Well, the Rays were not even playing games in May and June of 2020, so I am guessing that you meant 2021.  Your logic, then, if we assume that you meant 2021, is that the Rays management had a responsibility to do what was in the best interests of the 2021 Rays, rather than what is in the LONG TERM best interests of the organization.  You apparently assume that the Rays had a responsibility to place a higher value on 2 months of 2021, rather than a full season of 2027.  They don't.  It's the responsibility of the MANAGER to look out for the immediate future of his team, but the responsibility of the General Manager and the ownership to prioritize the long term value of the franchise.   

 

 

As I recall, Tampa Bay has done alright, by calculating the risks and benefits the way they do.  Do I think they should let YOU and people like you calculate the costs and benefits, and tell them what they should do?   

 

No, I don't.   I think that they are doing a brilliant job of turning limited $$$ into successful teams, and that you should respect what they are doing and try to learn from it, rather than trying to impose your talk-show expertise on them.  

 But, of course, that SHOULD happen at random, if in fact every player has a 20-or 25-point decline in true ability as a pinch hitter, then some few players will have random good fortune as a pinch hitter wihich will offset that.  

 

In other words, assume that there are 750 players who pinch hit 100-500 times each, but each of whom is 20 points better when not pinch hitting than when used as a pinch hitter.  In real-life data, 5 of them will hit 85 points worse as a pinch hitter, 25 of them will hit 65 points worse, 100 of them will hit 45 points worse, 500 of them will hit expectation, 25 points worse, 100 will hit 5 points worse, 20 of them will hit 15 points better as a pinch hitter, and 5 of them will hit significantly better as a pinch hitter.   

 

So the fact of these few outliers is 100% consistent with the theory that all hitters hit better when not pinch hitting.  

 

 

 

 

 Interesting.  Thank you.  

 Sometimes it is appropriate to do one; sometimes it is appropriate to do the other.  It depends on teh exact question that you are trying to find the answer to.  You'd have to give me a more specific example of what it was that I actually said, rather than a generalization about it.  

 

**********************

 

Let me give you a different answer.   In evaluating a fielder's performance, you have to deal with three things:

 

1)  The quality of the individual's fielding stats (ie, 350 assists are presumptively better than 300), 

 

2)  The quality of the individual's fielding stats relative to the team (ie, 350 assists on a team which has 1500 assists are presumptively better than 350 assists on a team which has 1800), and

 

3)  The quality of the team's overall defensive performance; ie , a team which allows 1200 hits on balls in play is presumptively better than a team which allows 1400 hits on balls in play.  

 

What you are in essence asking is, "shouldn't you ALWAYS try to deal with ALL of these issues?"  

 

Well, no; you shouldn't; in fact, trying to deal with every issue in every context is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea which can single-handedly prevent you from accomplishing anything in life.  The reason that is true is, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING ELSE THAT YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION.   Having dealt with all of the issues above, you could THEN go on to study the park's effects on fielders at that position, or you could then go on to adjust for the left-handed/right-handed effects from the pitching staff, or you could then go on to adjust for the effects on the fielding stats or the team being most often behind in the game vs. most often ahead in the game.  There is always SOMETHING that you didn't deal with--always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS.  

 

SOMETIMES you try to deal with everything you can find, every bias you can find within the data, but 90% of the time, you don't.  All you accomplish by doing that is to make the study so complicated that (a) you can't finish it, and (b) if you do finish it, nobody will understand what you're saying.  

 

The wiser policy is to study what seems most relevant, and assert what you believe to be true.  If someone else can then pick up the study and identify a MEANINGFUL or significant bias in the approach, then you deal with the implications of that and move forward.  But trying to avoid all bias in a study is a fool's errand, because it can never be done.  

 I don't buy the theory, no.  Things that are on every day, like soap operas and baseball games, become addictive.  I don't have any evidence one way or the other, but I think the everyday schedule favors baseball.  And the idea of using college baseball as an example of how to increase your audience seems bizarre, since college baseball has a phone booth audience.  

 Further investigation, there's no real argument to make him the MVP.  He did have a hell of a year.  He was a consistently good pinch hitter, in part because he was SUCH a good hitter that even if you knock off 20, 25 points for pinch hitting, he was still good.  As an everybody player, he would probably have hit around .300 with 20-30 homers a year.  But his defense was a liability, and the Reds had other outfielders who could hit.   Reds and Pirates. 

 

I play in a Ballpark League, you know.  At that time I had a partner, and we had Jerry Lynch on our team for years.  He was magic.  In Ballpark the number 42 left (42, with a left-handed hitter at the plate) is almost always a double, and the number 31 Left (31, with a left-handed hitter at teh plate) is very often a home run, maybe 50% of the time, depending on the park.  Lynch would just POUND 42 and 31.   I think his career batting average for us, in around 400 at bats, was .377.   We never had anybody else who over-achieved to the same extent.  

 

This isn't why I'm aware of him; all of that was AFTER I wrote teh paean to him in whatever book that was.  

 I thought that was 19th century baseball? 

 Thank you. 

 Thank you.  

 I don't really have any answer to your question; I just don't know.  

 

Service time manipulation is not "shenanigans"; it is entirely legitimate, and entirely appropriate.  I will tell you that with the Red Sox, we never did that; we never worried AT ALL about the arbitration eligibility effects of calling a player up on this date or that date.  It's like saying "we can't have a baby because we can't afford to send them to college."  

 

But the players are expected to use their rights under the Collective Bargaining Agreement to their full limit.  No one expects a player to say "Oh, well, I won't file for free agency yet because I just made the eligibility by 3 days and I have spent four months of major league time on the injured list, so I don't really deserve to be a free agent yet."  Nobody expects a player to do that with arbitration time.  If he has the right to file, he uses that right in his contract negotiations.  

 

 

Why, then, do people not expect the TEAMS to use the rights that THEY have, under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, to the full extent that the system expects them to do?  Why do people refer to this as "shenanigans"?

 

The ONLY reason for that is media bias in regard to player salaries.  Many sportswriters are so convinced that employees being paid $10 million a year are somehow being taken advantage of that they will represent anything done by the team as somehow unethical or improper.  It isn't.  It is entirely appropriate if the team chooses to do that.  

 Thank you. 

 Right; thanks, Tom.  I would agree with that 100%.  A great deal of the timing boost for Lynch, 1961, is in the WAY he was used.  His team played a lot of close games with several not-very-good hitters in the lineup, and his manager used him to pinch hit IN KEY GAME SITUATIONS.  So he had a leverage index for his plate appearances.  We have learned to track that for pitchers, based on your research, but we don't routinely track it for hitters.  That, I think, was the point of my original comment about Lynch.  

 Thank you.  Ten best books about the minors. . .anybody?  Slouching Toward Fargo, Good Enough to Dream. . .what else?  

 Yeah. . .of course he was a catcher, and catching ALSO drives your batting average down, so there is some sort of effect there as well.  

 Thanks.  I kind of thought you had.  Love Emily Litella/Gilda.