I’ve spent much of the last week debating whether or not to continue our little experiment called TGWNA. Part of it is due to the creative apathy that’s beguiled me most of my life; my chief character flaw is an overarching desire to be lazy. Despite what may come across as a desire to shout my sometimes obnoxious views from the rooftops, I much prefer having the roof over my head and the heat on. Applying that metaphor to writing, which I once foolishly believed was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, I’ve found that it takes much longer to compose in my head and leave it there. The process of elucidating my thoughts through the written word is tiresome and frustrating, because my thoughts are often much less compelling in a physical form than they are in the ether.
However, the main reason for thoughts of pulling the plug is that this virtual space has become somewhat uncomfortable for me of late, and apparently my good friend and co-author shares a similar sentiment. I believe the current situation is endemic to the site’s underlying concept, which could be best summed up by the crude moniker, “argument blog.” At its inception, I never imagined this space would be happened upon — not to mention desirable to — people who didn’t know the site’s principals. This was really just an attempt to combat the post-collegiate diaspora that made personal contact among our group of friends more difficult; I wanted to recapture the bliss of the hyperbolic group arguments we used to impose on almost any space we occupied, often without thought to the mores of the particular environment or innocent bystanders within earshot.
But it’s become readily apparent a few times previous to this one that a virtual argument lacks many of the most endearing aspects of a live one, and amplifies its few regrettable characteristics. Namely, it’s impossible to smile when delivering a barb unless you’re willing to succumb to emoticons, an artifact of the internet age that I despise. There have been numerous intervals where I’ve been convinced that irreparable harm has been done to friendships over exchanges in this space, though thankfully that hasn’t actually been the case yet (I hope). If there is an overarching theme to this blog (besides sports) it is stubbornness. I can’t think of a single occasion where a point, however ancillary, has been conceded. As is often the case with impasses, something eventually breaks, and it’s usually decorum. Insults and aspersions are cast, people get pissed, and everyone begins to question how fun this really is. And if we’re not having fun here, then why the fuck aren’t we spending our internet time looking at Brittney Spears’ twat?
But reflection over the last couple of days has changed my perspective. A staple of my internet chats with friends has become “When are you going to write about this on the blog?” and it reminds me that I am no closer today to most of my friends than I was when I first registered the site on Blogger. This is, still, the easiest way for me to maintain friendships with people I see sporadically. And it’s still the only forum I’ve got to write when inspiration strikes. I may not do it as much as I used to or should, but I shudder to think what will happen to my brain if I ever cease doing it completely.
In short, I’m going to keep writing, though I can’t make any promises about how often.
As for the potential for explosive comments, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to have more dialogue then less, even if that sometimes means I’ll get bent about something written. I’ll only request that everyone — myself included — keep in mind that insults and condescension are the hallmark of the intellectually incompetent. I single no one out, because I have been as guilty of choosing vituperium over testimonium, and it’s unfair to expect others to be respectful if you’re being an asshole.
Sorry about the length. I imagine this was a scintillating read.
p.s. – I may start writing about some non-sports things. Not often, but a recent Camille Paglia column really got me going.
p.p.s. – I also might write about soccer every so often.
p.p.p.s. – XOXOXOXO ☺
Showing posts with label Charlie Manuel's autism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlie Manuel's autism. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
I like it!
For the first time in a long time, we're actually having an argument on the argument blog! Even better, good points are being made like fucking crazy. Word.
Pepe, I do see some of what you're saying, and you've made enough good points that I'll admit to saying there's some possibility this could end up working in the Phillies' favor. And I don't think anyone has to be worried that either Bourn or Costanza will one day make this look like a Larry Andersen/Jeff Bagwell deal.
However, that doesn't mean I agree with you ...
The reason I didn't mention Victorino is because I think he's got a capable — not great, but capable — bat for a corner outfield spot, whereas Bourn clearly didn't and Werth does only against southpaws (more on that in a second). You're right that Victorino is a better defensive outfielder than Bourn, but the FH's main advantage is his arm strength, which is better utilized in right field. Furthermore, the combination of Bourn and Victorino out there would probably be worth at least one win, if not two, defensively, since Bourn is a vastly better defensive outfielder than Rowand was last season (desire to run into fences notwithstanding) and all of the Phillies' pitchers are flyball pitchers, if memory serves.
Werth is as "perfect" a platoon player as you'll find these days. He absolutely kills lefties, but is right around replacement level for an outfielder against righties (here are the actual numbers). I love guys like Werth, because when properly utilized they're fantastic, low-cost weapons. He and Bourn would have been perfect platoon partners, as the latter evidenced a huge platoon split himself in 2007, albeit over a smaller sample size. In my idealization, Bourn plays CF against righties, while Victorino starts in CF against lefties with Werth slipping into RF. That's a very favorable situation for any team, and also gives the Phils the opportunity to rest the perpetually ailing Burrell whenever needed, since they'll have four OFs getting regular PT.
I guess the argument, at least to me, doesn't really rest on whether Lidge is good, great or otherwise. It rests on the relative costs and availability of replacements. Bourn may not be a great player, but he's a good player — think a younger Dave Roberts — who's essentially free for the next four years. Costanza is, as you suggested, a Kouzmanoff in a perfect world, which has value but perhaps not as much as the prospect freaks like myself would like to believe. Furthermore, the Phillies have a very real need for OFs, since Rowand most certainly is not coming back, nor should he be pined over at the price he's asking for. I see a ton of value in Bourn, not all of which is directly tied into pure performance. Costanza's potential value — even if it's moderate at best — only serves to tip the scales a little more in the direction of this being a bad trade.
Relievers can be had in this market, and can be had for better prices relative to their actual value, than equivalent OFs. I'm not sure Cordero is worth $40 million — actually, I know he's not — but Gagne is probably worth about $6 million a year, which is very affordable when you consider that Bourn costs virtually nothing. And I think that's the point Nate Silver was driving at — if the Phillies were going to spend an additional $15 million (I'm just throwing that number out) this offseason, there are probably better ways it could have been allotted. And, at the end of the day, the more major-league caliber players you have under your control for league minimum, the better off you are. Every one you trade away costs you not only that player but also the payroll and roster flexibility they afford (you could send down Bourn in a pinch, because he still has options left, for instance).
As for Romero, you're quite right to think that the Phillies needed to retain the best available left-handed reliever on the market. And had they signed him to a one-year, $5 million deal with performance-vested options in 2009 & 2010, we wouldn't be having an argument at all. But the chances of Romero giving the Phillies even one great year — and $4 million for a situational/one-inning reliever should pretty much guarantee "great" — are pretty marginal already (again ... he was waived twice last year! He did not turn into Mike Morgan in 33 innings, at the age of 31), which means the chances of the Phillies even getting a moderate return on those three years at $4 million per annum is a longshot at best. Is it the worst contract of all-time? No. It's not even the worst contract on that team. But I see it as more of the same from a front office that has consistently overpaid for average pitching, and paid for it almost every time. And that's why, in particular, news of the deal was received with much hyperbole on my end.
Stepping back from the specifics, part of the reason I am willing to afford a little leeway to the Phils here is because we've yet to see the extent of their offseason, which could end up providing a much more flattering context for these two early salvos. If they are making a real push at a title, then a wasted $10 million here or there is understandable, if not advisable considering the revenue that kind of success can generate. The timing would appear right, as well; the team's troika of superstars are all in their prime and fast approaching the period where diminishing returns are to be expected from all. If the Phillies follow this up with a deal for a good-to-great outfielder — I don't think such a being exists on the free agent market, unless Mike Cameron's drug suspension seriously impedes his ability to be as overpaid as his contemporaries — then it could possibly reap dividends. But make no mistake, there's no way the Phillies can come into this year with two legitimate OFs with past injury problems and one marginal OF who can't hit righties, and expect to be considered favorites in the NL East, not to mention NL.
Furthermore, the reaction from these two early moves must be to put Myers back in the starting rotation, because it's asinine not to. I don't care what he prefers, he's a legitimate No. 2 starter on a team that needs as many good starting pitchers as it can find right now. Go make a move for another reliever if need be — hell, if they're serious about making a run, I go get Gagne if he'll accept a two-year deal at $6 million per — but whatever you do, make it clear to Myers that he's expected to give his team 200 innings this year. I promise you, if Myers is still in the bullpen when the season rolls around, this team will not make the playoffs, because N.Y. and Atlanta are going to be better, and the Phils simply can't afford to keep that kind of asset in a diminished role.
If I'm the GM, I like my position better with Bourn (and potentially Costanza) and the saved cash than I do with Lidge, and I certainly would have done everything in my power to keep Romero's deal within two years — or three years if the third is a performance-based vested option — even if it meant losing him. I would have taken that money and taken a flier on guys like Gagne, Garcia and perhaps even Colon since it's possible all three will accept one- or two-year deals in return for the opportunity to re-establish their value on the market. Hell, I even strongly consider Cordero, but the apparent necessity of giving him at least four years probably scares me off. Then, I go after guys like Mike Lamb and Morgan Ensberg — both of whom fill needs while hitting, at the least, for better-than-average OBPs — because they'll come cheap and will appreciate the opportunity to play half their games in a hitter's paradise.
But perhaps Gillick has something else planned that will make his first two moves of the offseason make a little more sense. And, saying that, I'll save further criticism until Spring Training.
Though, that's not really a promise.
Pepe, I do see some of what you're saying, and you've made enough good points that I'll admit to saying there's some possibility this could end up working in the Phillies' favor. And I don't think anyone has to be worried that either Bourn or Costanza will one day make this look like a Larry Andersen/Jeff Bagwell deal.
However, that doesn't mean I agree with you ...
The reason I didn't mention Victorino is because I think he's got a capable — not great, but capable — bat for a corner outfield spot, whereas Bourn clearly didn't and Werth does only against southpaws (more on that in a second). You're right that Victorino is a better defensive outfielder than Bourn, but the FH's main advantage is his arm strength, which is better utilized in right field. Furthermore, the combination of Bourn and Victorino out there would probably be worth at least one win, if not two, defensively, since Bourn is a vastly better defensive outfielder than Rowand was last season (desire to run into fences notwithstanding) and all of the Phillies' pitchers are flyball pitchers, if memory serves.
Werth is as "perfect" a platoon player as you'll find these days. He absolutely kills lefties, but is right around replacement level for an outfielder against righties (here are the actual numbers). I love guys like Werth, because when properly utilized they're fantastic, low-cost weapons. He and Bourn would have been perfect platoon partners, as the latter evidenced a huge platoon split himself in 2007, albeit over a smaller sample size. In my idealization, Bourn plays CF against righties, while Victorino starts in CF against lefties with Werth slipping into RF. That's a very favorable situation for any team, and also gives the Phils the opportunity to rest the perpetually ailing Burrell whenever needed, since they'll have four OFs getting regular PT.
I guess the argument, at least to me, doesn't really rest on whether Lidge is good, great or otherwise. It rests on the relative costs and availability of replacements. Bourn may not be a great player, but he's a good player — think a younger Dave Roberts — who's essentially free for the next four years. Costanza is, as you suggested, a Kouzmanoff in a perfect world, which has value but perhaps not as much as the prospect freaks like myself would like to believe. Furthermore, the Phillies have a very real need for OFs, since Rowand most certainly is not coming back, nor should he be pined over at the price he's asking for. I see a ton of value in Bourn, not all of which is directly tied into pure performance. Costanza's potential value — even if it's moderate at best — only serves to tip the scales a little more in the direction of this being a bad trade.
Relievers can be had in this market, and can be had for better prices relative to their actual value, than equivalent OFs. I'm not sure Cordero is worth $40 million — actually, I know he's not — but Gagne is probably worth about $6 million a year, which is very affordable when you consider that Bourn costs virtually nothing. And I think that's the point Nate Silver was driving at — if the Phillies were going to spend an additional $15 million (I'm just throwing that number out) this offseason, there are probably better ways it could have been allotted. And, at the end of the day, the more major-league caliber players you have under your control for league minimum, the better off you are. Every one you trade away costs you not only that player but also the payroll and roster flexibility they afford (you could send down Bourn in a pinch, because he still has options left, for instance).
As for Romero, you're quite right to think that the Phillies needed to retain the best available left-handed reliever on the market. And had they signed him to a one-year, $5 million deal with performance-vested options in 2009 & 2010, we wouldn't be having an argument at all. But the chances of Romero giving the Phillies even one great year — and $4 million for a situational/one-inning reliever should pretty much guarantee "great" — are pretty marginal already (again ... he was waived twice last year! He did not turn into Mike Morgan in 33 innings, at the age of 31), which means the chances of the Phillies even getting a moderate return on those three years at $4 million per annum is a longshot at best. Is it the worst contract of all-time? No. It's not even the worst contract on that team. But I see it as more of the same from a front office that has consistently overpaid for average pitching, and paid for it almost every time. And that's why, in particular, news of the deal was received with much hyperbole on my end.
Stepping back from the specifics, part of the reason I am willing to afford a little leeway to the Phils here is because we've yet to see the extent of their offseason, which could end up providing a much more flattering context for these two early salvos. If they are making a real push at a title, then a wasted $10 million here or there is understandable, if not advisable considering the revenue that kind of success can generate. The timing would appear right, as well; the team's troika of superstars are all in their prime and fast approaching the period where diminishing returns are to be expected from all. If the Phillies follow this up with a deal for a good-to-great outfielder — I don't think such a being exists on the free agent market, unless Mike Cameron's drug suspension seriously impedes his ability to be as overpaid as his contemporaries — then it could possibly reap dividends. But make no mistake, there's no way the Phillies can come into this year with two legitimate OFs with past injury problems and one marginal OF who can't hit righties, and expect to be considered favorites in the NL East, not to mention NL.
Furthermore, the reaction from these two early moves must be to put Myers back in the starting rotation, because it's asinine not to. I don't care what he prefers, he's a legitimate No. 2 starter on a team that needs as many good starting pitchers as it can find right now. Go make a move for another reliever if need be — hell, if they're serious about making a run, I go get Gagne if he'll accept a two-year deal at $6 million per — but whatever you do, make it clear to Myers that he's expected to give his team 200 innings this year. I promise you, if Myers is still in the bullpen when the season rolls around, this team will not make the playoffs, because N.Y. and Atlanta are going to be better, and the Phils simply can't afford to keep that kind of asset in a diminished role.
If I'm the GM, I like my position better with Bourn (and potentially Costanza) and the saved cash than I do with Lidge, and I certainly would have done everything in my power to keep Romero's deal within two years — or three years if the third is a performance-based vested option — even if it meant losing him. I would have taken that money and taken a flier on guys like Gagne, Garcia and perhaps even Colon since it's possible all three will accept one- or two-year deals in return for the opportunity to re-establish their value on the market. Hell, I even strongly consider Cordero, but the apparent necessity of giving him at least four years probably scares me off. Then, I go after guys like Mike Lamb and Morgan Ensberg — both of whom fill needs while hitting, at the least, for better-than-average OBPs — because they'll come cheap and will appreciate the opportunity to play half their games in a hitter's paradise.
But perhaps Gillick has something else planned that will make his first two moves of the offseason make a little more sense. And, saying that, I'll save further criticism until Spring Training.
Though, that's not really a promise.
OK, fine, I'll talk about the Phillies' deals ...
I'm sitting here fucking around on the internet, procrastinating from a late-night run, and now you've gone and given me a reason to procrastinate past the point when I'll actually have to go running. I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times more: Goddamn you, Diesel.
But Anonymous's evil twin has also been hectoring me to discuss Lidge (seriously, you should just change your name to Hector, or maybe create a blogger alias and just join us on the blog). So here goes.
Your post doesn't upset me at all because it reads as if you're consciously overlooking a few important things for the sake of argument, and I think you realize those few things full well.
Silver's column angers me a little bit, simply because he's being a jackass. He's doing what seems to be a staple over at BP (at least from what I've read, which admittedly is not enough to say authoritatively): neglecting to mention relevant information in order to make a point for the sake of making a point. He ignores a lot of relevant stuff, as well as making some ludicrous comparisons and projections, in order to shore up a flimsy claim, a claim he probably only made in the first place because he wanted to say something controversial. Still, these are things that, if he's supposed to be a professional baseball writer, he should know better than to believe. And if he does believe them, he could plainly see their wrongness if he'd only read up a little bit in the real media on the state of the organization or the players in question.
I can hopefully address both of your pieces by enumerating these topics. I'll start with topics relating to the Lidge trade:
Aaron Rowand's departure is a foregone conclusion -- That Silver seems to be project the Phillies' resigning of Rowand as likely or even probable is the first of many things he says in that column that lead me to believe he doesn't know much about the organization. The Phils are not going to re-up Rowand, and nobody who follows the organization has thought they would for months, since it became clear he would be looking for $14M per in a long-term deal. There's just no reason for them to do that, because he's not that good -- not nearly as good as his 2007 accolades would suggest, offensively or defensively. I can expand on this point if you'd like, but I'm pretty sure we've discussed it before, and that you agree. The fact that the Phillies made no real move to sign him during their exclusivity period suggests that they do, too. There's also no reason to because of ...
The presence of Shane Victorino -- You make no mention of the Flyin' Hawaiian, and neither does Silver, which is a pretty glaring omission. He would have replaced Aaron Rowand in center regardless of what they did with Bourn, because he's a lot better than Bourn and has proven it. (A brief aside: Bourn [not Bourne] may be the most-misspelled major leaguer in recent memory. I've seen him called Bourne a dozen times in recent articles. The Bourne Identity ruined his life.) There's no way in hell Bourn would have been the Phillies' starting CF as long as Victorino is there. Victorino's been exiled in right too long already. He also quietly posted a pretty good year, especially considering the ample time he missed with a calf injury -- before that he was on par to put up solid numbers even relative to other RFs. It's problematic to try to forecast stats for Bourn, considering the way in which he was used this season, almost always as a late-inning pinch-runner for Pat Burrell. But the Good Phight broke it down pretty well here.
In short, Victorino has all the attributes Bourn has -- decent hitter for average, nearly identical OBPs, excellent base stealer, stellar range -- and a few very important ones that Bourn doesn't: a cannon arm and respectable pop for a CF. Also, the fact that he's two years older shouldn't be a huge deal when you consider that he's shown what he can do over a full MLB season, while Bourn hasn't.
Barring a move for a RF, which I sort of doubt, Werth will be the starter next year. I'm not sure exactly why you think that Bourn is a legitimate starting outfielder and Jayson Werth isn't, but the Phillies think otherwise (obviously), and they have pretty good reason. His numbers were damned good for a guy who made only spot starts and pinch-hit a lot -- they project to a solid-to-good season out of a right fielder, and are head and shoulders better than Bourn's. I don't have the time or inclination right now to parse his defensive metrics, mostly because I have little faith in them anyway, but I know he had a decent amount of assists and was considered above average as a defender. There's no reason to believe that an outfield of Burrell (who isn't going anywhere), Bourn, and Victorino would be better than Burrell/Victorino/Werth, and there's a good amount of reason to believe it would be worse.
The fact that none of the prospects is very good -- Bourn was going to be the Phillies' fourth outfielder even with Rowand gone, for the foreseeable future, for reasons outlined above. Bourn is nothing special right now, and he won't be hard to replace. If the Phillies really need a fourth outfielder to play defense and pinch run, they could just call up Chris Roberson.
As far as Costanzo, everybody (including Silver) seems to mention his 27 homers and say he was the Phils' 3B of the future. What he fails to mention is that he's a defensive butcher and is absolutely abysmal against LHP. They were supposedly thinking about moving him to the outfield. He's drawing lots and lots of Russell Branyan comparisons, which isn't good unless we're playing MLB '07 at the Anonymous household (in which case, Branyan is Roy Hobbs). And really, since when is the fact that Ed Wade scouted him and liked him cause to think he's any good?
The third piece, Geoff Geary, is a proven commodity. Proven to be the definition of mediocre.
So you have one completely unremarkable MR, and two prospects who show few signs of future stardom. In contrast, they got a major-league-level utility player for their bench (who, while not groundbreaking by any stretch, will probably contribute as much to the 2008 Phils as Bourn would have, and far more than Costanzo), as well as somebody who could really make a difference, because ...
Brad Lidge makes a pretty good closer and a great setup guy -- First of all, I don't buy the organization's insistence that this means Myers is moving back to the rotation. The organization has hinted that that's the case, but this is the same bunch of people who said Tom Gordon was their closer last year. Myers has said he prefers closing and he was really good at it when healthy. The bullpen was also the biggest area of concern for last year's Phils by far. Add in the facts that the Phillies have four starting pitchers pretty much penciled in for next year -- Hamels, Moyer, Kendrick, and (sigh) Adam Eaton -- and that they've made it limpid in every official comment that their #1 priority this offseason is pitching, possibly starting pitching, and it becomes far from certain that Myers will be back in the rotation. He might, but there's no guarantee. If they acquire anybody else, possibly an El Duque type on a short-term deal, I bet Myers winds up back in the pen.
And if their bullpen is Gordon/Madson/Romero/Lidge/possibly Myers and whoever else, that's one hell of an upgrade from last year. I don't know why everybody talks about Lidge as if he's damaged goods. He's a 31-year-old, high-strikeout, low-ERA guy who's been excellent in the past, had one bad year, performed well last year and comes relatively cheap (and the $6 millionish they'll pay him after arbitration is relative cheap, considering the $15M Rivera will likely be getting in the next few days), all because of some abstract mass conception of his mental fragility or something. In his original article on the trade, Silver himself estimates that he's quite possibly one of the 15 best relievers in baseball.
He's inarguably better than anybody in their current bullpen not named Brett Myers, unless it's ...
J.C. Romero -- Simply put, Diesel, your text-messaging up-in-armsedness over this deal baffles me. I know you're on this big homegrown-talent kick, and it seems like Silver is, too, but the fact of the matter is that they just signed the best lefty reliever available for $4M/year. Given the market -- with last year's free agents such as the Gagnes and Foulkes and Dotels and Borowskis and Wickmans of the world all making significantly more than that, as well as the LaTroy Hawkinses and Roberto Hernandezes and Jorge Julios making close to the same -- that's not at all unreasonable. Especially not for a guy who was spectacular from the moment he signed with the Phils.
You talk about the signing like he's another Tom Gordon or something, and I fail to see why that is. He's their best option for next year, and if they wind up regretting it in two years, as you say, they only have one year of wasted contract. And that's irrelevant anyway, because of ...
The fact that the Phillies need to be legitimate contenders next year, or else there will be massive changes -- One of the bigger reasons Costanzo and Bourn don't matter is that by the time they might become regular contributors -- and my guess is that neither will ever be good major leaguers -- it will be way too late for Gillick and Manuel, and maybe for the Phillies. The not-so-dynamic septuagenarian duo will break up next year if Gillick leaves, and might be gone regardless, simply because of their age. The Phils' core of young talent will start to break up shortly thereafter as their contracts expire and they can't all be re-signed.
The Phillies have to contend now. These moves give them a better chance to do so, as even you and Silver admit. So it really doesn't matter if they're auctioning their future (which they're not, and I've explained why, without even getting into the huge amount of money [$25M+] coming off the books when the Burrell and Thome and Gordon contracts expire after next year). If they just hung on to average organizational guys for years despite their obvious flaws, expecting somehow to win a championship that way, as you and Silver seem to advocate, then they might as well just move across the street and change their name to the Eagles.
A few other thoughts:
Silver's contention that signing Eric Gagne for $6M or Cordero for 4 years at $10M per would somehow be smarter is one of the three most asinine things I've read this month. The other two are that they have any chance at Rivera and that they should have saved their money for A-Rod. I mean, seriously -- this guy's a journalist? What a load of utter bullshit. The Yanks are offering $15M/year for a 37-year-old closer who's already well past his peak, and nobody with half a brain or any familiarity with the Phillies thinks A-Rod is a possibility. He should at least read the stories posted on their official site before spouting off like that.
His entire last paragraph is also revisionist blather. At the time of that trade, when Beckett had that oft-cited sub-.500 career record and Lowell was a shadow of his former self, I bet you he was one of the legion of reporters blasting that move, too. And to compare giving up Michael Bourn to giving up Hanley Ramirez is just laughable.
But Anonymous's evil twin has also been hectoring me to discuss Lidge (seriously, you should just change your name to Hector, or maybe create a blogger alias and just join us on the blog). So here goes.
Your post doesn't upset me at all because it reads as if you're consciously overlooking a few important things for the sake of argument, and I think you realize those few things full well.
Silver's column angers me a little bit, simply because he's being a jackass. He's doing what seems to be a staple over at BP (at least from what I've read, which admittedly is not enough to say authoritatively): neglecting to mention relevant information in order to make a point for the sake of making a point. He ignores a lot of relevant stuff, as well as making some ludicrous comparisons and projections, in order to shore up a flimsy claim, a claim he probably only made in the first place because he wanted to say something controversial. Still, these are things that, if he's supposed to be a professional baseball writer, he should know better than to believe. And if he does believe them, he could plainly see their wrongness if he'd only read up a little bit in the real media on the state of the organization or the players in question.
I can hopefully address both of your pieces by enumerating these topics. I'll start with topics relating to the Lidge trade:
Aaron Rowand's departure is a foregone conclusion -- That Silver seems to be project the Phillies' resigning of Rowand as likely or even probable is the first of many things he says in that column that lead me to believe he doesn't know much about the organization. The Phils are not going to re-up Rowand, and nobody who follows the organization has thought they would for months, since it became clear he would be looking for $14M per in a long-term deal. There's just no reason for them to do that, because he's not that good -- not nearly as good as his 2007 accolades would suggest, offensively or defensively. I can expand on this point if you'd like, but I'm pretty sure we've discussed it before, and that you agree. The fact that the Phillies made no real move to sign him during their exclusivity period suggests that they do, too. There's also no reason to because of ...
The presence of Shane Victorino -- You make no mention of the Flyin' Hawaiian, and neither does Silver, which is a pretty glaring omission. He would have replaced Aaron Rowand in center regardless of what they did with Bourn, because he's a lot better than Bourn and has proven it. (A brief aside: Bourn [not Bourne] may be the most-misspelled major leaguer in recent memory. I've seen him called Bourne a dozen times in recent articles. The Bourne Identity ruined his life.) There's no way in hell Bourn would have been the Phillies' starting CF as long as Victorino is there. Victorino's been exiled in right too long already. He also quietly posted a pretty good year, especially considering the ample time he missed with a calf injury -- before that he was on par to put up solid numbers even relative to other RFs. It's problematic to try to forecast stats for Bourn, considering the way in which he was used this season, almost always as a late-inning pinch-runner for Pat Burrell. But the Good Phight broke it down pretty well here.
In short, Victorino has all the attributes Bourn has -- decent hitter for average, nearly identical OBPs, excellent base stealer, stellar range -- and a few very important ones that Bourn doesn't: a cannon arm and respectable pop for a CF. Also, the fact that he's two years older shouldn't be a huge deal when you consider that he's shown what he can do over a full MLB season, while Bourn hasn't.
Barring a move for a RF, which I sort of doubt, Werth will be the starter next year. I'm not sure exactly why you think that Bourn is a legitimate starting outfielder and Jayson Werth isn't, but the Phillies think otherwise (obviously), and they have pretty good reason. His numbers were damned good for a guy who made only spot starts and pinch-hit a lot -- they project to a solid-to-good season out of a right fielder, and are head and shoulders better than Bourn's. I don't have the time or inclination right now to parse his defensive metrics, mostly because I have little faith in them anyway, but I know he had a decent amount of assists and was considered above average as a defender. There's no reason to believe that an outfield of Burrell (who isn't going anywhere), Bourn, and Victorino would be better than Burrell/Victorino/Werth, and there's a good amount of reason to believe it would be worse.
The fact that none of the prospects is very good -- Bourn was going to be the Phillies' fourth outfielder even with Rowand gone, for the foreseeable future, for reasons outlined above. Bourn is nothing special right now, and he won't be hard to replace. If the Phillies really need a fourth outfielder to play defense and pinch run, they could just call up Chris Roberson.
As far as Costanzo, everybody (including Silver) seems to mention his 27 homers and say he was the Phils' 3B of the future. What he fails to mention is that he's a defensive butcher and is absolutely abysmal against LHP. They were supposedly thinking about moving him to the outfield. He's drawing lots and lots of Russell Branyan comparisons, which isn't good unless we're playing MLB '07 at the Anonymous household (in which case, Branyan is Roy Hobbs). And really, since when is the fact that Ed Wade scouted him and liked him cause to think he's any good?
The third piece, Geoff Geary, is a proven commodity. Proven to be the definition of mediocre.
So you have one completely unremarkable MR, and two prospects who show few signs of future stardom. In contrast, they got a major-league-level utility player for their bench (who, while not groundbreaking by any stretch, will probably contribute as much to the 2008 Phils as Bourn would have, and far more than Costanzo), as well as somebody who could really make a difference, because ...
Brad Lidge makes a pretty good closer and a great setup guy -- First of all, I don't buy the organization's insistence that this means Myers is moving back to the rotation. The organization has hinted that that's the case, but this is the same bunch of people who said Tom Gordon was their closer last year. Myers has said he prefers closing and he was really good at it when healthy. The bullpen was also the biggest area of concern for last year's Phils by far. Add in the facts that the Phillies have four starting pitchers pretty much penciled in for next year -- Hamels, Moyer, Kendrick, and (sigh) Adam Eaton -- and that they've made it limpid in every official comment that their #1 priority this offseason is pitching, possibly starting pitching, and it becomes far from certain that Myers will be back in the rotation. He might, but there's no guarantee. If they acquire anybody else, possibly an El Duque type on a short-term deal, I bet Myers winds up back in the pen.
And if their bullpen is Gordon/Madson/Romero/Lidge/possibly Myers and whoever else, that's one hell of an upgrade from last year. I don't know why everybody talks about Lidge as if he's damaged goods. He's a 31-year-old, high-strikeout, low-ERA guy who's been excellent in the past, had one bad year, performed well last year and comes relatively cheap (and the $6 millionish they'll pay him after arbitration is relative cheap, considering the $15M Rivera will likely be getting in the next few days), all because of some abstract mass conception of his mental fragility or something. In his original article on the trade, Silver himself estimates that he's quite possibly one of the 15 best relievers in baseball.
He's inarguably better than anybody in their current bullpen not named Brett Myers, unless it's ...
J.C. Romero -- Simply put, Diesel, your text-messaging up-in-armsedness over this deal baffles me. I know you're on this big homegrown-talent kick, and it seems like Silver is, too, but the fact of the matter is that they just signed the best lefty reliever available for $4M/year. Given the market -- with last year's free agents such as the Gagnes and Foulkes and Dotels and Borowskis and Wickmans of the world all making significantly more than that, as well as the LaTroy Hawkinses and Roberto Hernandezes and Jorge Julios making close to the same -- that's not at all unreasonable. Especially not for a guy who was spectacular from the moment he signed with the Phils.
You talk about the signing like he's another Tom Gordon or something, and I fail to see why that is. He's their best option for next year, and if they wind up regretting it in two years, as you say, they only have one year of wasted contract. And that's irrelevant anyway, because of ...
The fact that the Phillies need to be legitimate contenders next year, or else there will be massive changes -- One of the bigger reasons Costanzo and Bourn don't matter is that by the time they might become regular contributors -- and my guess is that neither will ever be good major leaguers -- it will be way too late for Gillick and Manuel, and maybe for the Phillies. The not-so-dynamic septuagenarian duo will break up next year if Gillick leaves, and might be gone regardless, simply because of their age. The Phils' core of young talent will start to break up shortly thereafter as their contracts expire and they can't all be re-signed.
The Phillies have to contend now. These moves give them a better chance to do so, as even you and Silver admit. So it really doesn't matter if they're auctioning their future (which they're not, and I've explained why, without even getting into the huge amount of money [$25M+] coming off the books when the Burrell and Thome and Gordon contracts expire after next year). If they just hung on to average organizational guys for years despite their obvious flaws, expecting somehow to win a championship that way, as you and Silver seem to advocate, then they might as well just move across the street and change their name to the Eagles.
A few other thoughts:
Silver's contention that signing Eric Gagne for $6M or Cordero for 4 years at $10M per would somehow be smarter is one of the three most asinine things I've read this month. The other two are that they have any chance at Rivera and that they should have saved their money for A-Rod. I mean, seriously -- this guy's a journalist? What a load of utter bullshit. The Yanks are offering $15M/year for a 37-year-old closer who's already well past his peak, and nobody with half a brain or any familiarity with the Phillies thinks A-Rod is a possibility. He should at least read the stories posted on their official site before spouting off like that.
His entire last paragraph is also revisionist blather. At the time of that trade, when Beckett had that oft-cited sub-.500 career record and Lowell was a shadow of his former self, I bet you he was one of the legion of reporters blasting that move, too. And to compare giving up Michael Bourn to giving up Hanley Ramirez is just laughable.
Friday, October 05, 2007
If it weren't for bad things to say, I'd have nothing to say at all
OK, this usually isn't my shtick, but after close to seven hours of execrable baseball tonight, I just have to vent about some things:
• Listen here, former-MVP-and-Subway-flack Ryan Howard: It's 2-2 in the ninth inning of an elimination game, and your team is down one. While I appreciate your patience at the plate, you cannot strike out looking on a pitch like that. It might have been low, and it might have been outside. Probably not on either count. But even if either were the case, you have to protect the plate. I realize that you can't do much with that pitch, but anything's better that taking it and then bitching at the ump about the call (which was correct). Good Lord.
• I realize the blogosphere is already chock-full of this particular line of complaint, but I can't keep it inside anymore: If I ever see Frank Caliendo or Dane Cook in the street, they're going to the hospital. And they're probably losing the use of one or both testes in the process.
• I wrote yesterday that Charlie Manuel should be let go, and I think this series highlights many of the reasons I would offer for justification. He started off the series by starting Shane Victorino over Jason Werth against a lefty (Werth has a +1.000 OPS against southpaws this season). Then, in addition to pulling Kendrick a little too early last night, he brought in Kyle Lohse, who could presumably eat at least a couple of innings in what was promising to be a long game. The only problem, of course, is that the pitcher's spot was coming up in the home half of the inning, and Manuel obviously had no intention of letting the pitcher hit there. That started off a parade of shitty short relievers, when Manuel could have, with a hair of foresight, saved the better and more durable pitcher by sitting tight. Then, finally, he left JC Romero out there tonight to face a righty with runners on first and third in a no-margin-for-error situation with Brett Myers ready to pitch. I'm not saying that Myers wouldn't have given up the game-winning hit, but if Myers is their bullpen ace (and still right-handed), then not going to him there is incomprehensible.
During the game, the broadcasters started rapping about Manuel's job status, and opined that it was crazy that a guy who leads his team to the playoffs (especially with a clutch finish!) could end up not being welcomed back. One of the justifications they offered for a Manuel contract extension, in addition to his single-handedly carrying the Phillies into the playoffs within his generous maw, is that the players liked his laid-back attitude. This is proof both that broadcasters are incapable of divining causality and that players are horrible judges of managerial quality. My favorite teachers as a child were the ones who never assigned homework, took a decidedly post-modern view of the veracity of answers on tests, and in retrospect probably smoked enough pot during lunch breaks to cure glaucoma. However, these were not the teachers that fostered the MENSA-level genius you see on display right now. Believe it or not, it's possible to be well-liked and adequate at your job at the same time.
• Someone give me one good reason Pinella started Jason Kendall in an elimination game. Or any game at all.
• It is no secret, within my group of friends, that I hate Eric Byrnes. Not all of it is justified; I always end up hating overrated players, even though I know it's not really their fault. But the mere presence of Byrnes on my TV screen makes me want to commit seppuku. He's a douche. And he's also an idiot:
Byrnes, a former Athletic, should know better than to say stupid shit like that. He could have just left it at, "Sometimes things happen," or, "Sometimes the numbers don't tell the whole story." Instead, he decides to give everyone a lecture on "winning baseball," and uses the term "computer geeks" with all the glee of a Los Angeles Times sports columnist.
Eric, exactly seven teams in the modern history of the motherfucking sport have made the playoffs with negative run differentials. Seven! The 2007 D'Backs are a statistical outlier of the first order. It's possible to lose weight on a 4,000-calorie diet, but the vast majority of the time, eating that much is going to make you look like Ralph Mangino. Likewise, not scoring more runs than the opposition over the course of the season means that you're almost certainly going to lose more games than you win. So, take satisfaction in the fact that you've now had champagne poured on your douchebaggy, luck-bucket head twice, and leave the thinking to people who consider it abnormal to dress in tights on a daily basis.
And, if you really think you can pull off this feat — winning the division with a negative run differential — again next season, then I will be willing to bet you your entire, undeserved salary. I am positive that I can get backers.
• Bob Melvin is one of two current managers — the other being Manny Acta — that I would consider to manage my team if I were a GM. He's the best in the game at handling a pitching staff (particularly when it comes to understanding leverage), he obviously communicates well with his players, and he gave his young guys enough rope this year when it was probably tempting to give at-bats to veterans. But I just can't, for the life of me, understand why it is that he insists on shoehorning guys like Chris Young and Stephen Drew into the top of the lineup. I know it's "working," and that lineup construction ultimately isn't all that important to run production. But the playoffs have a way of magnifying managerial decisions that aren't all that important in the regular season, and it would be a shame for Melvin to jeopardize his team's shot at a title by giving a guy with a sub-.300 and a 25-percent strikeout rate the most plate appearances on the team in the post-season. As for Drew, I guess if he keeps hitting like this, he can bat wherever the fuck he wants. But I wouldn't bet on him keeping this up.
• Delightful nugget for former (or current) Star staffers: Nothing has changed with our old buddy Terrence Moore. From aarongleeman.com:
I've always been under the impression that most major newspapers have editors and fact-checkers, but perhaps that's no longer the case. In a column that ran in the Atlanta Journal Constitution earlier this week, Terence Moore criticized the Braves for letting Andruw Jones leave via free agency and wrote the following:
• Listen here, former-MVP-and-Subway-flack Ryan Howard: It's 2-2 in the ninth inning of an elimination game, and your team is down one. While I appreciate your patience at the plate, you cannot strike out looking on a pitch like that. It might have been low, and it might have been outside. Probably not on either count. But even if either were the case, you have to protect the plate. I realize that you can't do much with that pitch, but anything's better that taking it and then bitching at the ump about the call (which was correct). Good Lord.
• I realize the blogosphere is already chock-full of this particular line of complaint, but I can't keep it inside anymore: If I ever see Frank Caliendo or Dane Cook in the street, they're going to the hospital. And they're probably losing the use of one or both testes in the process.
• I wrote yesterday that Charlie Manuel should be let go, and I think this series highlights many of the reasons I would offer for justification. He started off the series by starting Shane Victorino over Jason Werth against a lefty (Werth has a +1.000 OPS against southpaws this season). Then, in addition to pulling Kendrick a little too early last night, he brought in Kyle Lohse, who could presumably eat at least a couple of innings in what was promising to be a long game. The only problem, of course, is that the pitcher's spot was coming up in the home half of the inning, and Manuel obviously had no intention of letting the pitcher hit there. That started off a parade of shitty short relievers, when Manuel could have, with a hair of foresight, saved the better and more durable pitcher by sitting tight. Then, finally, he left JC Romero out there tonight to face a righty with runners on first and third in a no-margin-for-error situation with Brett Myers ready to pitch. I'm not saying that Myers wouldn't have given up the game-winning hit, but if Myers is their bullpen ace (and still right-handed), then not going to him there is incomprehensible.
During the game, the broadcasters started rapping about Manuel's job status, and opined that it was crazy that a guy who leads his team to the playoffs (especially with a clutch finish!) could end up not being welcomed back. One of the justifications they offered for a Manuel contract extension, in addition to his single-handedly carrying the Phillies into the playoffs within his generous maw, is that the players liked his laid-back attitude. This is proof both that broadcasters are incapable of divining causality and that players are horrible judges of managerial quality. My favorite teachers as a child were the ones who never assigned homework, took a decidedly post-modern view of the veracity of answers on tests, and in retrospect probably smoked enough pot during lunch breaks to cure glaucoma. However, these were not the teachers that fostered the MENSA-level genius you see on display right now. Believe it or not, it's possible to be well-liked and adequate at your job at the same time.
• Someone give me one good reason Pinella started Jason Kendall in an elimination game. Or any game at all.
• It is no secret, within my group of friends, that I hate Eric Byrnes. Not all of it is justified; I always end up hating overrated players, even though I know it's not really their fault. But the mere presence of Byrnes on my TV screen makes me want to commit seppuku. He's a douche. And he's also an idiot:
Asked what he thinks when people start spouting terms like "run differential," Byrnes chuckled: "I laugh. I just laugh. Because it doesn't really apply to what this team is. It doesn't apply to winning baseball.
"I mean, I don't blame the number-crunchers, the computer geeks, for not being able to come up with a formula for how we got here. But there's a lot more that goes into sports than numbers."
Byrnes, a former Athletic, should know better than to say stupid shit like that. He could have just left it at, "Sometimes things happen," or, "Sometimes the numbers don't tell the whole story." Instead, he decides to give everyone a lecture on "winning baseball," and uses the term "computer geeks" with all the glee of a Los Angeles Times sports columnist.
Eric, exactly seven teams in the modern history of the motherfucking sport have made the playoffs with negative run differentials. Seven! The 2007 D'Backs are a statistical outlier of the first order. It's possible to lose weight on a 4,000-calorie diet, but the vast majority of the time, eating that much is going to make you look like Ralph Mangino. Likewise, not scoring more runs than the opposition over the course of the season means that you're almost certainly going to lose more games than you win. So, take satisfaction in the fact that you've now had champagne poured on your douchebaggy, luck-bucket head twice, and leave the thinking to people who consider it abnormal to dress in tights on a daily basis.
And, if you really think you can pull off this feat — winning the division with a negative run differential — again next season, then I will be willing to bet you your entire, undeserved salary. I am positive that I can get backers.
• Bob Melvin is one of two current managers — the other being Manny Acta — that I would consider to manage my team if I were a GM. He's the best in the game at handling a pitching staff (particularly when it comes to understanding leverage), he obviously communicates well with his players, and he gave his young guys enough rope this year when it was probably tempting to give at-bats to veterans. But I just can't, for the life of me, understand why it is that he insists on shoehorning guys like Chris Young and Stephen Drew into the top of the lineup. I know it's "working," and that lineup construction ultimately isn't all that important to run production. But the playoffs have a way of magnifying managerial decisions that aren't all that important in the regular season, and it would be a shame for Melvin to jeopardize his team's shot at a title by giving a guy with a sub-.300 and a 25-percent strikeout rate the most plate appearances on the team in the post-season. As for Drew, I guess if he keeps hitting like this, he can bat wherever the fuck he wants. But I wouldn't bet on him keeping this up.
• Delightful nugget for former (or current) Star staffers: Nothing has changed with our old buddy Terrence Moore. From aarongleeman.com:
I've always been under the impression that most major newspapers have editors and fact-checkers, but perhaps that's no longer the case. In a column that ran in the Atlanta Journal Constitution earlier this week, Terence Moore criticized the Braves for letting Andruw Jones leave via free agency and wrote the following:
He is the hidden reason the Braves produced Cy Glavine, Cy Smoltz and Cy Maddux, along with all of those consecutive years of team ERAs that ranked first or second in baseball. He caught everything. He threw out everybody. He made the spectacular routine. He did so through an 11th year with the Braves that will produce a 10th Gold Glove, but management will shove Jones out the door by allowing him to become a free agent while yawning.Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux combined to win six Cy Youngs with the Braves, but only one came with Jones in center field. In fact, when Glavine won the first of those six awards in 1991, Jones was 14 years old. Moore calls Jones "the hidden reason" behind the Cy Youngs, but he was at Single-A when Maddux won the award in 1993, 1994, and 1995. Also, Jones' MLB debut came 120 games into the 1996 season, yet the Braves led the NL in ERA in 1992, 1993, 1995, and 1996.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Friday Morning Referee
Diesel seems to want me to do a travelogue, but I'm not sure what else there is to say that's sports-related other than that we went to games at Chavez and McAfee and enjoyed both of the parks immensely, even if the games themselves were pretty boring. So I'll take up the Easterbrook issue instead, since it interests me more.
I've also liked Easterbrook's stuff in the past, and I also have a number of problems with the latest TMQ offering. For one thing, this installment seems notably more prolix than usual. He's always written long, but he usually keeps me reading, and this time I found myself scrolling past paragraphs at a time. Part of it is the subject matter; the preseason has not even started in earnest, and so he's left to ruminate on things neither I nor, I imagine, many other of his readers care a whole lot about: the player's union, Harry Potter, the AFL, lawnmowers, and so on. I understand that his broad expertise and interests are supposed to be part of his appeal, but still, I think this is a big mistake on his part: just because it's the preseason doesn't mean you have to bombard us with all of this irrelevance. If you're not generating any interest from me -- one of the more academic and longer attention-spanned football fans you're likely to find -- it's probably safe to say you're boring the shit out of pretty much everybody. The answer's simple: cut it short. Of course, much of this points toward the biggest problem with Page 2, which is that there's apparently no editorial oversight whatsoever, except for the censors watching out for anything that could be construed as anti-Disney. I've covered this at length before.
His stances on a lot of the topics also strike me as gratuitously contrarian, in some cases bizarrely so. The Sopranos critique, for instance, simply baffled me: he blasts a mafia series for being too violent and too breasty? Then he rips it for not being realistic enough, basing most of his claim on obscure details like the botany of the Pine Barrens and the intricacies of liquor licenses in New Jersey? Spare me. It's drama, not reality television. Don't be such a technical dick.
And it only gets worse from there: He even goes so far as to call anybody who claims to like the Sopranos for the family scenes a liar. Here's an idea, Easterbrook: I think the Sopranos was so innovative because it was perhaps the first phenomenon-popular TV series that dealt with crime and social issues without designating the good guys and the bad guys. Maybe it's such a great show, such a cultural institution, not because it has a lot of violence and tits -- you can get both on late-night Showtime (or so I hear...) -- but because David Simon created some of the most interesting and complex characters television has ever seen. Maybe it was considered so innovative because it was really the first successful foray by a premium cable channel into multi-season dramatic series, and because it turned out to be such a high-quality show. It had great actors, great directing, spectacular writing -- it was essentially an 80-hour-long good Mafia movie. That's never been done before, and it paved the way for even better stuff, such as the single greatest television series ever made, The Wire.
He seems to be basing a lot of his judgments, against the Sopranos and elsewhere, on staunchly moralistic grounds. So, yes, I do think he's starting to sound preachy. Actually, he's starting to remind me too much of a preacher: one minute he quotes the Bible, and the next he's quite lecherously discussing thongs and making cracks about the natural hair color of cheerleaders. It's all a little weird to me, a little creepy and repressed, and it smacks of everything I hate about born-again-ism: the judgmental worldview, the superiority, the hypocrisy, the evangelism.
However.
I've also got some real problems with the first half of your letter to Easterbrook. It's ridiculous to claim that the man's "rational worldview is being seriously compromised by (his) religious zeal." Speaking of arguments being compromised by zeal, how about comparing Easterbrook to Ann Coulter? If you want to talk about writing pap, how about referring to TV psychics as "mystics"? I mean, the dude's a fellow at probably the single most respected think tank in America. He's also an editor at one of the smartest magazines extant. He's a multipublished author, a respected thinker, and, what's more, he's one of the few public figures in the contemporary tsunami of self-righteousness who's brave enough to admit when he is wrong. For that last, especially, I admire him. I hardly think questioning his very commitment to reason is justified here.
I also think your entire Harry Potter argument is incoherent and irresponsible. Easterbrook makes a completely reasonable -- and, I think, astute -- observation that the Harry Potter series skirts the issue of religion and/or God. If true (I have no idea), that's a notable absence: you won't find many 200-page novels that don't mention God in some sense, much less a series of a half-dozen books, some of which weigh in north of 700 pages. The issue of God and religious belief is even more important in children's books, I think: parents should understand and appreciate whether and how their children are being indoctrinated by what they read (and watch, and hear, for that matter).
And what you conveniently fail to mention, Diesel, is that the religion issue arises not because Easterbrook artificially holds Harry Potter up against other children's series -- as both you and your selective quotation of the column suggest -- but because Rowling decided to directly quote the Bible multiple times in the final book.
Easterbrook's observation of this phenomena remains exactly that: an observation. He soon drifts off into a critique of the Golden Compass series and anti-Christian books in general (more on that later). He never commends Rowling for including Biblical quotations; he just points them out and discusses them. By so doing, he's actually empowering any parents who may read the column to make their own decision regarding the religious content. So to accuse him of inventing the issue in order to "bully" anybody, much less atheists, is both disingenuous and irresponsible. I understand that you're very attuned to the precariousness of the atheist position in an increasingly religion-dominated world, but I think you're inventing the oppression in this case.
However, again.
The second half of your letter could not be more accurate. I absolutely and vehemently agree with you about Easterbrook's use of the word "jihadis" when describing the three other "anti-Christian" authors. That is hyperbole at its most asinine, and it shocked me when I first read the word. I expect much better from a mind like his. He does have some history of head-up-assedness when it comes to his choice of words, especially when critiquing movies and books, and this latest column -- especially the "jihadi" -- seems like the kind of thing he might wind up regretting. Respected intellectuals simply can't go around comparing their rivals to terrorists in an international forum. It's indefensible, it's stupid, and it's wrong. Further, I think it warrants an apology.
If it does, though, I bet he gives that apology. I'll give him that much credit, and to me, that means an awful lot.
I've also liked Easterbrook's stuff in the past, and I also have a number of problems with the latest TMQ offering. For one thing, this installment seems notably more prolix than usual. He's always written long, but he usually keeps me reading, and this time I found myself scrolling past paragraphs at a time. Part of it is the subject matter; the preseason has not even started in earnest, and so he's left to ruminate on things neither I nor, I imagine, many other of his readers care a whole lot about: the player's union, Harry Potter, the AFL, lawnmowers, and so on. I understand that his broad expertise and interests are supposed to be part of his appeal, but still, I think this is a big mistake on his part: just because it's the preseason doesn't mean you have to bombard us with all of this irrelevance. If you're not generating any interest from me -- one of the more academic and longer attention-spanned football fans you're likely to find -- it's probably safe to say you're boring the shit out of pretty much everybody. The answer's simple: cut it short. Of course, much of this points toward the biggest problem with Page 2, which is that there's apparently no editorial oversight whatsoever, except for the censors watching out for anything that could be construed as anti-Disney. I've covered this at length before.
His stances on a lot of the topics also strike me as gratuitously contrarian, in some cases bizarrely so. The Sopranos critique, for instance, simply baffled me: he blasts a mafia series for being too violent and too breasty? Then he rips it for not being realistic enough, basing most of his claim on obscure details like the botany of the Pine Barrens and the intricacies of liquor licenses in New Jersey? Spare me. It's drama, not reality television. Don't be such a technical dick.
And it only gets worse from there: He even goes so far as to call anybody who claims to like the Sopranos for the family scenes a liar. Here's an idea, Easterbrook: I think the Sopranos was so innovative because it was perhaps the first phenomenon-popular TV series that dealt with crime and social issues without designating the good guys and the bad guys. Maybe it's such a great show, such a cultural institution, not because it has a lot of violence and tits -- you can get both on late-night Showtime (or so I hear...) -- but because David Simon created some of the most interesting and complex characters television has ever seen. Maybe it was considered so innovative because it was really the first successful foray by a premium cable channel into multi-season dramatic series, and because it turned out to be such a high-quality show. It had great actors, great directing, spectacular writing -- it was essentially an 80-hour-long good Mafia movie. That's never been done before, and it paved the way for even better stuff, such as the single greatest television series ever made, The Wire.
He seems to be basing a lot of his judgments, against the Sopranos and elsewhere, on staunchly moralistic grounds. So, yes, I do think he's starting to sound preachy. Actually, he's starting to remind me too much of a preacher: one minute he quotes the Bible, and the next he's quite lecherously discussing thongs and making cracks about the natural hair color of cheerleaders. It's all a little weird to me, a little creepy and repressed, and it smacks of everything I hate about born-again-ism: the judgmental worldview, the superiority, the hypocrisy, the evangelism.
However.
I've also got some real problems with the first half of your letter to Easterbrook. It's ridiculous to claim that the man's "rational worldview is being seriously compromised by (his) religious zeal." Speaking of arguments being compromised by zeal, how about comparing Easterbrook to Ann Coulter? If you want to talk about writing pap, how about referring to TV psychics as "mystics"? I mean, the dude's a fellow at probably the single most respected think tank in America. He's also an editor at one of the smartest magazines extant. He's a multipublished author, a respected thinker, and, what's more, he's one of the few public figures in the contemporary tsunami of self-righteousness who's brave enough to admit when he is wrong. For that last, especially, I admire him. I hardly think questioning his very commitment to reason is justified here.
I also think your entire Harry Potter argument is incoherent and irresponsible. Easterbrook makes a completely reasonable -- and, I think, astute -- observation that the Harry Potter series skirts the issue of religion and/or God. If true (I have no idea), that's a notable absence: you won't find many 200-page novels that don't mention God in some sense, much less a series of a half-dozen books, some of which weigh in north of 700 pages. The issue of God and religious belief is even more important in children's books, I think: parents should understand and appreciate whether and how their children are being indoctrinated by what they read (and watch, and hear, for that matter).
And what you conveniently fail to mention, Diesel, is that the religion issue arises not because Easterbrook artificially holds Harry Potter up against other children's series -- as both you and your selective quotation of the column suggest -- but because Rowling decided to directly quote the Bible multiple times in the final book.
Easterbrook's observation of this phenomena remains exactly that: an observation. He soon drifts off into a critique of the Golden Compass series and anti-Christian books in general (more on that later). He never commends Rowling for including Biblical quotations; he just points them out and discusses them. By so doing, he's actually empowering any parents who may read the column to make their own decision regarding the religious content. So to accuse him of inventing the issue in order to "bully" anybody, much less atheists, is both disingenuous and irresponsible. I understand that you're very attuned to the precariousness of the atheist position in an increasingly religion-dominated world, but I think you're inventing the oppression in this case.
However, again.
The second half of your letter could not be more accurate. I absolutely and vehemently agree with you about Easterbrook's use of the word "jihadis" when describing the three other "anti-Christian" authors. That is hyperbole at its most asinine, and it shocked me when I first read the word. I expect much better from a mind like his. He does have some history of head-up-assedness when it comes to his choice of words, especially when critiquing movies and books, and this latest column -- especially the "jihadi" -- seems like the kind of thing he might wind up regretting. Respected intellectuals simply can't go around comparing their rivals to terrorists in an international forum. It's indefensible, it's stupid, and it's wrong. Further, I think it warrants an apology.
If it does, though, I bet he gives that apology. I'll give him that much credit, and to me, that means an awful lot.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
The Ninth Level of Dante's Hell Is Reserved For Sanctimonious Sportswriters
I've been trying to avoid discussing the Michael Vick indictment because it seems too easy and everything's already been said, then some. But I just can't take it anymore. I've heard more sanctimonious, hyperbolic horseshit out of the sports media in the last few days than I have since, well, take your pick: the height of the Bonds grand jury, the Duke lacrosse case, the Kobe case (which I am loath to even mention since Ryan tried to bludgeon me with his Blackberry last time it came up), or even O.J.
This post could make a lot of different points. Off the top of my head:
I could talk about the role of race, which I do think is a factor in the coverage, but probably not in the investigation itself, and not nearly to the degree of the aforementioned issues.
We could discuss the hypocrisy involved in all this hand-wringing by meat eaters over dogs being electrocuted. (Please, somebody get all pissed and say, "but cows and chickens don't get electrocuted or hung or beaten." Pretty please. If you take this tack, your only real argument is, "but dogs are cute!" Unless you want to be one of those armchair animal psychiatrists who claims to understand the intelligence levels of all animals on a sliding scale, and further to construct an equation that derives the value of their pain from their relative intelligence.)
I could talk about the fact that the predominant response from the sports media thus far has been to moralize and bleat, rather than trying to figure out what other athletes might be involved: As ProFootballTalk pointed out (no way to link directly to the relevant section -- search the page for Dorsey Levens, about 1/6 of the way down as of this writing), maybe when ESPN had Dorsey Levens in the studio the other day, they should have asked him why his dog training company has Michael Vick's picture on its "Satisfied Celebs" page. Maybe they should have asked him if he attended dogfights. Maybe they should have asked him for more than his opinion on the matter, and maybe they would have, if they weren't busy pumping out opinion columns and asking everybody from Emmitt Smith to Vinny in North Jersey to give their opinion. Opinions first: they've got their priorities.
But I'd rather just focus on the sanctimony itself, because this has long been one of my primary complaints about mass sports media. I'm on vacation and have been trying to avoid the coverage of this issue as much as possible, but thus far I can remember hearing the following.
First it was Romy on the radio describing in grisly detail a scene involving Mike Vick slamming a dog on the ground repeatedly until it was dead. He proceeded it with a perfunctory "if it's true," the classic copout of opiners who need an excuse to sermonize: what always remains unspoken in these situations is the baseline assumption that it is, in fact, true. If they really allowed for the possibility that it wasn't true, then they'd have to shut their traps, and that wouldn't fill fifteen minutes of their show, or fifteen inches on the page. Never mind the fact that the indictment (available here) doesn't actually, technically, say that Michael Vick slammed a dog on the ground repeatedly until it was dead: saying it sure lights up the phone lines.
Then I heard some other radio hack essentially saying that it must be true, because the Feds don't take cases to court if they can't win. The Feds win something like 90 percent of their cases, he said. That's almost a definite. And, in horseshoes, hand grenades, and sports journalism, almost is enough.
I should pause here and acknowledge that the response has not been completely one-sided: the requisite chiding "wait and see" columns have sprung up as well. Screamin' A held up an open hand the other day. ESPN's coverage has been atypically muted, as exemplified in a worthy effort by Mike Sando (which also outlines how air-loose a grand jury indictment can be).
By and large, however, the response has been shrill and condemning. Vick's hometown paper even has a photo retrospective of his career posted on its website, as if he were dead. But maybe the single most flagrantly self-righteous piece of writing I've seen about Vick came from Philly's own Bill Conlin. I don't do the FJM bit often -- indeed, I've objected to it on this blog before -- but I'm going to do it here, because I've been itching to rip Conlin, and because I think his latest screed is an extreme example of the sanctimonious tendency I'm describing, as well as its most common and most bothersome undertones (I'll explain what those are later). I'll try not to take anything out of context or make any cheap shots, two tendencies of the form which I usually object to most.
NFL can't really let Vick play, can it?
SEE, HERE'S the thing with Michael Vick and the heinous crimes for which he has been indicted.
Right to Life activists have a history of blowing up abortion clinics and reaching "out-of- court" settlements with pro-choicers that, in some cases, involve extreme prejudice.
Two paragraphs in and already he's comparing killing dogs to killing people. I want to establish this right now, because the opposite belief is a major crux of a lot of the anti-Vick vitriol, and one Conlin (and others) rely on: killing dogs is not the same as killing humans. Human lives are more valuable than those of animals. As far as I'm concerned, that's a moral absolute, one I would hope I don't have to explain.
Remember this human/animal issue, because it arises later in interesting ways.
The animal-rights folks take similar umbrage to people who engage in the abuse or wanton slaughter of animals. They really, really get upset about the breeding of dogs for the sole purpose of mauling each other in a blood sport depicted as a deeply rooted and "traditional culture" form of entertainment.
Guilty or innocent, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback, massively marketed as the new breed of multitalented National Football League star, has become the face of an activity so vile that a long prison term is not punishment enough for those at the rotten core of dogfighting.
While I understand what he's trying to say here, the way he phrases this last paragraph reveals much of his agenda. First of all, "guilty or innocent" shouldn't be treated as a throwaway matter, as it is here. Second, I think calling him a "new breed of multitalented star" sounds suspiciously like something coded. And we all know dogfighting is vile and rotten. But amid all that rhetoric, all this sentence really says is that Michael Vick has become the face of dogfighting. If you separate what Conlin is saying from what he's suggesting, you realize that he's not saying very much, and he's saying it very carefully.
There should be a level of Hell in Dante's Inferno reserved for humans who aid and abet the unspeakable horrors that attend this barbaric "sport." It should be very close to the circle reserved for death-camp commandants and terrorists who blow themselves up in crowded public places.
This is hyperbole of the grossest kind. Dante? "Unspeakable horrors"? And are we seriously supposed to lump dogfighters in with death-camp commandants and suicide bombers? Is it necessary to invoke, even obliquely, the Holocaust and September 11th every time something bad happens? You're talking 11 million and 3,000-plus murdered people, respectively, and relating it to the killing of eight dogs. Let's take some responsibility for the words we write, to ensure that they continue to mean something: sentences like that cheapen the words inside, the ideas they represent, the author, and the paper they're printed in.
And don't tell me, "Lighten up, it's only a dog . . . " I'm more dog-tolerant than dog-loving, but this story and its ramifications transcend outrage even for somebody who has never wished the companionship of man's best friend.
So, the first thing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should do is guarantee Michael Vick's safety. This fresh-faced voice of a long-overdue morality should assign 24-hour security to a man about to surpass Barry Bonds, O.J. Simpson and Pete Rose in the Hall of Infamy's jock wing. He should protect Vick from the reach of potential vigilante justice. It's going to take a few more news cycles for the full impact of this story to hit home. But it will hit harder than anything since O.J. was leading the Freeway Grand Prix in his white Bronco.
And the ridiculousness continues. Can we just stop here and consider the fact that this man just said Mike Vick is going to surpass O.J. Simpson in the "Hall of Infamy," whatever the fuck that is? He invokes the Juice twice! Just come out and say it, Bill: you think killing dogs is as bad as killing people.
You think I'm kidding? What this man is accused of doing - one count in the bill of indictment accuses Vick of supervising the multigrisly killings of eight dogs - is a grenade tossed at more than 70 million American dog owners.
I hope you're kidding, because it's not a grenade. In no way is Vick's indictment comparable to throwing a grenade at anybody. Just stop it.
Imagine if the Falcons had a game scheduled this season in Cleveland, against the Browns. With the sound system blaring "Who Let the Dogs Out." With all those hirsute crazies in their dog masks . . . It will be bad enough in stadiums where Rover is not the symbol of a team's tenacity and ferocity.
Except the Falcons don't play Cleveland this year, so your vivid little scene doesn't work. We might as well be imagining what would happen if the Falcons had to play the Canton Bulldogs. And does it really matter if the mascot is a dog? Would those fans take more umbrage at actual dogs being killed? I'm a psychotic Philly fan, but I don't recall ever tracking down and fighting any eagle poachers.
And that's why Michael Vick must never play again in an NFL uniform - until the indictment has run its legal course and he is acquitted by a jury. And try to imagine the jury-selection process if the quarterback's legal team fails to reach a satisfactory plea bargain: "Do you now own, or have you ever owned one or more dogs?"
Hey, there were people who supported the Vietnam war who wanted to impeach Lyndon Johnson when he was photographed holding up his beagle by the ears. I think a few million John Madden video games featuring Michael Vick just became the equivalent of your old eight-track tapes.
Hold on just a second: "Michael Vick must never play again in an NFL uniform -- until the indictment has run its legal course ..."? What does that mean? He should never play again in an NFL uniform for six months? A year? That's not never! So don't begin by making a statement like he should never play again and then immediately hedge it into nothingness. If you're going to say it, say it. Otherwise, don't.
There is already a Greek chorus of bleeding hearts calling for Vick to be allowed to continue overthrowing receivers and running around like a very fast rat in a maze until he has his day in court.
And here's where the human/animal confusion takes on some very obvious and very disturbing overtones. I'll only say this: no white quarterback would ever be described in a large national newspaper as a "very fast rat in a maze," regardless of what he did or which animal he allegedly electrocuted.
That due process-rooted sentiment confronts the unofficial national religion with a public-relations disaster of unprecedented scope.
Ah, yes, the unofficial national religion, that beacon known as the NFL. The sport more Americans watch than any other, in which men -- humans, not dogs -- hit each other so hard and so often that players' brains turn into sponges, until they retire and get put out to pasture for a meager pension. The electrocution of dogs is a stain on this religious institution.
I love the NFL as much as anybody I know, but let's not pretend it's a noble institution.
Goodell has been suspending the NFL's growing list of social misfits at a heartening rate. Vick's alleged involvement in caninecide should draw a suspension - for involvement in illegal gambling? - that carries beyond the legal resolution of the case. When a law-enforcement officer or teacher is accused of a crime, aren't they put on "administrative leave" pending an in-house investigation? Let the NFL investigation begin - but proceed slowly.
One of Franz Kafka's most chilling short stories is called "In the Penal Colony." It involves the use of an instrument of torture whereby the sentence imposed on a prisoner is carved into his body in an ornate script.
In the case of anybody guilty of involvement in the killing of dogs used for this illegal blood sport, a simple brand would suffice:
"Dog Killer." And make the letters big . . . *
He closes with a suggestion that Vick -- "if guilty," of course, only "if guilty," if not he takes it all back -- should be branded. Not jailed, not electrocuted or slammed on a floor -- not even eye for an eye -- but branded.
You know, like they do to animals. Like they did to slaves. So tell us, Bill Conlin: in your column, which is Vick, the (alleged) dog-killer, supposed to be?
This post could make a lot of different points. Off the top of my head:
I could talk about the role of race, which I do think is a factor in the coverage, but probably not in the investigation itself, and not nearly to the degree of the aforementioned issues.
We could discuss the hypocrisy involved in all this hand-wringing by meat eaters over dogs being electrocuted. (Please, somebody get all pissed and say, "but cows and chickens don't get electrocuted or hung or beaten." Pretty please. If you take this tack, your only real argument is, "but dogs are cute!" Unless you want to be one of those armchair animal psychiatrists who claims to understand the intelligence levels of all animals on a sliding scale, and further to construct an equation that derives the value of their pain from their relative intelligence.)
I could talk about the fact that the predominant response from the sports media thus far has been to moralize and bleat, rather than trying to figure out what other athletes might be involved: As ProFootballTalk pointed out (no way to link directly to the relevant section -- search the page for Dorsey Levens, about 1/6 of the way down as of this writing), maybe when ESPN had Dorsey Levens in the studio the other day, they should have asked him why his dog training company has Michael Vick's picture on its "Satisfied Celebs" page. Maybe they should have asked him if he attended dogfights. Maybe they should have asked him for more than his opinion on the matter, and maybe they would have, if they weren't busy pumping out opinion columns and asking everybody from Emmitt Smith to Vinny in North Jersey to give their opinion. Opinions first: they've got their priorities.
But I'd rather just focus on the sanctimony itself, because this has long been one of my primary complaints about mass sports media. I'm on vacation and have been trying to avoid the coverage of this issue as much as possible, but thus far I can remember hearing the following.
First it was Romy on the radio describing in grisly detail a scene involving Mike Vick slamming a dog on the ground repeatedly until it was dead. He proceeded it with a perfunctory "if it's true," the classic copout of opiners who need an excuse to sermonize: what always remains unspoken in these situations is the baseline assumption that it is, in fact, true. If they really allowed for the possibility that it wasn't true, then they'd have to shut their traps, and that wouldn't fill fifteen minutes of their show, or fifteen inches on the page. Never mind the fact that the indictment (available here) doesn't actually, technically, say that Michael Vick slammed a dog on the ground repeatedly until it was dead: saying it sure lights up the phone lines.
Then I heard some other radio hack essentially saying that it must be true, because the Feds don't take cases to court if they can't win. The Feds win something like 90 percent of their cases, he said. That's almost a definite. And, in horseshoes, hand grenades, and sports journalism, almost is enough.
I should pause here and acknowledge that the response has not been completely one-sided: the requisite chiding "wait and see" columns have sprung up as well. Screamin' A held up an open hand the other day. ESPN's coverage has been atypically muted, as exemplified in a worthy effort by Mike Sando (which also outlines how air-loose a grand jury indictment can be).
By and large, however, the response has been shrill and condemning. Vick's hometown paper even has a photo retrospective of his career posted on its website, as if he were dead. But maybe the single most flagrantly self-righteous piece of writing I've seen about Vick came from Philly's own Bill Conlin. I don't do the FJM bit often -- indeed, I've objected to it on this blog before -- but I'm going to do it here, because I've been itching to rip Conlin, and because I think his latest screed is an extreme example of the sanctimonious tendency I'm describing, as well as its most common and most bothersome undertones (I'll explain what those are later). I'll try not to take anything out of context or make any cheap shots, two tendencies of the form which I usually object to most.
NFL can't really let Vick play, can it?
SEE, HERE'S the thing with Michael Vick and the heinous crimes for which he has been indicted.
Right to Life activists have a history of blowing up abortion clinics and reaching "out-of- court" settlements with pro-choicers that, in some cases, involve extreme prejudice.
Two paragraphs in and already he's comparing killing dogs to killing people. I want to establish this right now, because the opposite belief is a major crux of a lot of the anti-Vick vitriol, and one Conlin (and others) rely on: killing dogs is not the same as killing humans. Human lives are more valuable than those of animals. As far as I'm concerned, that's a moral absolute, one I would hope I don't have to explain.
Remember this human/animal issue, because it arises later in interesting ways.
The animal-rights folks take similar umbrage to people who engage in the abuse or wanton slaughter of animals. They really, really get upset about the breeding of dogs for the sole purpose of mauling each other in a blood sport depicted as a deeply rooted and "traditional culture" form of entertainment.
Guilty or innocent, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback, massively marketed as the new breed of multitalented National Football League star, has become the face of an activity so vile that a long prison term is not punishment enough for those at the rotten core of dogfighting.
While I understand what he's trying to say here, the way he phrases this last paragraph reveals much of his agenda. First of all, "guilty or innocent" shouldn't be treated as a throwaway matter, as it is here. Second, I think calling him a "new breed of multitalented star" sounds suspiciously like something coded. And we all know dogfighting is vile and rotten. But amid all that rhetoric, all this sentence really says is that Michael Vick has become the face of dogfighting. If you separate what Conlin is saying from what he's suggesting, you realize that he's not saying very much, and he's saying it very carefully.
There should be a level of Hell in Dante's Inferno reserved for humans who aid and abet the unspeakable horrors that attend this barbaric "sport." It should be very close to the circle reserved for death-camp commandants and terrorists who blow themselves up in crowded public places.
This is hyperbole of the grossest kind. Dante? "Unspeakable horrors"? And are we seriously supposed to lump dogfighters in with death-camp commandants and suicide bombers? Is it necessary to invoke, even obliquely, the Holocaust and September 11th every time something bad happens? You're talking 11 million and 3,000-plus murdered people, respectively, and relating it to the killing of eight dogs. Let's take some responsibility for the words we write, to ensure that they continue to mean something: sentences like that cheapen the words inside, the ideas they represent, the author, and the paper they're printed in.
And don't tell me, "Lighten up, it's only a dog . . . " I'm more dog-tolerant than dog-loving, but this story and its ramifications transcend outrage even for somebody who has never wished the companionship of man's best friend.
So, the first thing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should do is guarantee Michael Vick's safety. This fresh-faced voice of a long-overdue morality should assign 24-hour security to a man about to surpass Barry Bonds, O.J. Simpson and Pete Rose in the Hall of Infamy's jock wing. He should protect Vick from the reach of potential vigilante justice. It's going to take a few more news cycles for the full impact of this story to hit home. But it will hit harder than anything since O.J. was leading the Freeway Grand Prix in his white Bronco.
And the ridiculousness continues. Can we just stop here and consider the fact that this man just said Mike Vick is going to surpass O.J. Simpson in the "Hall of Infamy," whatever the fuck that is? He invokes the Juice twice! Just come out and say it, Bill: you think killing dogs is as bad as killing people.
You think I'm kidding? What this man is accused of doing - one count in the bill of indictment accuses Vick of supervising the multigrisly killings of eight dogs - is a grenade tossed at more than 70 million American dog owners.
I hope you're kidding, because it's not a grenade. In no way is Vick's indictment comparable to throwing a grenade at anybody. Just stop it.
Imagine if the Falcons had a game scheduled this season in Cleveland, against the Browns. With the sound system blaring "Who Let the Dogs Out." With all those hirsute crazies in their dog masks . . . It will be bad enough in stadiums where Rover is not the symbol of a team's tenacity and ferocity.
Except the Falcons don't play Cleveland this year, so your vivid little scene doesn't work. We might as well be imagining what would happen if the Falcons had to play the Canton Bulldogs. And does it really matter if the mascot is a dog? Would those fans take more umbrage at actual dogs being killed? I'm a psychotic Philly fan, but I don't recall ever tracking down and fighting any eagle poachers.
And that's why Michael Vick must never play again in an NFL uniform - until the indictment has run its legal course and he is acquitted by a jury. And try to imagine the jury-selection process if the quarterback's legal team fails to reach a satisfactory plea bargain: "Do you now own, or have you ever owned one or more dogs?"
Hey, there were people who supported the Vietnam war who wanted to impeach Lyndon Johnson when he was photographed holding up his beagle by the ears. I think a few million John Madden video games featuring Michael Vick just became the equivalent of your old eight-track tapes.
Hold on just a second: "Michael Vick must never play again in an NFL uniform -- until the indictment has run its legal course ..."? What does that mean? He should never play again in an NFL uniform for six months? A year? That's not never! So don't begin by making a statement like he should never play again and then immediately hedge it into nothingness. If you're going to say it, say it. Otherwise, don't.
There is already a Greek chorus of bleeding hearts calling for Vick to be allowed to continue overthrowing receivers and running around like a very fast rat in a maze until he has his day in court.
And here's where the human/animal confusion takes on some very obvious and very disturbing overtones. I'll only say this: no white quarterback would ever be described in a large national newspaper as a "very fast rat in a maze," regardless of what he did or which animal he allegedly electrocuted.
That due process-rooted sentiment confronts the unofficial national religion with a public-relations disaster of unprecedented scope.
Ah, yes, the unofficial national religion, that beacon known as the NFL. The sport more Americans watch than any other, in which men -- humans, not dogs -- hit each other so hard and so often that players' brains turn into sponges, until they retire and get put out to pasture for a meager pension. The electrocution of dogs is a stain on this religious institution.
I love the NFL as much as anybody I know, but let's not pretend it's a noble institution.
Goodell has been suspending the NFL's growing list of social misfits at a heartening rate. Vick's alleged involvement in caninecide should draw a suspension - for involvement in illegal gambling? - that carries beyond the legal resolution of the case. When a law-enforcement officer or teacher is accused of a crime, aren't they put on "administrative leave" pending an in-house investigation? Let the NFL investigation begin - but proceed slowly.
One of Franz Kafka's most chilling short stories is called "In the Penal Colony." It involves the use of an instrument of torture whereby the sentence imposed on a prisoner is carved into his body in an ornate script.
In the case of anybody guilty of involvement in the killing of dogs used for this illegal blood sport, a simple brand would suffice:
"Dog Killer." And make the letters big . . . *
He closes with a suggestion that Vick -- "if guilty," of course, only "if guilty," if not he takes it all back -- should be branded. Not jailed, not electrocuted or slammed on a floor -- not even eye for an eye -- but branded.
You know, like they do to animals. Like they did to slaves. So tell us, Bill Conlin: in your column, which is Vick, the (alleged) dog-killer, supposed to be?
Thursday, June 21, 2007
You're really giving 110%, partner.
Wait a sec: I'm supposed to trust advanced statistical analysis from a dude who thinks if the season is 43 percent over, there's still 67 percent left to play? And says it twice? Sweet Mike Schmidt on a saltine.
I've really only got one major point to make in response to your post. But first a few clarifications. (I really wish I had saved the IM conversation so I could prove you said some of this.) The argument in question arose out of a back-and-forth Diesel and I were having about Jon Lieber going on the DL (in case any of you missed it, he twisted his ankle running to back up the catcher, right after he blew the lead). The Phils just lost Freddy Garcia and Myers is both on the DL and apparently entrenched in the 'pen, which means a team that started the season with 6 starters now has 3 and a guy they just called up from AA. I mentioned that there's been a lot of chatter about trading Aaron Rowand for another pitcher, and that the good folks over at A Citizen's Blog had mentioned Carlos Zambrano.
Diesel first said how inconsistent and volatile Zambrano is, and that he'd lost velocity. The first two, sure. I don't know if that last part is true, and I doubt if he does, either. But whatever. Then Diesel said the Cubs would "never trade Zambrano."
"Why not?" I asked. "He's an inconsistent pitcher in his walk year who just beat the shit out of the starting catcher. And they're not going to make the playoffs, so why not get something for him?"
Diesel took the bait and said something ridiculous about how the Cubs were even money to win the Central.
Ding ding.
Thankfully, he's much more reasonable about it in his recent post, which makes sense save for that whole 43/67 thing, and what I think is another miscalculation. Namely, isn't it logically unsound to view the teams' current win/loss records as part of a probability of the entire season's? This is a hard idea to verbalize, so forgive me if this sounds patronizing. But here's what I'm trying to say:
1. The Cubs and Brewers already have their respective records. They are a statistical certainty.
2. The rest of the season is the only part that is still subject to statistical projection. Meaning 57 percent of the season.
3. Therefore, is it not unsound, logically speaking, to view what's already happened -- a statistical certainty, a fact -- as part of a season-long projection of performance? Wouldn't you have to treat only the remaining 57 percent as the statistical uncertainty? And wouldn't that make it even less likely that the Cubs go on a hot streak that coincides with a Brewers swoon, and that both happen to the tune of an 8.5 game margin? The certainty of the actual standings is why the adjusted standings don't matter -- if the adjusted standings were true, you'd have a much better chance of winning this argument, but they're not, so you don't. The Cubs need to be even more lucky for the rest of the year than they've been unlucky thus far. I feel like I'm not being clear, but hopefully you catch my drift.
20 percent sounds about right to me. That figure makes it less fun, because you were talking 50/50 earlier. But whatever. The Cubs are not going to win the NL Central. That's what I'm saying. Sure, I also said Freddy Garcia was going to be a valuable pitcher for the Phils this year, but what the fuck. I stick by it, and I'll stick by this. If you lose I want a Brewers hat (size 8 -- go ahead and laugh), and if you win I'll get you Dusty Baker's autograph.
I've really only got one major point to make in response to your post. But first a few clarifications. (I really wish I had saved the IM conversation so I could prove you said some of this.) The argument in question arose out of a back-and-forth Diesel and I were having about Jon Lieber going on the DL (in case any of you missed it, he twisted his ankle running to back up the catcher, right after he blew the lead). The Phils just lost Freddy Garcia and Myers is both on the DL and apparently entrenched in the 'pen, which means a team that started the season with 6 starters now has 3 and a guy they just called up from AA. I mentioned that there's been a lot of chatter about trading Aaron Rowand for another pitcher, and that the good folks over at A Citizen's Blog had mentioned Carlos Zambrano.
Diesel first said how inconsistent and volatile Zambrano is, and that he'd lost velocity. The first two, sure. I don't know if that last part is true, and I doubt if he does, either. But whatever. Then Diesel said the Cubs would "never trade Zambrano."
"Why not?" I asked. "He's an inconsistent pitcher in his walk year who just beat the shit out of the starting catcher. And they're not going to make the playoffs, so why not get something for him?"
Diesel took the bait and said something ridiculous about how the Cubs were even money to win the Central.
Ding ding.
Thankfully, he's much more reasonable about it in his recent post, which makes sense save for that whole 43/67 thing, and what I think is another miscalculation. Namely, isn't it logically unsound to view the teams' current win/loss records as part of a probability of the entire season's? This is a hard idea to verbalize, so forgive me if this sounds patronizing. But here's what I'm trying to say:
1. The Cubs and Brewers already have their respective records. They are a statistical certainty.
2. The rest of the season is the only part that is still subject to statistical projection. Meaning 57 percent of the season.
3. Therefore, is it not unsound, logically speaking, to view what's already happened -- a statistical certainty, a fact -- as part of a season-long projection of performance? Wouldn't you have to treat only the remaining 57 percent as the statistical uncertainty? And wouldn't that make it even less likely that the Cubs go on a hot streak that coincides with a Brewers swoon, and that both happen to the tune of an 8.5 game margin? The certainty of the actual standings is why the adjusted standings don't matter -- if the adjusted standings were true, you'd have a much better chance of winning this argument, but they're not, so you don't. The Cubs need to be even more lucky for the rest of the year than they've been unlucky thus far. I feel like I'm not being clear, but hopefully you catch my drift.
20 percent sounds about right to me. That figure makes it less fun, because you were talking 50/50 earlier. But whatever. The Cubs are not going to win the NL Central. That's what I'm saying. Sure, I also said Freddy Garcia was going to be a valuable pitcher for the Phils this year, but what the fuck. I stick by it, and I'll stick by this. If you lose I want a Brewers hat (size 8 -- go ahead and laugh), and if you win I'll get you Dusty Baker's autograph.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
You should stick to basebarr, Ichiro
I was discussing with Connor the other night the relative value of Ichiro, and, as usual, he was making wild and unsubstantiated claims about how not-good and overrated he is. And, as usual, I disagree. To sum up:
I contend that Ichiro is a once-in-a-generation player whose lack of power (and lack of interest in hitting for power) ensures that he will be perennially underrated in today's baseball environment.
Connor contended, among other things I can't remember, that he wasn't that good defensively and had a terrible on-base percentage.
So, here's my case. In an effort to avoid Connor's inevitable construction and burning of straw men, I'll specify that I am saying all of these things:
Ichiro is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. If you doubt this, I encourage you to consult his baseball reference page, which, among all the other impressive stats, puts his HOF Monitor number at 147 (130 is a "virtual cinch"). You might want to load it, anyway: we'll be referring back. Stats aside, the man is the most obvious and unique talent I have ever seen play baseball, but of course that's hard to quantify or prove. I've always thought that greatness is much like pornography: you know it when you see it.
Ichiro is one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball. I actually think he's the single best, possibly even among the best ever at his position, but I'll stick with the bolded claim for the sake of moderation. He's better even than Mythical Mike Cameron, who is so often fluffed in our circles. I don't have access to any resource that I can find with comprehensive defensive statistics, but for a quick gauge, look at his Range Factor numbers thus far in his first season as a center fielder:
Ichiro: RFg 3.08 RF9 3.22
Cameron: RFg 2.59 RF9 2.57
(For reference, the league averages are 2.46 and 2.76, respectively.)
Much of that is due to Ichiro's speed -- the best in the majors, unless it's Shane Victorino -- which leads us to ...
Ichiro is the best leadoff hitter in baseball. Even if he hasn't always hit leadoff. I say this for a number of reasons -- his sick steal numbers, his baserunning acumen, his obvious craftiness, the fact that he has averaged .70 runs scored per game for his career, the fact that he grounds into an average of 5 double plays per year -- but I'll make my primary argument one dear to your heart:
Ichiro gets on base. Now, granted, everybody's favorite Asian (well, male Asian...) doesn't do it in the right ways, according to Diesel. He doesn't walk a whole lot or hit home runs. He just, you know, gets more hits over a five-year span than anybody in the history of baseball. But that said, his career OBP is still 26th among active players -- which would make him tops among leadoff hitters (assuming he's going to hit leadoff wherever he winds up) and is just 3 ten-thousandths lower than Doyle's only acknowledged Lord and Savior, Adam Dunn. (By the way, .377 is also a far cry from the sub-.350 career OBP you extemporaneously quoted, Diesel.)
And, further, I'll take my Ichiro rove one step further: Of the available free agent CFs (Jones, Hunter, Ichiro, second-tier guys like Cameron and Rowand), I'd rather see my team sign Ichiro than any of the others.
I'll start from the bottom. We've got Rowand right now, and as great as he's been this year, I don't think he'll maintain it. I like him, love his attitude, think he's an above-average center fielder and a guy I would want on my team. But he's not in the same league as Jones or Ichiro. Same thing with Cameron: good power, good defense, but doesn't get on base enough (although it would be interesting to see him play in CBP).
I also like Torii Hunter as a player. However, we're talking about a guy with a career .324 OBP and a sizable injury history. He's also not in the same class as Jones or Ichiro defensively, despite his reputation. His RF numbers are actually worse than the league average.*
Which leads us to Andruw and Ichiro. Andruw's got better power numbers, obviously, by far. But that is the only thing Andruw Jones brings to the table that Ichiro doesn't. Ichiro's as good or better defensively*, far more consistent in his production, and, I would argue, something that's harder to find in baseball these days: a near-perfect leadoff hitter. I'll admit that I hate Andruw Jones and the Braves, but consider this: if defense is a wash (and I think it is), which of these career single-season averages is more singular and harder to find in an outfielder?
Jones: 96 R 156 H 34 HR 103 RBI 13 SB 66 BB 128 K .264/.343/.501
Ichiro: 114 R 230 H 10 HR 62 RBI 40 SB 48 BB 65 K .332/.378/.439
Let's also not forget that Ichiro has played his entire career in one of the consistently worst hitter's parks in the majors. At CPB, I'm convinced he'd be good for 20 homers a year -- hell, Shane Victorino's on pace to hit that many. (Which leads us to another reason I'd rather have him on my favorite team: my favorite team is the Phillies, who need an Ichiro much more than they need another slugger.)
For me, though, a pair of unquantifiables cinch the deal: his international stardom and his attitude. Wherever Ichiro goes, he's taking the attention and money of a massive Japanese fan base with him. He's also taking his personality. Namely, unlike Jones, Ichiro is both eminently quotable and fanatically committed to being the best baseball player in the world -- see this McSweeneys' article for some choice examples, such as this gem after the throw to get Long: "The ball was hit right to me. Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?"
Yes, Ichiro is older, but he keeps himself in better shape than maybe anybody in the majors (certainly more than Jones in any non-contract year), so I don't think his age accurately reflects his projected contribution, even over the term of a four- or five-year deal. Ichiro has Ricky Henderson written all over him.
Plus he says he wants to become a pitcher when he turns 40. He looks better than the Phils' current bullpen arms.
* -- I realize that I'm relying too much on RF to quantify defense, but that's about my only choice in terms of available stats. Fielding percentage doesn't tell you much for outfielders, and assists aren't always a great indicator of a player's arm -- I doubt a whole lot of people tried to go first-to-third on Ichiro after he gunned Terrence Long. If anybody has access to better statistical comparisons, by all means.
I contend that Ichiro is a once-in-a-generation player whose lack of power (and lack of interest in hitting for power) ensures that he will be perennially underrated in today's baseball environment.
Connor contended, among other things I can't remember, that he wasn't that good defensively and had a terrible on-base percentage.
So, here's my case. In an effort to avoid Connor's inevitable construction and burning of straw men, I'll specify that I am saying all of these things:
Ichiro is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. If you doubt this, I encourage you to consult his baseball reference page, which, among all the other impressive stats, puts his HOF Monitor number at 147 (130 is a "virtual cinch"). You might want to load it, anyway: we'll be referring back. Stats aside, the man is the most obvious and unique talent I have ever seen play baseball, but of course that's hard to quantify or prove. I've always thought that greatness is much like pornography: you know it when you see it.
Ichiro is one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball. I actually think he's the single best, possibly even among the best ever at his position, but I'll stick with the bolded claim for the sake of moderation. He's better even than Mythical Mike Cameron, who is so often fluffed in our circles. I don't have access to any resource that I can find with comprehensive defensive statistics, but for a quick gauge, look at his Range Factor numbers thus far in his first season as a center fielder:
Ichiro: RFg 3.08 RF9 3.22
Cameron: RFg 2.59 RF9 2.57
(For reference, the league averages are 2.46 and 2.76, respectively.)
Much of that is due to Ichiro's speed -- the best in the majors, unless it's Shane Victorino -- which leads us to ...
Ichiro is the best leadoff hitter in baseball. Even if he hasn't always hit leadoff. I say this for a number of reasons -- his sick steal numbers, his baserunning acumen, his obvious craftiness, the fact that he has averaged .70 runs scored per game for his career, the fact that he grounds into an average of 5 double plays per year -- but I'll make my primary argument one dear to your heart:
Ichiro gets on base. Now, granted, everybody's favorite Asian (well, male Asian...) doesn't do it in the right ways, according to Diesel. He doesn't walk a whole lot or hit home runs. He just, you know, gets more hits over a five-year span than anybody in the history of baseball. But that said, his career OBP is still 26th among active players -- which would make him tops among leadoff hitters (assuming he's going to hit leadoff wherever he winds up) and is just 3 ten-thousandths lower than Doyle's only acknowledged Lord and Savior, Adam Dunn. (By the way, .377 is also a far cry from the sub-.350 career OBP you extemporaneously quoted, Diesel.)
And, further, I'll take my Ichiro rove one step further: Of the available free agent CFs (Jones, Hunter, Ichiro, second-tier guys like Cameron and Rowand), I'd rather see my team sign Ichiro than any of the others.
I'll start from the bottom. We've got Rowand right now, and as great as he's been this year, I don't think he'll maintain it. I like him, love his attitude, think he's an above-average center fielder and a guy I would want on my team. But he's not in the same league as Jones or Ichiro. Same thing with Cameron: good power, good defense, but doesn't get on base enough (although it would be interesting to see him play in CBP).
I also like Torii Hunter as a player. However, we're talking about a guy with a career .324 OBP and a sizable injury history. He's also not in the same class as Jones or Ichiro defensively, despite his reputation. His RF numbers are actually worse than the league average.*
Which leads us to Andruw and Ichiro. Andruw's got better power numbers, obviously, by far. But that is the only thing Andruw Jones brings to the table that Ichiro doesn't. Ichiro's as good or better defensively*, far more consistent in his production, and, I would argue, something that's harder to find in baseball these days: a near-perfect leadoff hitter. I'll admit that I hate Andruw Jones and the Braves, but consider this: if defense is a wash (and I think it is), which of these career single-season averages is more singular and harder to find in an outfielder?
Jones: 96 R 156 H 34 HR 103 RBI 13 SB 66 BB 128 K .264/.343/.501
Ichiro: 114 R 230 H 10 HR 62 RBI 40 SB 48 BB 65 K .332/.378/.439
Let's also not forget that Ichiro has played his entire career in one of the consistently worst hitter's parks in the majors. At CPB, I'm convinced he'd be good for 20 homers a year -- hell, Shane Victorino's on pace to hit that many. (Which leads us to another reason I'd rather have him on my favorite team: my favorite team is the Phillies, who need an Ichiro much more than they need another slugger.)
For me, though, a pair of unquantifiables cinch the deal: his international stardom and his attitude. Wherever Ichiro goes, he's taking the attention and money of a massive Japanese fan base with him. He's also taking his personality. Namely, unlike Jones, Ichiro is both eminently quotable and fanatically committed to being the best baseball player in the world -- see this McSweeneys' article for some choice examples, such as this gem after the throw to get Long: "The ball was hit right to me. Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?"
Yes, Ichiro is older, but he keeps himself in better shape than maybe anybody in the majors (certainly more than Jones in any non-contract year), so I don't think his age accurately reflects his projected contribution, even over the term of a four- or five-year deal. Ichiro has Ricky Henderson written all over him.
Plus he says he wants to become a pitcher when he turns 40. He looks better than the Phils' current bullpen arms.
* -- I realize that I'm relying too much on RF to quantify defense, but that's about my only choice in terms of available stats. Fielding percentage doesn't tell you much for outfielders, and assists aren't always a great indicator of a player's arm -- I doubt a whole lot of people tried to go first-to-third on Ichiro after he gunned Terrence Long. If anybody has access to better statistical comparisons, by all means.
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