Three things I hate/Poastseason Awards Show (Bill)
I'm not a hateful person. I'm really a very easygoing, accepting sort. And yet...
1. Legal academia outside UVA. Okay, I have no idea about this Harriet Miers person, and she may or may not be a good choice for the Court. But what little I do know about her goes like this: a. The impression of her by those who do have an idea, from Republicans and Democrats alike, is positive (though understandably cautious). She's said to be a very competent, likeable individual, and obviously has impressive credentials (just not as a judge).
b. Fully half of all confirmed Supreme Court appointees in our nation's history came to their positions with no prior judicial experience. This hasn't been the trend in recent years, but the last one about whom this can be said was Chief Justice Rehnquist...and say what you like about his politics, but in terms of knowledge and competence, he was one hell of a jurist.
And yet, not quite an hour after the press learned that Miers would be appointed, some schmuck from SMU Law School (and I would never turn my nose up at that as I am now were this guy not such an utter moron) who was serving as one of NBC's hundreds of "Legal Experts" got on the Today Show and denounced the appointment as "an amazingly bad choice." His only reason for saying that was that she just didn't have the "experience" or the "resume" for it.
Idiocy! David Souter had a fine resume; he's proven one of the most incompetent Justices of the past century. You can't build a resume that makes you competent to serve as one of the ten most powerful people in our country; either you are or you aren't. And maybe Miers isn't...but finding out is kind of what that whole confirmation process is about, and really isn't for brainless schmucks from SMU to declare.
2. The media. Again from the Today Show: the fill-in for Matt Lauer today was grilling some federal bigwig about whether or not the tour boat that tragically sank in New York this weekend had enough life preservers on board. Here's the thing: all 20 people who were killed were very elderly, and from all reports the boat sank very quickly. Unless they were wearing the life preservers at all times--which never happens on these boats--they would have been (and were) of absolutely no use. If they didn't have the legally sanctioned number of life preservers, they should be subject to a $200 fine or something; only the national media would have them blamed for the deaths of 20 human beings on that count. The media takes so much delight in tragedy anyway, it makes me really angry when they try to make up blame or conspiracies or institutional incompetence to go along with it.
3. The argument that baseball's MVP award has to go to a player on a "winning team." A player who has a certain value on a 100-win team will have precisely the same value on a 100-loss team. That's a truism; the player's contribution doesn't (indeed, can't) change with the team that he's on. The form this argument takes is, "you can be the best player in the world, but if you're on a losing team, you don't have any value, because it would be a losing team without you too."
Here's why that's crap: if a player contributed 12 wins to the 100-win team, they'd be an 88-win team without him. If he contributed 12 wins to the 100-loss team, they'd be a 50-win team without him (instead of 62). So his value is precisely the same.
Here's why I'm bringing this up now: Buster Olney, perhaps the most egregious of the village of idiots employed by espn.com on their baseball page, put up an "awards" column that looked very much like what you'll see below. Only stupid. And in discussing the AL MVP, he made the worst version of this argument that I've ever seen. He was trying to decide, as the voters will, between the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and the Red Sox' David Ortiz. He came up with A-Rod--the right answer--but for the following reason: he thinks that "winning matters," and A-Rod gets the edge because the Yankees "won" the Eastern Division.
There's something really funny about that.
Ready for it?
Okay. Here it is: the Yankees and the Red Sox won the exact same number of games!!! Both had identical records of 95-67. The Yankees are the division "champions" only nominally; it would be pointless to make them play a playoff game over the title, since they'd both end up in the postseason anyway. So basically, Olney's argument was that A-Rod wins the MVP because his team won the same number of games as the other guy. I don't even know what the tiebreaker the Yankees "won" was, and I don't want to know (although I'd guess it was head-to-head record). It couldn't possibly matter less, especially in the context of the MVP discussion.
So I thought that was great. And I mean "great" in the sense that I hated it so much it was funny. Now, to find out why A-Rod is the MVP really, along with a bunch of other quasi-interesting things, read on...
AL MVP
Will be: Alex Rodriguez
Should be: Alex Rodriguez
They've put up almost identical offensive numbers, A-Rod and Ortiz; A-Rod's have been slightly better, and probably even better than that because Yankee Stadium tends to be less hitter-friendly than Fenway (though I haven't checked for this season). At any rate, they're close enough that if you're looking for the best hitter, you can toss a coin.
But A-Rod has played just about every game at third base, and played pretty well, whereas David Ortiz is a full-time DH who has played just ten games at first base (a poition which, you might expect, he plays very poorly). This makes a huge difference, and the fact that Ortiz is even being considered right now is one reason that I've come to hate the Red Sox almost as much as I hate the Yankees; he's good, and he plays for the Red Sox, so he must be the MVP! If he had stayed with the Twins (and gotten regular playing time), he'd be putting up the same numbers he is now, and he'd be about as well known as, say, Eric Chavez, or Adam Dunn.
Oh, and A-Rod just happens to have been the best player in the league this year. He'd have been the deserving MVP if he had been playing for the Devil Rays, too (assuming he didn't catch their, you know, Devil Ray-ness, and thus have a vastly inferior season).
NL MVP
Will be: Andruw Jones
Should be: Albert Pujols
This one, similarly, isn't even close. Pujols has put up vastly better numbers than Jones in every category except homers and RBI. Jones has probably been the eighth or ninth best player in the league this year. But he'll win the MVP going away, because he's probably the first guy since Cecil Fielder in 1990 to have hit 50 homers without (as far as we know) using steroids. Nevermind that Pujols hit 40 homers without using steroids and while doing everything else much better.
Andruw Jones' OBP is .347, which is right around the MLB average these days; Pujols' is a brilliant .430. Even if Jones was still a great defender--and he's not--that alone should be enough to settle any dispute. If not, throw in that Pujols' slugging percentage, even with all those homers Jones is hitting, beats him by 36 points. It's going to be a joke.
AL Cy Young
Will be: Mariano Rivera or Bartolo Colon
Should be: Johan Santana
As I mentioned, Santana has been the best pitcher in the league going away. He's first in strikeouts, first in baserunners per inning pitched, and a very close second in ERA (2.87 to Kevin Millwood's 2.86).
Moreover, in a stat called "DIPS" ERA, which is hard to explain but basically attempts to measure what a pitcher's ERA would be with the elements of luck and his teammates' defensive skill (or lack thereof) removed from the equation, Santana fares even better: his is 2.92; the next best is 3.27 (John Lackey, of all people), with Millwood at a comparatively pedestrian 3.88. By any respectable measure, Santana has been easily the best pitcher in the American League for the second year in a row.
If he doesn't win (and there's still a chance, just not a good one), it will be because he has a mere 16 wins, which is kind of like the MVP-winning team link disparaged above, while Colon, who has had a good year but nothing anywhere near Santana's, has 21.
Rivera may win, because there is a sentiment that he deserves one (probably more because of his career than this particular season) and because Colon, the only 20-game winner in the league, just isn't that impressive. But Rivera, aside from having pitched fewer than 80 innings this year--and you can never be the most valuable pitcher in your league while pitching only one inning for every two of your team's games--has been incredibly lucky this year, putting up numbers that are comparable in almost every way to Minnesota's closer, Joe Nathan, with the notable exception of that 1.38 ERA. His DIPS ERA? 2.40, identical to Nathan's. His selection would (very likely will) be a huge mistake, the worst award selection since Dennis Eckersley won the freakin' MVP with a similar season in 1992.
NL Cy Young
Will be: Chris Carpenter or Dontrelle Willis
Should be: Chris Carpenter
I know, I couldn't believe it either! Roger Clemens, despite having bad-lucked is way into only 13 wins, has an incredible ERA of 1.87, the best of his unbelievable career. But once again, DIPS tells us a different story: his DIPS ERA is 3.02, second to Jake Peavy at 3.00. To me, that's not a big enough difference from Carpenter (at 3.09, with an actual ERA of 2.83) to make up for Carpenter's advantages: namely, he's pitched 30 more innings and completed 7 games to Clemens' 1, both big reasons why Carpenter has eight more wins. Willis wouldn't be a bad choice either; DIPS and strike out rates show that he falls far short of Carpenter (despite the 20-point-plus advantage in actual ERA), but he'd be a much more respectable choice than whoever his companion is in the AL will probably be.
AL Rookie
Will be: Houston Street
Should be: Houston Street
Street has thrown as many innings as Rivera and has been almost as good--he just has 23 saves instead of 43, which is meaningless. His only real competition, after teammate Nick Swisher dropped off, is from Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano, who wouldn't be a bad pick. He'll never be a good player--whereas Street and Swisher almost definitely will--but ROYs so rarely are.
NL Rookie
Will be: Ryan Howard
Should be: Zach Duke
Duke has been Clemens Lite, putting up a miniscule ERA (and a surprisingly high, but still good, DIPS ERA) in about a third as many innings. Howard has filled in admirably for the ailing (and terrible) Jim Thome, and has basically done exactly what Justin Morneau did for the Twins last year (bad news for Howard, apparently). Either would be a fine choice in what has been an amazingly bad year for rookies; no rookie who has played enough to qualify for either the batting or ERA title has been anywhere near even an average player in the National League this season. But both Howard and Duke look like solid players, and should be valuable contributors over full seasons for years to come.
1. Legal academia outside UVA. Okay, I have no idea about this Harriet Miers person, and she may or may not be a good choice for the Court. But what little I do know about her goes like this: a. The impression of her by those who do have an idea, from Republicans and Democrats alike, is positive (though understandably cautious). She's said to be a very competent, likeable individual, and obviously has impressive credentials (just not as a judge).
b. Fully half of all confirmed Supreme Court appointees in our nation's history came to their positions with no prior judicial experience. This hasn't been the trend in recent years, but the last one about whom this can be said was Chief Justice Rehnquist...and say what you like about his politics, but in terms of knowledge and competence, he was one hell of a jurist.
And yet, not quite an hour after the press learned that Miers would be appointed, some schmuck from SMU Law School (and I would never turn my nose up at that as I am now were this guy not such an utter moron) who was serving as one of NBC's hundreds of "Legal Experts" got on the Today Show and denounced the appointment as "an amazingly bad choice." His only reason for saying that was that she just didn't have the "experience" or the "resume" for it.
Idiocy! David Souter had a fine resume; he's proven one of the most incompetent Justices of the past century. You can't build a resume that makes you competent to serve as one of the ten most powerful people in our country; either you are or you aren't. And maybe Miers isn't...but finding out is kind of what that whole confirmation process is about, and really isn't for brainless schmucks from SMU to declare.
2. The media. Again from the Today Show: the fill-in for Matt Lauer today was grilling some federal bigwig about whether or not the tour boat that tragically sank in New York this weekend had enough life preservers on board. Here's the thing: all 20 people who were killed were very elderly, and from all reports the boat sank very quickly. Unless they were wearing the life preservers at all times--which never happens on these boats--they would have been (and were) of absolutely no use. If they didn't have the legally sanctioned number of life preservers, they should be subject to a $200 fine or something; only the national media would have them blamed for the deaths of 20 human beings on that count. The media takes so much delight in tragedy anyway, it makes me really angry when they try to make up blame or conspiracies or institutional incompetence to go along with it.
3. The argument that baseball's MVP award has to go to a player on a "winning team." A player who has a certain value on a 100-win team will have precisely the same value on a 100-loss team. That's a truism; the player's contribution doesn't (indeed, can't) change with the team that he's on. The form this argument takes is, "you can be the best player in the world, but if you're on a losing team, you don't have any value, because it would be a losing team without you too."
Here's why that's crap: if a player contributed 12 wins to the 100-win team, they'd be an 88-win team without him. If he contributed 12 wins to the 100-loss team, they'd be a 50-win team without him (instead of 62). So his value is precisely the same.
Here's why I'm bringing this up now: Buster Olney, perhaps the most egregious of the village of idiots employed by espn.com on their baseball page, put up an "awards" column that looked very much like what you'll see below. Only stupid. And in discussing the AL MVP, he made the worst version of this argument that I've ever seen. He was trying to decide, as the voters will, between the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and the Red Sox' David Ortiz. He came up with A-Rod--the right answer--but for the following reason: he thinks that "winning matters," and A-Rod gets the edge because the Yankees "won" the Eastern Division.
There's something really funny about that.
Ready for it?
Okay. Here it is: the Yankees and the Red Sox won the exact same number of games!!! Both had identical records of 95-67. The Yankees are the division "champions" only nominally; it would be pointless to make them play a playoff game over the title, since they'd both end up in the postseason anyway. So basically, Olney's argument was that A-Rod wins the MVP because his team won the same number of games as the other guy. I don't even know what the tiebreaker the Yankees "won" was, and I don't want to know (although I'd guess it was head-to-head record). It couldn't possibly matter less, especially in the context of the MVP discussion.
So I thought that was great. And I mean "great" in the sense that I hated it so much it was funny. Now, to find out why A-Rod is the MVP really, along with a bunch of other quasi-interesting things, read on...
AL MVP
Will be: Alex Rodriguez
Should be: Alex Rodriguez
They've put up almost identical offensive numbers, A-Rod and Ortiz; A-Rod's have been slightly better, and probably even better than that because Yankee Stadium tends to be less hitter-friendly than Fenway (though I haven't checked for this season). At any rate, they're close enough that if you're looking for the best hitter, you can toss a coin.
But A-Rod has played just about every game at third base, and played pretty well, whereas David Ortiz is a full-time DH who has played just ten games at first base (a poition which, you might expect, he plays very poorly). This makes a huge difference, and the fact that Ortiz is even being considered right now is one reason that I've come to hate the Red Sox almost as much as I hate the Yankees; he's good, and he plays for the Red Sox, so he must be the MVP! If he had stayed with the Twins (and gotten regular playing time), he'd be putting up the same numbers he is now, and he'd be about as well known as, say, Eric Chavez, or Adam Dunn.
Oh, and A-Rod just happens to have been the best player in the league this year. He'd have been the deserving MVP if he had been playing for the Devil Rays, too (assuming he didn't catch their, you know, Devil Ray-ness, and thus have a vastly inferior season).
NL MVP
Will be: Andruw Jones
Should be: Albert Pujols
This one, similarly, isn't even close. Pujols has put up vastly better numbers than Jones in every category except homers and RBI. Jones has probably been the eighth or ninth best player in the league this year. But he'll win the MVP going away, because he's probably the first guy since Cecil Fielder in 1990 to have hit 50 homers without (as far as we know) using steroids. Nevermind that Pujols hit 40 homers without using steroids and while doing everything else much better.
Andruw Jones' OBP is .347, which is right around the MLB average these days; Pujols' is a brilliant .430. Even if Jones was still a great defender--and he's not--that alone should be enough to settle any dispute. If not, throw in that Pujols' slugging percentage, even with all those homers Jones is hitting, beats him by 36 points. It's going to be a joke.
AL Cy Young
Will be: Mariano Rivera or Bartolo Colon
Should be: Johan Santana
As I mentioned, Santana has been the best pitcher in the league going away. He's first in strikeouts, first in baserunners per inning pitched, and a very close second in ERA (2.87 to Kevin Millwood's 2.86).
Moreover, in a stat called "DIPS" ERA, which is hard to explain but basically attempts to measure what a pitcher's ERA would be with the elements of luck and his teammates' defensive skill (or lack thereof) removed from the equation, Santana fares even better: his is 2.92; the next best is 3.27 (John Lackey, of all people), with Millwood at a comparatively pedestrian 3.88. By any respectable measure, Santana has been easily the best pitcher in the American League for the second year in a row.
If he doesn't win (and there's still a chance, just not a good one), it will be because he has a mere 16 wins, which is kind of like the MVP-winning team link disparaged above, while Colon, who has had a good year but nothing anywhere near Santana's, has 21.
Rivera may win, because there is a sentiment that he deserves one (probably more because of his career than this particular season) and because Colon, the only 20-game winner in the league, just isn't that impressive. But Rivera, aside from having pitched fewer than 80 innings this year--and you can never be the most valuable pitcher in your league while pitching only one inning for every two of your team's games--has been incredibly lucky this year, putting up numbers that are comparable in almost every way to Minnesota's closer, Joe Nathan, with the notable exception of that 1.38 ERA. His DIPS ERA? 2.40, identical to Nathan's. His selection would (very likely will) be a huge mistake, the worst award selection since Dennis Eckersley won the freakin' MVP with a similar season in 1992.
NL Cy Young
Will be: Chris Carpenter or Dontrelle Willis
Should be: Chris Carpenter
I know, I couldn't believe it either! Roger Clemens, despite having bad-lucked is way into only 13 wins, has an incredible ERA of 1.87, the best of his unbelievable career. But once again, DIPS tells us a different story: his DIPS ERA is 3.02, second to Jake Peavy at 3.00. To me, that's not a big enough difference from Carpenter (at 3.09, with an actual ERA of 2.83) to make up for Carpenter's advantages: namely, he's pitched 30 more innings and completed 7 games to Clemens' 1, both big reasons why Carpenter has eight more wins. Willis wouldn't be a bad choice either; DIPS and strike out rates show that he falls far short of Carpenter (despite the 20-point-plus advantage in actual ERA), but he'd be a much more respectable choice than whoever his companion is in the AL will probably be.
AL Rookie
Will be: Houston Street
Should be: Houston Street
Street has thrown as many innings as Rivera and has been almost as good--he just has 23 saves instead of 43, which is meaningless. His only real competition, after teammate Nick Swisher dropped off, is from Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano, who wouldn't be a bad pick. He'll never be a good player--whereas Street and Swisher almost definitely will--but ROYs so rarely are.
NL Rookie
Will be: Ryan Howard
Should be: Zach Duke
Duke has been Clemens Lite, putting up a miniscule ERA (and a surprisingly high, but still good, DIPS ERA) in about a third as many innings. Howard has filled in admirably for the ailing (and terrible) Jim Thome, and has basically done exactly what Justin Morneau did for the Twins last year (bad news for Howard, apparently). Either would be a fine choice in what has been an amazingly bad year for rookies; no rookie who has played enough to qualify for either the batting or ERA title has been anywhere near even an average player in the National League this season. But both Howard and Duke look like solid players, and should be valuable contributors over full seasons for years to come.