Anyone seen that HBO documentary "The Curse of The Bambino"? It's fine, whatever.
After the Scottish Dribbler (you know what I'm talking about), one Bostonian recalls heading out of his house in Newton MA, thinking he'd be going out for a long, solitary walk, only to find hundreds of other Sox-fans-turned-zombies walking the streets. A brokenhearted old man crosses paths and says: "Son, this is the dahkest day in New England since Jack Kennedy was shawt."
That's how I feel about today, after reading
this quote.
"We haven't been able to cash it in very much," catcher Jason Varitek said, "but it puts an extra amount of pressure on the other team, which we haven't been able to do. We've got a lot of big donkeys who clog up the bases."Ugh. Boots.
I guess it's not
so bad -- he's kind of making fun of his slow, chunky brethren, and not saying something crazytaint like "Frank Thomas sucks because he doesn't steal bases." But it still hurts.
First Papi on the DL, then Hazel Mae, now this. Rough times.
Labels: big donkeys, clogging up the basepaths, david ortiz, hazel mae, jason varitek, red sox
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you will find us decrying baseball men's obeisance to good clubhouse chemistry, that most intangible of virtues. This post is that odd hundredth time where we stop to consider, if only for a fleeting moment, the possibility that there's something to it after all.
What could compel us toward this unsavory line of thought? A scientific study, of course. Or at least, an economic one. Slate posted
an article with the intriguing subtitle "Do hardworking employees make their lazy colleagues more productive?"
To me, this read as "Does hardworking David Eckstein/Derek Jeter/Trot Nixon make his lazy-ass teammates more productive?" But I guess these guys were looking at supermarket checkout people or something:
The researchers in question, Alexandre Mas and Enrico Moretti, decided that checkout staff would be ideal guinea pigs in an experiment to answer a vexed question: What happens when an unusually hardworking (or lazy) worker joins a team?
The question is part of the broader study of "peer effects."Sports commentators and sportswriters, I realized, love peer effects. They love talking about them, they love speculating about them, they love blowing them out of proportion. The negative manifestation of peer effects is obvious: oh my God, what will happen to our clubhouse if we trade for Milton Bradley? Will Terrell Owens poison our locker room? Artest is a cancer! We're fucked! (And in that last case, they actually sort of are now.)
But the positive peer effect is a favorite also -- maybe it's just me, but I feel like everyone has suddenly decided to agree that having Jason Varitek on your team somehow makes everyone else 10% better.
Back to the study:
Mas and Moretti rely instead on scarily detailed data: having somehow sweet-talked a supermarket into cooperating, they compiled a data-set that tracks every single "beep," every transaction, for 370 workers in six stores, timed by the second, for two years. They can measure each worker's productivity by the second and note how it changes depending on who else is working at the same time.Okay. I didn't do a rigorous examination of their methodology, but my curiosity is piqued. What happened?
The positive effect dominates, according to Mas and Moretti: They find that a shop assistant sitting near someone who is 10 percent quicker than average will raise her own game by 1.7 percent.That's a pretty cool result. Score one for the chemistry guys, right? Maybe? At least in a supermarket checkout environment, it seems like having the David Eckstein of checkout workers next to you actually makes you work harder, too. (In a subtle twist, Mas and Moretti found that the effect only took place when the fast checker worked behind you, not in front of you -- perhaps implying that you just felt guilty about these scrappy Ecksteins catching you slacking off.)
But even assuming that this positive peer effect is real, does it apply to major league baseball?
Here's a reason why it could: seeing a teammate practice "harder" (more swings in BP, more strenuous conditioning drills, more time watching tape, whatever) could possibly compel (or guilt) you into doing the same. If these methods of practice actually improve one's play on the field, the peer effect could have a positive impact.
Here are some reasons why it might not: major leaguers presumably already do almost everything they can to be the best players they can be; that's why they're among the several hundred men who are the best at what they do. The AL is like a supermarket filled with already superhumanly fast checkout guys, so perhaps any potential positive effect would be vanishingly small. Also, it's unclear if baseball is as transparently dependent on pure effort as checking groceries. Hitting a curveball better may not be learnable no matter how hard you're working.
My totally unfounded guess is that peer effects in baseball are generally very small (and extremely unpredictable) to the point where they're barely detectable in terms of raw wins produced on the field. The vast majority of the baseball media disagrees, from what I've heard and read. What do you think?
(P.S. Next post will have way more jokes and swearing, I promise.)
** EDIT: VARITEK ADDENDUM **
Reader Derek writes:
I agree with you guys on peer effect, clubhouse guys, intangibles, generally. Here is one question that you can feel free to address or not: Could the position of catcher be the one place where it might have a marginal impact inasmuch as the "peer effect" is actually the (equally difficult to measure) capability of managing a staff? I am a diehard Red Sox fan, and grew up *knowing* that one of Carlton Fisk's many virtues was his ability to manage a pitching staff. Sub Jason Varitek and you get the contemporary example. It's an argument that seems to me to be the upwardly mobile cousin of "peer effect" or "clubhouse" effect that might be a facile way of saying "I like my catcher better than yours."Great point. I had meant to insert a small disclaimer about this, but I forgot. Yes, I think that some catchers probably manage their pitching staffs better than others. While it's difficult to measure, I think calling a good game qualifies as something tangible rather than something intangible or psychological.
Therefore I think it's reasonable to say that Varitek might help his pitchers perform a little better, but it's hard to back that claim up and I bet the effect is pretty damn small. Again, though, I'm basing this on something he's doing on the field, not some psychological effect whereby Daisuke Matsuzaka stands on the mound, looks into Varitek's steely eyes, gains a correspondingly steely amount of confidence, and whips a gyroball past a stunned Paul Konerko.
A good example of going overboard on catchers' effects on their pitching staffs can be found
here, in a post I made last year.
Labels: chemistry, jason varitek, peer effects
I've seen what Peter King wrote in his Monday Morning Quarterback column. And since you have shared it with us, I will share it with the world:
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. The American League East race is looking pretty darn over.
b. Coffeenerdness: You've got to examine what it is that you do, The Coffee Beanery. Because making lattes is just not your forte, if the semi-coffee-flavored espresso I had at Houston Intercontinental Airport is any indication. Thin and weak is no way to go through life, Mr. Blutarsky.
c. I honestly think Jason Varitek is a bigger loss to the Red Sox than Manny Ramirez would be.Empirical studies have shown that The Coffee Beanery's lattes are in fact 1.25 to 1.5 times as strong as lattes from national chains like Starbucks, Peet's, and Seattle's Best, no matter how many
Animal House references you throw in to insult them.
Oh, and I guess he wrote a thing about Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez. He might have had some kind of case over the past three seasons, when Varitek posted EqAs and WARP3s of:
2003: .289, 6.8
2004: .297, 7.5
2005: .297, 7.3
But I get the feeling Mr. King hasn't watched too many Red Sox games this year. Or opened his Yahoo! Sports profile page any time in the last few months, a thing that would take roughly two seconds. Varitek, for the unfamiliar, has suffered a steep decline this season:
2006: .256, 3.9
While he's not quite Yorvit Torrealba (.249) or Brad Ausmus (.210 (?!)) yet, he's not Joe Mauer (.336), either. Meanwhile, Manny Ramirez has been the same Manny Ramirez he's always been. Check these numbers:
2003: .337, 8.4
2004: .324, 7.7
2005: .327, 8.1
2006: .343, 8.2
That is remarkable, consistent excellence on the field of play. Regardless of how many times he peed in the Monster.
Given that the Red Sox acquired (a probably washed-up) Javy Lopez, it's hard to even make the argument that the drop-off between Varitek and his replacement is larger than the drop-off between Manny and his potential backup (Wily Mo Pena, I would guess).
Here is where Peter King, if allowed a chance to respond in this forum, would counter with homilies about pitch-calling and leadership and chemistry and rah-rah spirit. And honestly, in 2004 or 2005, I don't think I would've been that upset about that argument. But in 2006, it's pretty indefensible.
Labels: jason varitek, manny ramirez, peter king, red sox
