THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

If salary was as closely tied to performance in my job as it is in professional sports, and if there was some magic pill that I could take to make me better at my job (and hence richer), I can’t imagine a situation where I *wouldn’t* take it.  Especially if at the time there was no punishment for taking the pill.

I don’t understand why the sports media is acting so suprised that A-Rod was linked to steroids. His name wasn’t mentioned in the Mitchell Report, but Canseco mentioned his name around the same time. Most baseball fans already knew that A-Rod was linked to steroids.

i am 100% with adam #1.  every baeball player explicitly knew that there was no steroid test.  why wouldnt they take PEDs?  im only being half facetious when i say i am more disappointed with the players on my favorite team that DIDNT juice.

It’s not easy to find sensible articles about this, but if you want to see the epitome of the idiotic, moralizing screed, I don’t think you can do better than Jay Mariotti:

http://jay-mariotti.fanhouse.com/2009/02/07/nothing-to-believe-in-a-fraud-dirty-too/

OTOH, there has already been precedent with gambling in baseball. When you get caught, you have to pay a penalty. MLB had to fight to get the union to accept testing. I think the thing to take away is that MLB needs to lose its anti-trust status and the players need protection for whistle-blowing.

I’m guessing you don’t have a young son in little league.

Brent, I don’t understand your point.  If you get caught doing steroids, you do have to pay a penalty. You also seem to assume that gambling and steroid use should be considered equally serious offenses, and I don’t see why that should be considered a given.

I also am curious as to the connection you draw between steroids and anti-trust.

I have to say that although I agree with Neyer’s overall point, the tone of his last couple of sentences “… I will not” is so over the top and self-righteous that “phony outrage” should certainly by attached to them.

I think MLB during the 90s is going to end up looking like the 1988 Olympic 100 meters: 6 out of 8 sprinters tested positive for or admitted to using steroids or stimulants.  We may have thought at the time that most of them were clean...But almost none were...Try handing out the 1993 NL MVP - you’ll have to go way down the list to find someone who hasn’t been implicated yet…

The fact that pretty much the entire Carolina Panthers line tested positive and nobody gave a crap pretty much proves your point.

This whole thing is a bunch of media-fueled garbage.

To add to Ryan JL/10’s point:
The fact that the beloved “Steel Curtain” was chock-ful-o’-steroids, plus Shawn Merriman getting that awesome Nike commercial after he tested positive for steroids, makes it pretty clear to me that there’s a double-standard here.

I’d also like to challenge any sportswriter to find me an “era” in which the game of baseball was not tainted in some way. He or she could even use arbitrary endpoints such as “1974-78, 82” or something bogus like that, but I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been one time in the history of major league baseball where the game was completely clean.

Aaron B. is right in that you can’t use arbitrary endpoints to define the steroid era. In 1889, Hall of fame pitcher Pud Galvin admitted that he routinely ingested an elixir that contained monkey’s testosterone.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5314753

The A-Rod story is such a non-story, I don’t have the time to articulate all the reasons.

1) I think that everything that Canseco has ever said has proven to likely be true (you know there actually are people who might be a little “strange” but do actually tell the truth).  Why should the A-Rod story be any different?  (To be fair, Canseco said that he had never actually seen A-Rod doing PED’s, only that he set up a meeting with one of his “contacts” or something like that.) If you were surprised that Canseco tested positive you have not been following the PED story closely.

2) At what point is everyone going to finally just throw up their hands, and admit and realize that many, many players, known and unknown, took some kind of banned substance and that it has likely been going on for 50 or more years?  When that becomes common knowledge will people finally stop being shocked and outraged when another name pops up?

3) In 2003 or whenever A-Rod tested positive, while PED’s were illegal and banned in MLB, there were no penalties for getting caught. I doubt that almost anyone cared whether it was technically “cheating” or not, any more than most people care that speeding in their car is against the law or minor cheating on their taxes is against the law.  That is just human nature, right or wrong, that what most people care about is whether they can get caught or not and what the penalties are.  Morality usually ends where self-interest begins.

If you want to rail about how wrong and terrible “cheating” and using illegal drugs are, in this context, I’ll make a list of all the terrible legal and moral transgretions in the world, from the worst to the “best”, and you can call me in 10 or 20 years when we get to PED’s.

Just because something may be wrong does not mean it is worthy of outrage. Then again, we are all free to decide what we are outraged at.  Tango suggests that the outrage from the media in this (and similar) case(s) is insincere and he makes a good point, IMO…

I love Rob Neyer and all, but he sometimes makes some strange comments:

I hope Alex Rodriguez didn’t cheat. If we do find out that he cheated, I will wish that he hadn’t.

Find out?  You hope he didn’t cheat? Did we not just “find out” that A-Rod tested positive?  OK, we are not 100% certain, but what does Rob want before we can say, “We just found out that A-Rod cheated?” An admission of guilt by A-Rod himself?  A-Rod’s vial of blood on his desk so he can test it himself?

Is he suggesting that the “leak” might be false?  A-Rod (and his agent, MLB, and the player’s union) clearly knows whether he tested positive or not.  If the “leak” were false, what does Rob think A-Rod would say when asked to comment?  “The information is false. I did not test positive.” He said, “No comment,” ergo the leak is true.

Seriosuly, how much clearer can it be?

Tango, you talk about the “phony outrage” by much of the mainstream media.  I’m sorry but I have to put Rob’s comment, “I wish it weren’t true” in the same category.  I can’t claim that Rob does not wish it weren’t true (I don’t know what he wishes or does not wish for), but seriously why should anyone care (much) if A-Rod took PED’s or not, any more that we care whether certain pitchers in the HOF threw spitters (when they were illegal) or that many of the players in the HOF took greenies or whatever they took before PED’s came along.

Geez, let’s just move on.

This (the “outrage” and disillusionment) is what happens in a game that fetishizes records, cross-era comparisons, great feats, “the numbers,” and its “immortals” and then packages itself with misty-eyed sentimentality and ginned up nostalgia: unbelievable disbelief about a 5 or 6 year-old failed drug test taken at a time when a rule was hardly enforced.  Instead of placing the infraction in context, it’s viewed as a betrayal of Sacred Baseball. Yes,let’s move on.  But difficult to do in a game that insists upon looking out the rear window of the car as it moves forward.

Luke/15: that is a perfect summary.

***

Brian/6: who were you asking?  If it’s me, then yes, I do.

The White American Male Adult (WAMA) thinks nothing of a rock star that is fueled by drugs.  Indeed, even if the artist himself says that the drug improves his artistic qualities, this is seen as a good thing.  You can take all the vices in the world, pump it into the body of a rock star, and if Sgt Pepper is the result, then the world will be at your feet.

But not baseball.  Oh no, not baseball.

In WAMA’s mind, someone has to play the other character in the Madonna-Whore Complex, and that character is baseball.  May god have mercy on the soul who dares treat baseball as a whore.

"someone has to play the other character in the Madonna-Whore Complex”

And A-Roid is Madonna’s whore.

Well-played sir!

Baseball itself is responsible for a lot of this perception of “Sacred Baseball”. In recent decades, it has relentlessly promoted itself as a family activity, where the players are role models for children. For example, it is no longer considered proper to curse out loud at the park when your team’s pitcher gives up a homer or something like that, because of the fact that a child might be sitting nearby. There’s no such sanction at NFL games. Likewise, baseball players who refuse to sign autographs for kids are excoriated by sportswriters. I’ve never heard anyone complain that an NFL or NBA player doesn’t sign autographs. Baseball’s owners have been so anxious to market their sport as family entertainment that the idea that it is a difficult and competitive sport tends to get lost.

The winner in the media’s contest to say the most absurd thing popular:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2009/02/08/2009-02-08_eating_270m_worth_it_for_the_yankees_to_-2.html

I don’t know, the last time I went to a game with a seven year old, he was cursing more than anyone there.  He may be an unusual seven year old…

Remember last year?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/sports/baseball/22yankees.html

That’s when ARoid said that he was tested 7 to 10 times in a season.  However, players only get tested twice, unless they also fail a test for amphetamines.  So, the natural conclusion was that he failed an amphetamine test, and therefore was subjected to the higher number of drug tests.  He tried to recant, but ARoid being AFraud, you can’t take anything he says as sincere.

He also said this about Jeter:

“I think Jeter’s going to have an M.V.P. season,” Rodriguez said. “That’s my prediction for the year. He’s going to have an explosive, monster season. I think he’s in great shape. He did some great things this winter with his workouts, and I’m very excited for his year.”

It’s clear that no one can forecast the future, so to report that ARod had some insight into Jeter is ludicrous.  It’s fine for him to say that he is in great shape and works out, etc.  But then to tie that in to how Jeter will perform?  And at an MVP-level to boot?

***

And, by the way, I love ARod the baseball player.  Other than Pujols, I don’t know if there’s any other hitter I like watching more.  Well, Ichiro, maybe.

I like that MLB.com has non-rose colored glasses:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/news/drug_policy.jsp

hmmm, lots of fallacies here.  Most people are upset or outraged because of the importance people put on baseball records and secondarily that baseball is a physical competition where taking performance enhancing drugs gives one side an advantage.  Baseball is not art, it’s not painting a picture or composing a rock song for white american males, it’s a sporting competition.  I don’t see the comparison as being valid in this context.  If AROD took drugs to write a song, a poen or to paint a beautiful watercolor that’s fine with me (from a non legal perspective).  If he is taking drugs to enhance his performance in baseball, to me that’s “cheating”.  Cheating not only the records, but also play and simple cheating of the game.  Just like the 4 year old who takes two turns in a row in Candyland, it’s cheating.  Yes, he’s not the only one who did it, there are many cheaters (presently and in the past), but there are only a few players who are within reach of breaking some of baseball’s all-time homerun records (Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, AROD etc...) so in the public’s eye they draw the most ire.  As they not only cheated the game, but cheated the baseball record books.
vr, Xei

Xei: there are no fallacies.  And it’s not cheating, as clear as you make it out to be.  It may be cheating, it may be not.

All I know is that the players themselves were so concerned about a level playing field that they did nothing at all to ensure it.

It’s phony outrage, and I’ve got 75 million fans on my side who haven’t changed their minds on the matter.  Whatever “it” is, however one wishes to characterize it, the fans don’t care enough to be bothered by it.  They just care enough to blab about it.  Arod is just this month’s puppet.

i.e., phony outrage.

Josh Hamilton was addicted to heroin and cocaine yet was the “feel good story” of 2008.

Alex Rodriguez took steroids, and is getting absolutely crucified right now.

Not only phony outrage, but a double standard as well…

#21, I’d sooner ban Madden from ever writing for another publication again for suggesting such a moronic thing, than sanctioning A-Rod.  I don’t even understand the sanctioning or punishing A-Rod thought process.  He failed a test in 03 which presumably was known to MLB, A-Rod and the player’s union.  There were apparently no penalties in place (were there any penalties if you failed again?) at the time.  End of story.  BTW, without any penalties, what WAS the point of testing?  Does anyone know?

That particular testing was to decide if there was going to be testing-with-punishment.

Back in 2003, there were trying to decide if testing should take place.  So, they decided on league-wide anonymous tests, and if there were less than 5% that came back positive, then there would be NO steroids testing.  Instead, 5%-7% came back positive, and that triggered the testing program.

The anonymous tests however were not anonymous.  Rather than this being like voting for your mayor or president, whereby you have one checklist of registered names, and then another box with deposited specimens, each specimen was coded with a unique number, and the registration list had each name linked to that same unique number.

The registered list went one place, the specimens went the other place, and the only ones with power to subpoena both lists happens to be the federal government.  And they did.  So, they linked the coded entries.

Why there was any identifying marks on the bottles of the specimens, and why the ballplayers would agree to pee in such bottles is strange.  I would have hoped that one of them would have questioned the not-100% anonymity.

OK, I guess that the 2003 testing was supposed to be anonymous in order to determine the prevalence of PED use in baseball so that MLB could formulate a testing policy.  I forgot about that.  And in the news today, A-Rod comes clean.  I guess we’ll now see if it is true that the public and media will be forgiving and the best thing is for a player to “come clean.”

It is nice that A-Rod is coming clean, however it would also have been nice if he were not waffling so much in his apology.  But then again, I guess that is A-Rod.

“I started experimenting with things that, today, are not legal,” he said, “that today are not accepted ... ever since that incident happened, I realized that I don’t need any of it.”

Not legal today?

Steroids without a prescription were legal back then?

Rodriguez said he was told by Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the MLB Players’ Association, that he might, or might not, have tested positive in the 2003 survey. That conversation happened during the 2004 season. A source told ESPN on Saturday that Rodriguez knew he had failed the test.

Was that “may or may not” statement accompanied by a wink?

“I had never heard anything since,” he said.

I don’t doubt that is true, but is that necessary for him to say that, as if he did not need to be honest or come clean because, “No one said anything since then?”

And what about Canseco’s second book and the ensuing publicity?  That was “never hearing anything since then?”

Rodriguez also said of his 2007 interview with Katie Couric on “60 Minutes,” when he denied ever using steroids, that “at the time, I wasn’t being truthful with myself. How could I be truthful with Katie Couric or CBS?”

“Wasn’t being truthful with himself?” Please!  He was not being truthful with Couric or the public!

I don’t buy the 5-7% figures for a second, Tango. If there are 104 positive test results that the Feds seized from the 2003 survey results, that’s got to be more than 5-7% of all MLB players, doesn’t it? Especially since I don’t think everybody got tested, just a random sample.

I think there were almost 1200 tests.  I take it to mean that it was everyone on the 40-man roster.

104/1200 = 8.7%

I don’t know why it’s 5-7%.

#26, I guess we just happen to disagree.  You say you are right because you have 75 million people on your side (Fallacy: Argumentum ad numerum).  I think PED in baseball is cheating for reasons stated earlier, you don’t.  Imo, PED causes a sport to lose it’s credibility.  Isn’t it the case that many people put the sport of baseball on a high pedestal and care alot about it?  If it’s not cheating, then they should come out with a rule stating that it’s not cheating.  Oh wait, it’s not only cheating but it’s illegal.  Comparing PED/drug use between a baseball player and a drug addicted rock musician is a fallacy (Dicto simpliciter), if you are trying to use this comparison to make the argument that it’s not cheating for the baseball player, because it may be more acceptable publicly for the rock musician to do so.
vr, Xei

Apparently Orza was trying to show many of the tests to be false positives (as a way to avoid having testing in 2004), which may explain the 5-7% figure. That’s also apparently why the identities were able to be found out.

"Imo, PED causes a sport to lose it’s credibility. “

Really?  NFL seems to be working out alright. 

***

The rock star / athlete is not a fallacy.  Both are “competing” against their peers.  Rock stars are not subjected to daily competition, but they accumulate wealth in the same way as athletes: by performing better than their peers.

The only group of workers that Americans put on a pedestal is baseball players.

I see PED use as a sacrifice the player makes to better himself.  The same way excessive weight-lifting can be harmful in the long run.  The same way being home schooled when you’re 13 years old in order to train 12 hours a day to be an Olympic gymnast can have a disastrous effect on your future mental state.

When everyone’s doing it, can you really blame a player for just trying to keep up?  Not to imply in ARod’s case that he wouldn’t be able to keep up without them - but in a general sense.

There’s always going to be something that’s ahead of the test, and the guys that do it will have an advantage.

I can’t blame the players much at all.

As far as the percentage of players doing something, I would think that it was a lot higher than 7 or 9%.  False negatives, players who were taking but stopped at some point prior to the testing, players that were tipped off to the testing, and players who were taking substances that were not detectable at the time.  Did I miss anything?

I just watched the whole ARod interview with Gammons.

Based on that, the most appropriate of his nicknames is not A-Roid, it’s A-Fraud.

ARod was spinning like a top.

A-Rod was only half-truthful in his interview with Gammons. Although, I don’t think A-Rod is a very honest person to begin with. He didn’t dispute the results of the drug test, where he tested positive for Primobolan (I never heard of it) and testosterone. But he didn’t take any responsibility for administering the drug. He acted like all he did was take a “tainted” supplement. I guess what I’m after here is that he should have taken more personal responsibility for his actions.

The timing of this (conveniently after the A-Fraud business from the Verducci/Torre book) seems to be more scapegoating than an attempt to look at the problem.

Just looking at the hierarchy of illegal drug classifications and the various concerns expressed just from this past Olympics should jade you on the idea that the “bad guys” are getting caught and that the “good guys” are doing the right thing.

That said, the rest has to come out to see how more widespread it is beyond the Mitchell Report and BALCO clusters.

"Brandon in MO (for America!),” on the BBTF News Blog, linked to this article and so should be given credit for noting this appalling new low in A-Rod reportage:

“Alex Rodriguez should go to jail”
BY ROCHELLE RILEY - Detroit Free Press:

http://www.freep.com/article/20090210/COL10/90210013/1048/sports/Alex+Rodriguez+should+go+to+jail

The writer, whoever he or she is, does not mean that literally, but it is a pretty bad article nonetheless.

I feel bad for A-Rod. Greatest player in the history of the game + huge contract + social awkwardness = a guy that gets dumped on left, right and centre. A bit like Reggie in his Yankees years. I personally couldn’t care less who was or wasn’t doing steroids, and the nice thing about all these names coming out is it dilutes the seriousness of individual cases. In other words, if McGwire and Bonds were the only guys who did them, it’s a big deal. But if half the population of MLB was doing steroids, well ... yawn.

I do however commend the efforts of MLB to rid the game of PEDs. But to me, 73 home runs are 73 home runs, regardless of how they came about. It’s a record of what happened on the field, nothing more and nothing less.

Patriot:
http://walksaber.blogspot.com/2009/02/numbers-are-just-numbers-and-thats-all.html

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.

What a wonderful way to put it.  Patriot is not saying he’s right and they’re wrong.  He’s saying that they live on two different worlds, and presumably that he’s happy to be living in his own world, without necessarily saying that Stark’s world is wacky.

Those of us older and less wiser than Patriot would point out that Stark’s world is wacky.  I love the poetry of Patriot’s words here.

Bill James:
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/02/10/a-something-part-ii/

In 36 words:

1) Baseball allowed a situation to develop in which it was in the self-interest of players to use steroids.

2) Now we are very angry with people because they did what the system rewarded them for doing.

Poz, same link:

And then he attacked her. He said ”This lady“ was paid to stalk him. He said she was thrown out of his apartment. Rodriguez said she tried to break in his house ”where my girls are up there sleeping.“* She denied every word, said it was all made up. I guess you can decide who you want to believe. But then he said that she was coming out with ”all these allegations“ and ”all these lies,“ even though he was sitting right there emotionally and reluctantly confirming those allegations and admitting those lies. And, remember, he felt good to do it.

*In my HOME. In the same room where my wife was sleeping, where my children come in their pajamas and play with their toys.

I was just watching You’ve Got Mail, Hanks/Meg Ryan, where The Godfather was a subtle theme to the show.  I love Godfather references, especially when made unexpectedly.  Poz’s quote here was great.

That said, I’m no fan of Selena Roberts, and no matter how much I respect Poz, to me it shows that no person should try to look like he’s even defending a colleague.  Poz says he’s not trying to defend her, and is only using her to expose ARod’s character, but why did he have to throw in the part about her credentials?

The only way to discuss a colleague is to say the good AND the bad, to show that you are willing to look at things impartially and let the reader decide.

Since Poz sounds like too nice a guy to give us the journalists view of the dark side of Selena Roberts, neither then do I want to hear him talking up her credentials on his way to making a point.

Tango/45:  I agree with Patriot’s statement, and share his bewilderment.  But I’m not sure you can say “Patriot is not saying he’s right and they’re wrong,” when he starts out by asking “How detached from reason does one have to be...?”

If he had left it at that, I agree with you.  However, because he added what he did, I think you can take that statement as a question.

I can’t fault Guy’s interpretation of my statement.

If I was desperate to parse my statement and swing back to the detached bewilderment that Tango reads, I would try to claim that some worldviews aren’t based on reason and make no claim to be; they are based on faith or something else that can’t be fully captured by reason (I don’t mean to suggest that a faith-based worldview cannot square with reason, just that some people don’t care to).

But that’s not really necessary.  Truth be told, I do think Stark is wrong, whether I managed to be more diplomatic in that post or not

Re: the other opinions, as is often the case, Bill James has a gift for taking a mutli-faceted argument and boiling it down to a single paragraph that still contains the essential elements of the debate.

Let’s go back in time:

Selig: Listen Don, we want a testing program.
Fehr: How do we even know if we need one?

Selig: Fair enough.  Let’s test all the players first, completely anonymous, and all results held confidential.
Fehr: You mean, just as a way to measure the landscape?

Selig: Yes, exactly.
Fehr: And anonymous, because we aren’t, at this time, interested in punishing anyone?

Selig: Yes, exactly.
Fehr: Ok, so let me get this straight.  You want to test the players, and you agree that you won’t punish these players based on these test results?  Even though things they may have taken may be illegal?

Selig: Yes, exactly.

Flash forward to today:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3900961

“It was against the law, so I would have to think about that,” Selig told USA Today when asked about possible action against Rodriguez. “It’s very hard. I’ve got to think about all that kind of stuff.”

Fehr: Uh, I thought we agree that there’d be no punishment, that the players agreed to do this to check the landscape.

Selig: Sucker.

Marvin Miller: Told you so.

I will reiterate my long-held position that this is a strictly workplace issue.

It is up to the players to determine whether they should have had a healthier workplace for their workers.  I don’t want to hear from Roy Oswalt or Lance Berkman or Frank Thomas or Tom Glavine telling me that they didn’t like it, when they did nothing about it.  The entire union, by not having rules on the matter to ensure that all players are clean, are simply complicit in the whole thing.

MLBPA could have contracted out with the Montreal lab for a testing program, they could have ensured, among each other, that they were clean, so that the drug-free players didn’t think they were being at a disadvantage.  But no, none of that happened.

The players didn’t care enough to ensure a healthy workplace.

As viewers, we have no role in setting their rules.  We vote with our feet and our wallets if we don’t like what we see.