THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Let’s not forget Journalist and Blogger Murray Chass on Mike Piazza’s backne = steroids

http://www.murraychass.com/?p=555

People like Rosenthal can claim they “get how it works now” all they want, but I still suspect that what they are actually trying to do is to fit the blogosphere into their already mentally established newspaper paradigm. For as long as they try to fit that square peg into a round hole, they are going to react like this.

I am Matthew Carruth and I have fully thought out what I am speculating here before hitting the enter key.

the only reason anyone, professional or otherwise, holds themselves up to ‘journalistic standards’ is because they are trying to build a reputation, usually so that they can attract eyeballs and sell advertising.  if morris’ blog’s business model does not call for a rigorous journalistic standard, or a loose one, its a self defined abstract created by journalists, than it is his perogative to ignore it. 

i understand Ibanez is pissed.  i’d be too.  but other media types need to calm the heck down.  the actual direct accountability that any private citizen should be legally held to is a 2nd amendment issue of prior restraint (or it’s non-american equivilant), its not up to Ibanez or the arbiters of good journailsm to decide what morris should post on his blog.  Good for the MSM for pointing out how much better they are than the internet, and it’s unfettered marketplace of ideas, but i think the lady doth protest too much.  though in a way i guess they are trying to validate their careers as much as Ibanez is.

Ibanez has no reason to be p-ssed at Morris.  He should be p-ssed at the people who are writing to Morris, speculating about Ibanez.

Well said, Tango.

The outrage about this is sickening.  I first read Ibanez’s reaction, and assumed that there was an article that explicitly said that the was on steroids.

I was shocked when I read the blog post, which simply said that speculation existed and was warranted.

Your points about journalistic integrity and how it relates to blogs are spot on.  Any publication, whether it be a blog, the New York Post, or the Wall Street Journal, has its own standards.  Would anyone argue that the Post has the same standards as the Journal?  I doubt it.

Furthermore, this just illustrates how absurd the criticism of blogs in particular is.  Why is there a distinction between the medium?  There are slanderous blogs with no integrity and highly reputable newspapers.  And there are slanderous printed newspapers and magazines with no integrity, and highly reputable blogs.  Who thinks that the National Enquirer should be held to higher standards than Peter Gammons’s blog, for example?

I don’t know anythng about the Midwest Sports Fans blog.  For all I know, its journalistic standards are fairly lax (and from Morris’s blabbering on about his fantasy team, I suspect that is the case, if not intentionally).  But all his post said was that based on Ibanez’s performance and the recent history of PEDs in baseball, speculation that Ibanez is on them is unfortunately reasonable.  I don’t see how anyone can argue with that.

As is usual, most people appear to have not read the piece, and instead are cherrypicking one paragraph and ripping it.  Here is what Morris said, in another section of the column that is not receiving airplay:

Maybe he was energized by joining the defending World Series champs.

Maybe he is seeing better pitchers by joining a lineup that includes Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, and Shane Victorino.

Maybe he is in the midst of a run of good luck in which he’s seeing good pitches to hit at above-average hitters parks and finding himself facing terrible pitchers even at the tougher hitters parks he’s played in.

Maybe Raul Ibanez is simply a “freak”, and has been a late bloomer with a career track that refuses to follow the norm, as explained in this Bleacher Report post.

Maybe the 37-year old Ibanez trained differently this offseason with the pressure of joining the Phillies’ great lineup and is in the best shape he’s ever been in.

And maybe that training included…

Well, you know where that one was going, but I’d prefer to leave it as unstated speculation. However, if Ibanez ends up hitting 45-50 homers this year, you can bet that I won’t be the only one raising the question. And judging by my buddy’s message board post this morning, and questions like this in public forums, people already are.

With a quick Google search, I can probably pull up 15 MSM articles that are far worse than what Jerod Morris wrote. 

And Ken, frankly, comes off as a boob in the video.  He’s basically trying to lecture Morris on the standards and the “power of the written word.” He basically takes the position that only a blogger would post such a thing, and not someone well educated on the principles of reporting like all his colleagues. 

I thought John Gonzalez and Morris were actually okay, but Robothal, urgh...go back to printing trade rumors.

Wow, that video is really something.  According to the guy on the right, it’s OK to think about things but it’s not OK to write them in a blog.

20 years from now, when he’s still scrapping away at maintaining a once-a-week column that gets 1/10th of the readership of any blog post by Posnanski (who, I think, is so popular precisely BECAUSE he is honest and open with his thoughts and feelings and he “presses Enter” with them), maybe he’ll begin to change his mind.

I dunno.  Reminds me of when that guy yelled a lot at the Deadspin founder.  Some media guys see it as an opportunity to get their face and name out there, even if they look and sound like idiots in the process.  Remember, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

I wonder if this outrage by certain “insiders” has more to do with Ibanez being one of the “Good Guys” or “Character Guys”?

If you were to substitute “Ibanez” with “Bradley” or “Dukes” would there be such outrage?

My first thought when I heard about this “outrage” last night was “this coincides perfectly with Rosenthal’s self-righteous rant about ‘blognoramouses’ unfair speculation about steroid use/”

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9616968/Sorry-Papi,-but-we’re-living-in-age-of-accusations

Sure enough, there he was this morning.

My impressions like others, had Rosenthal as the “boob” this morning. Morris handled himself well—in his place, I would have gotten angry and probably said some dumb stuff in the face of Rosenthal’s condescension and outright rudeness at certain points.

There are so many level so of irony here: first, the “mainstream media” basically ignores steroid use in baseball. Then, after it becomes impossible to ignore, they throw the biggest hissy fits of them all about, above all things, the sanctity of “the numbers” (as an aside, I always thought one of the main concerns with PEDS was supposed to be the potential health problems—where did that go?) and “the history of the game,” while it was mostly bloggers (not necessarily most bloggers, but the on-line baseball community) who said “calm down, let’s think about this rationally.”

Now, Rosenthal, et. al. try to take yet another high ground by saying it’s the bloggers who are irresponsibly throwing names out there. As ShysterBall pointed out earlier and Tango points out here, “real” journalists like Rick Reilly and Murray Chass have made much stronger and pointed accusations sans real evidence than Morris, and where is the outrage?

I myself didn’t take much time was able to find in the space of about 5 minutes a couple of Rosenthal articles myself this afternoon from the last few months where he basically lumps in Mark McGwire with A-Rod and Manny, who at least have evidence of failed tests against them.

Sorry for the rant, nothing new to see hear. Let me simply note, again, that in Rosenthal’s case, this is a bit rich coming from a guy who made him rep reporting trade rumors, which I’m sure are totally based not on his own speculation, but on evidence, thrice-verified, from general managers themselves.

If these guys spend half the time actually learning about baseball analysis as they did finding the next stupid “cause” to rally around, maybe more of us would take them seriously.

The should start wearing WWJPD bracelets.

Ugh. I apologize not only for the length and incoherence of the above (#9) rant, but they sloppy spelling, typing, and lapses of grammar.

Wow, there are a lot of stupid and silly issues here:

1) Perhaps the silliest is “trying to figure out WHY a player hits better or worse than their career numbers in 55 games.” We estimated Ibanez’ true talent before this season and we revise our estimate now.  That’s all.  Players perform well-above or below their prior performance for all kinds of reasons, the overwhelming reason being normal, inevitable, random fluctuations in performance.  You want to park adjust a player’s stats, fine. Beyond that, I completely stay out of any discussion about “why” a player is playing above or below what we expect or what they have done in the past, because it is an exercise in futility.  As Tango said above, almost everyone not involved in sabermetric analysis simply under-appreciates the power of small sample size.  They want a “reason” for everything, and that will generally get you in trouble.

2) The blog entry is more than reasonable.  Either Rosenthal did not read it, or he read it but stubbornly insists on characterizing as something completely different thatn what it was.  BTW, Rosenthal comes off almost like a buffoon on that video.  Clearly not too bright, in my opinion.  The blogger seemed bright, articulate, and reasonable.

3) While Ibanez’ reaction as completely out of line with the blog post, it was understandable. I would give him a pass on that.  For a ballplayer, he seems very bright and articulate, BTW.

4) Holding a blogger up to ANY standard other than “common human decency” is ridiculous.  Unless you write professionally, you can write what you want.  This catch phrase of, “Where is the accountability” is ridiculous.  There is no “accountability” for a blogger, nor should there be one, unless some does or says something illegal or actionable in court, which is possible of course.  And if a blogger is interested in readership (which he may or may not be), then the “accountability” is how many readers choose to read the blog.  If you write for money or for a living, the account ability is in whoever pays your salary.  You write or do something irresponsible and you get fired.

5) The idea of someone in this day and age of stricter testing, punishment and publicity TAKING (as opposed to quitting) PEDs, I find preposterous.

6) I know everyone in the sabermetric community has a crush on Posnanski (I don’t), but after I read this in his article, I stopped reading it.  It is really stupid:

I wish that Jerod had seen this … and then he might have kept the regrettable steroid stuff out of his piece. Jerod really did seem to be looking for a reason why Ibanez is hitting like he’s hitting … and in my opinion that reason was right there in front of his eyes.

The reason: When Raul Ibanez is hot, he’s HOT. There’s aren’t many people in baseball like him.

Thank you Tom for putting down in writing exactly what I would have liked to say to Geoff in that email. Like others have said above, I thought that everything about the blog was reasonable and well done.

I can understand Ibanez getting angry, especially if he just read what was in the paper instead of the whole blog entry. But Rosenthal acts like it is such slander that Morris put down in a little dinky blog what thousands of people have been thinking about Ibanez all season.

Geoff writes that he doesn’t think Morris could look Ibanez in the eye, where the hell does he get that from? I believe, judging from that video where Rosenthal looks like a moron, that Morris would be more than happy to look Ibanez in the eye, tell him that he hopes he is not juicing, and give him his full support.

I hope Ibanez does take a test, does pass, and then Morris gives him his congratulations, because like he said on OTL, he is just a fan that is speculating.

MGL--

What’s so bad about the segment you quoted? Yea, I guess your research showed hot streaks are just random noise or whatever, but did you rule out the possibility that some players are just different? Or are you talking about something else entirely and I’m completely off base?

Dan, yes, that is exactly what I am talking about. 

“It is not surprising that Ibanez would be vastly outperforming his recent and career performance levels because he is historically a ‘streaky’ hitter.”

If Posnanski or anyone else has a shred of evidence to support that statement, then I will take back what I said and I will resign from this blog effective immediately.

If it were any other mainstream writer that said that, I would just slough it off as one of thousands of stupid and incorrect things that commentators and sports writers say and write every day of the week.  But when Posnanski, who seems to have exalted status in the sabermetric community, says something like that, you bet I’m going to call him out.

If it is not surprising that Ibanez would have a spate of performance like that, as opposed to someone else who is not historically streaky, then all we need to do is break players down into two groups during some time period - streaky and non-streaky - and then look at both groups’ frequency of having an anamolous performance in any other time period.

According to Posnanski, unequivicably, one group’s frequency will be significantly greater than the other group’s.  There is no other way to couch or interpret his statements.  I challenge him, or anyone else, to show us some evidence that that is true.  Until then, I stand by the statement that it is an ignorant statement or explanation for Ibanez’ performance, at least from the standpoint of a (more than) sabermetric-friendly writer.

Wow.  The fans come for Blogger v. Robothal, but they stay for MGL v. Posnanski.

MGL, I had a similar reaction to you.  I think the way to restate Posnanski’s argument correctly would be to say that for a player of Ibanez’s abilities, hot streaks like his current one are not rare.  Posnanski was correct in saying that Ibanez had had several similar streaks in the past, but he failed to realize that Ibanez is not unique in that.

Uhh, I don’t think Posnanski made any inference to the rarity of such hot streaks in other players.  His entire point was that Ibanez had performed at this level for comparable levels of time in the past, and that we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s done it again.  This isn’t anything he hasn’t done before. 

That’s all true.

Uhh, I don’t think Posnanski made any inference to the rarity of such hot streaks in other players.

Read it again:

When Raul Ibanez is hot, he’s HOT. There’s aren’t many people in baseball like him.

"His entire point was that Ibanez had performed at this level for comparable levels of time in the past, and that we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s done it again.”

Yes, that is exactly the way I read it.  My point of course is that Pos should know that someone who performs at that level before is just as likely or not as anyone else to perform at X above his level in the future.  In fact, I would venture a guess that almost everyone who has been around for a long time has performed at quite a bit above and below their long term levels for a stretch of 55 games or so.  Again, whether Ibanez has done so more than other player doesn’t really matter.  Pos should be smart and knowledgeable enough about these things to know that it is extremely unlikely for that to have any significant predictive value whatsoever.

To make such a definitive statement, like, “It is obvious why he is performing like this,” or, “The answer is right in front of Morris’ eyes” is more than borderline ridiculous.  Something I would expect from a hack.

Just to add one more thing to my point:

I would be absolutely shocked and floored if we did that empirical experiment and found that of the two groups (those that had great hot streaks in the past and those that didn’t - or however one would want to break it down), that one group had a 1% chance of having as great a performance as Raul in 55 games and the other group had a 3% chance.

Take a second to understand what I am saying, because it is important.  I’ll couch it in another way.  Let’s say that all players have a .5% (outside of one end of around 2.5 SD) random chance of hitting 200 points above their expected (some kind of projection based largely on past performance) OPS in 55 games.  Now let’s say that we did this little experiment and Pos turned out to be right.  Let’s say that players who had lots of really torrid streaks in the past were more likely to have them in the future (a result that I sincerely doubt is true, but we’ll pretend that it is).  With me so far?

So what is a reasonable number for that group as opposed to a random player?  Instead of .5%, what is the chance that one of these typically torrid (for stretches) players will hit 200 points or so above their expected OPS in any one 55 game stretch?  Remember for the typical player, I am saying it is .5%, although I don’t know off the top of my head exactly what it is.  1%?  2%?  1.5%?

It sure as heck ain’t gonna be 60%.  Or 20%.  Or even 10%.

Let’s call it 3% - 6 times more likely than the average player just to appease Pos.  So Pos would have us believe that when something happens 3% of the time:

“It is to be expected.”

“It should come as no surprise.”

“The answer was staring Morris right in the face.”

Right....

Baker,....Baker… isn’t that the guy who wrote the “White Jays” article? That guy has zero credibility.

With as much as the MSM has rallied against bloggers in the past and spent countless pieces on the internet stating how they aren’t “real journalists,” why does Rosenthal attempt to apply the “journalistic code” to someone that most of the MSM doesn’t feel is a “real journalist?”

I am so tired of this argument.  A pox on both your houses!  Bloggers broke many of the biggest stories of the 2009 campaign.  So-called serious journalist Maureen Dowd plagiarized a quote from a blog a couple of weeks back and used the old “notes” argument to try to cover it up.  There is vitriol and imbecility in blogs, but you can find that in paid journalism as well.  It wasn’t bloggers who brought us the Spanish-American War and it was the New York Times whose unrelenting regurgitation of government talking points gave cover to the Iraq invasion.  Professional journalists were every bit as complicit as Bud Selig himself in the worst excesses of the steroid era.  Nobody wanted to upset the “McGwire and Sosa save baseball” story, because it sold papers and ads just as much as it sold tickets and hot dogs.  It was professional journalists who turned McGwire’s andro use into something close to a free ad for General Nutrition Centers. 

On the other hand, Morris didn’t need to put his “perhaps unfair” line into his headline and his steroid speculation, for all his qualifiers, comes with no more proof than guilt by association, and has no more validity than the allegation about another 37 year old by his fellow fantasy league owner that started his analysis.  He admits it’s a small sample size, admits that he in fact expects Ibanez to reach numbers for the season that may well be within ranges for all the differences he started with, and does not analyze the simple effect of changing leagues. 

I don’t know what performance enhancing drugs might do for Raul Ibanez if he took them, and neither does anyone else.  Those of his ex-teammates who did take them didn’t exactly set the world on fire.  Shane Monahan never made it back to the show.  Ryan Franklin wasn’t exactly blowing hitters away. 

The argument reminds me of some blogs I read about the recent closure of Chrysler dealers and the alarming posts about how the shut down dealers had been Republican contributors.  A theme through a number of them was that unless the actual criteria used were revealed and demonstrated to be clean, the burden of proof was on Chrysler and President Obama to prove that this alleged statistical correlation was untrue.  Thus, with Ibanez and pissing into a bottle, I suppose.  The only people in the world who don’t deny being an alcoholic are recovering alcoholics, so saying you’re not one, to some people, is proof that you are one.  So too, with denials of steroid abuse. 

What I’m saying is that the proper conclusion of the article was that nothing was proven because of the small sample size, and nothing was proven because there were too many variant factors involved. 

If someone can show me that steroid abuse can be proven or disproven by using any one ballplayer’s statistics for a third of a seson, and nothing more--no clubhouse attendant confessions, no alleged doping calendars, no Fedex packages and no prescriptsions--I’l be very surprised.

Baker said:

That much was clear when he was eviscerated on national television by Fox Sports columnist Ken Rosenthal, a longtime baseball writer for the Baltimore Sun. I’ve seen some commenters to various fan blogs the past 24 hours try to say the blogger “held his own’’ but let’s get real. It was ugly. I give the blogger—I won’t mention his name because I’m reluctant to give him his 15 minutes—credit for going on with Rosenthal. If it was me on the air instead of Rosenthal, I would have torn the blogger to shreds in much the same way.

Ok, I finally watched the video.  In no way did I think that Ken tore into the blogger.  Reading Baker’s comment, and you get the feeling that this was a knockout of highest proportions, when from where I was sitting, it was a light sparring session.  Ken acted like a jerk a couple of times (with that silly head shaking), but all-in-all a very balanced and fair discussion.  Everyone got their point across.

Again, all this simply goes to my point is that there are multiple perspectives, depending on how much of yourself and your standards you are projecting. 
- If you take a completely dispassionate and disinterested view, it was very ho-hum. 
- If you come at it from a very journalistic / editor-in-chief perspective, then the Morris story would not have played out at all. 
- If you come at it from a very “free speech” perspective, then Morris said his peace (piece?), and a reader will give it the level of weight that Morris deserves (which from where I sit, would be a tiny bit above what I read in a typical blog).

I think the larger story is how the players were in a position to nip this issue in the bud 10 or 20 years ago, and chose to do nothing.  Any Canadian who saw the 1988 Olympics, and what happened with Ben Johnson, has nothing but sadness and embarrassment.  That incident put it on the world stage.  It set the path for a generation of athletes to decide if what happened to Johnson is something they want to risk.  AND, for the players’ unions to decide if they want to insist that the integrity of the bodies of the athletes is something that is of paramount importance or not.

The unions (i.e., the players themselves) chose to do nothing at all about it.  They are complicit.  There are no Jackie Robinsons and Curt Floods in any sport.  So, I don’t want to hear about how a player is “innocent”.  If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.  And speaking up for the world to hear only when you yourself are targetted is a less than honorable position to take.

Tango,

Do you remember the Baker “White Jays” saga?

http://www.majorwager.com/forums/mess-hall/122525-article-toronto-blue-jays-whitest-team-majors.html

Steven/24: I didn’t realize that Baker was the writer.  I’m going to have to re-read it.

And the facts show the Jays took a dramatic, economically beneficial turn toward a much whiter roster after J.P. Ricciardi was named general manager in November 2001. Of the 39 players Ricciardi has since acquired through trades, free agency or waiver claims, 36 of them — 92 per cent — are white.
...
on opening-day rosters. Also, 54.4 per cent of the players were white and 45.6 per cent were either Latin American, black, Asian or Native American.

This to me is the tough comment.  I’ll accept the facts that 36 of 39 are white.  But, I do not accept the causation implication here.

To Baker’s credit, this is not small sample size.  The expected number of whites acquired should have been 21 (21/39=54%). One standard deviation is .080 whites per player.  And with 39 players, that’s 3 players.  Therefore, the difference (15 more whites than expected) is 5 standard deviation from the mean, an extreme statistical significant number. 

But that by itself does not point to the causative effect.  It simply means that there is SOMETHING going on.  It could be racial bias, it could be the pool of players, it could be anything.  It could even be luck, because anything can happen, even something seemingly implausible. 

If it was anything other than something that goes to the ethical or moral standards of a person, then I would be happy with having a 5 SD effect and making a causative link.  But, I cannot make that kind of claim in this particular instance.  It’s a smoking gun, but you don’t know who fired it.

Baker also makes this speculative comment:

Just as difficult to overlook will be the Toronto clubhouse, described by Jays players and management as the most harmonious and clique-free they’ve seen. It wouldn’t be a stretch for some GMs to assume that a clubhouse with fewer language divisions and cultural differences makes for more harmony.

Indeed, the only difference between Baker’s speculative approach and Morris speculative approach is that Baker went to get his information from the GM and other people involved, while Morris went to get his information from data.

My perception, my reality, is that the Baker article and the Morris article are in a similar ballpark.

The Batters Box long-running series on followup to the White Jays article was outstanding.  Here was one of them:

http://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030912051146999

Those Jays bloggers did far more to give the WhiteJays story more perspective than anything Rosenthal or Poz or any journalist has done with the Morris story.

Basically, again from my perspective, the journalists sensationalized the Morris article, while the Jays bloggers did a probing perspective of the White Jays article.

MGL/13- Regarding Posnanski, he was just trying to see that Ibanez had similar ~50 game stretches to this one:

“Look: Through 55 games, Ibanez was hitting .329/.386/.676 with 19 homers.

OK, let’s start in 2002. That year, Ibanez had a 50-game streak — June 7 to August 2 — when he hit .328/.385/.704 with 15 doubles, 5 triples, 15 homers. He drove in 54 runs. Few noticed because the Royals were abysmal that year, and it was in the middle of the season. But that stretch, you will note, is about as good as the stretch he’s on now. In some ways, it’s even better.

In 2003, he had a 55-game stretch where he hit .326/.360/.514 … not as good, but pretty damned good.

In 2004, he hit .365 over a 54-game stretch. In 2005, he got off to a dreadful start and then hit .330/.400/.524 over his next 55 games. In 2006, he hit 18 homers and drove in 57 RBIs in a 52-game stretch.

The last 52 games of the 2007 season, Ibanez hit .363/.425/.652 with 15 homers.

Last year, for 55 games, July 12 to Sept. 14, he hit .374/.435/.648 with 17 doubles, 2 triples, 13 homers. And that, you might remember, was in Seattle and a lousy hitters’ ballpark.”

I’m not sure if that qualifies as proof of Ibanez’ supposed streakiness, but I think he proved his point well enough.

Suppose that you are a true talent wOBA of .350. 

And let’s define HOT the way Poz is defining it, which looks to be a wOBA of around .450.

How out-of-character is a true .350 hitter that hits .450 for 200 PA?  That’s 2.8 standard deviations.  If you are not cherry picking, then yes, that’s pretty significant.

But, Poz is allowed to choose whatever 50-game stretch he wants.  And if you play for 150 games, you’ll have 100 such stretches to look for such streaks every season.

2.8 SD:
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/sttable.html

Look for “0.4974”. Subtract that number from .500.  That tells you how often you should expect to see a performance above 2.8 SD.  That’s 0.3%. 

Poz looked at 8 seasons, and found 5 times (2003 not included) where Ibanez was Barry Bonds.

So, Poz had say 700 stretches of games, and found 5, or 0.7%.  Actually, because of overlapping games, he’d have alot more than 5 hot stretches.

Yes, I think Poz did find something significant with Ibanez. 

But, given 1000 MLB players, we were bound to have found someone to be an outlier anyway.  The key question is if this streakiness is persistent or not.  Can you say that the more streaky guys will continue to be the ones who will put up a HOT streak or not?

i like some fo the comments neyer made about it in his link dump post of the day.

“Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Gonzalez warned, “Whether you’re in the mainstream media, or new media, or you’re part of a blog, before you hit ‘enter’ you have to be really careful ...”

No, you don’t. Granted, I have to be careful. The New York Times is supposed to be careful. An independent blogger, though? Are you kidding me? Bloggers should be the opposite of careful. Bloggers should be loud and bold and honest and utterly unafraid of offending (for example) a baseball player who lives in a mansion, and they should almost never, ever apologize if they’re all those things.

Anyway, Jerod Morris has done Raul Ibanez no harm; in fact, I get the impression that Ibanez rather enjoyed making his little speech about basement bloggers and all the bodily fluids he would happily surrender in the interest of clearing his good name.

I beg my colleagues: Please can the sanctimony. It does not become us.”

Why doesn’t Raul Ibanez have to be careful about opening his mouth in directing his venom at Morris? 

I have no doubt that Ibanez did not read Morris’s article.  He decided to speculate about Morris’s living arrangements, and he decided to believe his interpretation of the media’s interpretation of Morris.

The only thing Ibanez should have been shooting his mouth off was toward the people who accused him in the first place (Morris’s readers).

***

When am I, as a saberist, allowed to analyze Roger Clemens and steroid use?  When one guy announces it?  Or when that one guy announces it to a Senator?  Or when that one guy announces it to a Senator who prepares a report for us to read?

If one of my readers said to check out allegations about Piazza.  Can I look into it and report it?  Is the journalistic standard only met when a press release is written?

I agree with Ken 100%.  And Morris especially handled it perfectly, from start to finish, in this article and outside of it.

Yowza:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/geoff-baker-rigidity-award-to-geoff-baker/

If there’s one thing that Rafael Palmeiro has taught us is to not to take too high the ethical high ground.

Craig points out to this article by Baker:

In other words, by 2004, a lot of those players “juicing up’’ likely got off their steroids and played the game clean. (Some may have gotten on to HGH, but we’ll assume some were clean).

Then, along comes Bavasi to run the 2004 Mariners. All of a sudden, a 90-plus win playoff contender from 2003 plummets to a 99-loss season. The offense drops off a cliff. Is there a connection between those drops and the stiffer drug testing? We’ll probably never know for certain. All I know is, Bavasi inherited a team that—for whatever reason—fell off the planet.

I’m now in an awkward position.  I emailed Baker my original post (as I said at the top of this thread).  And we had a civil disagreement exchange for a couple of emails.  He seems like an alright guy.  We have a few common interests (Mariners, Montreal), which already clouds my judgement. Seeing this post however is now discouraging.  I know I’d be a lousy reporter.

“Let he who has not sinned...”

I sent an e-mail to Geoff Baker. It was just a day ago, but I haven’t received a response…

Dear Mr. Baker,

I recently read your aticle about the difference between bloggers and journalists. I just wanted to share some opinions I have on the matter, and I want to do so in a manner that is respectful of your training as a journalist. I hope you are willing to read my words and hopefully glean some insight into the thoughts of a “common” sports fan, someone who is neither a blogger nor a journalist.

I can only speak for myself, but I truly believe that the vast majority of sports fans know the difference between “journalism” and “blogging”. I enjoy reading about sports through both mainstream media outlets and blogs. On the one hand, journalists such as yourself provide valuable insight that I could not get from blogs. The access that you and your peers have to players, coaches, management, and numerous other individuals in the sports world provide a valuable contribution to the fans’ enjoyment of sports.

However, I also read blogs because they provide a different point of view. Blogs are essentially the opinions of the fans. It’s like if you were at a dinner party, and you brought up your favorite team, and one of the guests started offering his opinions on the team. That dinner guest probably didn’t go through any formal training to formulate his opinion. He probably didn’t interview players and coaches. He probably didn’t look anybody in the eye or get their side of the story before discussing the team with you. He just took what was available to him as an outsider, formed an opinion, and expressed his opinion. This is essentially what blogging is, it’s just done in written word and not through conversation. It’s the conversations you’d have with somebody while watching a game at a bar. It’s not “journalism”, but I don’t think that’s a problem.

I view journalism and blogging as complementary pieces of my appreciation of sports. Blogging does not detract from my ability to appreciate good journalism, and good journalism does not detract from my ability to enjoy blogs. They are separate entities.

You seem like a pretty reasonable individual, but in several instances in your article you come across as fairly unreasonable. For one, this statement “If it was me on the air instead of Rosenthal, I would have torn the blogger to shreds in much the same way.” simply reeks of a bully-like attitude. First of all, the blogger in question came across as reasonable, whereas Mr. Rosenthal made several claims of actions by the blogger that the blogger simply did not make. Some of the things that Mr. Rosenthal stated that the blogger wrote were simply false. Somehow, I doubt that misinterpreting words and putting words in other people’s mouths is a guiding principle that journalists learn in their extensive training. Secondly, the blogger has probably never been on television in his entire life, and he was pitted in a debate against someone who appears on national tv weekly. Obviously, the blogger would be less “camera-ready” than Mr. Rosenthal.

Lastly, mainstream media members usually point to a lack of accountability on the part of blogs, but yet here was a blogger taking responsiblity! He wrote something, and he took responsibility for it! He gave his real name. Showed his face on tv. What more do you want? I’m sure that if Raul Ibanez asked for a face-to-face meeting with the blogger, he would oblige. I realize that you gave him a little bit of credit, but it seems a little phony based on the everything else you wrote in the article.

Should he not be allowed to express his opinion? Should he avoid talking about steroids since he doesn’t have inside information? Should he have gone “all-in” by making wild accusations and stating that he believed Mr. Ibanez was/wasn’t on steroids?

Ironically, Mr. Rosenthal blamed the blogger for making irresponsible accusations (which the blogger did not do...he never accused Mr. Ibanez of anything). and you blame the blogger because “when you go all-in, you’ve got to go all in. He didn’t do that...You’ve got to go at it hard, directly, with no b.s...”

He HAD to go in halfway, because that’s all his limited access to Raul Ibanez would allow! The only way he could have gone “all-in” would have been to come out and make an uninformed opinion. Would that have been better? The blogger took all the evidence that was available to him (Mr. Ibanez’s stats, change in ballparks, change in league, quality of surrounding line-up) and formulated the best opinion he could using that opinion. And the conclusion was that it was inconclusive.

And, whether he wrote that blog post or not, there would be people out there that think Mr. Ibanez might be on steroids. It’s not like if he never wrote the blog post nobody would ever think Mr. Ibanez was on steroids. The blog post merely reflected public opinion, an opinion that Mr. Ibanez is an unfortunate victim of public opinion. Mr. Ibanez is “guilty by association” in the minds of the fans, and he would have been guilty by association even if the blog post was never written.

The fact is, you can talk about journalistic credibility and responsibility and credibility all you wrote, but the fact remains that fans are going to continue forming opinions, and they are going to continue expressing them, whether it be over dinner conversation, private e-mails among friends, or public blogs. You and your peers do yourselves a disservice when you take such a petulant, bully-like stance toward blogs.

We, the fans, know there is a difference between research and opinion, between journalism and blogging. What you need to understand is that nobody likes a bully. Everybody wants David to win, nobody wants Goliath to win. And the more you act like Goliath, the farther away you will drive your readership, and the more likely they are to be attracted to “irresonsible blogging”. I tell you this because I truly believe a healthy balance can exist between journalism and blogging, if you were to only give bloggers a fair chance. I do not believe you gave this blogger a fair chance, however. My recommendation to you would be to go back, read what he wrote with an open mind, and determine if it is truly as vicious and irresonsible as you are currently making it out to be.

I can see why he can’t reply to that!  It’s perfect.

***

I think Morris would be happy if MSM gave him as much attention that they give Sean Hannity.

Censuring Morris is like talk radio censuring Howard Stern.

Let me know if you like this analogy.

We’re renovating our house.  We have a plumber, an electrician, and framers. 
1 - They all use a Phillips screwdriver (among other tools). 
2 - They all work on the same house. 
3 - The only standards to which they intersect is to make sure that the house is safe and functional. 

In no way will I confuse the three people.

A Philly journalist and Philly blogger report on the Phillies. 
1 - They do so by using words over the web (among other things, like talking to players, or analyzing data). 
2 - They both report on the Phillies
3 - The only standards to which they intersect is to make sure that they stand behind what they say.

In no way will I confuse these two professions.

Case closed?

Geoff Baker--just one or two days later, mind you--goes half way in kinda sorta accusing THE ENTIRE 2003 MARINERS of taking steroids.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/article/geoff-baker-rigidity-award-to-geoff-baker/

Now that is just hilarious, in my opinion. So much for “going all in, hard, with no b.s.”

dan- I found that pretty funny too.  Geoff Baker is actually a very good journalist, a lot better than most other beat writers in my opinion; however, he has made kind of an ass of himself with this whole business.

I know nothing about Baker, but the fact that he said that Rosenthal “beat up” Morris suggests that he (Baker) is disillusioned or delusional.  If you want to call that video a “beating up” by Rosenthal, you would have to say that in a pejorative way, because Rosenthal came off like an idiot in that interview and Morris was very reasonable. Any reasonable person who watched that video would have to say either it was civil discourse (sort of) or that Rosenthal was a bully or at least tried to be.  To say that Rosenthal “beat up” Morris in a non-pejorative manner is a complete fantasy.

One of MGL’s many rules:

When you are in the minority on something that is not complicated nor requires any particular expertise, you are almost always wrong.

MGL:
I know everyone in the sabermetric community has a crush on Posnanski (I don’t), but after I read this in his article, I stopped reading it.

I agree with you that Posnanski’s “when Ibanez is hot, he’s HOT” argument in unsubstatiated, but I think you are wrong about the sabermetrics community’s view of Posnanski.

While I do have a crush on Posnanski, it’s not because he’s particularly good at understanding sabermetric ideas.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite; Posnanski, like most writers (who are trained in journalism, remember, not mathematics or statistics), doesn’t understand most advanced sabermetric ideas.  However, I can’t recall a single instance of Posnanski dismissing a statistical argument based on “just watching him play” or “the game’s not played on a computer”; rather, he always re-evaluates impressions he has, often based on statistics.  And most importantly, he always keeps his mind open to new and unconventional ways to analyze the game.

Now, he might not use the best statistics, but he does understand the uselessness of pitcher wins, for example, and almost always talks OBP (instead of AVG or RBI) when writing about hitters.

It also helps that he’s a very good writer.

Eddo, I agree with everything you wrote about Poz, and I admire him and like his writing. But, I think that those Ibanez’ comments (about having a history of being “hot” therefore it should be no surprise...) were out of line and out of character and showed some ignorance that was not like his usual self.  He typically does not write things like that - things you would expect from the typical blowhard sports writer.

One more thing that is not specifically about Poz and this article:

Why do sportswriters get a “pass” when they write something stupid and incorrect?  They are not supposed to be writing fiction.  If a news journalist would write something like, “Well, it is June and it’s been cold for a week or so, so therefore there is no such thing as global warming” he would likely lose his job and rightfully so.

When a sportswriter writes BS, which they do 99% of the time when they are not just reporting the facts, they deserve to be called out on it (but they don’t because almost no one knows that they are writing BS). We don’t do it much with your typical mainstream writer, because we would be doing that 24/7.  But when someone like Poz, who (I assume) prides himself in not writing BS, does write BS, I think he should be called out on it, and I think he would appreciate (again, I assume) being called out on it.  And however you want to temper or couch what he said ("there isn’t any evidence to support it,” etc.), it was BS, pure and simple.  That doesn’t mean he is not a good writer, etc.  It just means that he wrote some BS, and to his credit, atypically (for him) so.

MGL:
Re: sportswriters and BS

I totally agree that there is way too much BS in professional sportswriting.  For the most part, Posnanski is the only writer whose opinion pieces I read (I’ll read reporting, just to get information).

I imagine that sportswriters get away with it because writing about sports is considered “entertainment”, as opposed to writing about politics or, like you said, weather.  This, of course, is BS in and of itself; I’m of the firm opinion most writers just write to see themselves in print and give an opinion, which is usually no more qualified than my own opinion (I just don’t have an outlet or a desire to make mine known to the masses).

Re: Posnanski’s comments

I cringed as well when I read that; it was total BS and I didn’t intend to defend the reasoning he gave.

So, Geoff Baker responded to the e-mail I posted above...his e-mail was very reasonable and informative. I still disagree with his assessment of the situation (for one, Rosenthal did not “destory” Mr. Morris), but his e-mail response to me certainly was not high-and-mighty like the original article

BTW, that was a brilliant e-mail above…

THIS, by MGL, is nonsense:
“4) Holding a blogger up to ANY standard other than “common human decency” is ridiculous.  Unless you write professionally, you can write what you want.  This catch phrase of, “Where is the accountability” is ridiculous.  There is no “accountability” for a blogger, nor should there be one, unless some does or says something illegal or actionable in court, which is possible of course.  And if a blogger is interested in readership (which he may or may not be), then the “accountability” is how many readers choose to read the blog.  If you write for money or for a living, the account ability is in whoever pays your salary.  You write or do something irresponsible and you get fired.”

Wrong. Being accountable means accepting responsibility for what one does, including irresponsible acts like impugning a player for illegal acts and cheating based only on innuendo and speculation rather then demonstrable character, actual evidence and the specious argument that “nobody is above suspicion.” Accountability under law isn’t the same as accountability. Accountability means having the decency to admit, “Yeah, I actually accused you of taking steroids under the guise of defending you; it was a weasely thing to do, and I accept the blame and apologize.”

MGL thinks “accountable” just means “getting caught and punished.” Well, it’s a basic ethical value.

It seems that some people are insinuating that Morris wrote the article under the guise of something else, rather than accepting his blog post at face value.

That is, they are implicitly calling him a liar when Morris explicitly said on TV that he was simply following the data.

Baker’s post did that, and Marshall’s post here seems to say the same thing.  I would like Baker and Marshall and others who have a problem with Morris to be very explicit in exactly what it is they have a problem with.

Jake, accountability can mean very different things to different people in different situations.  In Morris’ position he is not held accountable for nearly anything he might say by anyone in particular.  If what he says loses interest among his readers, he may lose his spot (though I don’t really know exactly how MSM operates), but he’s free to say just about anything.  His blog has very loose regulations, and his readers are draw to that blog largely for that reason.  So, now he’s said something that has attracted a large audience and he’s being held “accountable” by these new readers that disagree.  Well, he’s satisfying these new readers, the only people he’s really held accountable by, by further explaining his statements. 

You may disagree with what he said, but he has done nothing wrong, morally (and what is morally correct is always up for debate) or legally.  Beyond that you obviously have serious reading comprehension problems.  MGL explained several different types of “accountability” other than being “caught and punished.” You even quoted it: “And if a blogger is interested in readership (which he may or may not be), then the “accountability” is how many readers choose to read the blog.”

Anyway, this whole situation seems terribly overblown to me.  So Morris let some these accusations of steroid use see the light of day, I might not of done that and choose to take an “innocent until proven guilty” stance, but as someone else has said, no one is above suspicion anymore.

I disagree with the argument that Morris “impugned a player for illegal acts and cheating based only on innuendo and speculation”....

BTW, Baker has a follow-up post on the issue where he seems now to be arguing the blogger/journalist issue from a liability standpoint. Maybe some of the lawyers here would enjoy reading his take.

He seems to be suggesting that since he didn’t single out a specific Mariner with his supposition that the success of the 2000-2003 Mariners was PED driven, he acted ethically.

He seems to be completely splitting hairs on this issue IMHO and they aren’t trivial ones that should be split.

What I really don’t understand about the “accountability” argument is how a person affirmatively holds himself “accountable” for something.  Does that mean that if you do something wrong, you don’t run and hide?  I really don’t know what that means.  I certainly don’t know what that means with this Morris issue.  Jake, why would Morris admit something and apologize for it, when he doesn’t think he did anything wrong and many intelligent, reasonable people agree with that notion?  And, I could be wrong about the definition of accountability, but I don’t think it means admiting you were wrong about something and apologizing.  That is contrition I think.  “Holding someone accountable” is usually something people or an entity do TO someone else.  It is hard for a person who does something to hold himself accountable.  That doesn’t really mean anything.  If I write something on this blog that you think is unethical or immoral, what exactly do you want me to do to be “accountable?” If because of that, people don’t read my blog anymore, or I get sued, or someone eggs my house, then I guess that means I was accountable, but I surely can’t do anything to prevent that (the “he is not being accountable argument").

That is the problem I have with the “accountability” discussion and argument. I think it is a throwaway word.  I don’t think it applies to the person in question, unless you are talking about a person who does something wrong and then refuses to admit it or runs and hides.  That certainly isn’t the case here, as there is ample evidence that Morris did NOT do something even close to being considered universally wrong, immoral, or unethical (SOME people think that it is one or more of those things, but clearly not nearly all people, and probably not even the majority of people).  As well, I believe that a person has the moral right to deny and defend himself to the hilt when he has done something wrong, unless perhaps he continues to hurt someone in the process.  Then it becomes a sticky moral and philosophical issue.  In general, I don’t believe it is always (or even most of the time) a moral or ethical obligation to admit one’s wrongdoings and faciliate their own punishment.  In fact, that is one reason why the 5th Amendment was incorporated into the C.  If that were the case, and everyone fulfiled that obligation, almost everyone would be in prison (admitting all their DUI’s, casual drug use, etc.).

For what its worth, accountability is Baker’s personal high horse.  His biggest criticism of the Bavasi administration wasn’t bad personnel decisions or a lack of understanding on how to build a baseball team, but instead, that the front office didn’t hold the players accountable for their actions. 

He’s constantly talking about the need for players to be accountable to the media, not hiding in the clubhouse after games, and how a lack of accountability breeds bad chemistry and a losing culture. 

If there’s a problem in any area relating to baseball, odds are Baker’s going to say that whoever is causing the problem lacks accountability.

BAker:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/marinersblog/2009340746_one_more_look_at_raul_ibanez-b.html

It’s a long one, and he references my email in one spot.  His beef is:

If you get sued for libel, your defense can be “the truth’’—that what you wrote is true—or that, even if what you wrote was false, you did not act with malice. In Canada, where I began my career, the law is much tougher and states that your stuff had better be true, or you’re in hot water. It’s a bit more lax here in the U.S. with the whole “malice’’ thing.

The U.S. Supreme Court has defined malice as “reckless disregard for its truth or falsity.’’

If Rush, Hannity, and O’Reilly haven’t crossed the line yet, Morris can’t even see the line, as he’s so far away from it.

In any case, this is NOT what Rosenthal et al were talking about.  How many journalists used the word “libel” as the reason they were against the Morris article?  It’s not why they were up in arms, was it?  Why the heck would they care if Morris, or People magazine, or anyone else is sued for libel? 

Anyway, it’s a good piece by Baker, but he does not give any supporting evidence that Morris approached the libel line, any more than Morris approached the PED line.

As far as I can tell, it is Rosenthal, who defamed with malice Jerod Morris.

Basically Baker stepped in it with his original post and his argument has been a moving target ever since… it’s not quite “why we invaded Iraq” but its not quite compelling either.

I’ll stick my ground on Linear Weights and Win Expectancy.  Everything else, I’ll change my mind if the evidence compels me to do so (some call it flip-flopping, others call it learn & grow).

Rosenthal clearly should not be so adamant about things he knows little about.  And the more he shakes his head, the more he looks like commenters who HAVE TO WRITE IN CAPS to make their point, since they lack the evidence to do so otherwise.

Welcome to all you ESPNers from Neyer’s blog.  At one point yesterday, the last 500 referrals to this blog all came from the same source!  From a typical blog, I’d get at most 10% from the same source, and it would be fairly fleeting.  Even now, a sizeable portion of the referrals are from Neyer’s blog.

Neyer is hugely popular, and the link to our blog post here was simply one in a list of links he had.

Fantastic.  And I commend Rob for being unlike other big shots out there in actually spreading his wings and pointing out to his readers other blogs of interest.

Thanks MGL and Tango for complimenting my e-mail to Baker

I wish there was one additional thing I had mentioned when I e-mailed Baker, but it’s too late now. I wanted to bring up the point in the OTL segment where Morris asks “What could I have done differently?”, and Rosenthal of course ignores that question and goes on some rant about the power of the written word or whatever.

Baker ignored Morris’ question too. If Morris is so inexperienced and raw, then when he asks what he could do differently, why not answer him? Instead of trying to put him down and act all high and mighty, why not actually try to help out a young, aspiring writer?

I said the same thing at the start of this thread:

“Indeed, exactly what is it that he wrote that you have a problem with. “

Geoff did not directly reply to this, but he did reply that he thought the post was laced with undertones of what Morris was really trying to say.

Basically, Rosenthal, Baker et al doubted Morris’ sincerity in the article, and presumed something that was not there.  Indeed, their perspective tells us more about them than Morris.  With bloggers, you don’t need to read between the lines, but the pro writers still do.  And that’s because they have to read between the lines of their peers.

Morris asked a question, and was looking for evidence.  And he made no conclusion.  There was no libel.  There was no misrepresentation of facts and there was no malice.  Libel cannot exist.

On the other hand, Rosenthal can be accused of misrepresenting the facts and he certainly could also be accused of malice toward Morris (as I doubt he even bothered even reading the article in question).

To me that has been one of the more frustrating things to come out of this debate (the apparent need to read between the lines).

Baker argued that it’s more ethical to suggest that anyone in an Ms uni between 2000-2003 may have taken steroids than it is to state that one couldn’t rule out PEDs as a reason for an individual’s performance.

I’m sorry, but that seems more like a debate about what the definition of “is” is than a moral compass that is true…

The again, I still think this whole issue had more to do with agendas and driving traffic than it had to do with substance.

And if you have to parse words to the extent that Baker did, in no way can you have the outrage that erupted.

And Geoff Baker takes an interesting tone here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/marinersblog/

“The curious case of Ichiro: clubhouse chemistry can’t be ruled out”

I love it!