Stat Nutz and the Baseball Hall Of Fame

 I am a weird duck.  I enjoy statistics and numbers.  I still understand and use some of the statistical formulae I learned in two passes through college-level statistical math classes.  I am not a math whiz.  I enjoy numbers, and numbers with a purpose, but I don't get too hung up on them.  I also enjoy baseball.  I mean, I like it a lot.  Quite a few years ago, when fantasy football began to grow in popularity, I designed an entire system that I was intending to roll out for some friends so we could play Fantasy Baseball.

Siddown, youse.  Yes, I started rolling this idea together in 1991.  Yes.  1991.  I had figured out and filled a notebook with exactly how it would work.  You would draft hitters - but your team would contain a net total of 12 players.  You had eight position players, three pitchers, and a closer.  That was it.  The system would rely on a database of statistics which updated weekly.  Initially, I had designed it to use the Sunday newspaper Statistics sheet which came out on Sunday morning.  I'd set up a tool to import all of that data, then feed into your team's worksheet for the week the runs each player scored (that is, RBIs for that week, which was determined by subtracting the previous week's total from this week's to give you the total).  Fair?  Nope.  But if your team played 4 games, someone else had two, and someone else had an injury, well, there ya go. 

The system was designed so that if a player was removed from the major league's available roster - as in sent down, injured, or for some reason not on the team, you could submit a replacement player.  That replacement player could not be part of another team's active roster, and for the week in question you would have the option to designate which player you wanted active.  Let's say Joe Smith broke a toe running out a grounder to first, but had batted in 8 runs that week before hand, and you submitted a replacement request before midnight, Sunday (by the timestamp on the email when I received it), you could replace him with Kevin Johnson, who had 11 RBIs that week - then Joe's 8 would come off, Kevin's 11 would go in.  

What was that, not fair to your opponent?  Well, considering the idea was to build a twelve-team league, with eleven other owners, six teams in each "league" and 75% of the schedule would be within the league, 25% would be between leagues, so everyone got to play everyone else during the April-to-September season, no worries.  Everyone got the all star week "off" to re-evaluate and make player moves - the basic rule in the notebook was you could move half of your twelve - that is, replace 50% of your team.  During the rest of the season, it was down to injury only to start.  

Once I got the kinks worked out, I'd change it so you could change out two players a week.  Eventually.  

But none of this ever came together.  I had a couple of kids, a couple of other jobs, a couple of other things that went in different directions, so I just put that idea in a drawer.  I'm sure there's a system out there now for folks who want to do that, I just haven't got the time to fart around with it.

But I still like baseball.  And unfortunately, there are some folks who feel that membership in the Hall Of Fame should be driven by statistics.  And as I learned in my statistics classes, there are lies, damned lies, and then there are monkeys who fudge the numbers to get them to say whatever the hell they want.  You can slice, dice, emphasize, ignore, and fake up numbers if you want your guy to appear to be valuable.

What caught my eye today was the fact that David Ortiz made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot.  This upset some people.  I mean, let's get honest.  There are about two people I can think of off the top of my head who will guarantee you a giant brawl of some sort if you suggest they belong in the Hall of Fame.  And in some ways, they already are.  

The first is Cincinnati Red's own Charlie Hustle.  That's right, kids, sometimes players became known by their nicknames, rather than their real names.  Which is probably a good choice for Pete Rose, who could have been an obvious choice had he not been a complete freaking idiot and gotten caught betting on baseball.  I understand that some folks have little to now love for or understanding of history, but when you use the words "bet" and "baseball" in the same sentence which does not include words like "black socks" or "Kennesaw Mountain Landis" you end up in a rather useless void.  That's because the first scandal that very nearly destroyed baseball as "America's Game" was when a few Chicago players chose to ... well, earn their place in the halls of infamy and shame, a few steps down from December 7, 1941, by betting on and throwing baseball games.  

There's more than enough smoke around Pete Rose to make it difficult to find all of the shit he covered himself with, but as any parent can tell when the baby shit it's pants, there's more than enough shit for that case to stink to high heaven.

And he's the less obvious Nope when compared to Barry Bonds.  Old BB head, Mr. "Gee, why did he get such large shoulders, or is his head shrinking?"  Yeah.  Mr. Steroid.  Mr.  Roid-rage.   Mr. BB Balls - yes, kids, don't do steroids like Bonds did, they'll cause your testicles to shrivel up like dehydrated raisins.  That's right.  Extra small BBs.  Just like the ones that go in BB guns.  Which is about all Bonds has got left.  

And yes, other players experimented with drugs to improve performance.  And once the Hall of Fame builds another building to recognize all of the chemically-enhanced players, that's fine - they can go in the building with the door and entry towards the back, around the corner, behind the dumpster, and hey, watch out for Buddy, Sam, and Goombah, they'll give you the ballpark-buy-steroids experience right near the trashcan - which is where they belong.

I know I'm weird, as I said up top there, but I believe that membership in the various sport hall of fame groups should factor in performance as indicated by statistics, but it should also take into account character.  Not as in "hey, look, he's wearing his pants on his head and talking to the ball(s)" type, but the people who you look at and, honestly, just damned respect.

Which is why I'm OK with Mr. Ortiz.  Yes, full disclosure, he was at one point a Minnesota Twin, they traded him for what I am certain were very good reasons when they did, and he ended up with the better end of the deal, so that's no skin off my nose.  I have been blessed by being able to follow and enjoy two World Series teams, only 4 years apart from one another, and I remember the warm, enjoyable moments.  And the fantastic games.  And, more than anything else, the times my friends and I shared in watching these games, talking about them, and enjoying the whole damned thing.

But when you focus on the numbers, you ignore that which makes any sport something worth watching.  These days we're pretty damned close to having humanoid robots who can play professional sports.  I mean, if you take a good look at the TB1 beta model they've been testing, he's done pretty well for two teams in the past decade.  Not spectacular, but that's part of the whole package.  If you made the robot unbeatable, flawless, and completely, utterly, overwhelmingly skilled, you wouldn't have to wonder about the outcome of each game. 

So there ya go, my drivel on the Halls of Fame/Shame/Noise.  Now I get to go see what's for dinner...