Monday, May 20, 2013
The Changing Gigantics of SF | Bill James Online
(www.billjamesonline.com)
Is this really true?
Read More...Baseball teams change at a glacial pace. I’m not talking about how a team does in a given season…that can change quite dramatically…I’m talking about what a team is: the broad scope of a team’s talents, their strengths and weaknesses. A team that’s good at converting a double play generally stays good at turning the double-play, just as a team with a terrible bullpen can’t make that bullpen a strength, at least not quickly. A team that gets lots of production ...
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1 2 >Very dumb.
So, so very dumb.
But only if it's dumb.
And this is so very dumb.
The simple fact is, Cabrera was gone and they kept on doing what they were doing when they had him.
Or the Giants' taints.
That is what I think of when I read these anti-PED fanatics. It is becoming clear that there is going to be no punishment enough for these people. They wanted testing they got testing. They wanted names, they got the Mitchell Report. They wanted penalties, they got penalties. They wanted harsher penalties, they got harsher penalties. It's simply never going to be enough. If the rule were changed to make the Giants ineligible for the post-season and the Yankees won it would be tainted because of A-Rod. These people are never going to be satisfied.
But that's the way most arguments on issues go, isn't it? There will always be people whose positions outflank the current consensus. That outflanking sometimes pulls the consensus further toward the flank, but there comes a point when so few people are left on the flank that it turns into the lunatic fringe.
Does this make Melky Theo Brixton or Captain Tragedy?
Exactly.
Individual sports seem to have an acceptable position for those that care about the issue. The result is invalidated, runners up become winners, etc.
Team sports results in a suspension for the person that tests positive, but nothing at all happens to the results.
My personal position is that for both individual and team I don't really care who is juicing but I completely understand how if you do care it seems odd that results can be altered in one case but not the other.
But what could you possibly do? Even if it is a problem (which I don't agree with), what possible penalty rule could you put in place that would address the issue without being truly terrible in its consequences?
I spent a whole two minutes trying to think of something and came up with nothing (which is both too little and way too much time spent if you ask me).
You see these, McNulty? These are for you.
No idea either. (And to restate my position, I'd hope nothing does happen since I don't care about the issue.) And if there actually was a way to handle it, I would imagine it would be enacted by some team sport, if not in MLB.
But I can understand how somebody who does care finds a disconnect between what happens to Lance Armstrong (retroactive punishment) and what happens to the Giants (nothing). It's apples to oranges but if I were somebody who cared about the issue, I think I'd find the lack of direct punishment to the Giants to be unfair. Thankfully that's not me.
McNulty -- consider yourself outflanked!
Start levying stiff fines against the teams, suspensions against coaches and front office staff, and loss of draft picks and such, and the attitude among the leadership within the game will change so fast that heads will spin around, Exorcist style.
Didn't the Giants show that they DO care about cheating by not putting Melky back on their roster after his suspension was up? They showed that they wanted to take their chances and win (or lose) legit rather than accepting the help of a known cheater, even though he was one of their best players. I think that's admirable, and unless someone has evidence that team management knew Cabrera was roiding, I don't see any reason why the rest of the team should be penalized for one player's mistakes.
If they did know, you'd think they would have had their best IT guys help him with his fake web site.
Umm ... maybe?
That's a terrible way to evaluate players.
To wit:
Reds with Healthy Votto (342/465/604) through July 15: .568 winning percentage
Reds with Votto on DL (July 16th through September 4th): .673 winning percentage
Votto Returns (September 5th to year-end): .560 winning percentage.
This is what is called a coincidence. The Giants were better despite losing Melky, not because of losing Melky.
I am overweight and don't eat as well as I should. I also have good blood pressure and cholesterol levels. That doesn't mean being overweight and not eating as well are factors in me having good blood pressure and cholesterol levels, it means that I have good blood pressure and cholesterol levels despite those things - there are other factors, likely genetic, at work and I'd probably have excellent blood pressure and cholesterol levels if I lost weight and ate better.
I must have missed the requests sent to Selig, asking him to invalidate their early-season wins. I'm not seeing the ethics gold star here. If you purchase stolen goods from a thief, they don't let you keep the stuff you purchased if you promise not to buy goods from the thief in the future. The Giants get the benefits of Melky using drugs and don't play Melky when he is more likely to have stopped using drugs? Hand out the Profile in Courage, stat!
Melky was caught and served his penalty. Punitive extra-judicial punishments are *bad* for people who want drug-testing in baseball - there's a lot less justification for the MLBPA to agree to drug-testing if players will receive in-baseball reprisals as additional penalties not negotiated in the CBA. Over time, these types of things will undermine the drug-testing program.
It's a good thing you didn't read all the way to the end of Craig's post, because his completely serious suggestion for PDDs might have turned your good blood pressure bad.
Dammit, that's what I was going to post.
Now all I'm left with is, "You, McNulty, are a gaping #######."
What'd I do?
That would've been asinine if they'd done that.
Ah, so the "Giants DO care about cheating," just not enough to do anything that they feel would disadvantage them in any way.
So, if I receive stolen goods that I know are stolen but keep my mouth shut and keep the stuff, I get to brag about my morality?
So, if I receive stolen goods that I know are stolen but keep my mouth shut and keep the stuff, I get to brag about my morality?
It's not as if the police try to go back in time and undo the past so you never enjoyed any benefit.
EDIT: also, if the Giants knew about the rule breaking at the time (i.e. were aware of the goods being stolen in your analogy), I think the calculus here would be much different.
The only way punishing the team makes sense is if you believe they knew the player was using; however, MLB has spent the past 20 years claiming the teams couldn't know if the players were using. To start punishing teams now would expose thier lies.
How is playing the entire postseason without one of their best players not disadvantaging them?
I really don't know (or care) if the Giants care about cheating or not. I'm not a Giants fan. I just think the suggestions that the team should have been punished beyond losing one of their best for 50 games are stupid without at least some evidence that the rest of the team knew about the cheating.
The Saints' bounty scandal isn't really a great analogy here. In that case, the only suspensions that are holding up are the ones of the coaching staff and GM, since there was hard evidence that they facilitated the bounty program. The player suspensions have been one big cluster ####, since the league may or may not have good enough evidence.
The equivalent here would be if the Giants were shown to have provided PEDs freely to their players, but no players had actually failed tests.
And as others have alluded to, this example doesn't work unless we have good reason to believe the Giants DID know Melky was juicing.
Even here I am not on board. I like rules, and unless there is some rule that teams need to actively police their players and/or report every suspicion of PED use to the proper authorities I am not seeing it. Do folks really think teams (coaches, whatever) should be part of the policing of PED usage? I think that would have a terrible effect on the sport, and really poison the player/team relationship for those teams that actually did so.
There are rules, penalties and testing procedures. Follow them and unclench about it already.
-- MWE
So let's take away 5 team wins for every 50 games of player suspension. I'm sure that wouldn't result in any chaos.
So in 2012:
* Giants lose 15 wins (Melky + Mota).
* Phillies lose 5 wins (Galvis).
* Cubs and Red Sox lose 5 wins each (Byrd).
* A's lose 5 wins (Colon).
Result: Dodgers are the new NL West champs. Texas wins the AL West. A's and Angels face off in a play-in game.
In 2011:
* Devil Dogs lose 10 wins (Ramirez).
* Rockies lose 5 wins (Jacobs).
Result: Red Sox now make the playoffs! It. Was. Over!!
Seriously, how many people still follow the sport after this mess?
This. And pace TDF, how does one realistically suppose management would know about juicing? (Unless they were supplying the PEDs, as people have mentioned, which would presumably invite more and different penalties.) If Dave Righetti walks into the clubhouse and sees Jose Canseco plunge a needle into a bottle marked "Baseball Steroids" and then into Melky, that might be one thing. Short of that, a team might indeed suspect, even question and caution its players, but as Bitter Mouse says, they're not the Thought Police; what are they realistically supposed to do?
I think it was cool that the Giants didn't put Melky back on their roster. But I would've had no problem with it if they did, either. He served his punishment according to the rules. It's entirely up to the team if they want to do more. I would've supported their decision either way.
And no, it's absolutely not the teams responsibility to police their players WRT drug testing policies. So I see no fault with anything the Giants did before or after Cabrera's positive test.
Sigh. I don't know, McCoy. You'll have to ask the NFL league offices (or Roger Goodell directly, I suppose).
All I know is that the current state is that the Saints' coaches (Payton, Vitt, Williams) and GM (Loomis) were suspended and didn't make a peep about the evidence (in fact, I believe at least a few of them openly confessed to the bounty program). And that the players (Vilma and company) are contesting their suspensions based on a lack of evidence (and no one really seems to know for sure if the league actually has good evidence, or if it's just hearsay).
What happened to Buster Posey? He looked fine in the playoffs to me.
Obviously he's juicing.
Team sports results in a suspension for the person that tests positive, but nothing at all happens to the results.
Not in the NCAA model. Simply say that anyone using steroids is ineligible to play in MLB. When someone is caught, then that team used an ineligible player and has to vacate their wins. Don't give them losses, don't give their opponent wins, just take away the offending player's team wins. Whichever team has the most wins at the end of the season plays in the silly little tournament. Make sure all testing and appeals are resolved a few weeks before the end of the season so we can get accurate win totals. Solved. Think teams will be rushing to take FA flyers on the Mannys and Guillermo Motas of the world then?
They should just take away the WAR of every suspended player. So if the Dodgers had managed to get Dee Gordon (-1.1 WAR), Juan Rivera (-.8), Aaron Harang (-.5), and James Loney (-.4) suspended, they'd have made the playoffs!
thats a serious incentive to up ones game. Knowing that by the last day of the season if you dont get your WAR above zero you will likely have your twinkies spiked with DHEA or clenbuterol.
Wow, the dogers had a lot of below replacement level players... maybe replacement level means something different to the Dodgers.
Or to run out someone like, say, me anytime you're down by more than a few runs late in a game. I'm confident that I could put up a -5 WAR in very limited playing time, and then would be more than happy to juice myself to the moon with the most detectable drugs available. A guy able to generate a big negative WAR in garbage time might cost the team only 1 real win, while adding several when he gets suspended.
I despise the way they handle the individual sports. If you want to prevent cheating, you test before the event happens, you get the results back that day, and you go with those results, and that is it. If someone can beat the system, too ####### bad. Get over it. It's ridiculous as a fan to be watching a sport, enjoy the victor or feel the agony, then to find out that the emotions from that day are invalidated because of future testing. ######## I say. If you want to catch them, develop perfect testing and administer it, and get the results, before the event. Someone comes up with a way to beat the system, that is part of the competition.
Same with team sports. Ultimately sports at the professional level, is about the fans. The athletes are entertainers, and your emotions shouldn't be thrown out because something was found illegal two years later.
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