Wednesday, December 12, 2012
2013 Results: Bonds, Clemens, Piazza and Biggio are elected to the Hall of Merit!
(bbtf)
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio have been elected to the Hall of Merit!
The timing for our first year electing 4 candidates could not have worked out better, since class of 2013 is the strongest in terms of electees that we’ve ever had. The top of the 1934 ballot included Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins, Pop Lloyd, Smokey Joe Williams and Cristobal Torriente, but only 2 were elected.
Bonds and Clemens were each unanimous at 1 and 2. I believe that’s the first ...
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< 1 2 3 4 5 6 >talent levelworthiness to be called champion than a short series.FIFY.
Yeah, now I can see where you guys are coming from. Makes perfect sense.
Disagree. You are blowing off context to make your point. If you look at where Chicago was and had been prior to LaRussa, .506 is pretty good.
He had two losing seasons, 1980 and 1984. They were also 26-38 when he left to take over in Oakland. But he also went 87-75 and 85-77, and 54-52 in the strike year. In addition, of course, he went 99-63 in 1983 and won the White Sox's first anything since 1959, before losing to a very good Baltimore team in four games in the ALCS.
Chicago had basically three good years between the end of the Al Lopez era and LaRussa: The Hitless Wonder team of 1967, under Eddie Stanky; the Dick Allen/Wilbur Wood team in 1972 under Chuck Tanner, and the South Side Hit Men in 1977 under Bob Lemon. None of those teams was solid on both sides of the ball, and all promptly dropped off.
In the 1984 Abstract, Bill James did a long article about the talent each team's farm system had produced that was in the majors. The White Sox finished dead last.
So, taking over in an undercapitalized, down-in-many-ways organization, LaRussa put up three winning seasons, won the team's first title of any kind in 24 years, and finished over .500.
To repeat myself: LaRussa is like Phil Jackson. The post-Shaq, pre-Gasol Lakers were nothing special under Jackson, 45-37 and 42-40, out in the first round both times. But if you look at the talent on those teams (Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom were basically it), it is clear that Phil was doing getting them to do just fine.
You can argue, if you like, that LaRussa should have brought in more talent. But I think his performance in Chicago is solid, relative to the context.
****
In a related note, I got to thinking of these issues and did some back of envelope calculations (my head splode) on the probability of winning a world series based on a given liklihood of winning one game. I.e. let's say Team A is 60% likely to beat team B in one game. What are the odds of team A winning a best of 7? (usual assumptions like this percentage stays constant, there's no psychogical factors, etc.)
Without sitting down and doing the math (I've done it) what do you think, off top of your head, the odds are of a .600 team (i.e. .600 vs the other team) winning a 7 game series?
Sorry; I didn't think this really went to any point I was making, but I'll try to look later. My methodology (since that's probably more what you're interested in than the actual team) would be to look at:
1. Actual W-L record
2. Pythag record
3. Strength of league
4. Strength of division
5. Call-ups
6. Injury info.
Re 5 and 6 and strength of playoff teams, if you're getting a big pitcher back for September who was hurt previously, that would obviously play into how strong your team is now (something that 1 and 2 wouldn't really show). Or if Hamilton is now injured, that's another factor. Or if you have Jesus Montero available as a call-up. (Then again, Girardi didn't use Montero simply because Montero was Born Too Late, so that didn't do them much good.)
From what I recall (without looking again), my sense is that the four best teams in the majors, overall, were the Yankees, the Phillies, Texas, and Boston. Once you hit October Boston falls out of that because of the disarray in their pitching.
Who did the what now?
WAG: 60%, if we're already assuming that the series has gone 7, because then it reduces to win or go home, and we've stipulated their true expected winning percentage is .600.
In general, a team that has an EWP of .600 has a rather higher chance than that of winning a 7-game series. I'd guess 80-90% off the top of my head. Of course, you almost never have this imbalanced a matchup in a playoff series.
EDIT: checked with some coin-flipping simulations. The WAG is correct, but I overestimated the likelihood of the .600 team winning the whole thing... in fact it's more like ~71% that the better team would win the series.
Dammit! I tried to make that clear but obviously not clear. But you made my pt. I would have thought the odds something like you said 80% but by my best count, it comes to something like 70.3% (some rounding error may occur <0.2%).
Doesnt that seem strange? I would have thought that as the series goes longer that 20% advantage would start to compound itself like a mortgage rate. But I guess because so many series dont go the full 7 that this effect is sort of diminished.
And of course as you say it would be hard to imagine a world series between teams where the actual WAG is 60-40; even 55-45 probably about as lopsided as such a series gets. perhaps like the '76 Red/Yankees or '50 Yankees/Phillies?
Oh yeah, I'd be interested in where you come out this. I actually start to agree more with your position; but I'd be real interested in how much error there might be in such a study? How sure can we be that the Phillies are better than the Yanks, say for example?
I mean I havent even attempted this question, and not sure what method I would use. I have no idea, but such a method might not even prove a conclusive winner among the top teams.
The injury factor I think might actually help St. Louis in this discussion. At least from reading posts here abouts ( I dont follow regular season). That's why I'm surprised that you included that in your list.
I would strike 2., Pythagorean, off that list myself. I dont even understand the theory on that. No. 4 Strength of Division seems very difficult to measure, not sure it could possibly account to very much...
Despite Andy's snearing at the sight of the word Pythagorean, a team's pythag record is actually more indicative of quality than its actual record. Which is to say that pythag record is more predictive of the team's future performance than actual record.
Record in blowouts is more meaningful than record in close games or extras, since those have more to do with luck than a team's record in blowouts does.
My concern is that it would only make sense for a team that is losing in "garbage time" (i.e. blow outs) to use less than ideal pitching in order to save arms. That would only make sense. Whether they would remove batters for the same reason seems less important. So there is every reason to think that runs scored/given up in garbage time are being produced in less than optimal conditions and dont reflect actual quality.
is there any study that has shown any relationship between blow record vis a vis Run differential in blowouts? If these were similar then you might have a pt. But if say Connie Macks As had a 15-5 record in blowouts, but say 150-30 differential in runs, this might indicate that there is a problem.
ALso is there any empirical evidence that close games are more random fluctuation? I know tried to research this a couple years ago but I found nothing clear either way.
That was the popular opinion put forth to explain the 2007 D'Backs (90-71, but with 20 more runs allowed than scored). That team had an unusual number of relievers allowing a huge number of runs in just a few innings: 15 runs in 14 2/3 IP, 8 in 5, 7 in 2 2/3, 9 in 2 2/3, 4 in 2, 7 in 2/3. Altogether, 50 runs in 27 2/3 IP, or 17 R/9 for 3 games worth of IP. None of those guys pitched in the post season, and the top of their pen was excellent.
Except it doesn't compute.
The 7 runs in 2/3 of an inning. That was a guy allowing 7 runs in the 8th inning of a game his team was losing 4-2 in early April, No way that was a take one for the team appearance.
The 4 runs in 2 innings? 1 game, came in the 8th down 6-2, gave up 4. OK, I'll allow that.
9 runs in 2 2/3? B K Kim He started 2 games and got shelled both times.
7 runs in 2 2/3? Joe Kennedy. Came in in the 5th down 8-1 and allowed 5. That counts.
8 runs in 5 IP? Dan Eveland, who had 3 scoreless appearances, but allowed 3 runs in the 6th inning with his team down 6-5, and 5 runs in a start which cut his 8-0 lead to 8-5 in the 3rd inning. No cheap "they don't count" runs there.
last, 15 runs in 14 2/3? That's Jailen Peguero who appeared in 18 games (good Lord!). The cromulent games are 3 runs allowed in the 9th inning with his team down 5-1 (OK), 3 runs allowed in the 9th with his team up 12-3 (OK, again, but doesn't fit the meme), and 5 runs allowed in the 5th with his team down 5-1 (at Coors). OK, with reservations.
The 2007 D' backs seem to be a poster child for logical explanations for exceeding Pythag, but upon further inspectoin, it's not as clear cut as it may seem.
Then I started to think about one run games. I'll have to dig out my notes....
I did reply to the initial question, but never replied about my methodology, and to be honest it wasn't a hard core methodology, just a combination of looking at the seasonal quality of the players on the roster, factor in health, and factor in projected quality, mix and stir. I think health is a big part of a teams randomness, a team that lost Chase Utley for two months on a freak injury isn't going to lose him to that injury every theoretical season. And the opposite on some players is also true, if JD Drew goes out an plays 160 games one season, the team got lucky and expecting that to be true in every theoretical year would be ridiculous wishcasting. The Cardinals got lucky (some would argue) with Berkman(by about 10 games) so that negates some of the other injuries(and nobody should project the Cardinals based upon Wainwright being available) that hurt the team.
As Ray mentioned, Pyth is a better indication of the quality of the team. As to the theory, simply put, it's seasonal run differntial.(yes they turn that into a winning percentage, but that isn't really important, it's just making it easier to read) the difference between a team runs allowed and runs scored. Run differential is a poor tool for a month or even a half season of baseball, but 162 games it is pretty accurate, and as Bill James noted, it's a better predictor of next season success than actual won loss record.
Not sure the study, but the hardball time did some basic study on this, they also did a study where they examined the frequency of a team scoring in the sweet spot(the reason that Whitey Herzog and Ozzie Guillen team did so well, could be argued that they constantly scored runs in the sweet spot of their eras roughly the 3-7 run range)
Okay I see that factor or effect now; it's small but it's real. Using AL pennant winners from 1930-1940; we see total winning percentage: .661 but only .615 in one run games. That discrepancy is there every year, a little more a little less. So okay that seems statistically significant.
For me then it means that there is about 5% random fluctuation that is overcoming the expectations based on the skill levels of the two teams. Now what conclusions you draw from that, I am not so sure. I can see that even if you are in garbage time, the team that is ahead could just as easily let up on the gas, not steal bases, not put the hit on run on etc. Baseball is still a game of individual match ups and I guess statistics remain useful even in garbage time.
Now whether it means counting up the runs is more accurate than the wins, I dunno but I see that random fluctuation there and I see it does depress the winning percentage in one run games. I see this as more of a random fluctuation (call it luck) that obscures the true skill. I read that Bill James article at some pt. but I dunno...
It's interesting because I am doing some more math to see how much error we can expect from whatever methods we chose to judge the seasonal totals. This 5% thing seems to recur..
Is Cardsfan going to provide us with an estimated margin of error for his picks?
Okay if that is the case, then there is no need for Ray to use both w/l record and pyth projection in his 6 pt formula is there? That's just being redundant it seems to me.
I use actual W-L as my baseline, my starting point. Then I adjust from there. I give more weight to Pythag.
I mean, it's possible that actual W-L is telling us something useful. Not in the silly "Know How To Win" sense -- not in this league, not at this level -- but perhaps, for example, the team's strong bullpen is giving them a leg up in close games.
Thing is, it could also be crappy bullpens making 4 runs leads 1 run victories.
Ray, the problem I have with Pythagorean records has nothing to do with their predictive value. I was reading Bill James before you learned how to read, and fully understand the usefulness of the concept in that regard. Since a team's roster often changes from one year to the next, it's not a perfect tool, but it's broadly useful in many cases.
What I object to is the entire premise that a team's Pythagorean record has anything to do with whether a team is "better" than another team or not, and more to the point, whether the entire concept of "better" or "best" means anything at all beyond a rather abstract intellectual exercise. Since you regard the postseason as essentially a series of meaningless exhibition games, I can see where you're coming from, but to most fans, the winner of the World Series is "the champion", and anything beyond that is just so much cudda shudda wudda.
WRT this and 167 -- If you're a good team, your actual W-L record will be better the lower the variance by game in your runs scored and allowed. If you score 4 RPG and give up 3 RPG on average, you'd go 162-0 if you scored 4 and gave up 3 every game.
Conversely, if you're a bad team, you're better off with a bigger variance (and should employ more "risky" strategies, if such things exist in baseball).
Run variance likely explains a great deal of discrepencies between actual and pythag W-L ... leaving behind only the ultimate question as to whether run variance is a marker of something real, or simply luck/random chance.
Your brain and intellect are too curious and active to have never contemplated whether the World Series winner in a particular year was the "best" team, and I'd bet a billion dollars you've expended energy considering whether the 1960 Yankees were "better" than the 1960 Pirates. It's a customary exercise among many baseball fans, and a natural one to apply to WS winners in the wild-card era -- particularly when teams like the 2011 Cardinals win the "World Championship."
The 2011 Cardinals weren't even close to the best team in baseball. Is everyone supposed to just put that out of their minds?
Your brain and intellect are too curious and active to have never contemplated whether the World Series winner in a particular year was the "best" team, and I'd bet a billion dollars you've expended energy considering whether the 1960 Yankees were "better" than the 1960 Pirates.** It's a customary exercise among many baseball fans, and a natural one to apply to WS winners in the wild-card era -- particularly when teams like the 2011 Cardinals win the "World Championship."
I don't have any objection to the exercise, only to the often-whining tone that somehow it's "unfair" that an "inferior" team like the Cardinals gets recognition as champions, while fans of "better" teams like the Yankees or the Phillies or the Rangers have to sit there and take it.
The 2011 Cardinals weren't even close to the best team in baseball. Is everyone supposed to just put that out of their minds?
No, but to dwell on it for more than a few seconds is a sign of nothing but sour grapes, especially if it's coming from fans of one of the three abovementioned teams. And I say that as a Yankee fan whose team was rated the "best" in baseball by BB-Ref's Rating System. AFAIC the Cardinals proved all that there was to prove on the playing field in October, and don't need to bow down to any other team when it comes to recognition. They were a true champion all the way.
**The Pirates had an easier time winning the 1960 pennant in a far superior NL than the Yankees had winning their pennant in the inferior AL. Anyone who thinks that the Yankees were a presumptively "better" team than the Pirates that year is placing far too much emphasis on 3 blowout games in a 7 game series, and ignoring the context of the entire regular season.
I honestly don't see how you can say that, and then in your next breath say this:
Will SoSH and Lassus now react in open-mouthed horror because I have the gall to state that you don't understand the pythag concept? Because nobody who understands the concept could say those two things simultaneously.
It's why you sneer and hiss as the very sight of the word. Because you don't understand it.
See what I mean? You think the Cardinals "proved" something, because they won a three-round tournament. But all they "proved" was that any good team can outlast other good or better teams.
They don't do it currently, but what they do do is enough for season-long run differential to be useful.
Andy was careful there; he's literally right that the Cardinals "proved all that there was to prove on the playing field in October," without acknowledging how little -- indeed, next to nothing -- was made available for them to prove in October.
It's a crudely useful tool for predicting next year's performance, but you'll notice that in reference to the current team's performance, it rightfully places "should" in quotation marks. Do you understand the difference between using a tool for future projection and using it as a rhetorical device to diminish a team's accomplishments on the field?
Or to put it in plain terms: "World's Champion" represents a concrete reality. "Best team" is a mathematical (and somewhat subjective, in the case of closely matched teams) exercise that chiefly serves as a consolation prize for a certain type of fan who needs some form of comfort to help him forget what actually happened on the field in September and October.
Ray, I'm truly sorry that your boyhood heroes spit the bit in September, and I'm even sorrier that my favorite team couldn't make it past the Tigers. Unfortunately, only one of us seems to have gotten over his disappointment. I suppose I should console myself with the Yankees' comfortable 7 game edge over the Red Sox in the Pythagorean standings, but truth be told, I'd much rather see them grab a couple of pitchers who can duplicate the Garcia and Colon miracles of 2011---neither of which either you or Mr. Pythagoras (or Mr. ZIPS) could have rationally foreseen.
Andy was careful there; he's literally right that the Cardinals "proved all that there was to prove on the playing field in October," without acknowledging how little -- indeed, next to nothing -- was made available for them to prove in October.
Emphasis added, and no further commentary needed, since the highlighted words speak for themselves.
I will indeed raise my head, thinking I was awoken by something other than my own recurring nightmares of unfinished college research papers.
That you are capable of interpreting pythag in a way that suits you - regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the interpretation - is not entirely compelling to me.
What are you talking about? Right in the passage you quote, it explains that the Pythag formula is a tool for estimating how many games a baseball team "should" have won. That is, past performance.
Do you understand that you can't predict future performance without knowing past performance?
What if I put Mark Teixeira and Russell Martin in front of you, and asked you to predict which player would hit more home runs next year. How do you make an informed prediction without knowing what their past performances were?
And it is used to predict next year's performance in terms of wins and losses to be specific. Run differential is not used to predict next year's run differential, in the same way that meteorologists use weather models to predict the next day's actual weather, not what will appear on the next day's forecast (for the following day).
How many games a team "should" have won is not past performance, it is a hypothetical number.
A team's past performance is how many games it won, how many doubles it hit, how many runs it allowed, how many double plays it turned etc .... which are things we already know.
Gladly accepted, and I'll happily expound.
You continue to revert to the construction "World's Champion," and assume that the right word for emphasis is "Champion." (**) In fact, the key word is "World's," and historically always was "World's".
Here's why: The postseason in baseball started as a way to determine the champion of the "world," when we already knew the champion of the American and National Leagues. There's no inherent reason -- particularly in baseball -- why that had to be done. Indeed, it wasn't done for the first however many years the American and National Leagues both operated prior to 1903 (and again for a year in 1904) without their champions playing; it wasn't done for six or seven years between the champions of the American and National Football Leagues, until they came up with the Super Bowl; and isn't done to this day in college football. The Big Ten champion and Big 12 champion don't get together and play for some other "championship."
Now, of course, all that history and sense has been stood on its head, and the World Series is really just the playoff finals and winning a league championship has been downgraded to essentially nothing (***), in favor of jerry-rigged, lame ass teams like the Cardinals being deemed the only "champion." That is not a happy development, or one that is in keeping with the unique tenor of baseball.
All of which is to say that point of the baseball postseason is not now, and has never been, "proving" anything. It has always been -- prior to the silly wild-card era -- simply a way for the teams and leagues to make more money, showcase their best teams, and allow a team that had already proven itself a meaningful champion of a meaningful agglomeration of teams to add an extra adjective modifying "champion." The 1968 Tigers were the American League Champion and World's Champion. The 1967 Red Sox were American League champions. Naturally, only teams that were already champions were eligible -- anything else would have been senseless. The postseason wasn't there to determine the "World's Champion"; it was there to determine the "World's Champion."(****)
(**) In Seinfeldian terms: "What word did he emphasize? Did he say 'Why would Jerry bring anything'? or did he say 'Why would Jerry bring anything?'"
(***) As we see in the lunatic ravings of the Brothers Steinbrenner and Randy Levine, who explicitly measure success solely by winning the finals of the playoff crapshoot.
(****) I'd guess that this reality is a major reason, consciously or unconsciously, why Ray refers to postseason games as "exhibitions."
Don't drag me into your daily fight with Andy. I've made it perfectly and abundantly clear that the regular season, not the postseason, gives us the better indication of the best team. All I've argued is against your too-broad (and thus useless) definition of luck, and your insistence on its static impact on postseason series. That you and nuance are mortal enemies is not a failing on my part, you boob.
It's a crudely useful tool for predicting next year's performance, but you'll notice that in reference to the current team's performance, it rightfully places "should" in quotation marks.
What are you talking about? Right in the passage you quote, it explains that the Pythag formula is a tool for estimating how many games a baseball team "should" have won. That is, past performance.
You still don't quite grasp that the reason for those quotation marks around "should" is to separate the theoretical from the actual. That "past performance" you keep harping on is purely in the theoretical realm, although this fact seems to escape your attention.
Do you understand the difference between using a tool for future projection and using it as a rhetorical device to diminish a team's accomplishments on the field?
Do you understand that you can't predict future performance without knowing past performance?
Sure, but do you understand that Pythagorean projections amount to nothing more than a highly qualified projection of future performance, with a cash value of less than 1/20th of a cent?
What if I put Mark Teixeira and Russell Martin in front of you, and asked you to predict which player would hit more home runs next year. How do you make an informed prediction without knowing what their past performances were?
You're acting as if I were dismissing the Pythagorean tool as an indicator of future performance, which of course I'm not. And you're acting as if I think that those projections are based on thin air, which is silly, because of course they're based on past performance, age, etc. But where we differ 100% is that you seem to equate projections with actual accomplishment, mostly as a way of diminishing (or enhancing) what teams actually accomplish on the field. It's little more than the same tired sour grapes chorus that you repeat every October, and it's getting older and whinier by the minute.
Well yes in that sense, teams want to win, they are not concerned with run differential, per se.
However, I think the pt. of the pythag. theory is that unlike other sports (say football) where the score of the game dictates the strategy and hence the stats being generated, the stats in baseball e.g. runs, hits, etc. do not change all that much in blowouts. Despite being down 10 runs or whatever, batters are still doing their best and pitchers are still trying pretty hard.
Therefore, useful data pts. (namely runs for/against) are still being generated. they are being generated by teams 30 games out of it in Aug. or teams down by 10 in the eight inning.
Despite your protestation, using a stat to predict future something (whether it is runs or win/losses) does not alter the game. No one is asking managers to do something differently, researchers are coming in after the fact and using that data. They aren't changing the rules of baseball or some such. Just to indulge you: For what earthly reason would managers do what you say they might do? I.e. maximize run differential? To ingratiate themselves with sabrematricians? To fool their fans into thinking next year might be better. They would have no reason to do this. Hence we can be fairly sure the run differential remains a stat that is being generated in unbiased fashion (read: without some ulterior motive)
If run differential were being effected by teams not trying in September or giving up in blowouts then as you suggest, the run differential would not be very predictive. But from memory James showed that it is predictive even more so than w/l; therefore the statistic of run differential really is measuring ability, even in games that are hopelessly lost. Based on what I remember, the implication is that run differential is better than w/l.
If you disagree you are going to have to find some flaw in James' paper on this. Otherwise the data speak for themselves, they are predicting better than w/l. Perhaps it is because there are more data pts. then w/l data pts (approx 1000 vs 154 or 162).
If baseball players were significantly changing their approach in blowouts, there is now way James would have got that conclusion. Likewise in football, my guess is that pt differential is less predictive because lopsided scores produce desperate strategies.
They could very well use the past run differential to predict next years run differential and from there extrapolate to w/l. Don't you see that? W/l and run differential have a high correspondence, therefore if you project the one, you can project the other No guarantees of certainty of course. But at least from what I recall, it was sound approach statistically.
That's why I said hypothetically, I was imagining some scenario where season-long run differential determined real-life and valued things instead of (or in addition to) Wins and Losses - for example a world where Ray's list in #154 was adopted as the criteria for determining the champion instead of playoffs.
Sure I don't dispute that. But my point was that Pythag is useful because it is good at predicting future wins and losses. That is why people like it, that is its claim to fame. If you think Pythag is better than W - L at measuring past performance, you can't use its ability to predict future W - L as justification.
No, for the reasons noted above. The short series of the playoffs do not and cannot identify the best team.
SBB, any time you want to go 1-on-1 about the history of the 20th century postseason baseball, make sure your credit card isn't already maxed out.
OK, I'll make sure.
I'll also note that the differences I'm pointing to can be summed up well by comparing the call of the Shot Heard Round the World on the one hand, and the ALCS walk-off clinchers of Aaron Boone and Magglio Ordonez on the other.
There isn't a stitch of difference in the underlying "postseason" significance of the HRs; each of them punched the winner's ticket to the World Series. But in 1951, Russ Hodges exclaimed "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ..." In 2003 and 2006 it was "The Yankees are going to the World Series!!!!!!!" and "The Tigers are going to the World Series!!!!!!!"
Hodges knew -- and everyone else did, too, which is why he reported it as he did -- that the Giants had won something by virtue of The Shot. OTOH, the Tigers and Yankees merely advanced a round in the playoffs. The concept of winning the ALCS meaning something beyond advancing a round simply doesn't register in the wild-card era. That's why the calls are so different. And, of course, everyone still realizes the difference; Thomson's HR continues to be exalted as a top-of-the-pyramid signature baseball moment, even though the Giants didn't win the World Series.
The "best team" stuff is just Andy's attempt to distract from the actual point being made. My point is that the regular season does a much better job of providing us with satisfactory "champions" (division champions, ideally in the pre-wildcard format) than the postseason ever could. My point is not that we should award some Best Team trophy in lieu of having the playoffs, as Andy pretends, but is that once we hold the regular season, the postseason adds next to nothing in terms of which team might "deserve" to win it all and be left standing at the end.
That doesn't mean I don't want playoffs -- I enjoy them immensely -- but simply means that people take too much from them.
Secondarily, as we have playoffs, I'd like a more deserving set of teams (a smaller set, comprised of division winners) than the ones we have in there.
The playoffs are exhibition games for fun, to cap off a season, not for people to derive deep meaning from.
Andy's perpetual comments about "sour grapes" are lost and confused, being responsive to no point that has ever been made.
In your ideal world maybe. Here on earth they are real games, for the highest stakes, and which mean a lot to almost everybody.
You're right, that was naive of me; I left out that they are mainly for generating revenue.
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