Hey Colby, Your Wife Called, She Said It's a Girl and To Pitch Magglio Down-and-Away

By The Common Man

The Common Man is going to try very hard to write this post without using the “You’re not a parent, so you don’t understand,” card. That card is incredibly easy to play, of course, but it’s just as unfair. Because how is someone going to argue with that? And, in playing it, you’re casting a moral judgment against someone who has probably chosen to not become a parent. And if they made that choice, because they knew they would not be a good parent, or simply didn’t have any feelings one way or the other, they chose correctly. It also does a disservice to all the non-parents out there who are inclined to think that becoming a parent is a pretty damn important thing.  And it does a disservice to all the excellent step-parents out there.


But Colby Lewis did, apparently, make the choice to be a parent, and by luck or design his second daughter was due right at the start of the 2011 season. This created a conflict, as it became apparent that Lewis would have to skip his start last Wednesday to accommodate the birth.

Chass-tized!

By The Common Man

Something's in the air, feelin' uptight.  It's the right mood for a blog fight!

You might have noticed earlier today that Rob Neyer suffered a ding to his apparently questionable reputation. Rob wrote about the new anti-stats tome that’s made its way around the internet in the last couple weeks, saying,

“Is it worth pointing out that these same Red Sox have built their organizational philosophy around the Bill James-Moneyball myths? That without sabermetrics the Red Sox wouldn't have won one World Series, let alone two? That every respectable sabermetrician (and most of the other ones, too) is highly aware of the Pigeon in the Outfield Factor?

Anyway, I think I ordered this book months ago. Should be a hoot.”

Scrappy, unaffiliated blogger Murray Chass responded to Rob, and pointed out the error of his ways,

“One blog, by Rob Neyer, criticizes the book based not on the book itself but on a news release about the book. When Neyer was at ESPN.com, he seemed to be building a respectable reputation, but he has moved to a new Web site, SBNation.com, and I guess that site’s standards are lower than ESPN’s because I doubt that his blog on the news release would have been posted on the ESPN Web site.”

Ouch. Et tu, Mur-ray? His point about Rob Neyer's irresponsibility since he left ESPN.com is well stated. Those bloggers have absolutely no standards at all!

It’s true, Rob probably should have read the whole book (which he’s promised to buy and read and comment on) rather than simply trusting the authors’ and publisher’s press release about the book. After all, those press releases have a history of distorting a book’s message and of taking its arguments out of context. They are clearly biased, and often seek to ruin the reputations of the writers who they are promoting with misinformation.  Clearly, Rob cannot simply trust the authors to tell him what their book is about and react to that description.

Still, The Common Man remains firmly convinced that Rob would have read the book had he simply been able to get ahold of it in time. Alas, TCM understands that Rob was out of the country on vacation with no access to information, such as telephone numbers or e-mail addresses, for people who might have known. So he had no way to verify, as he normally would, what the book was even about, given that he was unable to trust the authors’ description of the book in question.

Here, however, Rob has an excuse. After all, he was not trained in journalistic ethics like the excellent Murray Chass, who would never be so foolish and unethical as to go off half-cocked about some topic he doesn’t fully understand, or without all the most accurate information well in hand! Stupid bloggers.

The Folly of 10 Year Forecasts

By The Common Man

Yesterday, in his new digs over at SB Nation, Rob Neyer pointed back to his 1999-2000 predictions for who would be the best players in baseball from 2000-2009. As Rob himself points out, he went oh-for-10.

“Overall, though, I did a thoroughly lousy job.

Is there a lesson here? Well, it's really hard to know who's going to get hurt, and nearly as hard to know who's going to get fat. I think I've also got a general tendency to overrate young players. I still don't understand what happened to Ben Grieve, but at the time he was 23 and hadn't yet enjoyed a big season in the majors. Fernando Tatis was 25, and had just one great season on his ledger.

The real lesson, though, is that this stuff is hard. If it was easy, there wouldn't be so many lousy long-term contracts out there.”

So where did Rob go wrong? And, at the time, what, if anything, did he miss?

Farewell, Rob

Once upon a time (Fall of 1997), The Common Man enrolled in college, and got his first extensive exposure to the Internet.  Being a sports fan in general and a baseball fan in particular, he made his way to the old ESPN.com.  And there he ran across Rob Neyer.  And what TCM read blew his mind.

How in the hell could Scott Rolen be better than Vinny Castilla?  What do you mean that the sacrifice bunt is a bad idea?  Why was Rick Aguilera overrated?  Who in God's name was Arky Vaughan?  I was excited, and I sent word to my good friend Bill to check out Neyer's work. 

Bill's version of this story is essentially reversed, as he claims to have discovered Neyer first and sent it to The Common Man.  But Bill's a lawyer, so take that into a account when you assess his credibility.  [Note: this isn't true. Bill's version of the story agrees exactly with TCM's. But I'm leaving it anyway.]

Anyway, since then we're pretty sure we've read darn near every word that Rob has published, from his work at ESPN, to his exchanges with Rany Jazayerli on their Royals, to his insightful and entertaining books (available now on Amazon!).  And we've always come away learning something.

Look, we have no idea what the first column we read by Rob Neyer actually was.  But it forever changed the way that we looked at baseball, writing, baseball writing, and the world at large.  You're going to accuse us of hyperbole, but because of Rob Neyer's work, we became a bigger fans of baseball, better writers, more critical thinkers, and, because of these skills, ultimately better people.  Because Rob helped me learn to think critically, to not accept "truths" at face value, and to have a strong curiousity into how underlying systems worked.

I received The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in the late 1980s as a present.  I read it cover to cover.  But I didn't really understand Bill James and what he was trying to say until I read Rob Neyer.  And I don't think I would be writing about baseball at all right now if it weren't for Rob showing all of us how it could and should be done.

So, a week ago, when Rob informed members of The SweetSpot Network that he was going to be leaving ESPN, it felt like a bomb had been dropped on our Gmail accounts.  We were shocked and sad.  Because Rob Neyer's invitation was the reason we joined The SweetSpot Network.  And because Rob Neyer is the father of baseball writing on the Internet.  Rob's gift was not necessarily the math, but his ability to communicate the math, to vouch and argue for it, and to inspire others to carry the torch for modern baseball analysis.  Baseball Prospectus.  Baseball Think Factory.  The Hardball Times.  Hardball Talk.  Fangraphs.  BaseballReference.com.  Hell, even Bleacher Report.  They all stem from Rob's work on ESPN.  From the intellectual curiosity and ambition that he and his mentor, Bill James, fostered in others. 

We have been incredibly proud to have gone, in the past few months, from his fans to his colleagues.  And we hope that we're also his friends.  So we're sad to see him leaving the website and the blog network he helped build.  But we have no doubt that Rob's going off to do something amazing.  And that he's going to be incredibly successful at it.  We're excited to find out where he's headed next.  Bill and I both wish him only the best of luck. 

When the Knuckleball Goes...

OK, The Common Man will bite. He’s a sucker for when Rob throws out one of his mysteries (first George Strickland, then Ted Abernathy, now this), and yesterday he started wondering about Gene Bearden, a rookie sensation for the Indians in 1948, who won 20 games and quickly faded into obscurity. Rob writes, “Most knuckleball pitchers age well. Bearden peaked as a rookie.” According to the stories passed down by Eddie Robinson and others, Bearden lost his effectiveness when batters began laying off his knuckler, but Rob’s not having it, “By my count (because there's no source for it), Bearden gave up a .245 batting average on balls in play in 1948. That seems like an exceptionally low figure, even for a knuckleball pitcher in 1948…. He was blessed with good luck in that one season.”

So how much was luck and how much was Bearden? Did he really fall off because other players got wise to his knuckler?

Successful, Amusing, and Awesome Failures

The Common Man's not going to lie, after a long and busy day at the new gig (and not wanting to anger the new overlords by blogging in the office), and choir practice tonight, The Common Man doesn't have it in his heart to throw down with anything resembling a lengthy, engaging argument. But given that the benevolent Rob Neyer drove boku traffic to The Common Man's realm on Monday (and thanks to Lar at Wezen-ball for attracting Rob's all-seeing eye),
The Common Man feels inspired to keep giving. So in celebration of a terrific couple days here at TCM.com, here's a bunch of awesomeness:

-Speaking of Lar, that man seems to have an unending list of fascinating questions. His latest is, by far, the most interesting to date. Lar's search for a twin holy grails of baseball was, spoiler alert, ultimately unsuccessful in that no two games proved remotely identical. But his brilliant idea, execution, and explanation made the trip entirely worthwhile. And The Common Man can't wait to hear about more adventures with the Retrosheet database, and will gladly ride along as Sancho again.


-Speaking of quixotic quests, Gary Matthews Jr received permission to leave Angels came for a day after learning he was being demoted to the team's 5th outfielder. He was presumably off looking for his lost talent (or, perhaps more accurately, luck).

Anyway, his AWOL adventures led to the following IM debate between The Common Man and loyal reader, commenter, and occasional guest poster Bill:

TCM: I love that Gary Matthews essentially needed a personal day because he didn't see the writing on the wall
Bill: heh. yeah
TCM: umm...Gary? everybody was saying the same thing last year, and you haven't gotten any better and you didn't need a day off then
Bill: right
Bill: so the Pierre deal has to be considered worse than the Mathews one, doesn't it?
TCM: Matthews: .242 .319 .357, 77 OPS+ last year
Pierre: .283 .327 .328, 72
given position, yeah I'd say you're right but it's closer than I'd have thought
Bill: I guess I'm thinking from the perspective of the time they were made. Both have pretty much been zeroes since. But Mathews was coming off an all-star year. The BABIP data and all of that would've told you it wouldn't happen again, but at least it happened. Juan Pierre had lucky-empty-batting-averaged his way to two good years three years BEFORE the one he signed in, and had been consistently terrible in the two seasons between that and the contract. And Mathews was (wrongly, apparently) perceived as a good CF, while Pierre's defensive shortcomings were well known
TCM: you're probably right that the idea was worse to sign Pierre but the outcome has been the same and ultimately, that's what we tend to be judged on
Bill: I mean, they were both terrible signings at the time. But the Pierre one was shoot-yourself-in-the-head terrible, while the Mathews one was only you'll-never-work-in-this-town-again terrible
TCM: I suppose I have trouble distinguishing between degrees of terrible. When something is terrible, it simply shouldn't be...case in point: the new Knight Rider and, um...yogurt flavored Pepsi. Both bad ideas for different reasons but it doesn't change the fact that neither should exist
TCM: I should point out I'm talking about the contracts, not the people I have no problem with the existence of either Juan Pierre or Gary Matthews Jr
Bill: that's an important distinction
TCM: right, I don't want to take away their right to exist. just their right to exist in an undeserved opulent lifestyle of self-delusion I wish someone would sell them on the idea of flood-proof furniture

-That last joke (which you probably didn't get) would have been funnier if you had read Pablo Torre's fascinating article in this last week's Sports Illustrated, where he recounted the reasons professional athletes end up on the skids. Torre reports,

• By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.

• Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.

• Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well.

Because athletes tend to be painfully ignorant of financial systems, overly trusting of friends and family members (many of whom mean well) who care for their money or have "investment opportunities" to share, have high rates of divorce (especially after their playing careers end), and far too eager to own businesses rather than invest in mutual funds or common stock they are vulnerable to rapid financial decline when their careers end (and sometimes before). Perhaps the best story Torre spins is the shortest, and comes from Matthews' teammate (and replacement), Torii Hunter:

"About five years ago, Hunter says, he invested almost $70,000 in an invention: an inflatable raft that would sit under furniture. The pitch was that when high-rainfall areas were flooded, consumers could pump up the device, allowing a sofa to float and remain dry."

What would happen when the sofa reached the ceiling is, of course another matter. But The Common Man kind of would root for the couch to find its way out of the house somehow. He would love to watch Torii Hunter shoot the rapids in his La-Z-Boy, wouldn't you? It's amazing this didn't catch on. If anything could cheer up those poor people along the Red River, it's Torii paddling by on a Hide-a-bed.

-Finally, to celebrate Rob Neyer's visit, and those of you who followed the gentle song of his pipe, The Common Man feels like something needs to get blown up. After all, it's been a while since there's been a good explosion around here. In the spirit of things, however, The Common Man has found the following Mythbusters clip, where Adam and Jaime try to knock the cover off a ball. The Common Man thinks this will suffice:

Around the Horn

--Shysterball has a theory, and The Common Man thinks it's a good one. In light of all the anti-ballplayer news released or leaked by the government in the past week, he writes,

"Ya think it's a coincidence that both this and the A-Rod leak are happening all a couple of weeks before the Bonds trial? I sure don't. In fact, I can almost see this as an orchestrated operation in order to bolster the opening and closing statements of the Bonds prosecutors. Rather than refer to lies about a raid five years ago, the prosecutor can stand up and say 'this was no innocent lie! The headlines in just the past month show that the scourge of steroids is as rampant as ever! Like A-Rod and Tejada, Bonds is a ballplayer who thinks he's above the law and worked to thwart an important government investigation!'"

Indeed, the timing is suspicious. Virtually at any point before this, this information could have come out about Rodriguez. And the charges could have, presumably, been filed against Tejada at any point in the past three years, given the amount of information the government has had. It's not that these players don't deserve to be highlighted and punished. They deserve a good spanking from Uncle Sam, and perhaps a small one from the general public for their transgressions. But if you see Roger Clemens in the news this week, you'll understand what's up. And for more information on how the Federal prosecutors are manipulating the justice system, feel free to read this and this. And Craig's got, like, a dozen more where that came from. When you fight the law, this is why the law wins.


--And for the record, The Common Man is officially taking back what he wrote about Alex Rodriguez the other day, when he said A-Rod was finally acting like a man. The apology was still a good idea, and The Common Man thinks it could have been worse. But sloughing off responsibility for your actions on a permissive culture and naivete is not manly (more adolescenty). But here are some important things to keep in mind. First, most ballplayers are, actually, grown adolescents. Living in a bubble where they are surrounded by fawning friends and fans, reinforced by the locker-room mentality that is more animal house than house of mirth. Also, as The Common Man pointed out in the comments section below, there was a lot of fishiness going on in that Rangers clubhouse. From the Mitchell Report, Pudge Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, David Segui, Ken Caminiti, and Ismael Valdes all played for the team in the steroid era, as did A-Rod. And those are only the guys that have gotten caught (though technically, none of them have been officially punished, so caught is a relative term). While you should be disappointed in A-Rod, don't judge him more harshly than you would an average ballplayer or teenager who did something wrong.
Because there was a culture of drug use at work in Texas, and he was part of it. You should reserve the majority of your scorn for the front office types, field management, strength and conditioning coaches, and, yes, reporters who allowed their clubhouse to become a drug den. Chuck Norris is weeping over his Texas Rangers.

--A big congratulations to Lar at wezen-ball (The Common Man still wants to understand the name of the blog, though) for getting Rob Neyer's seal of approval this morning. Lar is a recent reader of The Common Man and has just begun commenting, and getting praise from Neyer is basically like having God send down the dove and say "this is my son, with whom I am well pleased." Lar does a lot of fun stuff with old resources, taking a look at how contemporaries viewed some of the game's greats. Today, for instance, he recalls Hank Aaron's chase for the home run record through Peanuts (who knew Snoopy had such power?). He's off to a tremendous start in his blog, and The Common Man wishes him only the best. Meanwhile, Rob, The Common Man likes God too.

--Speaking of awesome blogs, DrugMonkey deserves significant praise for being on The Common Man's bandwagon for a while, having linked to him for the first time months ago. He writes primarily about sciencey issues, many of which are over The Common Man's liberal arts-loving head. But he's snarky and smart as hell. And if you love-ah da science, and want to know who the rising stars are in substance abuse research or how to get funding for your crazy-awesome science, he's as good as you'll find.