Saturday, February 21, 2009

A-Rod is a Weasel (but he might have one point)

I feel like piling on.

At his press conference earlier this week, concerning his failed drug test from 2003, Alex Rodriguez attempted to achieve the self-contradictory goal of admitting a grave wrongdoing while implying he did very little wrong. This was a chance for him to gain a modicum of public respect by simply saying what everybody already knows. It would have taken three sentences.

"From 2001 to 2003, while a member of the Texas Rangers, I routinely injected myself with a steroid, because I thought it would help me be a better player. I knew that this substance was almost certainly on baseball's banned list, but I took it anyway because improving my game was more important than respecting the rules. I am only before you now admitting this because I got caught and I'd rather come away from this ordeal looking like Andy Pettitte than Roger Clemens."

But instead he used weasel words (this is an actual term) . He Bushed-it. He tried to claim youthful ignorance for stupid things he did when he wasn't young. In 2001 A-Rod turned 26, in 2003 he turned 28 (not 24-25 as he said during the press conference, by the way). I'm not sure when the cut off is for youthful ignorance, but it is way before 26. If he were 15 or 16, okay. Maybe even 19 or 20, but 26? Give me a break. (Although he's not as bad as Dubya who used it as an excuse for things he did in his mid-30s.)

He was evasive. When asked if he considered what he did to be cheating he said, "That's not for me to decide..." Actually, A-Rod, it's exactly for you to decide. In fact, you are the only person in the entire world who can decide this.

But, A-Rod might have one point. He claimed during his interview with Peter Gammons, that his best years were when he was not on steroids, specifically he cited his 1996 and 2007 years. In fact, in terms of runs created per game his best three years were 2007, 2005 and 1996. In terms of adjusted batting runs (like runs created, but adjusted for park and league factors and considered relative to league average), his two best years were 2007 and 2005, by far. Overall, his runs created per season with Seattle, Texas and New York were 8.14, 8.97, and 8.58, respectively, while his adjusted batting runs per season were 37.54, 51.26, and 55.44, respectively (the lower mark from his Seattle years is due in part to missing time due to injury). So, if you believe that A-Rod is being honest about the time frame of his steroid use then it's pretty clear that they did not help his performance much, if at all. He's been equally awesome throughout his career, at least on the field. During press conferences he's embarrassingly bad.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

TMQ Tidbit

Here is a tidbit from Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column:

Television announcers tend to talk exclusively about sacks, but offensive holding penalties are every bit as good.

This is a common maneuver by Easterbrook in his TMQ column. He makes a claim, as if it is a great insight, then completely fails to give it a basis, or he does so in an erroroneous manner. Often times it is something small like the claim above, but even then, the aggregate affect can be very annoying. This is especially true since Easterbrook's TMQ column has an I'm-the-smartest-guy-in-the-room feel to it. That's a fine feeling to convey if you are the smartest guy in the room, but the more I read Easterbrook's column the more I'm finding that he probably isn't.

With that said, how exactly is an offensive holding penalty "every bit as good" as a sack? The average sack might result in a smaller loss than the average offensive holding penalty, but a sack has the obvious advantage that the offense loses the down. In fact, my preliminary research (this website) indicates that the average sack (about a 5 yard loss, loss of down) is more valuable for the defense than the average offensive holding penalty (about a 10 yard loss, replay the down) . For instance, on 3rd and 15 the chances of converting a first down is around 20%, on 2nd and 20 its around 30%. So, on 2nd and 10, the average sack is 10% better than the average offensive holding penalty in terms of first down conversion likelihood.

At best Easterbrook's claim is completely unfounded, at worst it's simply not true (which is the likely case, in my estimation).

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Addendum: One other thing. "Television announcers tend to talk exclusively about sacks..." Huh? Have you ever witnessed an offensive holding penalty that the TV announcers didn't talk about? In the Super Bowl Mike Gandy had several big offensive holding penalties that thwarted Arizona drives. I know this not because I chart holding penalties throughout the game (or because I read Easterbrook's column a few days later), but because the announcers talked about it.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Line Men

This is not really about sports, but it is about a commercial aired several times during the Super Bowl, so I figure it is fair game. Apparently the TV show "Chuck" (I have never seen it) is doing an episode in 3-D. In the commercial for it they show two of the characters and then talk about how it is going to be in 3-D and then the characters morph into what you think will be some sort of 3-D rendering of themselves, but instead is a flat rendering. The characters look like cardboard cutouts. Then one of the characters says something to the effect of, "c'mon, we're suppose to be in 3-D, not 1-D." Huh... 1-D? Does nobody who worked on this commercial, which aired on the biggest stage possible, have even a vague concept of spatial dimensions? They have obviously never read Edwin Abbott's novella "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions."