February 25th, 2008 → 10:17 am @ Seth Mnookin
“Go with the winner: No Clintons, No Old Men”
Post Categories: 2008 Presidential Campaign & Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton & John McCain
February 12th, 2008 → 11:10 am @ Seth Mnookin
In an interview with an Atlanta radio station, John “I’ll just keep talking until I get myself in trouble” Rocker says he and a bunch of other Texas Rangers were advised on how to juice without getting caught back in 2000. (According to Rocker, this little talking-to happened after he flunked a steroids test. He also takes pains to point out that A-Rod was one of his teammates at the time. It looks more and more like Alex’s stint with Texas wasn’t the best move: every two-bit punk who did time with him in Arlington is using him to gin up publicity.) Anyway, I believe Rocker is telling the truth.
(Sort of.*)
I’ve had an odd–well, soft spot isn’t exactly the right word, but you get the idea–for Rocker even since he went mano a mano with Deadspin’s Will Leitch, one of our all-time favorite sportswriters, period. (If you haven’t bought “God Save the Fan,” you should. It’s hysterical. And cut up into easily digestible chunks.) But that’s not why I believe him. I believe him because I think the Mitchell report underestimates — enormously — the amount of juicing within baseball. (I’m also surprised Mitchell, et al got away with the methods they used; that kind of crap would get me drummed out of journalism permanently. That’s a whole other story.) I also believe him because if the whole steroids mess has shown us anything, it’s that the least likely folks have ended up being the most honest. That’s in large part because of the frat house/high school locker room mentality of the entire baseball world, where the omerta code is lots stronger than it is in today’s mob…and guys like Jose and JR have already been kicked out of the club, so they have nothing to lose.
There you have it. Happy Potomac Primary day! If you live in the Beltway, make sure you vote. You might as well get involved in something: It’s not as if there are a lot of compelling reasons to invest your time into any of your local baseball teams.
* This is not to say, as Rocker seems to imply, that Bud sanctioned this little clubhouse chemistry lectures. I think the general sentiment is accurate: that a lot of people spread throughout every organization knew exactly what was going on and that there was a whole helluva lot of complicity.
Post Categories: John Rocker & Jose Canseco & Steroids & The Mitchell Report
February 10th, 2008 → 10:52 am @ Seth Mnookin
Some loyal readers have pointed out that there’s been an usually long period of silence coming from this corner; in fact, January was the first month FTM was quiet since we started (virtual) publication. There are some good reasons for this: I’ve been obsessing over my rapidly shrinking bank account; wondering why I felt compelled to buy real estate last spring; wondering why I felt compelled to buy tech stocks in the spring of 2000; wondering if I can make a career out of forecasting when bubbles are about to burst…well, you get the idea.
I’ve also been waiting for news–real news, news that’s worth talking about–to come out of Yawkey Way. There have been some minor developments, but call me crazy, I didn’t think Eric Hinske signing with the Jays was of true, earth-shattering importance.
I know what you’re thinking: what happened today? Did Curt’s shoulder actually fall off? Did Coco jump Jacoby in a back alley somewhere? Is Pedro coming back to the Sox as a bullpen coach? No, no, and no — and in fact, the news that brought me out of my winter hibernation was as commonplace as can be.
It was the staggering stupidity of our favorite punching bag: Murray Chass.
Chass has been, for as long as I can remember, a uniquely horrid sportswriter, one of those buffoons that make you wonder how folks like him manage to be gainfully employed. It’s not just that he’s lazy. It’s not just that he uses a column in a national newspaper to browbeat subjects who dare not talk to him. It’s also that he understands next to nothing about baseball.
Take today’s column, which, by the way, is buried, as always, deep within the Times‘s sports section. In a section titled “Giving Up Early,” Chass writes that the Sox “may yet regret that they were not more serious in their effort to win this winter’s Santana sweepstakes.” Chass implies that the Sox interest in Santana was because “their primary interest preventing the Yankees from getting Santana,” but that now, with Schilling’s shoulder trouble, the Sox need a starter. (He then floats one of those conspiracy theories that make no sense to anyone save for the little monkey living in Murray’s brain: “Players these days are supposed to have physicals before signing contracts. If the Red Sox found no shoulder problem in November before Schilling signed an $8 million contract, why does he have a shoulder problem now?” Does he think Curt’s faking — you know, because he doesn’t care about playing? Or that the Sox secretly sabotaged their own efforts and blew $8 mil in the process? Anyone who can figure this out gets a free prize.*)
Now, since neither Schill nor Wake is going anywhere, the Sox are guaranteed of having two 40+ starters on their team. They also have Dice-K, Beckett, Lester, and Buccholz. You could reasonably assume that the team’s brass figured that one of their older starters were likely going to be in the shop for repairs at any given point…but that their stable of young arms protected them.
The Sox might also have decided that, at the end of the day, paying Santana $140 mil through age 35 might not make sense – the team does, after all, know a little something about the durability of hard throwing aces that weight in at under two bills once they hit, say, age 32.
But it’s ridiculous to say that Ye Olde Towne team was never interested. Any package that includes either Jon or Jacoby is clearly a serious one. (For the record: I was never in favor of a Santana deal.
So there you have it. Happy new year, folks. I’ll be seeing you again real soon.
* Note: There is no prize.
Post Categories: 2007 Hot Stove Season & Curt Schilling & Johan Santana & Murray Chass
December 23rd, 2007 → 12:57 pm @ Seth Mnookin
In yesterday’s New York Times, a pair of academics — Columbia professor of sociology Jonathan Cole and University of Chicago professor of statistics Stephen Stigler — published an article titled “More Juice, Less Punch,” which aimed to ask the question: “Do [PEDs] make a difference sufficient to be detected in the players’ performance records?” Their answer, not surprisingly, is no (otherwise there wouldn’t have been any point in publishing their story in the first place): “An examination of the data on the players featured in the Mitchell report suggests that in most cases the drugs had either little or a negative effect.”
I feel sorry for the students that are forced to sit through these boobs’ courses.
Cole and Stigler try to prove their point by comparing stats from before and after a given player is accused of using roids (or HGH, or whatever). They explain their methodology thusly: “For pitchers identified by the report, we looked at the annual earned run average for their major league careers. For hitters we examined batting averages, home runs and slugging percentages. We then compared each player’s yearly performance before and after he is accused of having started using performance-enhancing drugs. After excluding those with insufficient information for a comparison, we were left with 48 batters and 23 pitchers.” The results, they say, show no net gain in performance.
This in itself would seem to intuitively demonstrate that PEDs do, in fact, work – baseball players, like mathematicians and physicists – show a dramatic tail-off at a very young age (for the geeks, their best work is usually done in their 20s; for ballplayers, the peak years usually come between 28 and 32) and if players with extended careers don’t show any decline in performance, that would indicate an unusual pattern.
Anyone who had any slight degree of sophistication would also realize that it’s next to meaningless to compare raw data – you need to make sure you understand what the data you’re looking at actually means. In this case, that means realizing that comparing stats like ERA or home runs or OPS or anything else tells you much less about a player’s relative performance than ERA+ or OPS+. (OPS+ normalizes OPS for the park and the league the player played in; ERA+ shows the player’s ERA in relation to the league’s ERA. This explains why Pedro’s 1.74 ERA in 2000, when the league ERA was 5.07, earned him an ERA+ of 291, while Sandy Koufax’s 1.74 ERA in 1964, when the league ERA was 3.25, only garnered him an ERA+ of 187. It also helps show why Pedro’s 2000 season was arguably the best ever. It resulted in the highest ERA+ since 1880, and the second best ever. Koufax’s top season ranks as 56th.)
Let’s drill down a little more. Cole and Stigler write, “The Roger Clemens is a case in point: a great pitcher before 1998, a great (if increasingly fragile) pitcher after he is supposed to have received treatment. But when we compared Clemens’s E.R.A. through 1997 with his E.R.A. from 1998 on, it was worse by 0.32 in the later period.” As I pointed out last year, the salient point here is how Clemens performed in his late 30s compared to his mid 20s. In the 12 years from Clemens’ breakout year in 1986, when he was 23, he had an ERA+ above 180 twice; in the 10 years from age 35 to 44, he had two more. Compare that to other Hall of Fame pitchers from this era like Greg Maddux, who had four years with an ERA+ of 180 or higher before age 35 and none afterwards, or Tom Glavine, whose five best years all came before age 35. Heck, compare it to Tom Seaver, the guy who was voted into the Hall with the highest percentage ever: his six best years all came before age 34.
Cole and Stigler are just as ignorant when it comes to hitters. “What should not be overlooked,” they write, “is that Bonds’s profile is strikingly like Babe Ruth’s high performance level until near the end of his career, with one standout home run year — a year in which other players on other teams also exceeded their previous levels.”
Actually, what should not be overlooked is the fact that Bonds has put up an OPS+ of greater than 200 in three out of the last six years, compared with comperable numbers in three of his first 14 years in the bigs. Ruth also had an OPS+ higher than 200 in three of his final six years…and another eight in the previous 14. (Another thing that should not be overlooked: Bonds has played the majority of his career in a home ballpark that has a spacious right field, unlike Ruth, who got to hit in Yankee Stadium.)
I know it’s not a shocker than a pair of academics don’t really understand baseball; it has taken autodidacts like Bill James to help illuminate the game. What is shocking is how little Cole and Stigler — professors who not only deal with numbers but teach at elite institutions — seem to understand about analyzing data.
Post Categories: Jonathan Cole & New York Times & Statistics & Stephen Stigler & Steroids
December 17th, 2007 → 11:22 am @ Seth Mnookin
Boston’s four pro sports teams–the Sox (11-3), Pats (11-0), C’s (20-2), and Bruins (18-11-3)–are a combined 60-19-3 since October 1, which is good for a .732 winning percentage. Take the B’s out of the equation and the three first place teams are a combined 42-5, which is good for approximately 9 wins for every 10 games. Back in 1986, I remember thinking that Boston had had a pretty decent year–the Sox and Pats both played for the championship and the Celts won their 2nd title in 3 years. Let’s see how this year ends up…
Post Categories: Boston Sports & Championships
December 16th, 2007 → 12:54 pm @ Seth Mnookin
“This is not a bluff; it’s just reality.”
— Hank Steinbrenner, December 2, 2007, when asked about his “firm deadline” of midnight, December 3, for the Yankees and Twins to complete a deal for Johan Santana.
“No. It’s over. When it’s over, it’s over.”
— Hank Steinbrenner, December 4, 2007, when asked if the Yankees were willing to continue negotiations if the Twins became willing to accept the Yankees final offer.
“We’re still thinking about it. We haven’t ruled it out completely. We’re still considering it. I haven’t closed the door completely on Santana.”
— Hank Steinbrenner, December 14, 2007
Post Categories: George Steinbrenner & Hank Steinbrenner & Johan Santana & Oblique References to Beatles Lyrics
December 16th, 2007 → 12:41 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Roger Clemens, through his lawyer, has been sticking with his Casablanca-evoking outrage that he was fingered as a ‘roids user. He shouldn’t be surprised, and neither should anyone else. (Compare this picture of a middle-aged Clemens to this one when he was in Boston. It certainly looks like his body went through a Bonds-like transformation.) I’ve been curious as to why more people weren’t asking questions about Clemens since last January, when Boston was in the hunt for his services.
In the last two days, the situation for Clemens has, remarkably, gotten even worse. There ex-big leaguers like C.J. Nitkowski defending Brian McNamee after he was called “troubled” by Clemens’ lawyer–a remarkable breach of the unspoken code of omerta among current and former ballplayers. There’s Curt Schilling, who looks up to Clemens as an idol, saying “I believe it” when asked about the contents of the Mitchell report. There’s the results of ESPN’s Jerry Krasnick’s informal poll of Hall voters–a full two-thirds of whom say they either wouldn’t vote for Clemens or are undecided.
And now there’s Andy Pettitte’s classy confirmation of McNamee’s revelations about his use of HGH. (Classy so long as his statement that there were only two times he used are, in fact, true.) Not only did Pettitte not say that McNamee was troubled, he confirmed exactly what McNamee had told investigators.
The steroid mess isn’t going to be one of those Watergate/Monica situations where the cover-up is worse than the crime…but it may be a case where the public, and the press, is a lot quicker to grant absolution to guys who come clean on their own. I’m willing to be dollars to doughnuts that Pettitte gets the biggest ovation of any player when the Yankees are announced on opening day at the Stadium.
Post Categories: Andy Pettitte & Hall of Fame & Roger Clemens & Steroids & The Mitchell Report
