MLB Has Lost Control of the Game

Many years ago, the powers that be in baseball sat down and drew up a set of rules to govern the game. These rules applied to the game on the field in an attempt to ensure that the game was contested in a sporting manner. However, an exclusive analysis performed by Walk Like a Sabermetrician regarding the 2012 MLB season reveals that these rules are routinely violated despite the penalties against them. Some may scoff at this analysis and say that some of these rules have not been broken intentionally. To do so is to coddle the rule breakers. These rules should have shaped the training of players and molded their behavior; instead, the players have failed to conform their physical actions to the sacred code of the game. Baseball is out of control, and it is out in the open for all to see, yet the powers that be have not taken any substantive steps to beef up enforcement. The shocking details:

* Pitchers have long been tasked with the simple job of providing a fair pitch to the batter, one that is within a zone deemed to be conducive to putting the ball in play. Pitchers have pushed the envelope, though, attempting to throw pitches that violate the spirit but not the letter of the rule. During the 2012 regular season, there were 14,709 separate occasions on which a pitcher failed to provide a hittable pitch and was penalized with a walk.

However, two additional details illustrate just how bad this problem has become. The first is that every single pitcher who logged a non-negligible number of innings issued at least one walk. The disregard for this rule and the attempt to deceive batters has infected the entire population of major league pitchers.

The second is that no fewer than 1,055 times did a pitcher intentionally violate this rule and make no attempt to provide a hittable pitch to the batter. This almost always occurred with expressed consent and even on direct order of the manager. Blatantly thumbing their nose at the code of the game, these pitchers and managers engaged in unsporting activity. The penalties simply must be increased to stamp out this behavior.

* Even more shockingly, there were 1,494 instances of a pitcher hitting a batter with a pitch. This act is expressly prohibited by the rules of baseball and the deleterious nature of this action is not limited to simply breaking rules. Hit batters have been linked to numerous cases of injury and even death. In choosing to play baseball, players should not be forced to make any decisions that could have an impact on their health, but batters risk extreme injury every game as they are forced to bat against these recalcitrant pitchers.

It has also become apparent that these violent acts are sometimes intentionally committed, often in a bizarre meld of revenge and tribal grudges that have more in common with gang warfare than gentlemanly sport. MLB has left the penalties for hit batters so toothless that these events continue, risking the health of batters and setting an awful example for the children of America.

* Any excuses regarding physical rather than moral failings go out the window when it comes to the matter of ejections. Umpires are given the power to remove disrespectful and violent offenders from the game. Such an awesome power should never have to be used in a civil game, but MLB’s product is anything but civil. 179 times an umpire had no choice but to remove a participant from the game for bad behavior. Again, the titular authority figures known as managers were frequently involved in these violations.

It is a matter of simple common sense that when rules are violated, it means that the associated penalties are insufficiently strong. This simple truth has been illustrated time and time again throughout human society. Any time draconian penalties are instituted, the associated behavior ceases. Examples include the lack of murders and non-existence of drug use in America, the strict adherence to all bylaws of the NCAA, and, of course, the complete lack of PED use in Olympic sport. MLB needs to learn from these examples and curb the culture of rule-breaking that prospers on the field.

Here We Go Again

So another player gets suspended for violating the drug policy and we get another round of moralizing and hyperbole, and of course that ridiculous fool Jeff Passan at Yahoo gets to roll them both together, then ooze more smarminess than one thought humanly possible.

But outside of the lunatic fringe exemplified by Passan, what is the major topic of discussion? Manny's Hall of Fame fate, naturally. For all of the phony hand-wringing about the "sanctity and integrity of the game" and the like, all anyone really cares about is whether a guy does or doesn't get to join the ranks of Rick Ferrell and Rube Marquard (but not Bert Blyleven or Alan Trammell) in the blessed Hall of Fame. The parody almost writes itself--a visitor from a foreign country might draw the conclusion that Major League Baseball is played for the glory of the Hall of Fame.

Addendum: I am going to edit this post to add links to good, sane takes on this situation (anti-Passans, if you will) as I see them:

Craig Calcaterra at the Hardball Times

Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek

John Stossel in his syndicated column

Numbers are Just Numbers, and That's All They Ever Were

It is my contention that if you took a systematic poll of sabermetricians or sabermetrically-inclined fans, you would find that as a group, sabermetricians are much less militant on the steroids issue than the average fan. This survey has never been taken, and it is possible that I am wrong about what it would find. I certainly am not claiming that there is a proper sabermetric position on steroids, or that there aren’t good sabermetricians who despise steroids use. But I’m going to assume that I’m right, for the sake of argument, and proceed from there.

So why is this? If I was being particularly arrogant about it, I would try to claim that sabermetricians are more logical than the average baseball fan, and that logic leads one to an apathetic position on the matter. But that would be self-serving, and it’s probably not true, even if I’d like it to be. In my own case, my steroids nonchalance is based in politics, more or less--a hatred of government regulating what people can put in their bodies (or just about anything else), a fear of invasive drug testing when it is implemented because of state edict rather than private economic concern. And none of that has anything to do with sabermetrics.

A less self-aggrandizing and more satisfying explanation (although potentially not any more plausible) is that sabermetricians are far less likely to feel violated by “tainted” records. One of the most common laments of the anti-steroids crowd is that steroids have cheapened and degraded statistics. “No longer,” they say, “can we compare the records of Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx to those of today’s great sluggers.”

And so if you have made a career largely out of pointing out frivolous, meaningless, but occasionally interesting or entertaining statistical factoids, as Jason Stark has, you just might think that the statistics themselves are of paramount importance. And so you will respond to additional steroids news by going absolutely off the reservation:

What compares to it? The Black Sox? This is worse. Game-fixing in college basketball? This is worse. Nominate any scandal in the history of sports. My vote is still that this is worse.

How detached from reason does one have to be in order to believe that players taking substances that weren’t explicitly banned by MLB in an attempt to improve their performance on the field is worse than players attempting to intentionally lose games? It is impossible for me to comprehend anyone actually believing this. If they do, I am at a loss at how to reason with them, as the worldview from which they must begin is irreconcilable with my own.

Of course, Stark does not explicitly say that his angst arises from the destruction of the numbers he enjoys so much, and if you want to accuse me of putting words in his mouth, I’ll take the arrows. But he does say:

Once, the numbers of baseball used to mean something special and magical. And the men who compiled those numbers were transcendent figures in American life.

I enjoy playing around with baseball stats, with no objective and just for sheer amusement, from time-to-time too. But I don’t kid myself about it. Those statistics were compiled in a specific time and place, with each player from year-to-year, from game-to-game even, in a unique context.

If the numbers themselves, rather than the people that compiled them and the wins they contributed to, ever were magical to you, then I have no sympathy for you. You should have known better. If you ever believed that Pete Rose collecting his 4,192nd hit (*) ever meant anything more significant than that he had compiled more hits than Ty Cobb, then you were horribly misguided. It surely didn’t make Rose a better overall player. It didn’t make Rose a better offensive player. It didn’t make Rose a better player at the isolated skill of collecting base hits. It simply meant that he had managed to collect more of them.

Having more hits or home runs does not make someone a better or more valuable baseball player. It can certainly be evidence that speaks to those questions; I am certainly a big believer in the premise that the objective record of what occurred on the field (statistics) can tell us a great deal about those questions. But the context in which they were compiled is an absolutely essential consideration. In the case of Rose versus Cobb, one factor that has to be considered is the number of opportunities each man had. Everyone inherently recognizes this one, particularly on the question of hits thanks to the ubiquitous nature of batting average. But that is far from the only contextual factor in play--the league environment and the impact of the park in which a player performs are crucial as well, and of course you can dig deeper still.

And it is that subtle distinction, the recognition of the importance of context, which marks the biggest difference between how sabermetricians view statistics and how other baseball fans view statistics. Sabermetricians are always considering context; non-sabermetricians are intermittently concerned about context, usually when the point of view they’re espousing will benefit. It’s not that they don’t understanding the importance of considering context; I think most people do. It is more a matter of not reflexively considering context, and all too often neglecting to ever consider it.

The so-called steroids era has thrust the issue into the limelight, though. Suddenly, everyone is aware that numbers can’t be taken at face value. Unfortunately, many of the fans who have recognized this may have only done it because they believe the specific player cheated or that all players must be viewed with a jaundiced eye because of their era. My hope is that it will compel some of them to always consider the era in which a man played, the parks he played in, and the way the game was played at that time.

Baseball statistics are simply counts of what a player or team has done on the field. They can be fiddled around with and enjoyed, or they can analyzed and enjoyed in an attempt to relate them to the goal of the game (which is to win), or they can be ignored. But they cannot be taken (at least not rationally) as magic numbers capable of make comparisons at face value without any interpretation.

If you lament the use of steroids because they result in an unfair advantage or are illegal or set a bad example for children, or some other reason, I disagree with you. But I don’t inherently write you off as a fool; we happen to have a difference of opinion. But as for the minority that decries the damage to the sacred records…

Stark also laments the fact that he believes a number of players who hold or held important records (Rose, Bonds, Sosa, ARod, Clemens, McGwire) will not be in the Hall of Fame. While I suppose it can be inferred that he agrees with this decision, I think it is worthy pointing out that the only way all of those men, sans Rose, will be left out of the Hall of Fame, is if Stark’s brethren in the BBWAA choose to keep them out. It is not inevitable that they be excluded--indeed, somewhere around a quarter of the voting writers are voting for McGwire. Their exclusion from the Hall will be a result of the mindset of observers, and not a natural consequence. And if you think that the identities of the players in the Hall of Fame is of grave importance…well, I’ve written about that before.

(*) Of course, Cobb is now credited with 4,189 hits, so Rose had already broken the record when he got the “historic” hit. There is a minority of people who complain about such corrections to the historical record, sometimes based on a similar mindset to the one described above: a belief in the sanctity of the records themselves.

Finally, I have two quick opinions on other aspects of the ARod story and the surrounding furor.

1. The most disturbing aspect of this story, by far, is not that ARod tested positive for steroids, it’s that a supposed non-disciplinary and anonymous round of testing was obtained by the government and leaked to the media. The real villains of this story are the leakers, and those that enabled them.

2. Even if the premise that steroids need to be removed from the game is accepted, it needs to be remembered that this test came before penalties were implemented in the rules. Therefore, it is ridiculous to use this test to draw any conclusion about the efficacy of the current testing policy or the associated penalties.

Is It Unethical to Steal an Idea for a Post?

This post was prompted by the recent polls hosted by The Hardball Times and Tango Tiger, and to “rate” a number of actual situations from baseball history on the standard of ethicality (Dictionary.com claims this is a word; however, my spellchecker doesn't like it). The endeavor was based on a class project at Carleton College.

Recognizing that some of the comparisons are apples and oranges to some degree, I approached the situations with a hierarchy something like this, from most grievous to least:

1. Game fixing

2. Gambling that could raise questions about the integrity of a contest, but does not rise to the level of fixing a game (this would include Pete Rose betting on the Reds to win, for instance)

3. Violent acts against others (Juan Marichal hitting John Roseboro over the head with a bat is what I have in mind here)

4. Cheating by means not available to the other team (this would include the shenanigans like watering down the basepaths, using electronic sign stealing, etc.--the home team generally has a distinct advantage in performing these acts)

5. Laying down for the opponent (Denny McLain throwing a meatball to Mickey Mantle, the Browns allowing Nap Lajoie to win the batting title, etc.) or intentionally playing poorly without a financial interest in doing so (if Manny was not trying in his final days with the Red Sox, it would go here)

6. Cheating by means available to the other team (spitballs, corked bats, etc.)

I did not include anything that does not directly relate to the game on the field. For example, one of the scenarios presented was that of segregation. Baseball obviously held a very unethical stance towards black players for much of its existence, and besides the obvious discriminatory aspects, it injured the game itself by not allowing some of the most talented players to compete. However, once you are sitting in the ballpark circa 1920 watching the Giants play the Braves, the color barrier does not distort the competition between the two teams of specific players in the way that a fixed game or a pitcher throwing a spitball would (*).

Another scenario that was offered was the indictment of Barry Bonds. I see this as the most unethical of all of the choices (other than murder), because I find the state attempting to take away a man’s liberty unjustly more repulsive than a private business refusing to allow a class of people to pursue a livelihood. However, I did not rank it either, as I assume that most people see Bonds, not the state, as the unethical actor. Furthermore, the issue at stake really has nothing to do with baseball. Bonds may have been a target because of his status as one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, but anyone accused of similar actions could be, in theory, a target as well.

I suppose that I should explain why the list is ordered in that way. I looked at it from a baseball perspective rather than a general one. In the big scheme, assaulting people comes up worse in my book than defrauding them, although individual cases may vary. However, from the perspective of a baseball consumer, there is nothing that is more troublesome to me than the possibility that the competition is not honest, and thus game fixing is the worst act possible.

Despite the fact that the various tricks that can be employed by groundskeepers seem to generally be considered innocuous, I personally find them to be worse than other forms of cheating like throwing spitballs and corking bats. In the latter cases, both teams have an equal opportunity to attempt to cheat should they so desire. In the former, only the home team is capable of engaging in it. One could argue, I suppose, that over the long haul of a season, each team has equal opportunity, since each team will host half of their games. Even so, cheating in each individual game does not excuse it from all parties. 1919 wouldn’t have been any better had the Reds been alternating throwing games with the White Sox.

All of that being said, please don’t get the impression that I believe that watering down the basepaths and similar tricks have a major impact, or that I am particularly morally outraged by them. Outside of gambling and outright assault, the rest of the list of things I don’t approve of are things that I would file under “make for amusing anecdotes”.

It seems to me that people’s general attitude towards, say, the spitball is that of amusement. Gaylord Perry can write a book titled “Me and the Spitter”, and everybody chuckles. Books are filled with jokes about how you couldn’t shake his hand because it would slip out of your grip.

And that is how I view the behaviors from #4 on the list on down: worthy of mild scorn, but by no means condemnation.

Here are various “transgressions” that some people may consider unethical but which I have no/very little problem with:

* use of PEDs

* using deception to draw a call from an umpire (phantom tag, pretending to be hit by a pitch, etc.)

* using deception to mislead the opponent (infielders pretending a throw is coming, ARod yelling “Ha!”, etc.)

* sign stealing by normal method of observation without outside help

* intentionally breaking the rules of the game (As an example, a fielder intentionally obstructs a runner, knowing that what he is doing is illegal)

* acts that could be considered violent which commonly occur in the game as part of the game (throwing at hitters, sliding hard into a base, etc.)

Some of those things are against the rules, but they fall under the category of “rules that I don’t think should exist”, and so I am not personally bothered by any of them at any level deeper than a belief that rules should be obeyed.

Of course, PEDs are the big issue of the day. I could write a whole screed on this (and trust me, it would be a screed), but let me try to summarize my feelings in a list format:

1) I do not believe that laws define morality, so the fact that a given substance may be banned by the government does not in any way compel me to oppose its use by baseball players.

2) I believe that people have allowed the word “steroids” to become so dirty that any substance can be slapped with that label and have its use condemned (yes, I realize that there is an actual medicinal definition of what is or is not a steroid, but I’m using the term as it is used in baseball talk--haphazardly). The self-righteousness of organizations like the IOC on “doping” has further poisoned the well.

I think that attempts to draw a bold line between the use of particular substances and the ingestion of other substances are misguided. I believe that adults should be free to make choices about what to put into their own bodies.

3) While I fully support MLB’s right to set a drug policy and ban particular substances, this does not in any way require me to attach moral outrage to those who violate the policy. The penalties for those violations are spelled out. However, those penalties do not include stripping of records in the amateur sports style of pretending that games never happened that so many people seem to want to apply to baseball records.

(Yes, I recognize that there is a difference between wanting to take a jaundiced look at records and wanting to toss them out of the books entirely. However, since my view on the questions of “greatness” are firmly grounded in the player’s win contribution in his own time and place, the two positions are tantamount with respect to discussions of whether, say, Roger Clemens is the best pitcher of the second half of the twentieth century.)

Of course, supporting MLB’s right to set a drug policy does not mean that I have to endorse the particular one they choose.

Since I have used the project of The Hardball Times and Tango Tiger as fodder for a mail-it-in post, I figure that I should at least have the courtesy to suggest that you take a look at Tango’s latest edition of the Fans' Scouting Report. However, I assume that I don’t have any regular readers who do not also read The Book Blog (and if you don’t, what is wrong with you?)

(*) Did you catch this? The spitball was still legal in 1920.

Jimmy Rollins, Curtis Granderson, and the Barbara Walters Number

The 20-20-20-20 achievement of Jimmy Rollins and Curtis Granderson is a great starting point for rumination on the difference between sabermetricians and what I will call, for the lack of a better term, traditionalists. (And an upfront disclaimer: I am by no means the first person to write about this).

Bill James, in his 1982 Abstract, wrote about how people were bothered by sabermetricians because sabermetricians treat numbers as numbers. We multiply and divide them, we endeavor to express relationships between them, we try to put them in context. The traditionalists, for all of their complaints about numbers, use them all the time. Everybody reads the stats; it’s a matter of which ones and how they are interpreted.

Speaking for myself, I have very little interest in numbers for numbers sake, and thus the Barbara Walters number means absolutely nothing to me. It goes without saying that it is worthless from a valuation standpoint, but I’m referring to my own curiosity here. I couldn’t be less interested in those types of statistical groupings, even if they are offered in the spirit of fun.

Of course, that is personal preference; there’s nothing wrong with being interested in odd statistical combinations as long as you don’t ascribe deep meaning to them. Unfortunately, there are folks out there who do, whether it’s the Barbara Walters number, or the 30/30 club, or what have you.

I may be off base here, but it seems as if sabermetrically-inclined people are less interested in the steroids issue than others. I am in no ways saying that there is a correct sabermetric position on the issue, or that there is any sort of uniform view among sabermetricians; it may well be the case that a serious examination would find my intuition faulty.

If we accept my premise, though, I think the “sanctity of the records” may be a contributing factor. As Bonds approached the record, it seemed as if some people were realizing for the first time that 755 home runs in one context might not be equally impressive, equally valuable, equally something as 755 home runs in another context. Of course, most people of non-sabermetric perspective recognize this, but the reactions of a minority seemed to indicate that the idea was relatively unfamiliar to them.

As for me, I don’t care about the home run record. I recognize its historical significance as the most hollowed record in baseball, and think it is worthy of attention for that reason. It has absolutely no personal meaning to me, though, and I don’t attach any meaning to it like “greatest home run hitter of all-time”, etc. It simply is the man who hit the most home runs in major league games. Without even a cursory consideration of context, it takes on no significance to me. Nor do 3,000 hits, 300 wins, a 56 game hitting streak, and other such marks.

So when I look at Barry Bonds breaking the record, I do not feel in anyway violated. (Of course, I don’t care about steroids for other reasons, which are in the philosophical/political realm and are not germane to this discussion. Even if I was opposed to steroids, though, I wouldn’t be any more upset at the record being broken by a user than I already would be that the guy was allowed to play and have an impact on pennant races).

I will admit to having an obsession with no-hitters, particularly my quest to have a scoresheet of one. I don’t care about no-hitters analytically, particularly in a post-DIPS world, but they are at least a rare occurrence that is a feat of unique value. It’s tough to give up many runs without yielding a hit (yes, yes, I know about Matt Young and company). Contrast the no-hitter with the cycle, though. Of course, any game in one manages to collect four hits, three of them for extra bases, is a superlative performance. But the cycle is noted not because it is the most valuable of games, as is arguably true for a no-hitter, but because it is a curiosity. There are many combinations of hits, walks, and outs that produce more value than a cycle. These, however, don’t get put on any special lists for historical posterity, unless they involve hitting a lot of home runs.

And that’s the point I’m trying to make here. The general baseball public loves things that they can wrap their head around easily. Sabermetricians love things that produce the most runs or the most wins, regardless of whether they arise from unique combinations. Those on the other side who sneer at the seeming analytical coldness of the position should not lose track of why Jimmy Rollins is trying to hit doubles in the first place. Likewise, I need to remind myself occasionally that there is nothing wrong with numbers for their own sake in the spirit of fun.

Hall of Fame and Steroids

This is a lightweight post, borrowing heavily from other people's ideas, but the hubub about Mark McGwire and the recent Hall of Fame election really does not interest me. The Hall of Fame, or at least who is inducted in the Hall of Fame, really does not matter to me either.

Now don't get me wrong; I like to amuse myself just like many other baseball fans by raitng the players, making lists of the top 10 this or that, setting your all-time Indians starting lineup, and other such pursuits. In fact, sometime in the not too distant future I'm going to pick my top fifty starting pitchers of all-time, just for the heck of it. And I am interested in the question of who SHOULD be in the HOF. The problem is that does not so much apply to the worthy candidates of today like a Bert Blyleven as much as it does to a Rube Marquard, who is in the HOF but should not be.

Bill James once wrote something to the effect of "The Hall of Fame has lost the ability to honor a truly great player, they can only dishonor him." And this is the reason why I am disinterested. If Rube Marquard is a Hall of Famer, then what honor is there in allowing Bert Blyleven to be in the same honored company as Rube Marquard? They can only dishonor him by temporarily pretending that he does not belong.

Of course, if it was just Rube Marquard, this would not be a problem. But the Hall of Fame has so many mistakes that it is beyond salvaging. And so the tribulations of the real HOF matter little to me. That said, since the steroids debate has been rekindled, I thought I would link to this nice piece by Russ Roberts at one of my favorite non-baseball blogs, Cafe Hayek, on the issue of Big Mac and steroids and "cheating". He makes some points that I whole-heartedly agree with, and he's much smarter then I am, so he makes them eloquently and ties in Fredrich Hayek.

Blogging is a lot harder than it looks

I have been reading baseball and political blogs for a while and gosh, it looks so easy. Just get on and write your thoughts on the issues of the day, and repeat tomorrow. It isn't. Some of us just aren't capable of writing interesting material everyday, or even 2 or 3 times a week. Maybe a weekly or biweekly column would fit better. And then there are those of us who aren't really fit for writing at all :)

I mean, I could write something everyday, but it would be crap. It just makes you appreciate bloggers like Aaron Gleeman who consistently puts out interesting stuff. It doesn't matter whether he's talking about the Twins or poker or Jessica Alba, he can make it interesting or at least tolerable. And for someone who writes just about every weekday, I'm impressed.

Before anyone gets the idea that I am turning this into the "Gleeman appreciation blog", let me point out that my Indians beat the Twins last night. Maybe tomorrow I will post some thoughts about tonight's game.

I can't pass up the chance to comment about the Kentucky Derby and make seat of my pants analysis of horses that I have seen on TV maybe once and have read a couple articles in USA Today about. I will root for my man George Steinbrenner and Bellamy Road, but the last horse I was really pulling for was Ohio-bred favorite Harlan's Holiday, and we all know how well that turned out. So I will tell you that I like High Limit to win the race...and admit that it's probably because I saw him win a race on TV a month ago.

If my ego is getting out of control stop me, but I think that my horse racing analysis is far better "journalism" then the sick spectacle of Pedro Gomez stalking Barry Bonds for ESPN. What a jackass. Well, I should probably blame the jackass who I hired him, but then again, his boss didn't force him to go on tonight and act like a smug jerk when discussing the latest Bonds setback. Snarkly observing that Bonds sometimes leaves the games (gasp) before they even start. And that when Moises Alou was on the DL, he was constantly with the team and Bonds is not(This was really egregious. As Dan Patrick half-jokingly pointed out, Alou is the manager's son. But of course Alou was out for, what, 2 or 3 weeks, and Bonds knew he was going to be out for at least 2 months and now longer. I'm sure the old men on the Giants have had their morales crushed by not having Barry around. Of course, when Barry is around all we ever here about is what a jackass he is and how his teammates all hate him, so wouldn't it be a good thing he's not around?)

In the meanwhile, Bud Selig is attempting to increase the steroid penalties because some morons in Congress like John McCain and Henry Waxman want to extend their tentacles of regulation to pro sports. I think people all across the political spectrum can unite on this. Doesn't Congress have something better to do with their time?