted Williamses, Mickey Mantles and Mike Trouts don't have any burst of better-than-normal performance, but that the further down the food chain you go, the more likely you are to see a little streak.
Actually, my congratulations on your adding a picture wasn't sarcasm. You've mentioned from time to time your struggles with this IT stuff, and I very much sympathize.
Almost thirty years ago, I was the wunderkind in my office, because I could make a spreadsheet sing. Now, because I don't make beautiful Powerpoints, I'm the fading old guy. Never mind that I can still make the numbers sing, if I can't show it with flash, who cares?
I think of you as one of those who prove that substance is far better than style. Keep it up.
BTW, that pic isn't far off from my younger look ;)
Asked by: Bruce
Answered: 8/29/2016
Mine, either. My apologies for misinterpreting it as sarcasm. It actually isn't that I have learned something, as much as IT improvements to the site, I think. Just look at it this way: we're 15, 20 years younger than Willie Nelson. . .
HeyBill, re: performance after changing managers. I remember when I read your managers book, I wondered how mean reversion would wash over any effect of a performance improvement from managerial change. In other words, teams firing their managers are by their nature underperforming at that moment, and the immutable laws of the universe would say most will improve. No?
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 8/29/2016
Sure, but I don't think that's it.
Hey, Bill, manhattani asked about whether teams play better then they are psyched up than otherwise. A few days ago, the Dodgers traded part-time catcher A.J. Ellis to the Phillies for part-time catcher Carlos Ruiz. Apparently both are considered good defensive catchers and clubhouse leaders, but Ruiz's offensive numbers are better. Talk radio was all a-twitter (pun intended) about this, with the gist of the comments being that it's crazy for the Dodgers to disrupt a happy clubhouse by trading away a clubhouse leader and favorite--apparently Ellis's teammates were in tears--in a tight pennant race and that clubhouse chemistry trumps analytics. On the last, I feel strongly that it's a mistake to pit analytics "against" any other kind of information, they should be additive; but in general, is there any evidence to support the notion that clubhouse chemistry is worth a few wins a year?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 8/29/2016
Well, there are two things that I would look at very closely were I do try to study that issue with an analytical approach. Both are related to managerial changes. I believe it is documented that, when teams change managers in mid season, they normally have a burst of improved performance; in other words, they play at a substantially different level during their first 20-25 games after the change. The second deals with same factor, but on a different time scale. It SEEMS to me that when you chart changes of direction for a team, over time--large scale changes of direction--that those changes normally coincide with changes of managers.
I will tell you, although this is only opinion, that (based on what I understand) that if I had a choice between hiring a manager who was analytically solid but not skilled at managing relationships among people or a manager who had strong people skills but was weak analytically, I would absolutely hire the latter, without any doubt. That has ALWAYS been my view, but my years with the Red Sox have certainly re-inforced that position.
Hey, Bill. Don't know how much to talk about Sawatski but I am willing to give the Cubs a bit of a break. They got him in 1948, after he had beat up class D ball for the Braves, and promoted him to A ball, where he hit well, as he did in 1949 at AA. In 1950, he hit great in AA, not at all in Chicago. Then there were two years of military service, which explains why the Cubs never let him try AAA ball. When he got back in 1953, the Cubs gave him a small chance, but he didn't hit, so they sent him to the White Sox, where he didn't hit, and then to the Giants, who let him destroy AAA pitching for a couple of years. The the Braves and Phillies shuttled him around for a few years, and then to the Cards. I understand how the Cubs could have gone through that process. It's the Giants I don't understand. In all, Sawatski had minor league seasons of 34, 29, 45, 24, 27, and 22 homers.
Asked by: Brock Hanke
Answered: 8/28/2016
I fail to see how any of that is a defense of the Cubs.
Hi Bill, hypothetical. A minor league player invites a college friend of his for a "tryout" in spring training. The friend was a 4 year backup QB at a football factory school. He hasn't played baseball since high school, but he throws hard, a lot harder than he did in high school. He is completely unpolished; never strides the same way twice, rarely throws the ball within 8 inches of where he is aiming, no second pitch. But, he does hit "X" on the radar gun, so the team, thinking "you never know", offers him him some sort of minimum contract. For a right hander what is "X"? For a left hander?
Asked by: mikejenkins
Answered: 8/28/2016
Maybe 93 for a lefty, 95 for a righty. We're certainly not going to offer a contract to somebody JUST because they can hit 90 anymore, on a modern radar gun; there are kids in Junior colleges who throw 90 but don't get on the mound and don't get drafted. There is a point at which the arm itself becomes a worthwhile investment, probably, but it's certainly north of 90 MPH.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Another way to look at the "moderator" issue is that they (journalists) are our representatives in the debate, and their job includes keeping the candidates answering their questions, not the questions that the candidates want to be asked. If one candidate decides to game the debate system by delivering up a word-salad of nonsense or deflective red meat responses, I personally want the moderator (at the least) to point out how his or her question is being ignored. Not across the board, and not in picky way, of course, betraying an obvious bias on the moderator's part, but judiciously and when pushed beyond the bounds of insulting the moderators intelligence. Otherwise, why not have a few dozen questions written up in advance and submitted in writing for each candidate to answer? One of their functions, as I see it, is to request that smoke not be blown up the audience's ass.
Asked by: 337
Answered: 9/10/2016
That is INEVITABLE bias. That is INVITING bias. I think it is completely absurd to argue that a journalist can do that, in a debate, not only without bias, but without heavy, heavy, heavy bias.
You have the Mets and the Yankees as your two hottest teams at the moment, 106 and 103 degrees. That's how hot it's felt here lately too.
Asked by: 337
Answered: 9/10/2016
Hey Bill,
Would you make a distinction between Candy Crowley's role when she was a moderator of a multi-candidate field in which a candidate's opponents are free to call the candidate out on his lies, exaggerations or errors, and Matt Lauer's role in conducting one-on-one interviews with candidates? Seems to me Lauer should have more leeway in pushing the candidates on their dubious statements.
Asked by: Fireball Wenz
Answered: 9/10/2016
I didn't see the Lauer interviews, wasn't aware of them until after they happened. I don't know what was going on.
Bill, Grantland used to have an annual worst 15 contracts article.
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 9/10/2016
OK.
Hey, Bill! I was really ticked at Candy Crowley in the 2012 debate, too. She had insisted that she was not just going to be a moderator, but was going to jump in if she thought it necessary. But she only jumped in one time, to challenge something that Mitt Romney said. (The point about the administration not calling the Benghazi attack an "act of terror" for 14 days, claiming that it was a reaction to that video.) And then...five minutes after the debate had ended...Crowley was on CNN explaining that Romney had actually been correct, but he didn't "say it right".
Asked by: Davidg32
Answered: 9/10/2016
Well. . .not sure I got my point across. I'm sure that she did what she thought was right under the pressures of time. We all say things we shouldn't say. But in my view, it is not the moderator's place to debate the facts with the candidate, OR to decide how the candidate should have stated the facts. That is a difficult thing to do in the calm light of the next morning, when you have the time and resources to look things up and see if there is some way that this could be interpreted in the candidate's favor. In the heat of the moment it is not DIFFICULT to do this; it is entirely impossible. If the other candidate wants to debate the issue, that's their right. But the moderator, EVEN IN THE FACE OF DECEPTIVE COMMENTS, should not become a part of the debate. In my view.
On pitching and DH'ing - If the team elects not to use a DH (since this particular pitcher can hit), how does that work? Do they lose the DH slot for the rest of the game? Or is the pitcher also designated as the DH?
I assume it's mostly coaches objecting to players with odd workout routines? I'd hope GM's would have better sense than that.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 9/10/2016
If you don't use a DH at the start of the game, you can't start using one in the middle of the game. If the pitcher hits, you lose the DH rule.
That book by Brian Kenney where he said that you are "The Godfather" has an entire chapter about the worst contracts in baseball. Maybe that's what you were thinking about. Yes, Ryan Howard's contract was considered a bad one.
Asked by: metsfan17
Answered: 9/10/2016
Thanks.
Bill, I hear so much about lineup protection on sports talk radio and in the papers in NY and it drives me nuts. Freddie Freeman has a line of 293/392/559, in other words a typical Freddie Freeman year. Can you play in much worse a lineup than the Braves. Isn't it that either you can hit or you can't.
Asked by: metsfan17
Answered: 9/10/2016
Well. . .you have to allow other people to believe whatever it is that they believe. Our openings to have impact on the discussion are when people ask.
Here is one list of 10 worst contracts although there is nothing more recent than 1998. Which leaves out Nick Esasky who could only play 9 games of a three year contract because of vertigo. Or Wayne Garland whose 10 year contract for $2.3 million had people aghast when the Indians gave it to him (he had one decent year before rotator cuff problems because manager Jeff Torborg thought he could pitch 283 innings with 21 complete games.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/worst-contracts-mlb-history-050316
Howard's contract is rated 8th worst.
Asked by: ZachSmith
Answered: 9/10/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill,
Please bear with me on this one.
Years ago, a manager( Durocher?) asked his GM to acquire Billy Herman for his team. He said something like-- he can't hit, run, or field, all he can do is beat you. I'm still trying to figure out what "it" is. To me, the current player who has "it" is Russell Martin. The Dodgers were very good with him, the Pirates made the playoffs for the first time in 20 years when they got him, and the Jays are awesome now.
The anti-Martin was Glenn Wilson. He seemed to have all the tools, But Detroit got better when they unloaded hjm, while the Phils got worse with him. The Phjls got better without him while his next team, Pgh got worse.
Have you ever studied which players consistently have the biggest impact, positively or negatively. on a new team, then try and work backwards to see if there is a common characteristic? Or do you already know the answer?
Thanks
Asked by: AJD600
Answered: 9/10/2016
Well. . .(a) that wasn't Billy Herman, it was Eddie Stanky. (B) both Martin and Stanky would be evaluated by the normal tools that we use in our field as very good players, and (C) Glenn Wilson would be recognized by the normal methods of our field as a terrible player. So you're asking what the "special" element is, but, from our standpoint, there isn't any special factor.
Is Ryan Howard's 5 year/$125m deal from 2012-2016 (signed in April 2010) the worst contract in MLB history?
Asked by: Ben from New York
Answered: 9/9/2016
I remember seeing an article somewhere about the worst contracts ever, but I don't remember what the list was. Anybody?
Ryan Howard used to have a brother (I guess still does) who was an assistant football coach at KU (no longer is.) Anyway, he had lots of Phillies gear, and pretty often you would run into him around town, dressed out in a complete Philadelphia Phillies uniform including the name "Howard" on the back side. People would do double-takes, thinking it was actually Ryan Howard.
In 1982, the Braves lost 19 out of 21 starting with a doubleheader loss to the Dodgers; in the first game they had a 6-1 lead. Oddly enough, after the losing streak, the Braves won 13 of 15, then they lost 4 in a row. Talk about streaky.
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 9/9/2016
Yeah. . .we have kind of lost an awareness of those sorts of things with the modern schedule. Classic collapses and streaks at the end of a season before 1961 are totally different than after 1961, because the eight extra games on the schedule changed something that almost no one understands. Before the longer schedule, there would be three or four days (sometimes more) between the end of the season and the start of the World Series. The sports media used that period to register what had just happened, in the pennant race, before the post season started. But the longer schedule and the pressure to start the multiple rounds of playoffs eliminated that time--and eliminated that period of registering what had happened in the pennant race in the public's mind.
I became aware of this in 1977, when the Royals had a truly historic hot streak late in the season, winning 24 out of 25 games to surge from several games behind to take their division--but nobody noticed, really, and nobody remembers it. I started wondering "what has changed here, that these kind of things just slip through the cracks?"
There isn't any TIME to appreciate them. The instant the season is over, the playoffs start.
The reader comment about inventing a stat that's already been done since the STATS Scoreboard days reminded me of the "Bases per out or PA" continual re-invention, which is chronicled in this article by the co-creator of PythagenPat: www.hardballtimes.com/bases-and-outs-ad-nauseum/ "Then, over the next 20 years and continuing to this day, something else happened: The statistic kept being "re-invented." Numerous authors, bloggers and message board posters have come along with their own versions—each seemingly unaware of the existence of BOP or TA." Phil Birnbaum has a Primer of sorts here on all things sabermetrics, which might beneficial for some: www.sabr.org/sabermetrics
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 9/9/2016
I once stumbled across in an old Baseball Guide a stat called "Total Average", which was the sum of a player's batting average and fielding average or, for a pitcher, winning percentage and batting average, or something like that. All I really remember about it was that it was REALLY primitive, but it was called Total Average.
Marcus Allen as a passer: his brother Damon Allen held the CFL record for career passing yards up until 5 years ago. He also had a yards per carry of 6.7. It's easy to imagine that Marcus Allen, 4 inches and 30 pounds lighter would have had Damon's career. One of the beauties of baseball is you can have Juan Pierre and Adam Dunn on the field at the same time, and not know which player has more impact.
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 9/9/2016
This season in Japan, we have been treated to a 22-year-old (Shohei Otani), who has become the nation's best and fastest pitcher (a starter who sits at 98 mph with good secondary stuff), and best designated hitter, near the top of npb in home run frequency despite playing in the PL, the tougher league for hitters and in that league's toughest home run park. It's tough to ignore a .420 OBP and 1.025 OPS.
Until this season, ALL scouts had been saying "If he goes to the majors, he'll have to pitch." Then, some began saying, "He'll have to choose between pitching and hitting." But recently one MLB scout said. "If he does what he does here, bats well as DH 3 days a week, pitches 7 innings and bats in that start, a major league team could work around it."
Sorry for the long intro. But how willing would it be for a big league club to say to a rare talent, "We should a way to accommodate this guys skills," as opposed to,"That's not how we do things in the majors?"
Asked by: guidedogjapan
Answered: 9/9/2016
You should be TOTALLY willing to say "We are going to accommodate this guys skills" rather than "That's not how we do things in the majors." When the Red Sox had Byung-Hyun Kim, more than ten years ago, he had his own ways of doing things. He wanted to throw, and throw hard, every day, and he loved to do training. . .in Ft. Myers you would see him out running hard on the streets all hours of the day. Our staff just couldn't shut up about it; they kept trying to force him to do things the way we do them in the US--and it didn't work, at all.
And then, when we had Daisuke Matsuzaka, we made exactly the same mistake: we kept trying to force him to do things OUR way, and it just didn't work for him. Daisuke used to like to play long toss, but REALLY long toss; he would throw pitches, from a full windup, 200 to 220 feet. Our guys were aghast; they just couldn't imagine a player doing that.
But the more they tried to force him to do things the "right" way, the worse he got. KNOCK IT OFF. This is his way. Get used to it. None of us are that smart, that we have all of the answers.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
As the defense seeks to gain the platoon advantage more often, wouldn't the average advantage for the defense shrink?
Asked by: 3for3
Answered: 9/18/2016
Well. . .why do we figure that the defense is doing something but the offense isn't? Well. ..never mind about that. . . . .assuming your premise was correct, which I don't buy, but assuming that, it WOULD make a difference, if the defense was DOING something (or not doing something) to create a platoon advantage. But that's not it; it is simply a part of the game. It's just THERE. It's not bigger one time and smaller another; it is just there.
Hey Bill,
Folks have been asking if Ortiz' final season is the best ever. (At least among the voluntarily retired.) When I think of great final seasons I think of the great Red Sox, Ted Williams. His final numbers were .316/.451/.645.
Checking Papi I see .314/.400/.619.
Teddy Ballgame seems to have the edge.
Do you agree?
Thanks
Steve
ps. Notice how I actually slipped in a question at the end.
Asked by: SteveN
Answered: 9/18/2016
NO WAY! Williams isn't remotely close to what Papi has done. Williams drove in 72 runs in 310 at bat in his last year. Ortiz has like 118 RBI or something. So Williams has like a think edge in batting average. . .so what? What is that against 45 RBI and a possible division championship.
Hey Bill, I'm wondering if you think it's possible for the statistics revolution to go too far. Some of the new ones seem to me pointless. Exit velocity? Is knowing that really worthwhile? There's probably others too.
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 9/18/2016
There is no "statistics revolution." What we do doesn't have anything to do with statistics. That's just a misinterpretations promoted by people who don't have any real understanding of what we're doing.
made a mistake, the 19th of September is a Monday this year, for Roger Angell's birthday.
As a long time Rolling Stones fan, Satisfaction (I still remember the first time I heard the song) Get off my Cloud, Hony Tonk Woman,
and basically, almost everything they did, and still do.
Asked by: DavidTodd
Answered: 9/18/2016
No way. They should have quit 30 years ago. The last 30 years have been painful.
Top five Rolling Stones off-tracks:
1. Let It Loose
2. Comin' Down Again
3. Luxury
4. Time Waits For No One
5. Jig Saw Puzzle
Asked by: taosjohn
Answered: 9/18/2016
Before he got canned, Curt Schilling used to say that as a pitcher, there were only a few batters in any given line-up that concerned him, because most hitters couldn't hit good pitching.
The flip side is that most hitting happens against bad pitching---against mistakes, mostly.
Some batters crush mediocre pitching, but get exposed against pitchers with good stuff and good command. Which means that against elite starters, elite closers they are helpless.
So these hitters will help you win a lot of games against bad teams, and make you struggle more against good teams. Like the teams you might encounter in the playoffs, say.
Do you still want them in your lineup?
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 9/18/2016
This is just rambling crap posing as serious analysis. It's not worthy of comment.
Hey Bill, espn.com has an MLB Cy Young Predictor page using a formula it says is from the Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers: http://www.espn.com/mlb/features/cyyoung
Have you revisited or updated this formula since the Guide's publication in 2004?
Thanks
Asked by: RyanTheMover
Answered: 9/15/2016
No, I don't think so. But Tango says that the new Season's Score method actually predicts the Cy Young vote better than the Cy Young predictor does. . .I dunno. What's it say?
1. Jumpin Jack Flash 2. Street Fighting Man 3. Tumbling Dice 4. Gimme Shelter 5. (tie) Ruby Tuesday and Beast of Burden
Asked by: matt_okeefe
Answered: 9/15/2016
Good list. Jumpin' Jack should have been on my list.
Hey Bill, heres a question for you and anyone who thinks presidential debates are important: Have we had better presidents since 1960 when they started having those debates? I dont see how anyone could argue that we have. Most of them have been disasters.
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 9/15/2016
Well. . . I don't know that I would describe ANY of our Presidents (since 1960) as a "disaster". LBJ was overly ambitious, more concerned about ambition than about what was good for the country, but he had serious political skills and got a lot done. . . I guess I would grade him about a C+. Nixon had a dark side, but was actually a successful President in many ways. . .opening to China, wound down LBJ's disastrous war with minimal damage to the country, was progressive on the environment and many other issues. . . .I'd probably give him a C-. Ford was innocuous but what we needed at the time. Carter was very poorly prepared to be President, but always meant well. . .I'd probably give him a D+. Reagan was. . .well, too controversial to be seen clearly. I don't see anyone here that I would describe as a disaster.
Hi Bill. Do you remember the Brooks Robinson Tournament you did a while back? That was a lot of fun. Have you thought about doing something like that again?
Asked by: izzy24
Answered: 9/15/2016
Oh, sure. But it's a lot of work, and I haven't gotten another one done. Thanks.
I not only enjoyed but was surprised by your comment that the platoon edge is a simple condition of the game and not a variable skill from one player to another. You also wrote that there "...is a 25-30 point platoon advantage."
I was moved to do some research on this and downloaded the platoon splits for all players 2006 through 2015.
I found an overall platoon differential of .013 for batting average, .029 for on base percentage and .029 for slugging percentage. I also found that the differential was larger for left handed batters vs right handed batters. Note that this is 1,858,811 plate appearances (1,064,705 PA for RHBs, 794,106 PA for LHBs).
I assume you were looking at 1970s or 1980s data? If the numbers are right in both cases, then the platoon edge would appear to be shrinking. I notice that there are way more switch hitters than there used to be, probably 3-5% more now than in 1960 or before (?). Ballpark effects (?). More walks, less data for BA (?).
Bill, I ran out of space in my first submission regarding platoon splits. I wanted to add that your point about the platoon edge being a condition of the game...I started picking out some specific players and charting their career results as they progressed through the seasons. You see volitile swings in the early years, but as the totals increase, they strongly tend to stabilize towards the range you wrote about. Of course, I've only done a few of these, but still...I think the bulk numbers are interesting. Thanks.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 9/15/2016
Thank you. Studies from 40 years ago were so crudely done that they are no longer relevant today (in this area.) If the platoon differential had changed, that would contradict the assertion that it is simply part of the game. My belief is that if you could find complete career data for Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner and Joe Jackson, you would find that they have normal platoon differentials, that they had opp-side pitchers better than same-side pitchers, etc. Because it doesn't change; it is just part of the game.
About people in criminal trials hitting the vaudeville circuit, didn't Evelyn Nesbit have a vaudeville act after her husband Harry Thaw gunned down Stanford White? I think the guy who discovered the remains of the Lindbergh baby also went on tour before the Hauptmann trial.
Asked by: ajmilner
Answered: 9/15/2016
Evelyn Nesbit certainly had a theatrical career. I didn't know she went vaudeville; I don't know. She was a beautiful woman. My understanding was that her theatrical career was based on her beauty more than it was on her notoriety, but. . .not something I know a lot about.
Do you seek Kansas as part of the West or the Midwest?
Asked by: bobfiore
Answered: 9/15/2016
It's Midwest. WESTERN Kansas is arguably the West. The part where I am is Midwest.
Hey Bill,
I know it's September and the postseason is beckoning. I know it's an election year and we're all trying to comprehend the bullshit.
The Dylan thread is far enough in the past that I want to try a new one. I remember a mainstream media article about you from decades past that the interviewer was struggling to hear you above the volume of the Rolling Stones, I think it was Brown Sugar.
So, here are the top 5 Stones songs, in chronological order (I can't rank them other than chronologically): Get Off My Cloud; Let's Spend the Night Together; Factory Girl; Monkey Man; Loving Cup.
Top it if you can!
Asked by: paulw112
Answered: 9/15/2016
1. Satisfaction 2. Honky Tonk Woman 3. Monkey Man 4. Start Me Up 5. You Can't Always Get What you Want.
What is interesting is that in the outfield, it IS marked as a position switch. If the LF, CF, RF rotate after every batter, they each get a new designation. But, if the 2B, SS, 3B rotate in the SS, 2B, "Rover" positions, they do NOT get a new designation. I agree with your basic point though that we're kinda past the "traditional" fielding stats.
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 9/15/2016
I didn't know that, about the outfield. What would be fun is if, one play a game, the center fielder would be required to field the ball, no matter where they hit it.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
3 of the greatest players who were also notable jerks---Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds---never won a World Series. Do you think their toxic attitudes had anything to do with it?
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 9/23/2016
I think it is a poor thesis for two reasons. One is that it rests on the outcome of one or two games out of a long career, one or two plays out of a long career. Obviously the Red Sox COULD have won the World Series in 1946, the Giants in 2002; it just didn’t happen to happen. I don’t think you can trace a direct line through a maze of circumstances in that way; I don’t think it is mathematically valid, and I don’t think it makes sense.
The other problem is this. While acknowledging that Ted Williams was not always a supportive teammate and could be a jerk sometimes, the same is true of Joe DiMaggio. I remember one of his teammates saying that he shared a locker room with DiMaggio for three years and DiMaggio never spoke to him, and. . .well, not wishing to speak ill of DiMaggio, any more than Williams, but he was just not a friendly, supportive type of guy; it was not who he was. But I think the Yankees won a couple of World Series with him, all the same. The Cardinals won the World Series in 1926 with Hornsby, who was worse than any of these guys including Cobb.
If you were to ask a more general question, Do I believe that being a helpful and supportive teammate is a benefit to a team and might have a marginal impact on the team’s chance to win the World Series. . .well, sure; absolutely I believe that, and have no real doubt that it is true. I think it is MORE important for the stars to be helpful and supportive than for the second-line players to be that way. But when you try to make a direct-line inference like that, I think there are way too many fishing lines in the water, and they’re inevitably going to get tangled.
Hey Bill,
Regarding "something new to offer" about hot hands, have you seen the Miller/Sanjurjo argument? There are a few good pieces about it floating around, but here's a primer from WSJ last year:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hot-hand-debate-gets-flipped-on-its-head-1443465711
The basic idea is that the consensus of "the hot hand doesn't exist" may be a result of everyone mis-analyzing the data for the last thirty years. They're talking about basketball; how the idea would apply to baseball is an open question, but... interesting.
Asked by: RipCity
Answered: 9/23/2016
Thanks. No, I haven't seen it.
Hey Bill:
Real quick, on JFK and the Mortal Error. Can I have your opinion on what you think happened to the 5.56 round that the Secret Service fired? As you're a guy who used it in Vietnam, I'm sure you'll remember that it ejects in a very repeatable pattern about 8-20 feet up and to the right. Indeed it has an angled deflector plate so that on the rifle deck your brass doesn't constantly hit the man firing next to you. That would put it somewhere about the Stemmons Freeway sign, methinks. From where Hickey supposedly fired, being as he's accidentally firing up and over the windshield, the car obviously didn't contain it, so where do you think it went? I skimmed "Mortal Error" today and found no reference to it. What do you think?
Asked by: soprismb
Answered: 9/23/2016
I would guess it landed on the floor of the front seat passenger's side. Remember, the wind (air resistance) is going to knock down a shell casing immediately, since the shell casing doesn't leave the weapon at 800 MPH.
I wasn't in Vietnam. I was in the Army in the Vietnam era, but not in Vietnam.
Apparently in the NFL there is a similar problem to what you describe with excellent hitters with scouting small & quick receivers. Those guys are a dime a dozen in college and it's very hard to distinguish between someone who is just dominating weak competition vs. someone who will be able to excel at the next level. This is why excellent small receivers often go low in the draft: Antonio Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, Victor Cruz, Wes Welker, etc. For every Antonio Brown in the 6th round, 20 guys flame out. And no one is ever going to fire you for drafting Julio Jones.
Asked by: Ben from New York
Answered: 9/23/2016
I don't know who Julio Jones is, but. . .in the NBA the similar position is 6-3 to 6-5 shooting guards, slow. Just about every good college basketball team has a 6-3 to 6-5 shooting guard who is a little slow for the NBA but a deadly shooter. If he's on a non-competitive team he will lead the team in scoring, but 99.9% of them can't play in the NBA because they can't guard anybody other than another 6-3 to 6-5 slow shooting guard. But then there is that exception, that one guy who is SUCH a good shooter and who has enough court vision that he can steal rebounds and hit an open man with a pass when the defense charges at him, so then you live with his defense and he may score 20 a game in the NBA.
Really interesting discussion of the Claude Osteen question. To pursue it a little further, do you think more of these successful-though-not-hard-throwing lefties would make it to the majors if the minor leagues were more of a pyramid system? With twice as many minor league teams, let's say, that type of pitcher ought to stand a better chance of getting signed, and then in a more competitive environment, with advancement based a little more on performance and a little less on obvious assets like a 97 mph fastball, maybe the occasional Glavine or Osteen would have a better shot at reaching the majors.
Asked by: BobGill
Answered: 9/23/2016
Wow. You're hired. . .I mean; I don't know what you applied for, but you're hired.
Yes, absolutely there would be more pitchers like that if there was a pyramid-shaped minor league system. If there were 10 more Low-A leagues, which their should be, with the "prospects" scattered in the other players at the same level, a Claude Osteen, Buddy Black, Charlie Leibrandt type starter would have plenty of opportunity in A ball, and SOME of them would move up to High A, and then some of them would get a chance in pro ball. Your analysis is exactly right.
Have you ever heard the legend that Leo Durocher stole his line, "Nice guys finish last," from Lorraine Day? It had nothing to do with baseball, apparently.
Asked by: ventboys
Answered: 9/23/2016
No, I have never heard that. My understanding is that it was an off-the-cuff remark, that the REPORTER brought up Mel Ott, who was a nice guy and whose team was in last place in the closing days of the 1946 season, and that Durocher made the remark with Ott in his line of sight, but out of hearing range. To say that he "stole" the line would implly that he intended to say it. I doubt that he did, and I suspect that he regretted saying it as soon as the words word out of his mouth, but, being a brash person (like Trump) he could not admit that he regretted what he had said.
Bill, Truman didn't get paid for speeches? When did ex-presidents join the speaking tour?
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 9/23/2016
I don't know exactly. I know that that business has grown immensely in the last two decades.
Hey, Bill, I was watching a Red Sox - Yankees game the other night, with Sabathia pitching for the Yankees, and one announcer said that CC's batting average against was under .200 the first time through the order, in the .260s the second time through, and just under .300 the third time. (I don't remember the exact numbers.) There have been other pitchers that had similar decreases the second and third times through the order. Two questions: 1. Is that true of all pitchers? 2. For those pitchers who do experience the decline in effectiveness, is it because they get tired or because hitters start to recognize and adjust to their stuff, or both?
Asked by: flyingfish
Answered: 9/23/2016
It is generally true that batters hit better against pitchers the second and third time they see them in a game. When there is a general truth there will be cases--apparently Sabathia is one--in which the pattern is exaggerated or overstated, although there might be some cases (Verlander?) in which it is not true. I would guess the largest element is that the batter anticipates the pitches better.
What player would make for the best biopic (among those who haven't had one)?
Asked by: 3for3
Answered: 9/23/2016
Let's see. ..well, who HAS had a biopic? Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Jackie, Pete Alexander. Not sure if the Greenberg documentary counts. Piersall. Who else? Branch Rickey would make a good topic.
HeyBill, I find it utterly impossible that a woman that is looking at the body of her accidentally killed beloved child and assigned creative writing could dream up "You will also be denied her remains for proper burial."
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 9/23/2016
Never mind having the creativity to borrow lines from three or four movies in which a child is kidnapped.
Stan Musial wasn't entirely comfortable as a speaker. One reason he always carried a harmonica was that he could break it out and play a tune rather than talk.
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 9/23/2016
That's right; he really WASN'T comfortable with the media,other than Broeg and a couple of other guys. He adopted this persona of just trying to say supportive things about the team because he just didn't know what to say. Sort of the exact opposite of Brandon McCarthy or Richard Sherman.
Porcello vs. Kluber for the Cy Young. I saw a stat workup that suggested their performance has been almost identical, except that Kluber has had more strikeouts and more walks. I'm a Tribe fan and have watched Kluber all year and he's been very good, but honestly in my opinion he would not exactly be a strong Cy Young winner. (Reminds me a bit of your recent argument that some years there are no correct winners, perhaps.) Kluber's had lower run support. You've watched Porcello all year long. Who's been the best pitcher in the AL this year?
Asked by: wovenstrap
Answered: 9/23/2016
I think they are very close. I like my guy, of course, but.. . .I've seen all or almost all of Porcello's starts, maybe 3 of Kluber's. I think whoever leads the league in ERA is going to have one of the highest league-leading figures ever, right?
Evidently the folks who claim the Ramsey kidnapping letter didn't bother to feed the letter into the Gender Guesser:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php
It says it's male if the letter is informal which, considering that the writer tells Mr. Ramsey to not "try to grow a brain," I think is safe. I'm not saying it's the gospel, but it is based on a peer-reviewed algorithm.
Incidentally, an Investigation Discovery program that my wife was watching earlier this week pulled the "Patsy killed her for wetting the bed" bullshit, and treated the grand jury indictment as meaningful without anyone pulling out the "ham sandwich" statement.
Asked by: CharlesSaeger
Answered: 9/23/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill, which of the three Red Sox teams do you think was the best? I believe the 2007 team has the more well rounded team because of the bullpen issues the 2004 team had. However, that said, the 2004 team is timeless (even if you're a Red Sox hater like me), and they had a terrific offense. I'm doing a tournament of the greatest teams, and I have one entry available for the Sox and I keep going back and forth.
Asked by: soprismb
Answered: 9/23/2016
I think there should be three spaces available for the Red Sox.
I'm a Canadian and an ex-hockey player and as far as I know we have a law up here that says loving "Slap Shot" is a condition of citizenship. I thought "Road to Perdition" was a great movie - I just don't think of it as a Newman movie. And I didn't much like "The Verdict" or "Absence of Malice' as movies, although I thought Newman was fabulous in both. So it has to be:
Butch Cassidy
The Hustler
Cool Hand Luke
Judge Roy Bean
Slap Shot
Could you and I be the only people who liked "Judge Roy Bean?" I loved it. Oh, and there was someone who didn't like Newman - the Nixon White House. Although it probably wasn't personal.
Asked by: Magpie
Answered: 9/23/2016
"Road to Perdition" may be more of a Tom Hanks movie, but Newman has the most memorable line of the movie. Newman and Hanks are discussing a third party (trying not to spoil it for people who may not have seen it). . .and Hanks condemns him as a murderer, to which Newman replies "There are only murderers in this room." His delivery of that line (There are only murderers in this room) is just absolutely spectacular. . .the most memorable line of his career, in my view. Which is a high standard; I can remember 50 Paul Newman lines off the top of my head.
Was that the only time Hanks and Newman worked together? Final count, since nobody else is sending in their Newman lists: The Verdict, 23 points; Cool Hand Luke, 22; Butch Cassidy 21; The Hustler, 13; Slapshot, 11; The Sting, 10; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 5; Road to Perdition, 4; Great Notion, 3; Roy Bean, 3; Harper, 2; Color of Money, 2; Hud, 1. WUSA, 0.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Bill Murray was signed on to play Veeck in 1995 in a movie written by the head NYPD Blue writer, but it fell apart shortly before production. A couple of years before Murray had started the independent St. Paul Saints with Veeck's son Mike (these days he co-owns the Charleston Riverdogs.) Also, here's William P. Murray's Baseball Reference line for his stint in 1978 with the Grays Harbor Logger, who he joined for an SNL bit: http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=murray004wil
Asked by: PB
Answered: 9/26/20
Hey Bill, if you had to choose between two pitching prospects with roughly equal records, but one of them had pitched way fewer innings, would you rather have him? In other words, is wear and tear on the arm a negative for a young pitcher?
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 9/26/2016
In general, the best predictor of the ability to pitch innings in the future is having done so in the past. If you combine some evidence of over-use with some evidence of a loss in effectiveness, then I would be super-wary of the pitcher who had worked harder. Short of that. . .as Tommy John said, rest doesn't make you strong. Work makes you strong.
Nancy Dowd's inside source for Slapshot was her brother Ned who played Ogie Oglethorpe in the movie . The character was based on real life hockey goon Goldie Goldthorpe. Nancy wrote the script originally as a documentary.
Asked by: 337
Answered: 9/26/2016
First time the words "Dowd's inside source" have been used on a baseball site without reference to Pete Rose. . . .
Not a question, just a sad addition to the list of players who died young. Alfredo Edmead of the Carolina League Salem Pirates died on the field in 1974 after colliding with a teammate. He was 17 years old and was hitting .319 with 61 stolen bases in 119 games that season.
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 9/26/2016
Thanks.
I bet a talented screenwriter could come up with a compelling story about David Freese and his dream 2011 postseason, with the race and the playoffs as the backdrop. It's one of those stories that fail as fiction because it's too pat, too perfect. It has to be true.
Asked by: ventboys
Answered: 9/26/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill, fun fact about Slap Shot that surprised me and everyone I've told: it was written by a woman, Nancy Dowd.
Surprising because it is regarded by some (myself included) as the best silver screen portrayal of the loose, bawdy nature of being on a team of young men. The profanity, locker room hijinks, and all-around juvenile behavior is spot on. I don't know if women's teams are that similar, or if she had an inside source, but either way bravo to her.
Thanks.
Asked by: RyanTheMover
Answered: 9/26/2016
Hokay.
Given your past comments on MLB's reaction to comments by Marge Schott and John Rocker, I assume you disapprove of the Seattle Mariners suspending Steve Clevenger without pay, in response to his tweets? Or do you feel Clevenger's public statements crossed a line that justified suspension?
Asked by: jfadams
Answered: 9/26/2016
First I have heard about it. My opinion, which I realize is unpopular, is that employers should be prohibited by law from suspending employees based on what they do or say on their own time, unless the safely of a third party could be compromised by those actions (such as a doctor taking drugs, for example, or a person who operates heavy equipment taking drugs on his own time.) This is ESPECIALLY true in baseball, because in baseball, you don't have to enter into an agreement with a player for next season, or beyond the current contract. If you are offended by what he says or does, you are free not to enter into an agreement with him. If you enter into an agreement with him, you should be obligated to put up with whatever a person says.
HeyBill: although the proliferation of playoff spots may have changed things; is there any correlation between clinching early and winning the WS? Even back in the day? Now, clinching early may be an indicator of relative strength of the team or weakness of the league/division/ teams below best records of 2 non-div leaders .......... it does seem that 'now' the key is to get into the 'tournament' and then who knows..... your thoughts or any analysis?
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 9/26/2016
I've read research about it, but I forget what it says. Certainly having a better team still matters. It isn't true that just getting into the post-season is all that counts; if you have an extra layer of playoffs to go through, if you don't have home field advantage, those things have to matter in the long run.
Hey Bill.
I agree that Johnny Kling's career record does not merit enshrinement in the HOF. Like you, I'd vote for Ted Simmons and maybe Freehan too.
Somebody on those Cub teams had to be good; as I learned from you, nobody won more for longer. It seems most writers throughout recent decades would say Mordecai Brown deserves to be in, but they poke holes in the cases for Tinker, Evers and Chance.
Have these teams been given their due by historians? Or was it just too damn long ago?
Asked by: wilbur
Answered: 9/26/2016
I've discussed that issue many, many times.
I may be late to the party, but why is Johnny Kling not in the Hall of Fame? He was the best catcher of his age. He had the best arm. He ran the best pitching staff. He was a solid hitter. Why Bresnahan and Schalk but not Kling?
Asked by: tdwalla
Answered: 9/26/2016
And if Rick Ferrell has been elected, why not Luke Sewell and Rollie Hemsley? Kling was a very good player, and I would like to argue on his behalf because he’s from Kansas City, but I wouldn’t see him as being a top-flight Hall of Fame candidate. Your argument implies (1) that the selections of Schalk and Bresnahan were valid selections which accurately represent what the Hall of Fame should be, and (2) that Kling was as good as Schalk and Bresnahan. I don’t think I would agree that either of those things is true.
My Hall of Fame standard is that a player is a Hall of Famer if he meets two criteria: 100 more Win Shares than Loss Shares, and 300 Win Shares in his career. If he meets BOTH of those standards he is an absolute, no-questions asked Hall of Famer (unless there is a disqualifier attached to him). If he meets one standard but not the other, or if he is right on the line of both standards, one side or the other, then he may or may not be a Hall of Famer; it’s a judgment call, but if he meets neither of those standards then he is not a Hall of Famer unless there is an unusual circumstance attached (ie Monte Irvin, Satchel Paige, possibly some guys from World War II.) These aren’t intended to be inflexible rules, but rather to be guidelines which help us to think more clearly about the issues involved.
I credit Kling with a won-lost record of 159-108, nowhere near a Hall of Fame standard. Catchers are special, and we have to cut catchers a little slack (although guys like Bench, Berra Piazza and Rodriguez would make it anyway, even if we didn’t make a special allowance for them.) Anyway, Kling isn’t in the area where we can really consider him a strong candidate.
Comparing Kling and Schalk, it is true that both were very good defensive catchers, but not true that Kling is the equal of Schalk. In fielding Win Shares and Loss Shares, I have Kling at 63-22 (very good, obviously), but Schalk at 96-24. Kling ranks 27th all time in terms of Winning Percentage among all catchers; Schalk ranks third, behind Roy Campanella and Yadier Molina. (Schalk may move up to second if Yadier has less-than-stellar seasons as he ages.) In terms of Win Shares as a catcher, Schalk ranks first all time, Kling 19th. I grade Kling as an A-, Schalk as an A+. Kling also played 12 games at first base in his career, 1 at third base, 1 at shortstop and 24 in the outfield, but those aren’t going to help his Hall of Fame case, so we’re going to ignore them at the moment.
Now, Kling was a better hitter than Schalk; I credit Kling with a won-lost record of 96-86, as a hitter, and Schalk of 103-138. If you add together Schalk’s offense and defense you have a won-lost contribution of 199-162, which doesn’t really make HIM a Hall of Famer, either, although it puts him a little closer than Kling, and I see the argument that the best defensive catcher in baseball before 1950 perhaps ought to be honored.
Bresnahan, on the other hand, was a legitimate Hall of Famer or at least has a legitimate resume; I did not think so years ago, but I do believe so now. Bresnahan was not defensively comparable to Kling or Schalk, and I credit him with a defensive won-lost record of just 54-34 (42-25 as a catcher, 12-9 when considering his work at other positions.) I grade Bresnahan at C+ as a catcher, which is better than he would grade as a manager. But Bresnahan was a far better hitter than either Kling or Schalk. He had a career OPS of .763 against a league norm of .672, while Kling had a career OPS of .676 against a norm of .673 (basically the same leagues). Bresnahan has an 88-point edge in OPS, of which some little part is explained by park effects, but I credit Breshanan with a won-lost contribution of 152 – 43 as a hitter, 54 – 34 as a fielder, 3 – 2 as a pitcher, 209 – 79 overall. That’s Hall of Fame territory.
Bresnahan had consecutive seasons, beginning in 1903, or 21 – 2, 20 – 4, 18 – 2, 27 – 0, 18 – 4, and 25 – 5. Kling is good but not comparable; I have him, beginning in 1902, at 18 – 9, 22 – 9, 12 – 16, 11-15, 19 – 2, 18 – 4 and 18 – 8.
Baseball Reference WAR has Bresnahan at 41.0, Schalk at 28.5, Kling at 24.9. Fangraphs has more or less the same ratio, 39.6 for Bresnahan, 22.4 for Schalk, 21.3 for Kling. Kling played only 1,260 games in his career. That would be a terribly short career for a Hall of Famer. The only Hall of Famers who played that few games, other than pitchers and the guys who were elected for their managerial careers, are Monte Irvin, Ross Youngs and Roy Campanella. Even most of the guys who were elected as managers or executives, like Stengel, Southworth, Durocher, Ned Hanlon, Wilbert Robinson and Comiskey, had longer careers than that.
Ignoring the candidates from other positions, Kling competes for the position of the next catcher up with Elston Howard, Sherm Lollar, Jorge Posada, Bill Freehan, Ted Simmons, Lance Parrish, Tony Pena and others that I will probably get hammered for forgetting. I would think that Simmons, Posada and Bill Freehan would probably have the strongest case of any of those players.
For the Ken Hubbs club, don't forget Steve Olin. Considering that the Indians were about to break through big time, the man might have found himself with a lot of money.
Asked by: CharlesSaeger
Answered: 9/26/2016
Well, the guy I feel bad about overlooking in my earlier post is Nick Adenhart. I had started watching his last game when I was on the treadmill, and I was just tremendously impressed; I remember I stayed up to watch as long as he was in the game, because I thought he looked as good as anyone I had seen. It wasn't' an ordinary thing; I thought, "Jesus Christ, this guy is REALLY good." He looked kind of like Gerrit Cole on the mound. I got up the next morning and heard he had been killed, I just couldn't believe it.
Late to the vote I am, but I'm honestly stunned that only TWO people gave any love for The Color of Money. It's fantastic through and through (other than the execrable Clapton song that ends it,) and Forrest Whittaker burns holes in the screen in the scene that ends with Newman showing everyone his ass (figuratively.) Hell, here's my list:
A. The Color of Money
B. Slap Shot (unambiguously a great film in every respect)
C. Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean (weird & wonderful, especially Tony Perkins, and young Jacqueline Bisette is so ravishing it's painful.)
D. Cool Hand Luke ("Plastic Jesus" is a fine song)
E. Butch Cassidy et al.
And since I'm already cheating a deadline, may as well really dive in & swim: my favorite Newman quote, from "Hud," wasn't actually his line, except maybe existentially. Hud's granfather is dead & buried & his brother Lonnie is told the old man is "in a better place."
LONNIE: I don't think so, unless dirt is a better place than air.
Asked by: JohnPontoon
Answered: 9/26/2016
Regarding biopics, no one has yet mentioned Monte Stratton? It was one of the first "grownup" movies I remember watching as a kid (on TV). It starred Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Miller.
Other candidates:
Bill Veeck seems to have had a hell of a good time, and was in the middle of a lot of fun events. His autobiography has a lot of good dialogue.
Ted Williams would make for an interesting biopic. People always likened him to John Wayne, but my father, a lifelong Williams fan, always wanted Robert Ryan for that role.
Does anyone else remember the Ball Four TV show, with former Raider DE Ben Davidson in what seemed to be the Gene Brabender role, and Bouton playing himself? It wasn't very good.
Asked by: Fireball Wenz
Answered: 9/26/2016
Veeck might work. Lot of material to choose from. . .
Craig Wright just mentioned that Johnny Evers had a brother Joe who played 1 major league game.
Asked by: DavidTodd
Answered: 9/26/2016
Thanks.
Yes, the first Moe Berg book, I think, was "Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy"" by Louis Kaufman, Barbara Fitzgerald, and Tom Sewell. Published in '74.
It's one of the favorites on my bookshelf, because it was given to me in '76 by the then-Commanding Officer of my squadron, and inscribed "there's a little Moe Berg in all of us."
Asked by: kimchi
Answered: 9/26/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Do you think Buxton is as fast (I can't imagine he is faster) as Willie Wilson? I remember Wilson in the mid 70s going from first to third on a routine ground ball to shortstop...I mean, he was on third so fast there wasn't even a throw from first to third. I don't know how unusual that really is, but Wilson looked like he only took about 3 strides between bases...memory even more hazy is Willie scoring from first on a single to centre field.
Wilson and Brett and the rest of the mid-70s Royals are what really deepened my baseball fandom...cemented by some writer who I came across in 1982. I seem to have forgotten his name, but if you mix up the letters you can spell Jim Asbell, who got into 17 games for the Cubs in 1938.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 10/4/2016
Cute. I remember old players saying that "I batted against Bob Feller and Lefty Grove, and Grove was MUCH faster than Feller" and other old players saying the opposite. When you think about it, it is obviously impossible to hold two memories from years apart in your head that way and compare them. Same here; it is obviously impossible to hold an accurate visual memory of Willie Wilson running in your head and compare it to Buxton.
I think Buxton is in the same class. Their running style is different. Willie ran upright, like Willie Davis, and, although he was tall, did not SEEM to be taking enormously long strides, but had almost no "knee lift"; his feet moved across the ground but without coming up or going down much. It didn't LOOK like he was expending tremendous energy. Buxton runs with a very long stride, and with more of a sense of purpose, as if he had muscles in his ankles that pushed him along another 4 or 5 inches with every stride.
Crude video, but here's Vince Coleman hitting a stand-up inside-the-park home run: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OaK1lF1G8iI target='_blank'>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OaK1lF1G8iI
And Willie Wilson with a run-off against the Yankees in 1979: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OaK1lF1G8iI target='_blank'>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OaK1lF1G8iI
Asked by: those
Answered: 10/4/2016
Thanks.
Bill Buckner once hit a stand-up inside-the-park home run. Here's video proof: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3VV8eJszQVo
Asked by: those
Answered: 10/4/2016
OK.
Is a post-clinching losing streak any indication of how a team will fare in the postseason? Asking for a friend.
Asked by: bobfiore
Answered: 10/4/2016
Nahh. I mean, you never like to lose, but the Royals got ridiculously far ahead last August (2015), then stumbled for several weeks as if they had forgotten how to play. It didn't mean anything.
When announcers refer to tired defenders, what they're mostly talking about is the defensive line, and to some extent linebackers. Watch the D linemen on a 15 play drive in between plays. They're struggling to get enough oxygen. There are a few factors at play, focusing on passing plays:
1. Offensive linemen are rarely required to move more than a couple of yards to block their assignments. This isn't typically true for defensive linemen.
2. On a typical play there are more blockers than rushers. This leads to 2 men blocking 1 quite frequently.
3. Defensive linemen are sometimes dropped back in shallow coverage in blitz packages, causing them to cover a lot of ground.
4. Offenses can substitute when necessary, whereas defenses can be forced into not substituting when the offense comes to the line quickly.
Announcers aren't great at explaining it, but that doesn't mean there's no effect.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 10/4/2016
Well. . .yes and no. I think the phenomenon is much more widespread than you acknowledge. A defensive back, a safety, doesn't know which receiver is the primary target, who is the backup, or even necessarily who is the hot receiver/emergency dumpoff guy. He has to expend a lot of energy covering all the options. THe receiver KNOWS whether this is his play or not, and, if it is his play, he knows whether it is a post pattern or a buttonhook or a sideline route. The defense has to expend a lot of energy covering all the options.
In basketball, it requires a LOT more energy to play defense than it does to play offense. The offense generally doesn't move TOO much that isn't on a plan. If everybody reacted to the ball the spacing would break down. On defense, you have to re-position yourself basically with every pass.
I agree with you that it may be the linemen who are MOST effectd by this in football, but if you focus on the linemen you're missing the general truth, the general truth being that playing defense always require more energy than playing offense--a rule that applies to politics and dating as much as it does to football. You gain more from understanding the general truth than you do from focusing on the particular.
Suppose you have one of those fantasy simulation leagues based on players from the past- so you know how good the players are, but not what their day-to-day numbers will look like. A player with a .250 batting average will have a one-in-four chance of a hit in each at bat: but that doesn't mean he's guaranteed to finish the season with an average of exactly .250.
But then you add a twist- you say that every team owner can access an infinite number of imaginary replacement players, each with a replacement level of .350. If they want to, that is.
Then the question: at the end of the season, suppose you calculate the replacement level based on the season's numbers. Will it be .350 for everyone? I fear that your proposed method might bring it down rather lower, just because of the players who were bad and unlucky at the same time.
Asked by: PeteRidges
Answered: 10/4/2016
Well. . .that's a really good question, but I don't know what you mean by "my method". What method are you referring to? I don't think I have proposed any method that seems relevant.
The stand-up inside-the-park homer at Fenway was hit by super-speedster Kevin Youkilis.
Asked by: rucksack
Answered: 10/4/2016
When? I sort of half-remember something like this but am fuzzy on the details.
Bill : having watched a respectable number of football games this season and last, I have noticed how often analysts refer to "tired defenses", presumably defenses worn by their offense's inefficacy and inability to stay on the field and give said defense a breather. My first response is BS. Isn't the opposing team's offense out there exerting itself for exactly the same amount of time? It seems to this observer that this is just a narrative fit over a decisive win to explain one teams dominance and is an instance of lazy analysis. The tired D argument is well on its way to cliche'. Any thoughts?
Asked by: mendoza8
Answered: 10/3/2016
We discussed this at some length a couple of years ago. The analyst's assertion seems empty because it is not supported by HIS analysis, but. It is my opinion that to play defense requires much more energy than to play offense, and that this is true in almost every sport. It is true in War, for example; in preparing for war, preparing yourself defensively requires many more resources than preparing yourself to go on offense. Prior to World War II, Germany had an enormous advantage over France, in that France was directing its energy into defensive measures, while Germany was preparing to go on offense. The team on offense knows what it is that they intend to do, and thus can focus all of their energy into executing that plan. The team on defense doesn't know what the plan is, and so must prepare for every alternative. It requires much more energy to do that.
Carl Hubbell said his screwball was so effective because he could change speeds with it. In the same interview, about 1981, he said he had not seen a true screwball in many years (he was the Giants farm director into the 1970s), but he was looking forward to seeing if Valenzuela threw one.
In one of Roger Angell's books, he had Spahn show him how he held and threw his screwball. It was a circle change.
Asked by: wpcorbett
Answered: 10/3/2016
Whenever anybody uses the term "true" in that context, you know you're in trouble. The meaning of pitch names changes over time. What is called a "Hard Curve" in one decade becomes a slider the next, a forkball becomes a palm ball, a hard forkball becomes a splitter. There are always old timers saying that that's not a "true" changeup or that's not a "true" sinker or whatever. Jesse Haines threw a "knuckleball", but it wasn't what we call a knuckleball now.
A screwball has been called an outshoot, a fadeaway and, as you note, a circle change. Basically, whenever somebody uses the word "true" in that sense, what he is saying is that I am using the language correctly and you're not, but this inevitably leads to confusion, rather than understanding, because no one owns the language, and the meaning of words like "screwball" changes over time.
Later note. . .in our 2016 data the only pitchers listed as throwing a screwball are Trevor Bauer and Hector Santiago. Both of whom are listed as having thrown it 0% of the time. . . .
Byron Buxton just hit a stand-up inside-the-park homerun, circling the bases in 14 seconds. Just... wow. So, a question: when was the last time you saw a stand-up ITP homer?
Asked by: Jack
Answered: 10/3/2016
I don't have a note, but I know that I have seen it. Willie Wilson, probably. I think somebody hit one at Fenway 8 or 10 years ago.
HeyBill, re: AR-15 sound. I dunno, Donahue says it "makes an extraordinarily loud crack" and cites earwitnesses who place it there and say it was different and louder than Oswald's shots. He does mention it had a flash suppressor. Another factor, though, is that in addition to the roaring motorcycles and echoing shots, the car behind Hickey set off a wailing siren a second after they saw the headshot.
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 10/2/2016
Well. ..the argument that no one saw or heard a gunshot from Hickey is unconvincing, to me, because (1) no one sees a bullet. No one sees a gun fire, unless there is a muzzle flash in dim light. (2) There is so much confusion inherent in the situation that the earwitness reports can be used to support (or undermine) any explanation.
The Cubs have won 102 games without a single .300 hitter (not counting Kawasaki with only 19 AB).
How many teams have won 100 games without a .300 hitter who had enough AB to qualify for the batting championship on the roster ?
Asked by: MidnighttheCat
Answered: 10/2/2016
No iedea. The 1949 Yankees won 97 games without a regular hitting higher than .287. DiMaggio hit .346 but missed half of the season with an injury. The 1963 Yankees won 104 games without a regular hitting higher than .287; Mantle was injured and batted only 172 times. The 1965 Dodgers won 97 without a regular hitting higher than .286. The 1968 Tigers won 103 games without a regular hitting higher than .285; no player hit .300 inn 100 at bats.
Couple of assumptions embedded here, mainly that pro athletes are sensitive to changes in status/salary. The idea I'm groping for is a relief pitcher who actually does not care or even notice if he pitches in the 7th or the 9th (Save Situation). In your experience, are there athletes who are able to get that far into the competitive zone that they actually don't think about those things?
Asked by: wovenstrap
Answered: 10/2/2016
I think that many players don't think at all about those things, ONCE THEY ESCAPE A PROBABIONARY STATUS as a player. I think that you HAVE to think about those things while you are trying to get yourself established in the league. Once they get past that status, I think many players get so into the game that they don't really have any awareness of those issues while they are playing the game.
I think you might be selling Trea Turner a little short. Yes, he doesn't walk much, and thus can't be compared to a Rickey Henderson type, but in just about 300 at bats this year he has 13 homers, 8 triples, and 32 stolen bases (6 caught stealing). That's would be a pretty productive season for a lead-off man for an entire season, much less 70 games.
Asked by: pablo
Answered: 10/2/2016
Doesn't he also play right guard for the Panthers? I think I compared him to Steve Garvey at the upper boundary. If he turns out to be better than Garvey, I'll eat my Steve Garvey rookie card.
You may have answered this question before but here goes: in the post-season, does the average batting average go down? It would seem to be intuitively true because you're facing the best teams' front-line pitchers.
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 10/2/2016
Batting averages go down in the post-season because it's cold weather, and batting averages drop sharply in cold weather. It's better pitchers but better hitters; that's a wash.
Hey!
Welcome to Hey Bill, where Bill answers questions from his subscribers almost every day. Visitors can read the most recent Hey Bill's on this page. Subscribers can ask Bill a question directly and also view our archive of questions and answers.
The fifteen most recent questions are listed here and will change almost every day.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
I can't help but thinking that to some degree, Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature is like a closer winning the Cy Young Award.
Asked by: rtallia
Answered: 10/14/2016
I think of it as being sort of like the 10-year-old son being asked to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. . . .
HeyBill, I know we can't offer words of solace that would much comfort you with the team, but some of us passed a hat and got Dylan a Nobel. I hope that helps.
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 10/13/2016
Appreciate your work. I wish I had time to write a parody of his acceptance speech. . ."If it means something to somebody, you know, dynamite from The Devil's Tower, Triumph is Tragedy with a Harley and a Hound Dog, Fame won't let you Sleep and Peace don't know your name, your address hidden by misunderstanding and an old Throw Rug. You've taken my last refuge. Cell phones and Bomber drones, school zones and ring tones and tired bones. No rest for the wicked, and it's so hard being Wise. Success chases you like a bounty hunter with army of monkey clones; there's no alley left and no doorway on the right. Sidney Greenstreet wins; Theres no address, but it's all that I've got left. So I thank you all." Mumble incoherently as you read it so that people argue for the next 30 years about whether you said "Hound Dog" or "Ground Hog."
I doubt that it's indicative of anything other than a glitch of history, but the lack of outfielders among the best players of 2016 seems strange. By win shares, among players 24 WS or higher (30 players), there are only 3 outfielders. (Trout (duh), Betts and Eaton). Having grown up in the wake of Aaron, Mays, Robinson, Clemente, etc... just seems strange that the third best OF the majors is Adam Eaton.
Not really a question... sorry.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
You refuse to admit that Clayton Kershaw has a problem in the postseason, though the evidence suggests he does (a 4.55 ERA in 14 starts & 89 innings over 7 years). Rather than rehashing Kershaw's struggles, how do explain Mariano Rivera?
Rivera's regular season ERA, a stellar 2.21. Postseason ERA, an otherworldly 0.70. This is over 16 years, 96 games, 141 innings. That's 2 full years for a reliever. Not a small sample size.
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 10/25/2016
No, that IS a small sample size. It's a TINY sample size. Your basic misunderstanding is founded on the fact that you don't understand sampling error. Thinking that 141 innings is a big sample size is like imagining that a porta-potty is an aircraft carrier.
Revolutions are created by revolutionaries. There are always enough followers if you need them.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 10/25/2016
I would strongly disagree. There are always revolutionaries. There are very rarely enough followers to make the revolutionaries relevant. It is NOT revolutionaries who make revolutions; it is a collapse of trust in the institutions of government.
Hey Bill, you say we may be in danger of drifting into a civil war....If so, who are "the sides" ? It may be splitting hairs but I've long been saying, we're drifting into a revolution...or are they the same thing ? In either case, figuring out whose against whom in the current state of affairs is a lot more difficult than North vs South or Colonies vs England, and although I believe we need some sort of revolution, I don't think the majority of Americans care enough to make real positive change happen.
Asked by: clambeau
Answered: 10/25/2016
Do you actually think it takes a MAJORITY of people to start a civil war?
Hey Bill, I thought of you when I saw this headline.
"New York Lunch Could Yield Time Warner’s CEO Bewkes $117 Million"
Asked by: moscow25
Answered: 10/25/2016
I'm sure he earned every penny. . .
By gamut in the variable replacement value discussion, I meant a range of abilities from just borderline starting player-worthy (aprox. worth 1 Win Above Replacement, if played regularly) to, perhaps, slightly under replacement level (-0.5?)).
Bill, I can't find it now, but you once fired back a quick study to show us how way off the current versions of WAR are when comparing two players with equal WAR - one a fairly average player with a long career - and the other a higher impact player with a shorter career. As I recall the demonstrated difference was far greater in favor of the more brilliant player with the shorter career than the small bit your new version of WAR would show given the varible replacement level buckets you experimented with. Covering the actual difference is what I'm aiming for.
Perahps what is more significantly missing is that players' abilities do not stay static. They are always improving or declining, so those 0 or very low WAR players are quickly replaced.
Asked by: hotstatrat / J
Answered: 10/24/2016
Well, I agree it's a legitimate issue. We're not really moving the ball here. What I have written in the past is not evidence.
Bill,
I'm not one for magical thinking, either. And so it seems to me that the question of whether "something is going on" with regard to Kershaw in the post-season is something that is lost in "the fog", to use your metaphor of a couple of years ago. Not enough of a sample size to know. But whether what is going on in that fog is random or not, do you think it's at least a reasonable probability that his lack of success might be "real" (meaning with a tangible cause, I suppose) . . . but attributable not to him being a choke artist but to the Dodgers not setting him up to succeed . . . too many innings during the regular season (past years) or decisions to use him too often on short rest (this year and prior ones too)?
Tom
Asked by: tkoegel
Answered: 10/24/2016
I think it is very clear that player's performance levels in regular season are their performance levels in post season. There's nothing odd about Kershaw or any other great player having a few off games in post season. That stuff happens. It doesn't raise any red flags.
HeyBill: Time for a Wild Ass Guess (WAG) - If you could rank all the baseball players in the world what % would you WAG as currently in US MLB? I would WAG about 85-90%. Also, do you think this number has changed through time? (back in '20s-'30s I would wag 75-80% best players were in MLB at that time .........)
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 10/24/2016
People who use terms like WAG for Wild Ass Guess are just lazy, and generally I just ignore you. It is rude to the readers to do this. I don't understand why you don't SEE that you are being rude to the readers. Do us the small favor of actually SAYING what you mean, rather than speaking in tongues, OK? Typing isn't that hard.
I would guess that in 1920 no more than 40% of the best players were in the majors. Black players were not allowed, of course. The larger issue that scouting and player assessment in 1920 were haphazard, and the best players were often overlooked for a good part of their career. There are many, many incidents, in this era, of players like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander and Tris Speaker being released by minor league operators who just didn't know what they were doing, or being given a brief look in the majors and then released. In 1907 the Red Sox took a quick look at a player named George Whiteman, decided he didn't rate, let him go back to the minors. In 1913 he got a brief look from the Yankees, hit .344 in 11 games, went back to the minors. In 1917 he finally broke through with the Red Sox, and played so well that he drove an emerging outfielder named George Ruth out of the outfield for the World Series. He was old then, and retired after that.
I think that story isn't that odd, in that era. Many of the best players were permanently in the minors, because no well-organized system existed to identify them and get them into the major leagues.
Is the run differential (or other metric) bigger between the best and worst fulltime hitters or between the best and worst fulltime fielders? My contention is that the difference is much bigger on the hitting side than fielding side, but others disagree. What's your take on this issue?
Asked by: grising
Answered: 10/24/2016
The difference in fielding value is much, much larger than the difference in hitting value. I am 100% certain that this is true.
It is a dominant/recessive issue. When two elements compete for position in this way, the variance in the recessive element mathematically HAS to be larger than the variance in the dominant element. I don't know the name for it as a statistical observation, but it HAS to be true; it doesn't make any sense for it not to be true.
Almost time for the Bill James Handbook 2017 to come out. Any new stat categories this year? Will there be something that shows if a pitcher is a sidearmer/submariner?
Asked by: shthar
Answered: 10/24/2016
Don't think so. Not a bad suggestion.
I think the single-unit WAR muddies the water, when a two-dimensional description is better. You have Team A, with a 25-5 WinShares-LossShares pitcher, and a 13-17 pitcher. You have Team B, with two 19-11 pitchers. Both teams have their pair add up to 38-22. If you set the WAR level at .333, Team A has +5 WAR and +1 WAR, while Team B has two +3 WAR pitchers. If you set the WAR level at .233, you have Team A at +6, +2 WAR and Team B with two at +4 WAR. If you set it at .433, you have Team A at +4, +0, and Team B with two at +2 WAR. So, the issue of "one 4 WAR v two 2 WAR" players will always become an issue regardless of where you set the replacement point.
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 10/24/2016
But if you use a VARIABLE replacement level, or if there is a variable replacement level in fact and we finally learn to see this accurately, then we could learn to see distinctions between these two to which we are currently blind. Thanks.
gamut: an entire range from one extreme to another : a graded series including all kinds. (Thanks to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged)
monkeys: let's not forget that there are two teams/franchises that have NEVER even BEEN to the World Series: the one that's currently in Washington (began in Montreal), which is the third Washington franchise; and the one in Seattle, the second Seattle franchise. Meanwhile, there are several more who've only ever been there once, including the first Seattle franchise, also the teams in Houston, Denver, Tampa, Phoenix, and Anaheim. And then there's a bunch more who've only ever been there twice, which is almost as bad. ¶ So, depending on our definition of "monkey" in this context, the Cubbies and Indians might be the two with the currently longest non-World-Championship monkeys—if we don't count the infinitely lengthy, that is, which covers six of the teams enumerated above and two more who've been there twice.
Asked by: pgaskill
Answered: 10/24/2016
OK.
Polarization between the parties is real, much as you dispute the idea, at least at the elite levels.
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 10/24/2016
I've never disputed that idea, and it is preposterous to suggest that I have. What I have been arguing for years is that we are in danger of drifting into a civil war.
Your mention of Jim Murray reminded me of his great line, at least I remember it as being his, in the early days of the North American Soccer League.....
Scoring at will, Los Angeles trounced Toronto, 1-0.
Asked by: r44fletch
Answered: 10/24/2016
Thanks. Do you think maybe Olberman is his long lost son?
On pitching from the stretch versus windup, Hardball times looked at average fastball speed for each pitcher both with runners on and bases empty and observed no appreciable change between the two. This was 2008-9 season data.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/tht-live/does-the-stretch-cost-a-pitcher-fastball-speed/
Asked by: lidsky
Answered: 10/24/2016
Thanks. But now I'll get complaints that there is too much baseball on this site. . .
Replacement Values:
If Team B had two 5 Wins Above Replacement players, two 4 WAR players, and 12 1.5 WAR players, they would play the entire season and win about 76 games. If Team J had two 5 WAR players, two 4 WAR players, six 3.0 WAR players and six 0 WAR players, they would play a month as well as team B, but eventually they would improve as they find some replacements better than their 0 level players. Using the same logic that you used in recognizing that not all teams have the same replacement level players available, I am suggesting that there is a large gamut of players available some of which are worth a little more than 0 wins above the average replacement level and some are worth a little less. If a team had a 0 level player, they'd keep playing him until they found someone who could do better. Having your WAR in fewer players buys you the flexibility to improve when there is a much larger suppley of replacement level players and slightly better ones than 3 WAR guys.
Asked by: hotstatrat / John C.
Answered: 10/24/2016
I still don't think "gamut" is the right word.
Asked by: DavidH
Answered: 10/13/2016
You missed one, actually, but it is even worse than Adam Eaton. Odubel Herrera had 24 Win Shares. Giancarlo, Harper, Choo, Cain.. .just all had bad years. Holliday, Adam Jones, Jayson Werth, Ichiro, Bautista and others have gotten old; young players who were supposed to be good haven't stepped up. It's a good point.
Looks like the Swedish Academy has been keeping tabs on Hey Bill all along...
Asked by: Edward
Answered: 10/13/2016
We'll know we've got influence when the Pope canonizes Johnny Cash. . . .
I find my eyes glazing over whenever the TV dudes salivate over the most recent posting of Bob's Big Boy Stratocast Gizmo Thingee. Higher than somewhat exit velocity invariably sets off orgasms all over the broadcast booth. By tuning out this TV broadcast techno revolution am I missing out on vital information?
Asked by: hermitfool
Answered: 10/13/2016
Can you use a cell phone to order a pizza?
Out on the West coast we have 99 cents Stores. Are they 20 cents less in the Midwest?
Does one get a discount for not having to land there?
I'll be in Indiana in December, hoping for 70 degree weather.
Asked by: mauimike
Answered: 10/12/2016
Here in the Midwest, we have great sympathy for those who are unable to enjoy variations in weather. We think of you much in the same we think of other persons with handicaps.
When we talk about player age, I believe most folks in the sabermetric community (and you?) calculate age as of July 1 of each year? Is that correct? What is the rationale for that (not criticizing, just curious)--it's halfway through the season? Or...?
Asked by: rtallia
Answered: 10/12/2016
That tradition pre-dates me. I think it was established by the people who did the MacMillan Encyclopedia and the Sports Encylopedia: Baseball. I don't know why they did it that way, other than the reasons you site.
Hey Bill, I was thinking about the three balls and no strikes "green light" and was set off to wondering about how 3-0 counts were viewed in different eras. Nowadays it seems like when someone is given the green light, it's because he has the potential to hit a round tripper. So, I guess my question is, in the dead ball era, were swing rates on 3-0 pitches lower because of the lower odds of a home run? Do you have any insight on how inclined hitters were to swing 3-0 in the dead ball era?
Asked by: colinb
Answered: 10/11/2016
I don't know about the 3-0 count in the Dead Ball era. I don't think I know anything about this. . .
Hey Bill...are you going to order the "Big Papi" Limited Edition Baseball Bat online for $129.00
Asked by: clambeau
Answered: 10/11/2016
I'll plan to pick one up when the price drops to 79 cents.
I respect your choice of including a pitcher's playoff record in the overall context of his career. Perhaps that is the only fair way to do it. But I would assign a much greater weight to a pitcher's post-season performance, given that the ultimate goal is winning championships. If you switch Bumgarner's seasons with Kershaw's, the Dodgers still make the playoffs. You switch Kershaw's post-season record with Bumgarner's, and the Giants don't make the World Series.
It's the old question, who would you start in a game if your life depended on it, Bumgarner or Kershaw? I think their record in do-or-die games pretty much answers it.
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 10/9/2016
We base our ratings on actual skills. If you would prefer a rating based on magical thinking, that's somebody else's department.
Hey Bill, when I heard that Kyle Hendrick won the ERA title this year, I remembered something you once wrote about ERA leaders. You weren't impressed by many of them, citing Mike McCormick among others. Is that a fluke, or is there some logical reason why seemingly ordinary pitchers win ERA titles?
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 10/9/2016
Well, Hendrick actually is better and more impressive than many of the guys I was talking about when I made the comment I think you are referring to. In history, many, many pitchers have led the league in ERA by starting the season in the bullpen, long relief, having a few good outings there, then moving into the starting rotation over the second half of the season. They wind up with the lowest ERA in the league, but pitching 100 innings less than the league leaders. Stu Miller, 1958, Frank Baumann, 1960, Hank Aguirre, 1962, Dick Bosman, 1969, Diego Segui, 1970, Buzz Capra, 1974, Rudy May, 1980. It happens a lot. Danny Duffy, had he held on to lead the American League in ERA (which he was until late in the season) would have been very much in that tradtion. Hendricks, not quite so much; he's more in the tradition of Craig Swan in 1978 or Juan Guzman in 1996; there are a lot of those, too. I think he's a good pitcher; not sure how effective he would be without that great defense behind him.
Heh. Read the Kirkwood, MO comment. I've lived in Kirkwood since 1967. Where I live, it's a perfectly fine middle class suburb. But Al Smith grew up in Meachum Park, which was, at the time, the "black" part of Kirkwood. Kirkwood, like many other St. Louis suburbs, was de facto segregated and separate but equal educated. Things are much better now, though not nearly as good as I would like them to be. I live in a mixed neighborhood that would never have allowed a black person to live here in Al Smith's day. Nor were there any blacks living here when we moved in. Things have gotten better.
Asked by: Brock Hanke
Answered: 10/9/2016
Oh. . .sorry, Brock. My nephew also lives in Kirkwood. He reads the site once in a while; I was kind of elbowing him in the ribs, just to see if he was paying attention.
Was reading the Ted Williams autobiography and he mentioned trying to hit the top half of the ball in the first 6 innings to try for base hits that would start or prolong rallies. Then he said that from the 7th inning onward he would try to hit the bottom half of the baseball in order to get elevation for a home run. This had to be his idea of an inside joke right? Most batters have a hard time making any contact whatsoever with the ball, let alone aiming for a particular half?
Asked by: sprox
Answered: 10/8/2016
I don't remember his saying anything remotely like that.
Madison Bumgarner continued with his spectacular post-season run, while David Price and Clayton Kershaw continued to have post-season struggles. At what point does playoff dominance/failure enter into the question of who is the best pitcher in baseball?
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 10/8/2016
Immediately. Playoff games count in the starting pitcher rankings.
hypothetical question for clarification
before a post season starts, I have brandon crawford on the 15 day dl.
his dl time will expire on the second day of the series.
can I put him on the mlb postseason roster for nlds, and on the second day when he is off the dl, can he play. (if you have the rule mlb that covers this, please let me know,)
thx
Martin
Asked by: dmbbmartin10
Answered: 10/8/2016
You wouldn't have Brandon Crawford on the 15 day DL at the end of the season; it would never happen. Teams don''t use the 15 Day DL in September, because (with the 40 man rosters) they don't have to. You CERTAINLY would not use the 15 day DL in September with a key player.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
I'm a books editor. The convention of using the paren with an acronym on first mention works well in formal works. As an example, it's an alternative to using the phrase "Committee to Eliminate Earthly Pollution in Any Way Possible" 500 times. It's far better to lock in what CEEPAWP means in your mind as a reader and then move on that way. That works when one author is supplying the content for 500 pages and the reader is concentrating on just that voice, it's actually VERY considerate to the reader. On this forum there are 30 voices competing in one space, and each paragraph has its own voice which requires a small adjustment..... in that context, to be confronted with what amounts to a secret code is annoying and should be avoided.
Asked by: wovenstrap
Answered: 10/27/2016
Well. . .it's a half-step forward, I suppose. Books sometimes use acronyms in confusing and even bewildering ways, as well, particularly books about sabermetrics. The guideline isn't what editors say we can do, or what editors usually do. It is what the reader can process seamlessly and without special effort.
The editor is, in a sense, a stand-in for the audience; he represents the publishing company, of course, but is also a half-way point between writer and and reader. I am guessing that as an editor you have to deal with writers who half-want you to write the book for them, and also (on the other extreme) with writers like me who are going to make up our own policies and don't really care what your policies are. I am guessing that both camps of writers will at times annoy you very much.
Bill,
Agree with you completely re: acronyms vs. words. Even if Bruce might, in some technical sense, be correct in distinguishing between the two, as parts of speech acronyms function as words. I have pointed this out to people at times when they want to pluralize something like "ATM" as "ATM's" just because it's an acronym and "ATMs looks funny". I ask them if they would write "laser's" for two lasers (laser, as you know, being an acronym).
The fact that acronyms such as laser and scuba are now "just plain words" underscores the fact that we use acronyms, in the course of everyday language, the same way in which we would use other words.
Asked by: belewfripp
Answered: 10/27/2016
I didn't know that Laser was an acronym, I don't think. I probably knew it at some point.
The pluralization point you make is an interesting one. I always insist that plural RBI is sometimes RBI and sometimes RBIs. If you are saying that a player had 94 runs driven in during the season, it is RBI because it is an abbreviation for RUNS batted in. But if you are saying that a player drove in a run in the first and a run in the third, then it is RBIs because you are referring to each discrete Run Batted In.
This causes conflict with copy editors, who want to set a policy. Is it RBIs, or RBI? To which the answer is "It is whatever I said it was; leave it alone."
WAR, ERA, and MLB are NOT (yes, I'm shouting) words, they're acronyms. I'm shouting, in part, because during nearly a decade of teaching high school English I frequently had this battle.
Asked by: Bruce
Answered: 10/26/2016
That doesn't change the fact that you're dead wrong. That which is commonly used as a word IS a word, regardless of its derivation.
You could have saved yourself a decade of frustration (and a decade of being wrong about this issue) if you had simply looked up the definition of "acronym". It will tell you that an acronym is a word formed from the first initials of other words. A WORD formed from. . .
"Wild Ass Guess" is not the single most common meaning of "WAG." It isn't even the most common meaning within the world of sports. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAGs, or http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=WAG.
Asked by: Guy123
Answered: 10/26/2016
Wives and Girlfriends. My real point is that it is rude to others to try to make them decode your half-written thoughts because you are too lazy to type a few extra characters. The convention of explaining something once in parenthesis doesn't work, because that's not how the mind actually works. The way the mind actually works is, when people see initials they have to stop and decode them, unless those initials are already part of their vocabulary (like RBI). This breaks up the flow of a sentence so that you have to re-read the sentence, and wastes the time of the reader--for no reason, other than that you're too damned lazy to type a few extra keystrokes.
(I think he must have meant Showalter's failure to use Britton, not Tillman. He sent me poring through all kinds of stuff trying to see what he could have meant about Tillman.....)
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 10/26/2016
I knew there was a word off there somewhere. . .
I think I remember you saying you never read anything somebody else has written about you. Dylan still hasn't responded to the Nobel committee, and I think it's probably a similar impulse on his part. Some people are acting like he'a big-timing the committee, but that can't be right: he spends 200+ nights a year, every year, playing shows in 2000-seaters in downstate Illinois, etc. If he wanted to big time us he'd do a stadium tour twice a decade like a normal rock star. The Nobel stuff though... It's just not what he does, not in his control, so why bother with it; do what you will and I'll just keep trucking. But then, I'll certainly be reading my reviews should they ever come, so maybe you'd have more insight.
Asked by: PB
Answered: 10/26/2016
Well, obviously he's at a much higher level than I am, but projecting myself on to him. . . .what I do is the same regardless of what people say about it. I try to accept honors graciously but not take them seriously. I try not to let the expectations of others define what I spend my time doing.
Is it possible that there is a kind of stability in the role of the ace, if it's defined loosely as "one guy gets all/most of the saves"? I understand your general point about the flux of the bullpen, but I think it can be argued that there is continuity in the 1970s "Rolaids" era to now (a period of 40 years or so), where most teams define an ace who is distinct from other relievers because he closes out the game and receives the save.
Asked by: wovenstrap
Answered: 10/26/2016
There's an ELEMENT of stability, I suppose. If you have one element of a pattern which is stable but six elements which are unstable, is that the same pattern, or a different pattern with one common element? The fact is that usage patterns of bullpens are still changing. From 1980 to 1989 there were 44 pitchers who pitched 80 or more innings and recorded 30 or more saves. From 2010 to the present there have been NO pitchers who pitched 80 or more innings and recorded 30 or more saves.
HeyBill, re: Ramsey. When I first read the case, this is what I thought: A local sex predator of the "snuff" variety saw her on the Ramsey Pedophile Sales Tour or at dance class at Dance West and came in through the basement window Christmas afternoon. He wandered around the empty house…somewhere saw the $118k bonus figure…a receipt, something on a computer screen, whatever. That night he stungunned JonBenet and took her to the basement to exit sans alarm system. She screamed and he whacked her on the head, knocking her out with a sure-to-be-eventually-fatal skull dent. Damnit. New plan. Avert your eyes. Bad Santa made the quicky garrote from basement stuff at hand and did his sex snuff thing. His original plan may not have been a ransom at all, it may have been to have a sex plaything at home….that would explain him not bringing a note or a garrote but bringing the black duct tape and the stun gun and JonBenet back to the exit, but with her dead, and the liquid $118k the Ramseys had on hand, he decides to bang out the hasty note on their pad. He’s hoping the family has the money good to go hours before the body is discovered, which they do….but the house is crawling with cops. So, he disappears…..until, one afternoon, nine months later and a half mile away, he breaks into the home of a fellow Dance West student, the under-sized 12 or 14 year-old "Amy", lying low until the house is quiet and entering the girl’s room late at night. Discovered by the mother leering over the bed, he escapes. Citing the age discrepancy on the psychological pedophile profile, the locked-into-the-Ramseys Boulder cops ignore the psychological connections (the prosecutor never hears of it) but the outraged father (a psychologist) hires a private investigator (Pete Peterson) who 20 years later is still bouncing off internet walls about it. Issues?
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 10/26/2016
I don't think that is exactly what happened, for three reasons. The largest reason is that the ransom note is anything but huried. A ransom note normally is 25 to 50 words. This one runs hundreds of words, which, to me, indicates clearly that it was not written AFTER the crime, but BEFORE the crime, in the hours when the Ramseys were visiting friends and he was alone in the house waiting for them to return. There is nothing hasty or hurried or panicked about the ransom note.
THe second reason is that the ransom note never says ANYTHING about JonBenet, whereas it mentions/discusses/attacks John Ramsey by name and with information, repeatedly. If the murderer had been a self-admitted pedophile who came into the house because he knew who JonBenet was and he was focused on her, the ransom note would be ABOUT her, probably to the exclusion of almost all else. Instead, the impression we get from the ransom note is that the murderer didn't know anything (at all) about JonBenet, other than that John Ramsey had a daughter. I think that the murderer, until that night, was in denial about the fact that he was a pedophile, and broke into the house acting out a fantasy in which he was a master criminal who was going to get $120,000 and get away clean.
Third, I think the dissimilarities between the Dance West case and the JonBenet case are enough to suspect that it is a different criminal, although I acknowledge that it COULD BE the same criminal, and I think normal police work would dictate that one would assume that there was a possibility that the two crimes were linked.
Hey Bill,
Like what I suspect are most of your readers, I often cringe at managers using their bullpen by the "book" - particularly saving their best reliever for save situation which may never occur. But with Showalter's failure to use Tillman (and Francona's use of Miller) in the playoffs this year, do you expect to see a turning point in bullpen usage (away from the modern closer and back to the Sutter/Gossage "fireman" of 30-40 years ago)? It seems that the announcers are kinda "on-board" with this change.
- Dave
Asked by: deberly
Answered: 10/26/2016
Well, I think the question implies that there is a stable format to bullpen usage. I don't think there has ever been a stable format for bullpen usage. I think it has been in constant flux since managers began using bullpens about 100 years ago. It is ALWAYS different by the end of the decade than it was at the start of the decade.
Well, you can't start a fire without a spark.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 10/26/2016
Oh, there's PLENTY of sparks flying. Our political discussion does not lack either for sparks or gasoline.
In defense of reader use of acronyms/abbreviations, I would point out that there are some (e.g. ERA, AL, MLB) that you don't object to, presumably since no one reading this site would not understand the reference. You seem to object most voluably to acronyms/abbreviations that the reader appears to have made up themselves. And you occasionally complain about acronyms/abbreviations that are in wide use but that you believe would be confusing to many readers (at one point, WAR was in this category, but seems to have been promoted). I appreciate your effort to make the site as broadly understandable as possible, but I think you could stand to ease off here quite a bit. There is a long-standing and widely adhered to norm for using acronyms/abbreviations in written text, in which the author provides a parenthetical definition the first time the term is used. The reader who used WAG (Wild Assed Guess) did this, so I do not think your criticism was really in order.
Asked by: Rwclayton7
Answered: 10/26/2016
Yeah, it's a long-standing convention, and it doesn't work worth a shit. WAR is a word now; ERA is a word, and MLB is a word. If it's not a word, use the word.
Bill, with regard to abbreviations: we, the readers, have a character limit.
Asked by: MikeChary
Answered: 10/25/2016
Not REALLY. I mean. . .you can't go on forever. You have a lot of space.
I was a catcher in high school and developed a bad case of yips throwing back to the pitcher. First game of the year, went out and threw about 10 balls backs to the pitcher that didn't come within a mile of him before the coach took me out. One of the most brutal experiences of my life. They stuck me in left field and I ended up catching full-time the following two years. Over the years as I have played catch it has come and gone. It's a weird thing, where your mental awareness of the action takes over and cripples you. It's like walking along a 9" steel beam 100 feet in the air. It's the same as walking on a curb, the only thing different is your hyper-awareness of it. The way to get over it is to develop the ability to kind of step outside of it and just let your physical abilities take over, and that has nothing to do with effort and more to do with a kind of zen ability to change your frame of mind. I would expect many pro players have dealt with the problem.
Asked by: Ben from New York
Answered: 10/25/2016
Thanks.
You refuse to admit that Clayton Kershaw has a problem in the postseason, though the evidence suggests he does (a 4.55 ERA in 14 starts & 89 innings over 7 years). Rather than rehashing Kershaw's struggles, how do explain Mariano Rivera?
Rivera's regular season ERA, a stellar 2.21. Postseason ERA, an otherworldly 0.70. This is over 16 years, 96 games, 141 innings. That's 2 full years for a reliever. Not a small sample size.
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 10/25/2016
No, that IS a small sample size. It's a TINY sample size. Your basic misunderstanding is founded on the fact that you don't understand sampling error. Thinking that 141 innings is a big sample size is like imagining that a porta-potty is an aircraft carrier.
Revolutions are created by revolutionaries. There are always enough followers if you need them.
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 10/25/2016
I would strongly disagree. There are always revolutionaries. There are very rarely enough followers to make the revolutionaries relevant. It is NOT revolutionaries who make revolutions; it is a collapse of trust in the institutions of government.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
HeyBill: last nights Cubs/Indians game was, to paraphrase you, "A second guessers dream".... what do you think of the safety-squeeze with 2 strikes on Cubs batter? What are the odds of the squeeze being better than the alternatives (sac fly, etc.)?
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 11/4/2016
I don't know. Most of the time you can't actually calculate the odds if the team does this or that, because the differences in the outcomes are smaller than the differences in the assumptions that you have to make. You can't REALLY calculate when a manager should bunt or when he should use a pinch hitter. The differences in the possible outcomes are too small, and the differences in the assumptions you have to make are too large. Hope that makes sense.
Does the continued increase in strikeouts & homers mean we're going back to the baseball of the 50s and 60s?. Lots of homers, strikeouts, fly balls. At least it's not going to be the Yankees and Dodgers in every series again, is it?
Asked by: shthar
Answered: 11/3/2016
Strikeouts now are way, way higher than they were in the 1950s. Strikeouts opened the 1950s at 9% of plate appearances (not counting pitchers), hit 10% in 1955, 11% in 1956 and 12% in 1959. We jumped to 14% in 1963, stayed at 14% until 1968, dropped to 13% in 1969. Now we're at 21%. More than twice what it was in 1955.
One reason for the lack of success of third parties is that there are institutional handicaps imposed by the major parties. For example, it's very difficult for a third party to get on the ballot since each state has different requirements. And, then, of course, it's a chicken and egg argument. As you said, you would vote for a third party if it had a chance to win but since it doesn't you want vote for it, which means it has no chance to win . . . and so on. I always felt that a serious third party would need to start by running candidates for Congress before running for the presidency. This would help to give it the organizational critical mass that it would need to be a serious contender, but it would take a long time.
I suspect that we are going to see a white nationalist party forming and running candidates in coming elections. Such a party could coalesce around the single issue (ie, white nationalism), much as the Republicans coalesced around anti-slavery.
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 11/3/2016
Oh, for christ's sake; a white nationalist party wouldn't 2% of the vote. You need to get out more, dude.
Mostly just an old guy's lament. This year's World Series offered a rare opportunity to present some of MLB's history to a mass audience (especially any younger ones who were awake): the 1908 pennant races, Three-Finger Brown, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, the Peerless Leader, Franklin P. Adams, Fred Merkle, Hank O'Day, young Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, Larry Ritter, the 1948 AL race and playoff, Lou Boudreau, Bill Veeck, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller, the Boston Braves, Spahn and Sain. I missed parts of a couple of the games, but about all I heard was 1908, 108 years, 1948 and 68 years, over and over, and how how old Babe Ruth, Thomas Edison and a few others were in those years. Does Fox think that those extraordinary seasons and their dramatis personae, related by someone who knows something about them, wouldn't be of interest to its audience? Does MLB just not care about whether any of this gets presented as long as Fox sends the checks on time?
Asked by: sklugman
Answered: 11/3/2016
I don't know that a game broadcast is the place to share a history lesson. But there should be some place on TV for remembering those things, I would think.
Regarding strikeouts, do the Major Leagues have a cultural blind spot with players who don't fit the bat speed is king model? There are a handful of players who seem to emphasize contact and batting average and maybe OBP over power: Ichiro, Hyun-Soo Kim, Nori Aoki. All imported from Asia, where the all power all the time mantra may not be as prevalent.
I've sometimes thought that MLB would be better off with more leagues outside its influence, if for no other reason than to develop techniques that have no traction in the MLB monoculture.
Asked by: jwilt
Answered: 11/3/2016
Yes, I agree with all of that. I have talked to our scouts about bat speed being overrated or over-valued, and the scouts do tend to agree that that is true, I think. I don't get people saying "that's not true"; I get people saying "That's right." You may notice that in our organization, we don't strike out a lot, relative to everybody else.
But the culture is what it is. Every town the size of Lawrence or smaller has a couple of ex-professional or ex-college baseball players who give hitting lessons to young athletes, train them, costs $40 an hour or something. Those people teach 12-year-olds what they were taught as 12-year-olds; bat speed, bat speed, you've got to impact the baseball. When you're drafting players, you're choosing from a pool of 200 college players, all of whom have bought into this maximum bat speed idea. To say that WE don't emphasize bat speed; it's a relative thing. We're drafting from the same pool that everybody else is drafting from.
Wasn't one of the big reasons for the success of the American League the move towards "clean" baseball? I think there is a great opportunity for an American League of political parties to arise, one that is committed to a code of ethical conduct in political behaviour. Could we maybe call it 'The PTY' party (Please and Thank You)?
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 11/3/2016
Well, I love the idea and I'm on board with you, but
(a) I'm not sure how well you can generalize from baseball in 1903 to politics in 2017, and
(b) there were also other reasons for the success of the American League, one of those being that there was a void there in the old two-party system from the 1880s. Two-league system. The collapse of the American Association a few years earlier had left the National League competing with itself, which had a lot of problems. If the Democratic Party were to completely collapse that would leave the Republicans competing with themselves, which would surely lead to the rise of a third party, but. . .
There have been a lot of points of history at which it appeared that the two-party system in America worked so badly that it might collapse, and it still might, but it hasn't yet. If someone came forward with a positive agenda and promised not to tolerate negative advertising, for example, I would support that party IF THEY HAD A CHANCE TO WIN. It has historically proven impossible to get such a party in a place where they had the resources and the depth and the public support to be a viable competitor.
To my surprise, I read on Posnanski's column this year's Chicago Cubs was one of the most fielding-efficient clubs in history. Their manager, Joe Maddon, also oversaw dramatic improvements to the Tampa Bay Rays when he was there. So what's Joe doing differently? And do you think his success will prove influential to other MLB clubs?
Asked by: rwarn17588
Answered: 11/3/2016
I don't know, but nine times in ten when people say those things it turns out to be not true. A year ago, you remember, the Royals won the World Series, in part, because they had a fantastic bullpen. They had three relievers with ERAs around 1.00 or 1.50 or something; if they were in position to win late in the game, the game was over because you weren't going to beat Wade Davis.
Well, everybody was going to imitate that and that was going to be the new way that championships were won, but the problem is, (a) it's not that easy to find three lights-out relievers, and (b) even if you do, you still have to get into position to win. The Yankees, who already had one terrific reliever, paid good money for a second one (Andrew Miller) and traded their farm system for a third (Aroldis), so they had this great bullpen, only it didn't work; the bullpen was great, but the team still didn't do anything until they got rid of Miller and Chapman.
Everybody imitates successful teams all the time, but the copies are never quite like the original, and most of the time somebody else will win next year using some other strategy. A strategy revolutionizes the game if it is simply a strategy, if other teams CAN get the advantage that the original has gained. But if it's a plan that requires organization and talent and time to work, then the ability of other teams to copy it successfully is more limited.
Bill, who, if anyone, on the current political scene do you think would make a good president? Or, since Trump wasn't a true politician until he started to run, who out there in America do you think would make a good president period?
Asked by: matt_okeefe
Answered: 11/3/2016
At the moment, Theo appears to be the only real option. . .
Hey Bill-thanks to rtallia and you for the kind words regarding the article. Regarding rtallia's observation on Buckner, it is unusual for someone to have that many career hits but with that low of an rWAR. In looking at all players with 2,500 or more hits (89 players, of which Buckner is 59th), the only one with a lower rWAR than Buckner is the one rtallia called out (Doc Cramer). I'm no rWAR expert, but I suspect Buckner's figure is so low because, outside of his batting average, he didn't bring much else to the table. Of this group, he was 86th in OBP (.321), 78th in Slugging, and 82nd in OPS. The ones below him in OPS tended to be players like a few you mentioned in your reply (Brooks Robinson, Luis Aparicio, Omar Vizquel) as well as Willie Davis, Nellie Fox, and Rabbit Maranville, but they provided value in speed and/or defense, all of which contributes to a good rWAR figure. Buckner had a good average, but poor OBP, not much power, and not much defensive value. Thanks, Dan
Asked by: DMBBHF
Answered: 11/3/2016
Thanks for the comments on Thomas / sexual harassment. My mother was one of Packwood's accusers... maybe because I was so young at the time, I've never quite known how much that story left an imprint on people beyond our corner of the country. But clearly, other people remember it...
Asked by: RipCity
Answered: 11/3/2016
Thanks.
Your comment about Alston and regularity of pitcher use reawakened an old question in my mind: Was Alston a great manager or a lucky apparatchik? He was one of the first to go to the 5-man rotation, wasn’t he? Wally Moon once told me he was "the perfect manager for a major league team" because of his ability to handle men. Frank Robinson thought he was an idiot who sat in the dugout like a lump. There are all sorts of divergent opinions like that among those who played for him. What’s your take?
Asked by: wpcorbett
Answered: 11/3/2016
I try to avoid evaluating managers. I don't think that's an appropriate role for us, really, to get caught up in an endlessly spinning argument about who is good and bad. I think it is more our job to understand what this particular manager has brought to the table, what he liked to do and didn't like to do. Walter had the courage not to OVER manage, which is not an easy thing do; most manager do over manage, I think. Who do you think was more successful as a manager: Walter, or Frank Robinson?
I was reading Daniel's excellent Farm System article and noticed that Bill Buckner only accumulated 14 WAR in his career--is there anyone else with that hit total (2700+) with such a low career value? I looked a bit and saw Doc Cramer with 8 WAR, is there anyone else like that? In a way I don't even see how that's possible....!
Asked by: rtallia
Answered: 11/2/2016
It's an outstanding article, isn't it? Jake Beckley and Al Oliver might not have high values; I don't know. Probably Brooks Robinson and Omar Vizquel had (even) less offensive value than Buckner with a lot of hits, but they at least could play defense. And Luis Aparicio.
Bill, a follow up on my Supreme Court question. Do you think Clarence Thomas could get confirmed in today's attitude toward sexual harassment attitudes?
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 11/2/2016
After Bill Clinton and after Trump, Thomas's sexual harassment issues would look like such small potatoes that its hard to believe they would even be an issue. It's difficult to see how you could argue that Clinton is OK to be President, but Thomas is not OK to be on the Supreme Court.
. . ..(later)
Well, maybe I can give you a more thorough answer—not to say a BETTER answer or an answer that you’re going to like any better, but a longer and more thorough answer.
Three things about the Clarence Thomas hearings:
1) That they were an after-effect or an echo boom from the Robert Bork hearings four years earlier,
2) That the sexual harassment issue was a surrogate issue, standing in for the REAL issues, and
3) That sexual harassment of women was so generally accepted in our culture through the mid-1980s that it was, in a sense, a "new" concept to Americans in 1991, and we handled it poorly because it was a new concept.
I should say also that I believe the Democratic Party was just totally and absolutely wrong on this issue, that their actions were racist, elitist, deceptive and poisonous. What the Democratic Party did at that time was ONE of the sorry steps that brought us to this pass where we are today, with two unworthy candidates for the Presidency, and millions of people who are determined to overlook the flaws of one or the other. So I am not exactly an unbiased commentator, and wouldn’t want to be mistaken for one.
About Bork. . .I was as conflicted about his nomination as the nation was. I could see it one way or the other, and it wasn’t until late in his confirmation hearings that I decided—as the Congress did—that I just could not support him. But after he was defeated, Bork wrote a book purporting to be about American society and where we were heading, and after reading that book, my reaction was "Thank GOD we didn’t put this man on the Supreme Court." It absolutely was one of the worst books that I have ever read—and THE worst book I have ever read that pretended to be a philosophical reflection on the world around us. I had always believed that Bork at least was an intelligent man, but his book revealed just an incomprehensible shallowness of thought on every subject that it addressed. I believe that the man may be superficially intelligent and a good law school professor, but he’s just. . .shallow. I don’t believe he has every really THOUGHT about anything, other than the law and his own career.
Well, Bork was defeated, but it required an epic struggle. When Thurgood Marshall died, liberals treasured his seat, and they were absolutely DETERMINED to deny a conservative that seat at all costs. The REAL issue was that he was a conservative, and the liberals despised him because they thought he was unworthy to claim Thurgood Marshall’s legacy. His personal conduct was a surrogate for that issue. The left believed that they could use his personal conduct to deny him the seat, and they brought every possible resource they could find into this battle.
But in terms of his personal conduct, they didn’t really have very much to work with. Thomas WASN’T a man like Trump or Bill Clinton or (shudder) Robert Packwood who had a long history of improper actions toward women. He was, and is, a man of probity and careful conduct. There was one accuser. If other women had come forward and said, "Yeah, he was like this to me, too", then Thomas would have been defeated—but nobody else came. The other women that he worked with all or mostly said, "Nah, he’s fine. Never had any problem with him." Did he shut the door when he met with women subordinates? No; he always made it a point to keep the door open, whether it was Anita Hill or anybody else.
And Anita Hill’s stories seemed. . .well. One story was that, in finding a hair on top of a coke can, he had suggested that it looked like a pubic hair. She thought this was offensive.
I don’t doubt that Thomas did and said things to Anita Hill which WERE offensive; I don’t question that. Not everything offensive is criminal. In my view, the Left was able to sell this petty misconduct as sexual harassment only because sexual harassment, having been almost universally tolerated until the early 1980s, was still a new concept, and people didn’t have any clear idea of what was and what wasn’t accepted. Bill Clinton signed a law authorizing aggressive investigations of sexual harassment, not quite realizing that he was himself a serial offender.
If she brought the same charges today, with the same lack of support from her colleagues, and without the gratuitous support of people who were determined to hate Clarence Thomas because of his politics, people would pay no attention. People would weigh what Thomas had done against Clinton, against Trump, against Peckerwood and John Edwards and Dennis Hastert, and they would realize it just wasn’t big enough to be a real obstacle. I think if this happened today there would still be a massive struggle about his appointment, but the left would have to abandon Anita Hill and take some entirely different approach to the problem, because they would realize quickly that there’s just not enough here to make a go of it.
Thanks for the insights on why strikeouts keep going up. You got me thinking of another question: could a large part of the rise in strikeouts in the past 20 years be due to the fact that just about every player is at least somewhat of a threat to go deep? When I first started paying close attention to baseball in the 60s and early 70s, there were a lot of players who weren't going to hit ore than 1 or 2 homers a year, but they also hardly ever struck out. The risk/reward ration was wrong for them. If they weren't a threat to hit the ball out, they'd better at least make some productive outs. (I know some will tear me a new one for using "productive out," but there are times when teams need to move the runner.)
Asked by: DanaKing
Answered: 11/2/2016
Yes, that syndrome is a part of the process. And, relating to the previous question as to whether a slap hitter COULD survive and thrive in the majors today. . .I think we HAVE, in fact, crossed over the line at which everybody trying to drive the ball to the warning track doesn't pay off as much as it WOULD pay off to have a guy who specialized in getting on base. Not picking on Roughneck Odor, who has Hall of Fame ability, but I see him as epitimozing the problem. There's just not that much value in hitting 33 homers in a lineup where everybody hits homers and nobody is on base.
Hey, Bill!
With just about every team having several pitchers who can throw 95+, do you think a hitter could be successful if he used a big, thick-handled bat and slapped at the ball? Do players like that just not come along anymore?
Asked by: Davidg32
Answered: 11/2/2016
I believe that a player of that type could be successful. There are none of them in the majors now, although there is somebody who uses a kind of big bat and chokes up quite a bit. . .forget who it is. I personally believe that a player who did that well could hit .320 in the majors, probably.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Hey, Bill, second-guessing is an easy game to play, isn't it? Tito Francona intentionally walked Anthony Rizzo to face Ben Zobrist and that strategy backfired as Zobrist came through with a double. Sure, Rizzo has more power and is a better hitter, but, as the Cubs were the visiting team, a walk meant more runners on base, besides, Rizzo is a better strike out target than Zobrist, who is a contact hitter. Do you think the move that Tito made in that critical 10th inning were right?
Asked by: jbdominicano
Answered: 11/6/2016
I don't know whether the moves were right or wrong, but (a) Rizzo does not strike out significantly more often than Zobrist, and (b) I believe that most managers would win more games if they would just decide before opening day that they weren't going to intentionally walk anyone.
Hey, Bill: setting aside the political challenges, math itself is working against the emergence of a third party. I'm sure you're aware of this (and your initial comment on the matter reflects that knowledge), but given the structure of our election system (one vote for one candidate, winner take all results, etc.), political scientists since at least Condorcet have shown that the system tends to reach a two-party equilibrium. This is for a variety of paradoxical reasons that even alternative voting methods like Condorcet ranking cannot resolve satisfactorily.
The consensus takeaway is that a third party can arise if an existing party makes a major mistake and alienates its base, but typically the result is thought to be that the new party replaces the old, and that the two-party equilibrium is maintained.
Asked by: Jaunty Rockefeller
Answered: 11/6/2016
Well. . .I think sometimes political parties do re-cast themselves so thoroughly that you have what is in effect a new political party inhabiting the skin of an old one. I wonder if this has not begun to happen in 2016 to the Republican Party. The Trumpkins are not "conservative" as I have long understood the word "conservative". Certainly it happened to the Democratic Party between 1928 and 1972. Most people don't understand that the Democratic Party from 1908 to 1928 WAS simply the South. The Democrats lost almost every state in most of the National Elections in that era, other than the solid south and occasionally picking off a border state, and also had few representatives in Congress (outside of the South). THAT Democratic Party really is dead; it HAS passed away. There is still A Democratic Party, but other than the name it has no connection to the Democratic Party which existed before FDR.
The broad brush stroke impression some on the left hold of the middle of the country leads to comments about a "white nationalist" party gaining traction.
For all of the xenophobia that Trump has tapped into about those entering over the southern border, it's not tremendously different than the xenophobia that coasters hold against the center of the country.
Severe distrust of fellow citizens isn't better or worse than severe distrust of immigrants. It is *exactly* the same. All of it is driven by fear, which is being stoked by the political process.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 11/6/2016
I would largely agree with that. The people on the coast DO tend to regard us as outsiders unwelcome to share in their political process. But they don't realize they are doing it.
Hey, Bill.
Kind of an off-beat question, if you please: I sense a lot more mention of pitching grips to effect changes in pitch movement and/or pace than I ever used to, from my childhood in the 60's until a few years ago. Of course, most anyone who has ever pitched or even played serious catch has toyed around with different grips and pressure points on the ball.
Does this coincide with an increase in emphasis on it by professional pitchers and pitching coaches? Or has it always been there, and I just never realized it?
Asked by: wilbur
Answered: 11/6/2016
I would suppose that an increase in people talking about the subject would be more likely than an actual increase in professional pitchers working on it. I can't say that I have noticed any more chatter about this, honestly.
Maybe I missed it, but I haven't heard you weigh in on this year's Baseball Hall of Fame "era ballots"---aka the new bastardized version of the Veteran's Committee. Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Mark McGwire, Lou Piniella, John Schuerholz, Bud Selig, George Steinbrenner are all back on the ballot. For what it's worth, which is zippola, since I don't have a vote, I'd give the nod to McGwire, Schuerholz and Steinbrenner. How about you?
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 11/6/2016
I don't have a vote, either.
HeyBill: last nights Cubs/Indians game was, to paraphrase you, "A second guessers dream".... what do you think of the safety-squeeze with 2 strikes on Cubs batter? What are the odds of the squeeze being better than the alternatives (sac fly, etc.)?
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 11/4/2016
I don't know. Most of the time you can't actually calculate the odds if the team does this or that, because the differences in the outcomes are smaller than the differences in the assumptions that you have to make. You can't REALLY calculate when a manager should bunt or when he should use a pinch hitter. The differences in the possible outcomes are too small, and the differences in the assumptions you have to make are too large. Hope that makes sense.
Does the continued increase in strikeouts & homers mean we're going back to the baseball of the 50s and 60s?. Lots of homers, strikeouts, fly balls. At least it's not going to be the Yankees and Dodgers in every series again, is it?
Asked by: shthar
Answered: 11/3/2016
Strikeouts now are way, way higher than they were in the 1950s. Strikeouts opened the 1950s at 9% of plate appearances (not counting pitchers), hit 10% in 1955, 11% in 1956 and 12% in 1959. We jumped to 14% in 1963, stayed at 14% until 1968, dropped to 13% in 1969. Now we're at 21%. More than twice what it was in 1955.
One reason for the lack of success of third parties is that there are institutional handicaps imposed by the major parties. For example, it's very difficult for a third party to get on the ballot since each state has different requirements. And, then, of course, it's a chicken and egg argument. As you said, you would vote for a third party if it had a chance to win but since it doesn't you want vote for it, which means it has no chance to win . . . and so on. I always felt that a serious third party would need to start by running candidates for Congress before running for the presidency. This would help to give it the organizational critical mass that it would need to be a serious contender, but it would take a long time.
I suspect that we are going to see a white nationalist party forming and running candidates in coming elections. Such a party could coalesce around the single issue (ie, white nationalism), much as the Republicans coalesced around anti-slavery.
Asked by: Marc Schneider
Answered: 11/3/2016
Oh, for christ's sake; a white nationalist party wouldn't 2% of the vote. You need to get out more, dude.
Mostly just an old guy's lament. This year's World Series offered a rare opportunity to present some of MLB's history to a mass audience (especially any younger ones who were awake): the 1908 pennant races, Three-Finger Brown, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, the Peerless Leader, Franklin P. Adams, Fred Merkle, Hank O'Day, young Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, Larry Ritter, the 1948 AL race and playoff, Lou Boudreau, Bill Veeck, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller, the Boston Braves, Spahn and Sain. I missed parts of a couple of the games, but about all I heard was 1908, 108 years, 1948 and 68 years, over and over, and how how old Babe Ruth, Thomas Edison and a few others were in those years. Does Fox think that those extraordinary seasons and their dramatis personae, related by someone who knows something about them, wouldn't be of interest to its audience? Does MLB just not care about whether any of this gets presented as long as Fox sends the checks on time?
Asked by: sklugman
Answered: 11/3/2016
I don't know that a game broadcast is the place to share a history lesson. But there should be some place on TV for remembering those things, I would think.
Regarding strikeouts, do the Major Leagues have a cultural blind spot with players who don't fit the bat speed is king model? There are a handful of players who seem to emphasize contact and batting average and maybe OBP over power: Ichiro, Hyun-Soo Kim, Nori Aoki. All imported from Asia, where the all power all the time mantra may not be as prevalent.
I've sometimes thought that MLB would be better off with more leagues outside its influence, if for no other reason than to develop techniques that have no traction in the MLB monoculture.
Asked by: jwilt
Answered: 11/3/2016
Yes, I agree with all of that. I have talked to our scouts about bat speed being overrated or over-valued, and the scouts do tend to agree that that is true, I think. I don't get people saying "that's not true"; I get people saying "That's right." You may notice that in our organization, we don't strike out a lot, relative to everybody else.
But the culture is what it is. Every town the size of Lawrence or smaller has a couple of ex-professional or ex-college baseball players who give hitting lessons to young athletes, train them, costs $40 an hour or something. Those people teach 12-year-olds what they were taught as 12-year-olds; bat speed, bat speed, you've got to impact the baseball. When you're drafting players, you're choosing from a pool of 200 college players, all of whom have bought into this maximum bat speed idea. To say that WE don't emphasize bat speed; it's a relative thing. We're drafting from the same pool that everybody else is drafting from.
Wasn't one of the big reasons for the success of the American League the move towards "clean" baseball? I think there is a great opportunity for an American League of political parties to arise, one that is committed to a code of ethical conduct in political behaviour. Could we maybe call it 'The PTY' party (Please and Thank You)?
Asked by: Gfletch
Answered: 11/3/2016
Well, I love the idea and I'm on board with you, but
(a) I'm not sure how well you can generalize from baseball in 1903 to politics in 2017, and
(b) there were also other reasons for the success of the American League, one of those being that there was a void there in the old two-party system from the 1880s. Two-league system. The collapse of the American Association a few years earlier had left the National League competing with itself, which had a lot of problems. If the Democratic Party were to completely collapse that would leave the Republicans competing with themselves, which would surely lead to the rise of a third party, but. . .
There have been a lot of points of history at which it appeared that the two-party system in America worked so badly that it might collapse, and it still might, but it hasn't yet. If someone came forward with a positive agenda and promised not to tolerate negative advertising, for example, I would support that party IF THEY HAD A CHANCE TO WIN. It has historically proven impossible to get such a party in a place where they had the resources and the depth and the public support to be a viable competitor.
To my surprise, I read on Posnanski's column this year's Chicago Cubs was one of the most fielding-efficient clubs in history. Their manager, Joe Maddon, also oversaw dramatic improvements to the Tampa Bay Rays when he was there. So what's Joe doing differently? And do you think his success will prove influential to other MLB clubs?
Asked by: rwarn17588
Answered: 11/3/2016
I don't know, but nine times in ten when people say those things it turns out to be not true. A year ago, you remember, the Royals won the World Series, in part, because they had a fantastic bullpen. They had three relievers with ERAs around 1.00 or 1.50 or something; if they were in position to win late in the game, the game was over because you weren't going to beat Wade Davis.
Well, everybody was going to imitate that and that was going to be the new way that championships were won, but the problem is, (a) it's not that easy to find three lights-out relievers, and (b) even if you do, you still have to get into position to win. The Yankees, who already had one terrific reliever, paid good money for a second one (Andrew Miller) and traded their farm system for a third (Aroldis), so they had this great bullpen, only it didn't work; the bullpen was great, but the team still didn't do anything until they got rid of Miller and Chapman.
Everybody imitates successful teams all the time, but the copies are never quite like the original, and most of the time somebody else will win next year using some other strategy. A strategy revolutionizes the game if it is simply a strategy, if other teams CAN get the advantage that the original has gained. But if it's a plan that requires organization and talent and time to work, then the ability of other teams to copy it successfully is more limited.
Bill, who, if anyone, on the current political scene do you think would make a good president? Or, since Trump wasn't a true politician until he started to run, who out there in America do you think would make a good president period?
Asked by: matt_okeefe
Answered: 11/3/2016
At the moment, Theo appears to be the only real option. . .
Hey Bill-thanks to rtallia and you for the kind words regarding the article. Regarding rtallia's observation on Buckner, it is unusual for someone to have that many career hits but with that low of an rWAR. In looking at all players with 2,500 or more hits (89 players, of which Buckner is 59th), the only one with a lower rWAR than Buckner is the one rtallia called out (Doc Cramer). I'm no rWAR expert, but I suspect Buckner's figure is so low because, outside of his batting average, he didn't bring much else to the table. Of this group, he was 86th in OBP (.321), 78th in Slugging, and 82nd in OPS. The ones below him in OPS tended to be players like a few you mentioned in your reply (Brooks Robinson, Luis Aparicio, Omar Vizquel) as well as Willie Davis, Nellie Fox, and Rabbit Maranville, but they provided value in speed and/or defense, all of which contributes to a good rWAR figure. Buckner had a good average, but poor OBP, not much power, and not much defensive value. Thanks, Dan
Asked by: DMBBHF
Answered: 11/3/2016
Thanks for the comments on Thomas / sexual harassment. My mother was one of Packwood's accusers... maybe because I was so young at the time, I've never quite known how much that story left an imprint on people beyond our corner of the country. But clearly, other people remember it...
Asked by: RipCity
Answered: 11/3/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
As noted in the article linked by the original poster, how one becomes a chief judge and how one becomes the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are entirely different. Seniority matters for lower courts, but is irrelevant on the SC.
The Chief Justice is not particularly more powerful than the other 8 (or 7 as it stands). It's mostly procedural, and anyone trying to use the position for something other than ceremonial purposes will find that out.
It's quirky that it works differently than the rest of the system.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 11/18/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill, I was hoping you could shed light on something a co-worker (and Red Sox fan) said today. They suggested that David Ortiz had at times had animosity with the Red Sox due to him being 'disrespected' by them in contract situations in the past.
I had no recollection of this, and some quick Googling yielded no contemporaneous news stories that suggested it. The fact that Ortiz re-signed as a free agent multiple times would seem to dispute it.
Is there anything to my co-worker's assertion, other than what I would imagine to be typical "he wanted 4 years but only got 3" that likely occurs in most contract negotiations?
Thanks
Asked by: RyanTheMover
Answered: 11/18/2016
It's total nonsense. There was NO such animosity--none. Salary negotiations with David were always cordial and professional, even warm.
Great stuff on the election, by the way. I felt much better for being a moderate after reading your stuff and reflecting a bit, and knowing the earth won't blow up in January.
Here's a political trading card conondrum: would you produce two Jerry Brown cards? One for his first time around as governor, and another for his second time? As a native Californian I think you should, but I defer to your learned opinion.
While I'm going from one topic to another, and since I've asked lots of other learned folks in the biz, I'll ask you--is there anywhere I can find early (like pre-1940's) minor league strikeout and walk data for individual players? Since you're kind of famous, I thought I'd ask you as well. I'm having a heckuva time finding any info on this...
And finally, some years back you had a writer (maybe it was Dave Fleming) who reviewed baseball board games. Could someone do that again?
Until Winston Llenas gets elected to the HOF..
Asked by: kseesar1
Answered: 11/18/2016
Oh, I was hoping to run Llenas for Vice President. Jerry Brown can have two cards, one for Governor Moonbeam and one for Wise Old Jerry.
Minor league data. . . a lot of information exists which has not been organized or has not made it into Baseball Reference. There was a guy from Manhattan, Kansas.. ..forget his name but somebody will tell us. . . who built up a note card system of minor league records from the era you are talking about. You have to understand that at the time there was no organized record-keeping for minor league ball; a player would play for Dubuque in 1926, Toledo in 1927, split 1928 between Springfield, Wichita and Rochester, play 1929 for Vernon in the PCL, and go on this way for 20 years. There was no picture of what he had done; there was NO record of his career, just the bits and pieces of it.
Anyway, SABR came along in the 1970s, and this guy from Manhattan, can't remember his name although I met him a few times, had the only records there were about minor league players; not absolutely true, there were some other people kind of doing the same stuff. SABR in the 1980s and 1990s organized the effort to draw all of this information together, but somehow the decision was made to mostly leave the strikeouts and walks out of it. I don't know why or how this decision was made. Strikeout and walk data IS spotty or very spotty for most of that era, but thousands of records in that area do exist in old books, but there is no way to get to them for the average fan. I would suppose that in 20 years that may change, but I don't know how exactly it will change. If you know the history of this better than I do, help us out.
Hey Bill: Interesting article on toughness vs sensitivity. I agree that we need a balance between the two - we shouldn't condone jackasses but at the same time we have to recognize we can't control anyone's behavior but our own.
I think that the overemphasis on money in this country is also a contributing factor to the over-sensitivity we're seeing at times. Our consumer consumption-oriented society has been teaching people for decades that they can have everything their way and that every purchase is a validation of some identity that they're being sold. Big business discovered that if you cater to a person's ego, you can make a lot more money, but it's creating an ever-growing part of the populace that believes they can get life "a la carte" so to speak.
Also a question - do you think a lot of those "tough" people from earlier generations coddled their kids more than they were, because they didn't want them to go through what they did?
Asked by: belewfripp
Answered: 11/18/2016
Yes. . .well, it is almost too philosophical an observation to be useful, and we do philosophy here; thinking about the nature of things is what we do. It irritates the children. But I agree that many people have become, not materialistic exactly, but somehow convinced that the next purchase will be more meaningful to them than the last. One of the reasons I have had a good life is that I have never felt compelled to spend money just to be spending money.
About "toughness": Trump's pre-campaign book, published in 2011, then brought out in paperback last year, is called Time to Get Tough.
Asked by: arnewcs
Answered: 11/18/2016
Thanks. Didn't know that.
HeyBill: I like the diversion into political/election discussion. Local Iowa lawmaker acting on your 'toughness' meme:
with a Suck it up, Buttercup bill........
as for political playing cards: I assume you will have a Wilbur Mills card, but would you also include a rare Fanne Fox card? Same with other scandals, do you have Paula Jones, MaryJo Kopechne cards or further: Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth cards??
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 11/17/2016
Does the 2016 Topps set have an Ed Bouchee card?
It's pretty hard to do that PH/DH thing when you got 13 pitchers on the roster. Unless the pitchers can hit.
AND you gotta use 3-4 pitchers PLUS however many you need if you gotta pull a guy in the middle an inning.
It could work in September. Didn't somone PH for thier 2B everytime he came up in a world series? I wanna say Oakland.
Asked by: shthar
Answered: 11/17/2016
Dick Williams in '74, I think. He had several second basemen--Dick Green, Angel Mangual, Ted Kubiak, Manny Trillo, Phil Garner, John Donaldson, Dal Maxvill, Rich McKinney. Not sure who was still on the roster in October, but he had about five guys on the active roster who could play second, and the thing was, they could ALL play second; about five of them were Gold Glove quality defenders. So he just pinch hit for the second baseman any time it was a meaningful at bat, with men on base or leading off the inning, and the score was still close.
Bill: Kudos on the election piece. Scott
Asked by: ScottSegrin
Answered: 11/17/2016
Thanks. I much appreciate your kind words (even though I have to delete them.) I've had people quit the site because they are angry about our diversions into politics. I've been accused of. . .well, you know; the stuff people accuse one another of in politics. I appreciate your more supportive view.
Hey Bill.....EXCELLENT piece on Election
Asked by: clambeau
Answered: 11/17/2016
Thanks. According to twitter, not a completely consensus opinion. . . .
HeyBill, congrats to the organization for seeing it in Porcello. He's a good kid...I started seeing him throw when he was 14, he was the real deal, a man among boys. His grandfather was Sam Dente, signed by the Red Sox in 1941, and then traded in a package for Ellis Kinder. Did you have any say in the Kinder deal? :-)
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 11/17/2016
Porcello was a Ben Cherington deal. We basically traded Jon Lester for Porcello; we traded Lester for Cespedes and Cespedes for Porcello. It looked like it might be Cy Young for Cy Young, but Lester finished second in the voting. Porcello is younger and less expensive, so it worked out good for this year. They're both great pitchers.
This would only work in the National League, but if you pinch hit for a pitcher every time his turn came up in the order (so that a starter would go no more than 3 innings), you would basically be employing a DH against a team that didn't have one. Do you think this might work?
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 11/17/2016
Well, you wouldn't need ONE DH to make that work; you'd need four. It seems most likely that your fourth-best DH would be a negative to the team. I know this: no strategy works unless you get buy-in from the team. I think you'd have a hard time getting the team to buy in to this. IF you did, then I would guess the strategy would fail on its own, but I wouldn't guarantee that it would fail on its own.
Hey Bill -- the Chief Justice does not reach the office by seniority. Presidents nominate people to the post, distinct from the other eight supreme court justices. John Roberts was nominated to debut on the Court as Chief Justice. He was Chief Justice and the junior member at the same time. On the other hand, William Rehnquist was already on the Court when Warren Burger's seat came open as Chief Justice. Reagan nominated Rehnquist to move over to the Chief Justice role -- leapfrogging several more senior justices -- and Scalia to fill Rehnquist's seat among the other eight.
Asked by: RonMock
Answered: 11/17/2016
The gentleman didn't say that the Chief Justice reaches the office by seniority. You misunderstood his point.
To correct a piece of misinformation, being a chief judge isn't a signal of any particular skill beyond that of getting yourself appointed as a judge in the first place. One ascends to that position by seniority. http://www.uscourts.gov/faqs-federal-judges#faq-How-is-a-chief-judge-selected? The role is also largely administrative, overseeing the operations of your court, and judges have been known to decline it for that reason. Looks like Haynsworth was appointed at a relatively young age (45) which pretty much guaranteed that we would come into the job eventually.
To bring this around to baseball though, I note that Carswell (famously said by Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska to be "even if mediocre . . . mediocre [people are] entitled to a little representation") gave way to "Old Number Three", Harry Blackmun . . . a huge baseball fan who authored not only Roe v. Wade but the Curt Flood decision with the long list of famous players that omitted Mel Ott.
Asked by: tkoegel
Answered: 11/17/2016
I was just wondering why I hadn't been asked to be chief judge. . .
Haynsworth and Carlswell weren't Supreme Court justices; they were nominees who were rejected or withdrew their nominations. Hughes had a fantastic career; I think he is one of the largest figures in US history that the public basically knows NOTHING about.
None of those men achieved the office for which the card was issued. It was a pimp on the MLB/NFL/NBA, etc practice of pre-printing championship souvenirs and sending the loser's gear to Third World Countries where locals think the Buffalo Bills won four consecutive Super Bowls.
You are correct about Hughes, the greatest Chief Justice no one ever heard of.
Asked by: villageelliott
Answered: 11/16/2016
OK. Oliver Holmes said about Hughes that "He looked more like God than any man I ever knew."
As far as Stengel goes, I think the simplest answer is the best. The Yankees had a top young manager in waiting in Ralph Houk. Kansas City had already asked permission to talk to him. So let the 70 year old go and hire the guy who would manage for 25 years.
Stengel was getting grouchy with young players. The more the Yankees won, the more the pressure grew on Stengel. He drank a lot and alcohol is a depressant.
Lots of firms had mandatory retirement ages back then. That may be. Illegal now.
Stengel did use words that we consider crude now' how much they were accepted in private conversations back then I don't know. Stengel did get Elston Howard a raise when Weiss balked. Maybe good cop bad cop but as a player Stengel had salary fights.
Lee MacPhail said he was Yankee farm director in in 1950s and no one ever mentioned a player's race. But MacPhail feels the Yankees did make a mistake by not intergrating earlier to show it was the right thing to do.
Asked by: ZachSmith
Answered: 11/16/2016
Well, that kind of misses the point, doesn't it. If you don't scout Willie Mays and Henry Aaron and Ernie Banks, then their race never comes up.
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
RE Supreme Court: Yep, the scope of the opinion matters a great deal. It could be decided very narrowly or very broadly, which can have far reaching ramifications on future cases in all kinds of ways. The assigning Justice must have a feel for what the majority will stand together for and what would be going too far for any individual Justice who might then switch his or her vote, which is especially important on 5-4 cases where you can't afford to lose one vote.
Asked by: marbus1
Answered: 11/19/2016
Thanks.
Does not ever backing down about any of statements or actions really make you "tough"? Trump is a blowhard. When he is challenged on anything, he just lies and doubles down with outrageous claims. In a sense, all he does is make excuses (microphone faulty in debate, if lost the election it was because it was rigged, etc). If not ever backing down from your statements or actions makes you tough, then Trump is tough, but that seems to be a somewhat limited definition of the concept. Was Joseph McCarthy "tough"?
I enjoyed the article, I think it captures an important element of Trump's appeal. I live in a blue state, and I find myself getting very frustated with people who seize on individual elements of Trump's actions and yell variations of "WOLF!" without considering how silly they sound and how this just makes Trump more appealing to his supporters. I think I see why they are reacting that way, but it hurts their cause.
Asked by: Ben from New York
Answered: 11/19/2016
Well, yes, Joseph McCarthy was extremely tough. I would take that to be self-evident.
Feel like giving a semi-local take on Mike Pompeo? (picked to lead C.I.A.) I know he's not that local for you.
Asked by: MarisFan61
Answered: 11/19/2016
Never heard of him until yesterday.
RE Supreme Court Chief Justice: As Christopher pointed out, the Chief Justice is not that much more powerful than his (they've all been men so far) colleagues, but he does get to assign the writing of the opinion to anyone on the majority as long he himself is in the majority. There is some power to shape opinions and the overall direction of the court in that. If I remember correctly from Bob Woodward's book "The Brethren" some of the liberal Justices felt that Warren Burger would sometimes seem to switch his initial vote just to be on the majority and assign the opinion, sometimes to himself.
Asked by: marbus1
Answered: 11/19/2016
Are you sure it was Burger who would do that? I thought maybe it was Rehnquist. . ..I remember the "allegation", but not that clearly. Well. ...the exact wording of the opinion matters more than who wins, probably. The public will always perceive that what matters is who wins, but in the long run, what matters is WHY he won, what the exact words are. If you say he lost the case because he didn't have standing, that's one thing; if you say he lost the case because we're standing by some previous decision that was made 40 years ago that we think is still controlling in this case, that's totally different in terms of how it effects the NEXT case that comes along. Even the shadings between several alternative theories are immensely important. So if a Chief Justice jumps the fence and assigns the opinion to somebody who is willing to grant the defendant a small victory rather than a large victory, that becomes a tremendously important power in terms of how it shapes the law over the course of time. I think. You probably know more about this than I do; just trying to move the discussion. . .
Bill, in 1947 Ted Williams finished 2nd in MVP voting by 1 point due to 2 writers leaving him off the ballot entirely. This is attributed to Ted Williams feuding with those writers. Is this what maybe happened in the Justin Verlander situation recently? 2 writers left him off the ballot and he finished 2nd. I don't know anything about Verlander, I'm just guessing.
Asked by: Steve9753
Answered: 11/19/2016
Well. . ..not picking on you, I hope, but that's profoundly diseased history. As to Williams in 1947, my memory is that two voters did not have Williams on the ballot, but FOUR voters did not have DiMaggio on the ballot; DiMaggio won anyway, and somehow the discussion focused on the voters who left Williams off the ballot and overlooked the fact that more voters had passed on DiMaggio. It's not actually what happened; what actually happened is that DiMaggio beat Williams 8 to 3 in first-place votes; Joe Page got SEVEN first place votes, more than twice as many as Williams, and finished fourth in the balloting. Anyway, scratch Page and back up. . .first place ballots are weighted heavily; who is placed FIRST on the ballot matters a whole lot more than who is placed 9th or 10th on the ballot, so the REAL issue here (in a one-point contest) wasn't who was left off ballots, but who got the first-place votes. Williams got 3 out of 24--the same number as George McQuinn, and one more than Eddie Joost, who finished 11th in the voting but got 2 first-place votes. A player who gets 3 out of 24 first place votes does not normally win the contest, so the focus on Williams being "left off" a couple of ballots is just really not valid or helpful.
Now.. .Verlander. I'm involved in a complicated backstage discussion of this with a couple of friends (Posnanski and Tango) and we're all doing research and trying to understand what happened, but basically. . . you have to be goofy to think Verlander deserved the award, anyway, don't you? Leaving anybody's version of WAR out of it (PLEASE), there doesn't seem to be ANY rational argument that Verlander clearly deserved the award. But somehow (like Williams) the discussion has jumped the track, and people are treating that basically goofy proposition as if it were the deep underlying truth of the matter. The BEST you can do for Verlander is to argue that it's sort of a wash, and that he wouldn't have been a significantly WORSE choice than Porcello. But to argue that he is clearly BETTER than Porcello seems completely screwy.
RyanTheMover's source is probably remembering this stuff from around 2012 (but consider the source): http://m.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/kirk-minihane/2012/05/22/delusional-david-ortiz-strikes-again
It starts off with this quote from Ortiz: "I don't get no respect. Not from the media. Not from the front office. What I do is never the right thing. It's always hiding, for somebody to find out."
It's the usual tempest in a teapot. I can't think of a more mutually beneficial relationship in baseball than Ortiz and Boston over the last 30 years.
Asked by: steve161
Answered: 11/19/2016
Well. . .David, relative to other stars of his status, actually was NOT particularly well paid over the course of his career. But it didn't have anything to do with respect from us; it just had to do with (a) the release by the Twins, which put him behind, and (b) not picking exactly the right moments to get an extension. There's a lot of luck in it. .. .how your best seasons match up with the natural moments to re-negotiate your contract. They didn't match up as well for David as they do for a lot of players. And, you know. . ..$120 million vs. $150 million or whatever the numbers are; it doesn't really change the way you live.
HeyBill, this is done on a Smartphone in a car, but I believe the last 21 MVPs have been 30 or under. A bit surprising to me. A-Rod and Bonds break the sreak. I may be missing someone....
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 11/19/2016
Interesting.
Since you said in 2001 that it was highly unlikely for Donald Trump to be elected President who are you now saying it is unlikely to be President 15+ years from now?
Are you like a reverse Kreskin?
Asked by: Mythical Bird
Answered: 11/19/2016
Yes, but I don't know that's exactly what I said, but never mind. Justin Timberlake?
For the question about minor league batters' strikeout and walk data, here's what's available pre-1940 for what they used to call the "high minors":
Pacific Coast League: Walks start in 1939, strikeouts in 1941.
American Association: Both categories start in 1914. In some seasons there's nothing for players below a certain number of at-bats, and in 1932 there are none at all for some reason.
International league: Both categories start in 1911; a few seasons are missing right after World War I.
Southern Association: Both categories start in 1917; missing in 1920 and maybe another season or two.
Texas League: Both categories start in 1912.
A guy named Marshall Wright collected the yearly stats from all of those leagues except the PCL in a series of books published by McFarland.
You mentioned a minor league researcher whose name you couldn't remember. Could that be Bob Hoie or Ray Nemec? They were two of the originals, but I'm sure there were others.
Asked by: BobGill
Answered: 11/19/2016
No, it wasn't Hoie, Nemec or Wright. . ..well, first of all, thanks for the information. It was actually Dean Coughenour; I looked it up. I see that he died in 2012; he was up in years. Hoie and Nemec were very active in SABR early on, and they were doing good work, too, but the guy I was thinking of, who had the huge index file of note cards with players records, was Dean Coughenour. He wasn't active in SABR, I don't think, until the mid-1980s or maybe the 1990s.
As noted in the article linked by the original poster, how one becomes a chief judge and how one becomes the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are entirely different. Seniority matters for lower courts, but is irrelevant on the SC.
The Chief Justice is not particularly more powerful than the other 8 (or 7 as it stands). It's mostly procedural, and anyone trying to use the position for something other than ceremonial purposes will find that out.
It's quirky that it works differently than the rest of the system.
Asked by: Christopher
Answered: 11/18/2016
Thanks.
Hey Bill, I was hoping you could shed light on something a co-worker (and Red Sox fan) said today. They suggested that David Ortiz had at times had animosity with the Red Sox due to him being 'disrespected' by them in contract situations in the past.
I had no recollection of this, and some quick Googling yielded no contemporaneous news stories that suggested it. The fact that Ortiz re-signed as a free agent multiple times would seem to dispute it.
Is there anything to my co-worker's assertion, other than what I would imagine to be typical "he wanted 4 years but only got 3" that likely occurs in most contract negotiations?
Thanks
Asked by: RyanTheMover
Answered: 11/18/2016
It's total nonsense. There was NO such animosity--none. Salary negotiations with David were always cordial and professional, even warm.
Great stuff on the election, by the way. I felt much better for being a moderate after reading your stuff and reflecting a bit, and knowing the earth won't blow up in January.
Here's a political trading card conondrum: would you produce two Jerry Brown cards? One for his first time around as governor, and another for his second time? As a native Californian I think you should, but I defer to your learned opinion.
While I'm going from one topic to another, and since I've asked lots of other learned folks in the biz, I'll ask you--is there anywhere I can find early (like pre-1940's) minor league strikeout and walk data for individual players? Since you're kind of famous, I thought I'd ask you as well. I'm having a heckuva time finding any info on this...
And finally, some years back you had a writer (maybe it was Dave Fleming) who reviewed baseball board games. Could someone do that again?
Until Winston Llenas gets elected to the HOF..
Asked by: kseesar1
Answered: 11/18/2016
Oh, I was hoping to run Llenas for Vice President. Jerry Brown can have two cards, one for Governor Moonbeam and one for Wise Old Jerry.
Minor league data. . . a lot of information exists which has not been organized or has not made it into Baseball Reference. There was a guy from Manhattan, Kansas.. ..forget his name but somebody will tell us. . . who built up a note card system of minor league records from the era you are talking about. You have to understand that at the time there was no organized record-keeping for minor league ball; a player would play for Dubuque in 1926, Toledo in 1927, split 1928 between Springfield, Wichita and Rochester, play 1929 for Vernon in the PCL, and go on this way for 20 years. There was no picture of what he had done; there was NO record of his career, just the bits and pieces of it.
Anyway, SABR came along in the 1970s, and this guy from Manhattan, can't remember his name although I met him a few times, had the only records there were about minor league players; not absolutely true, there were some other people kind of doing the same stuff. SABR in the 1980s and 1990s organized the effort to draw all of this information together, but somehow the decision was made to mostly leave the strikeouts and walks out of it. I don't know why or how this decision was made. Strikeout and walk data IS spotty or very spotty for most of that era, but thousands of records in that area do exist in old books, but there is no way to get to them for the average fan. I would suppose that in 20 years that may change, but I don't know how exactly it will change. If you know the history of this better than I do, help us out.
Hey Bill: Interesting article on toughness vs sensitivity. I agree that we need a balance between the two - we shouldn't condone jackasses but at the same time we have to recognize we can't control anyone's behavior but our own.
I think that the overemphasis on money in this country is also a contributing factor to the over-sensitivity we're seeing at times. Our consumer consumption-oriented society has been teaching people for decades that they can have everything their way and that every purchase is a validation of some identity that they're being sold. Big business discovered that if you cater to a person's ego, you can make a lot more money, but it's creating an ever-growing part of the populace that believes they can get life "a la carte" so to speak.
Also a question - do you think a lot of those "tough" people from earlier generations coddled their kids more than they were, because they didn't want them to go through what they did?
Asked by: belewfripp
Answered: 11/18/2016
Yes. . .well, it is almost too philosophical an observation to be useful, and we do philosophy here; thinking about the nature of things is what we do. It irritates the children. But I agree that many people have become, not materialistic exactly, but somehow convinced that the next purchase will be more meaningful to them than the last. One of the reasons I have had a good life is that I have never felt compelled to spend money just to be spending money.
About "toughness": Trump's pre-campaign book, published in 2011, then brought out in paperback last year, is called Time to Get Tough.
Asked by: arnewcs
Answered: 11/18/2016
Thanks. Didn't know that.
HeyBill: I like the diversion into political/election discussion. Local Iowa lawmaker acting on your 'toughness' meme:
with a Suck it up, Buttercup bill........
as for political playing cards: I assume you will have a Wilbur Mills card, but would you also include a rare Fanne Fox card? Same with other scandals, do you have Paula Jones, MaryJo Kopechne cards or further: Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth cards??
Asked by: FrankD
Answered: 11/17/2016
Does the 2016 Topps set have an Ed Bouchee card?
Hey Bill
15 Most Recent Questions
Dude, if Bo went FULL speed, the camera's wouldn't have been able to pick him up!
Asked by: shthar
Answered: 12/30/2016
Wasn't on camera; I was there live, just maybe 100 feet behind Bo.
Jon Benet... So, another legal thing... There is a case, Gertz v. Welch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertz_v._Robert_Welch,_Inc. which stands for the proposition that unless you can show the level of malice established in New York Times v Sullivan, you can't get damages for defamation. That standard is showing actual damages and in terms of motivation, knowledge of actual falsity or reckless disregard for truth or falsity. CBS has a legal department. They screen everything, and I should be very surprised if they chose this particular show to say, "You know, we'll just take our chances." Additionally, while the Ramseys are arguably private rather than public figures, the case is an issue of public concern, which throws a defamation case into another area of law. So, no, if there is a lawsuit, I expect it will be an interesting one. (Gertz wrote a book about the case! I didn't know. I'd include the link but I am hitting the character limit.)
Asked by: MikeChary
Answered: 12/30/2016
Mike, I think if you actually watch the show in question you will agree that the legal screening procedures somehow failed here. The theory advanced by the show (that Burke Ramsey killed his sister and the parents covered it up) has NO standing in the investigative community; none. It is a tabloid creation. Some of the claims made on the show are transparently false, and could easily have been known to be false by CBS executives, had they taken an interest in the issue. Also, I think your explanation of the law in this area is six months behind the curve. The Sullivan Case as I understand it in essence said that news agencies had a right to report the news unless the offended party met this high standard of recklessness and/or malice, but this in essence says that the courts should defer to the judgment of news editors. But the re-creation of the news world after the death of newspapers and the explosion of internet "news" sources has caused courts to re-examine that standard, saying that deference to the news judgment of Gawker is not the same as deference to the news judgment of The New York Times--and if we can't implicitly defer to the judgment of one news editor, then we're not going to defer to them in general. I think the law in this area is changing now--and I would add that it is about goddamned time.
My prediction: this show was SO reckless and SO clearly untrue that CBS at some point will simply HAVE to apologize. There's no out. If they fail to apologize, ultimately they will destroy their own credibility.
Hey Bill--I know you're a big college basketball fan, but I've long wondered why Kansas City hasn't had an NBA team in, what, 40 years. Could they support a team? Is there an arena where a modern NBA team could play? St. Louis hasn't had a team since the Hawks left back in the 60s. The whole area just seems ripe for expansion or to lure a team from somewhere else, yet you don't usually hear it mentioned.
Asked by: markbern
Answered: 12/30/2016
The arena was a problem with the previous team. There is a large random element here; whether a team is included in a league is kind of a lottery-type proposition. If a new league started as a competitor to the NBA, they certainly would come to Kansas City, but established leagues work based on precedent and procedure, rather than logic.
The Kansas City Kings weren't here (KC) long enough to establish a fan base, which takes 20 years at a bare minimum, and were to an extent competing with the college teams in the area for fan loyalty. But the arena was a real problem. Kansas City from the 1870s until about 1950 had a major stockyard area, where cattle were brought by train to be shipped to other parts of the country. By the 1950s the stockyards were kind of elsewhere and all over the place, and the stockyard area was sort of a dead space, so in the early 1970s (I think), about the time the two Kansas City Stadiums were built (Kaufmann and Arrowhead) they also built Kemper Arena, which was built down in the old stockyard area.
But whereas Kaufmann and Arrowhead were successful stadiums from the moment they were built, Kemper was always kind of a disaster. They had a major roof collapse. . .don't remember what year that was, probably 1973. The big problem, though, was access. Unless you have been there, you really can't believe how difficult it is to get there. Walt Bodine, local radio personality, used to say that when you were really lost you were almost there, and it's hard to describe how true that was. You can SEE Kemper Arena from the highways nearby, looking as big as a planet, but once you pull off the highway you lose visuals on it, and are trapped in a maze of one-way streets and dead end streets--trapped with the other 10,000 cars which are also trying to get there. The area has a hundred old railroad lines, which were used for the stockyards, but the railroad lines cut off streets and throw up barriers. The REAL problem, though, was getting OUT of there. Once the event was over, is over, it may take you an hour to get out of the area, and when you do get out you may be heading the wrong direction, so it may take you another 20 minutes to circle back where you are trying to get to. Kemper is still used; there are still concerts and shows and stuff. I drove by it yesterday and there were signs promoting a big upcoming gun show. But it's not a preferred venue.
Maybe 10 to 15 years ago, Kansas City under the leadership of Mayor Kay Barnes built a new arena, the Sprint Arena. The Sprint Arena is within a mile of the Kemper, but much better located and much more successful. A part of her campaign for the new arena was a promise to attract an NBA team to the arena, but that was just politician talk; they haven't really done anything--and the arena is in use something like 270 days a year, I think, so there isn't pressure to do that from the standpoint of making the arena pay off. The area around it has been developed into an entertainment destination, so it's been successful on its own terms. But, as you say. . .no real progress on the NBA front. And the fantastic salaries paid to major league athletes now make it difficult to build a new league, which eliminates the pressure to serve the underserved markets.
As a Royals fan, I can say this about Bo Jackson. I was never in a position when he didn't thrill me and awe me with his talent, and I waited to see what amazing thing he was doing next.
But I never felt like what he was doing was doing was his best. It always seem like he was playing at half-speed. Not a J.D. Drew type of indifference, just a feeling that he was so much better that what we saw. I'm not implying he wasn't giving 100%, but it was more we thought his best should have been 200%. Not sure that's making sense, but his talent outweighed his results.
It was like playing Stephen Hawking at checkers. You think you can beat him, but after the first two moves, you need to give up, because you can't beat him if he gives a crap about playing you.
Asked by: 77royals
Answered: 12/29/2016
Right. . .he was intense, but lacked skills fundamental to the game. Also, JD was not indifferent; he just didn't communicate his intensity very well. He never talked to the press, who thought that he had nothing to say. He was actually a chatterbox who never shut up in the locker room.
I was wondering if you could share one or two of your favorite memories of Bo Jackson. The main thing I remember is that he could hit a home run without really making solid contact. He would slice a fly ball to right center, but because he was so strong it left the yard.
Asked by: manhattanhi
Answered: 12/29/2016
Well, it's been a quarter of a century, but this memory is as fresh with me as if it had happened yesterday. Bo, you remember, would snap the bat over his knee (or sometimes over his head) when he struck out. So there was a situation: there is a runner on third, and Bo takes a third strike, and stands in the batter's box and dramatically breaks the bat. But the pitch gets by the catcher, back to the backstop, and the runner breaks from third base. Bo, occupied by taking out his frustration on his bat, doesn't realize that this is happening; he's oblivious. The bat boy--the BAT BOY--is behind home plate, yelling at Bo and gesturing at him frantically that he needs to run to first, because. . .the bat boy didn't explain this, but we all understood it except for Bo. . .since the catcher has to make the play at home plate, Bo can reach first on the play.
The catcher retrieves the ball and rushes back to the plate. The pitcher also rushes to home to cover the plate. Just at the moment the runner from third base gets to home plate, Bo finally realizes what is happening, and starts to cross home plate. So now you have the runner from third, the pitcher, the catcher, and Bo Jackson all trying to cross home plate at almost precisely the same moment. To make things worse, Bo has thrown the pieces of the bat to the ground, the big end on the third base line, where the runner from third has to trip over it, and the small end on the first base line, where Bo will have to trip over it when he goes for first.
I don't actually remember the final outcome of the play. My guess, based on my memory, is that the runner from third was safe but that Bo was thrown out at first. But that's all I remember.
HeyBill, Happy New Year to you and the family! Reggie Smith was only traded, sez Baseball Reference, twice in a 17-year career. Follow up -- Burke Ramsey is suing CBS for $750 million for implying he murdered JonBenet. Do you see a suit like that, if CBS declines to settle and mounts a defense, opening the door to any important new information ala the OJ civil trial?
Asked by: OldBackstop
Answered: 12/29/2016
We have already been down this road, years ago. A detective named Thomas (I think it was Steve Thomas), who worked on the case, quit the Boulder police department and wrote a book implicitly accusing the Ramseys of committing the murder. The Ramseys immediately sued him. Thomas hired Daniel Petrocelli, who was the lawyer who represented the Goldmans in the suit against OJ Simpson that you referenced in your question.
Petrocelli entered the case bristling with confidence, assuring the press that they were going to do to the Ramseys what they had done to OJ--get him under oath and expose the truth.
Several months later, Petrocelli revealed as quietly as possible that the case had been settled, and that Thomas had agreed to pay damages to the Ramseys, the amount of the damages not revealed. One has to assume that at some point, Petrocelli realized that Thomas was an idiot who had made irresponsible charges, and sat him down and had a come-to-Jesus meeting with him. But one assumes that Thomas settled the case for probably $1 in actual damages and an agreement not to talk about the issue any more, plus an agreement from the publishing company to pull the book out of the bookstores.
CBS, on the other hand, has actual assets, and thus will wind up paying actual damages. Whoever defends them in this case HAS to watch the video and say "Lord almighty; how did you people decide to put this crap on the air?" Then they'll negotiate the damages and the apology.
Hey Bill,
In the 1970s, Reggie Smith was a star player, he was frequently traded. Was there a reason teams (other than the Red Sox) didn't keep him around for very long?
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 12/29/2016
I don't know if your premise is true. Reggie played for the Red Sox (1967-73), the Cardinals (1974-76), Dodgers (1976-1982) and one year with the Giants (1982) probably after he was released by the Dodgers. That doesn't seem to me like a large number of trades.
(Later) Reggie Smith played 17 years, 1,987 games between 1966 and 1982. I identified all players who played 16 to 18 years, 1,887 to 2,087 games between 1956 and 1992. There were 34 such players, who were, chronologically, Johnny Callison, Frank Howard, Felipe Alou, Tommy Davis, Leo Cardenas, Jim Fregosi, Boog Powell, Bob Bailey, Jose Cardenal, Willie Horton, Paul Blair, Don Kessinger, Bobby Murcer, Mark Belanger, Lee May, Reggie Smith, Sal Bando, Amos Otis, Aurelio Rodriguez, Richie Hebner, George Foster, Cesar Cedeno, Bobby Grich, Cecil Cooper, Dave Kingman, George Hendrick, Ron Cey, Gary Matthews, Claudell Washington, Jim Sundberg, Fred Lynn, Chet Lemon, Jack Clark and Gary Templeton.
These 34 players played for an average of 4.73 teams. Reggie played for four, so he was actually BELOW average for his peer group in terms of the number of teams that he played for. Among the 34 players, the leaders in teams played for were Tommy Davis (12 teams. . .double-counting the teams that he played for more than once), Jose Cardenal (9 teams), and Dave Kingman, Aurelio Rodriguez and Claudell Washington (8 teams each.) Others who played for four teams, in addition to Reggie Smith, were Johnny Callison, Frank Howard, Jim Fregosi, Paul Blair, Don Kessinger, Bobby Murcer, Lee May, George Foster and Cesar Cedeno. All of the players in the group played for at least two teams, with Mark Belanger, Sal Bando, Bobby Grich, Cecil Cooper and Chet Lemon playing for only two teams.
I don't know if you've seen the movie Fences, a fine adaptation of a fine play. It concerns a former Negro Leagues star named Troy Maxson who was too old when the Major Leagues became integrated, and how it left him bitter and conflicted towards his son.
In one of his rants, he singles out George Selkirk as a Yankees outfielder who couldn't hold a candle to him, but who was given an opportunity that he was denied because of the color of his skin. I don't know why he picked on Selkirk. Maybe it was because Selkirk succeeded the Babe in right field for the Yankees, and Maxson thought he should have been the logical successor. But looking up Selkirk, he was actually a pretty good player. So I was thinking, who might have been a better comp---a Yankee regular in the 1930's-1940's who could have easily been supplanted by a superior Negro Leagues player had the game been integrated. I think Frankie Crosetti fits the bill. You?
Asked by: JackKeefe
Answered: 12/29/2016
Selkirk was a quite outstanding player who was prevented from having the career he might have had by injuries and competition with other great players. The Janquis in his years had four great outfielders--DiMaggio, Selkirk, Henrich and Keller. Crosetti was not a great player. Johnny Lindell might be an answer to the question. You could switch over to the New York Giants and get Johnny Rucker, Jo Jo Moore or Jimmy Ripple.
On "Toughness"...If YOU think you're "tough" and OTHERS think you're "tough",you're tough. If YOU don't think you're tough but others do, you're tough. If YOU think you're tough but others don't, you're NOT tough
Asked by: clambeau
Answered: 12/29/2016
Also, if you're tough on Tuesdays. . .
According to the Fielding Bible Andrew McCutcheon did not have a good 2016 defensively. After the season several stories credited to the Pirates organization blamed his decline on shallow positioning.
If you were paying people to track defensive statistics and were paying other people to position players accordingly wouldn't you be a little disappointed if it took the crew an entire season to figure out things weren't working?
Many thanks.
Asked by: hermitfool
Answered: 12/29/2016
The story you tell after the fact is always a shortened version.
Dick Hughes-- in '67 I was paying more attention to the other race at the time, but it seems to me that the story was that he had a lot of trouble making the jump to AAA, failing at it several times--small sample, anyone?-- and they lost faith in him and kept loaning him out to other organizations. Eventually he came under the wing of Vern Rapp who insisted that he was a major league pitcher, and he got a call up.
I remember him as wearing big glasses-- was that on the mound, and was the prejudice about it still strong enough to keep him in the shadows? And he threw a LOT of sliders-- was that too many in an effort to stick, and did it cause the rotator cuff that ended his career shortly thereafter? Or was that just screwballs that were supposed to do that?
Asked by: taosjohn
Answered: 12/29/2016
OK.
Nate Karns has very poor career splits after 75+ pitches. The Mariners' TV crew (quoting their stats guys) and Scott Servais have underlined the M's concerns about this, showing graphics with Karns' release point dropping an inch or two after 70-80 pitches. (His velocity does not drop off that I'm aware of.)
Karns is a fairly big guy, 94 fastball, not unlike a John Lackey type physically and in his delivery. Personally I don't remember any specific guys who had a natural chronic problem that they were doomed lifetime to run out of gas at 75 pitches, oh well, see you in the bullpen. Maybe it's related that Karns throws 30-40% tight-spin overhand curve balls.
Are there historical precedents that come to mind here? Or perhaps we would expect the M's to be able to coach him through this syndrome?
Asked by: jemanji
Answered: 12/29/2016
Well, if his release point drops off at a certain point, you can maybe cure that with awareness of the problem. If it is fatigue-related and you cure THAT, you still have the fatigue, but you can cure that with conditioning.
In general it is better not to believe in magic numbers, like a 75-pitch threshold. However, many people DO believe in magic thresholds of many different kinds, and sometimes the thresholds are stand-ins for real things that we should believe in. I would need a lot more information than I have to figure out where this is headed.
Hey Bill,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I remember an outfield arms thread from a year or so ago. Jesse Barfield was the clear favorite at that time, with tributes to Clemente, the young Dave Parker, Valentine and others. I don't remember Alex Ochoa coming up -- maybe I missed it. Anyway, there's a treasure trove of Youtube videos of Barfield throws but I can't find any of Alex's. Does anyone know where some video might reside?
Asked by: paulw112
Answered: 12/28/2016
We'll ask. . .
Hey Bill:
As a 29 year old rookie, Dick Hughes was 16-6 for the 1967 Cardinals with a 2.67 ERA. He had the lowest WHIP and hits per 9 innings of any pitcher in the league. He finished second to Tom Seaver in the Rookie of the Year voting. Do you have any insight into why it took him so long to make it to the big leagues, and what happened to him after 1967?
Asked by: evanecurb
Answered: 12/28/2016
None whatsoever. Brock? Anybody?
Hey Bill, Merry Christmas!
In the NFL player introductions, I've noticed that few in the starting lineup come from "premium" college football schools, and meanwhile many NFL starters draw from long tail colleges -- like DeMarcus Ware (Troy), Tony Romo (Eastern Illinois), and Carson Wentz (North Dakota State). Am I noticing something, and if so, has this always been the case? It seems like the top college football teams stay more or less the same, year to year, while NFL talent is drawn from a deeper and wider talent pool.
My guess for how to summarize this might be a "Gini coefficient" of NFL talent (measured by headcount, or weighted toward salary or draft position). It's a bit complicated to get historical data, but doable. This doesn't directly capture correlation between college team success and NFL talent, but Alabama has the most NFL players, currently on a roster (54), closely followed by Miami, Ohio State, LSU and Florida.
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/schools/
Asked by: moscow25
Answered: 12/26/2016
I just got Malcolm Gladwell's 2013 book "David and Goliath" for Christmas, and I see that it has material directly related to this issue. Maybe I'll read the book before I try to take up that question.
