25 Responses to “I love open letters”

1. Gerg Says:
   September 30th, 2007 at 10:54 pm

   idiots over at BP were bound to get one right. they had 30 chances to guess one record exactly. congrats to them. dave baseball is a crazy sport and doesn’t always follow stats. just look at the NL playoff race. stats do not explain that mess.

2. Andy Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:40 am

   Gerg, “idiots” is not the right term to use here. I’d say “intellectuals”. It is too bad the White Sox, in their arrogance, don’t pay more attention to these statistics. Enjoy another season with Jermaine Dye, Mark Buehrle, and AJ Pierzynski. God forbid they should rebuild. I’m glad I’m not a Sox fan. The next 4 years will be ugly.

   Actually, maybe they are on to something. Perhaps careers years are periodic and occur for every major leaguer once every, I don’t know, maybe 5 years? Since each White Sox player had a career year in 2005, if they keep the whole team around, maybe they’ll compete again in 2010.

   Nah, probably not. More than likely, they’ll continue to age and perform worse than they did in 2007. When PECOTA predicts the Sox to win 66 games next year, are you going to complain like all you Sox fans did preseason? Waah, waah, the Sox are so much better! That computer is stupid! We have Konerko, Thome, and Dye and the best pitching staff in the league in 2005! Waah, waah, Ozzie Ball!

   On a side note, I hear the Sox are thinking about picking up Juan Uribe’s option. David, have you converted yet? The Cubs will always welcome you to Wrigley with an Old Style and hot women.

3. Gerg Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 1:16 pm

   man i wish the sox were in the inferior NL. geez, and man oh man there are currently quite a few players on your cub team having career years.

   again the computer is always right, lets live world ruled by robots because nothing will ever go wrong because computers will not lead us astray.

   All i’m saying is there is more to baseball then this computer you are all living and dying by. I agree stats play a key part into forming a baseball team. but the other half of that team is made up of character, momentum, and other intangibles.

4. Ross Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 2:57 pm

   Did anyone else notice the article that the link sends you to has been updated? I honestly don’t know and I am too lazy to look it up, but how did PECOTA do projecting the rest of the team records in the league?

5. David Just Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm

   Why must White Sox talk always turn into Cubs talk?

   Gerg, can you name one person on the Cubs that is having a career year? I’m really curious to see if you know what a career year is.

   I can think of one offhand, that being Carlos Marmol — and i’m not sure I’m ready to even call that a career year.

6. Andy Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm

   David, I think the answer is that White Sox fans have this “Ignored Stepchild” syndrome in which they always feel inferior and forgotten in Chicago and therefore have to send barbs out at the Cubs whenever the White Sox players/team/management are criticized.

   It makes it very difficult to have a normal conversation about the White Sox because the second you give a negative opinion about the team, the immediate response from most Sox fans is “but the Cubs suck more.”

   I’m not trying to start an argument over Cubs vs Sox because frankly I don’t really care about the White Sox. When I say I don’t care, I mean that they are no different to me than the Phillies or the Blue Jays or the Angels. They are just another team. I don’t love them or hate them. I certainly don’t criticize them because I’m a Cubs fan. I criticize them because there is a lot to criticize. Their management is arrogant, and they refuse to acknowledge the fact that their team sucks. I feel badly for Sox fans who will suffer for the next 5 years. I don’t feel too badly because they’ve experienced a WS victory, and I never have.

   What I don’t understand is this backlash against the PECOTA predictions. Before the season started, White Sox fans were shocked and insulted that a computer could predict the team to be so bad. They said things like “computers are stupid” and “stats don’t mean anything” and “intangibles matter and the Sox have intangibles.” Now that the season is over and the computer is right, Sox fans say, “computers are stupid” and “stats don’t mean anything” and “intangibles matter.” Gerg, what is your beef against Baseball Prospectus, and why can’t you eat crow when it comes to PECOTA or the White Sox in 2007?

7. Ross Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:37 pm

   Andy,

   Please don’t judge all White Sox fans on the basis of Gerg’s comments. When I read what Gerg writes, it makes me cringe as much as it should for any real baseball fan. Don’t let him create a false stereotype for you. If I judged all Cubs fans on the debates I’ve had with my sister… let’s just say that would be pretty insulting to the Cubs fan base.

8. Andy Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm

   Ross, here are PECOTA’s preseason standings:
   http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/

   However, I think the argument isn’t that a computer is always right. Nobody is out to prove right vs wrong. The computer analysis is just a tool. An argument arises because there was a ton of preseason backlash against BP by White Sox fans about the computer prediction. It turned out to be true. Computers can’t predict Carlos Marmol bolstering the Cubs bullpen midseason or Ryan Braun being promoted in June and hitting 30 HRs in 2/3 of a season. Computers can’t predict a line drive off a pitcher’s face that knocks him out for the season. However, the computer predicted the Sox would be bad this year. It did so correctly. If I were a Sox fan, I’d say, “oops, I was wrong. Maybe there is something more to this computer thing than I gave credit earlier.”

9. Andy Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:42 pm

   Ross, it’s not just Gerg. I know that there are great White Sox fans out there (David, for example), but in my experience, Gerg is par for the course.

10. Ross Says:
    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    In my experience, Sox fans are very honest about their team. I heard from multiple Sox fans during last off-season about how disappointed they were in Kenny Williams (I’ve never been of the GM; I have criticized him before, during and since 2005) and the direction he was taking the team. I predicted on my own blog that the Sox would finish fourth in their division and have a sub par season this year. I know many Sox fans, and I don’t know any who were really excited about the Sox and thought they had another World Series winner for 2007 ready to go.

    That all being said, I only partly agree with you on your PECTOA argument. PECTOA is one tool, albeit a very useful one, but not the end-all-be-all that people claim when they use it in arguments. I looked at the link you provided (thanks for posting that), and I am not overly impressed. I believe the White Sox are the only team they predicted perfectly. There’s a lot of teams they picked kind of close and somewhat close, and then a few far off (like Seattle). Once again, I’m too lazy to do a proper statistical analysis on this, but I don’t see this being any more accurate than my blog’s predictions or Just Baseball’s predictions, or many others that are out there. I’m guessing the same can be said if you go farther back in time. I didn’t get upset when BP any many sports writers predicted the Sox to do mediocre or worse, nor did most of the White Sox fans I know. Maybe there is a part of White Sox Nation that had a blacklash, but once again, this not representative of all Sox fans. Many, if not most of us knew the Sox would do significantly worse in 07 than in 06, and that just doesn’t cut it in the AL Central.

11. David Just Says:
    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:53 pm

    Ross, as you noted yourself earlier, Will Carroll added an endnote to the open letter:

    “** For those of you that didn’t note the tongue-in-cheek tone here (including my shoutout to the luckiest prediction ever at BP), you’re missing the point. My idea was that PECOTA, a computer program that knows nothing of intangibles or expectations, got one right. This isn’t about the White Sox alone; about fifteen other GM’s missed their expectations. The question is why. Was it injuries, like the A’s or Marlins? Was it team chemistry, like the Dodgers? Was it one game somewhere along the line, like the Brewers or Mets?”

    As he freely admits, BP was lucky to hit the record on the head. PECOTA can’t pick precise records because there is so much variance in baseball. All it can do is come as close as possible. It’s like if you were to flip a coin 100 times, you’d be lucky to have it be heads exactly 50 times, even though the odds say it should. The sample is too small to be precise.

    I will point out to you, Ross, though that Seattle did succeed this year despite a negative run differential. Logic would dictate, then, that they’ll regress to the mean and their record will turn out closer to what was projected.

    I would encourage you to visit the post that I originally wrote in which I projected the Sox to finish 4th…

    http://blogs.dailyillini.com/justbaseball/2007/03/23/prediction-time/

    Read the comments. Gerg is there, too, blasting me about the Sox prediction. And instead of owning up to the fact that the Sox aren’t that good, Gerg credits their bad season to bad luck, when there was mounting evidence the Sox would regress.

    But words like regress are hard for the average baseball fan to swallow, and I think that’s the source of most of these arguments…

12. Ross Says:
    October 2nd, 2007 at 10:49 pm

    Just, as I said, Gerg is a bad example (Or did I mean, “Just as I said, Gerg is a bad exmaple…). You predicted the Sox would have a bad season, and I predicted the Sox would have a bad season, and we were both right. Gerg is the only one blasting the predictions and now saying they did badly because of random luck. Most White Sox fans are blaming this horrible regression season on the choices made by management awhile ago. I think the shine of trust and popularity from their World Series win is just about over now. This off-season, White Sox fans are going to demand major changes to the roster and significant overhauls to the minor league system. Hopefully the front office will listen.

13. Gerg Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 12:14 am

    you guys are a bunch of hypocrites. You say i bring up the cubs and i clearly did not. Andy decided to add a little comment on them, so i stated what i felt. i can give a hoot what the cubs do. i was with some of my cub friends the day they clinched. i shook my diehard cub fan buddies hand and i said enjoy october.

    Then you say i’m the typical white sox fan because i feel my team will do well. Then GD i am a fan. Call yourselves typically writers. What a fan shouldn’t be optimistic about a team that had won 90 games the year before and a WS the one before that? That is BS they had all the tools still there and some good young players added to the mix. The freddy g trade that was awful…. omg he was out for the year. Then the bmac trade, SOB kenny that kid is god why did you trade him bc he isn’t that great.. Dave criticized those moves and guess what they weren’t so bad looking now. However the Chris Young deal may look bad, but Javier is playing mighty fine.

    Then this whole regression crap is unbelieveable. The team didn’t regress they all started off in a one of the greatest slumps ever recorded in baseball. Then they couldn’t survive without hitting and the pitching finally gave. Follow that up by a plague of injuries and young bullpen built on potential. Mix in moves to bring up a boat load of minor leaguers. then you get the 2007 white sox.

    All i stated was the computer is not always right and is only one part of the equation. and guess what BP agreed with me. holy cooooooow. Yea i should eat a ton a crow because the computer got one right out of 30. your awesome computer, good job. i’m an idiot for not believing you.

    Ya happy Andy and Dave? because i don’t mean any of that because i have been told i’m the worst fan ever in baseball because i stand up for something and see a different opinion then all you writers.

    This is why you sell papers congrats. you piss off fans because you think you know more than them in every assest of sports. but please when you write never attack your readers because then you all become Jay Mariotti’s. Stuck up pricks. good nite PECTOA

14. Andy Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 8:19 am

    No, Gerg, you are called the worst fan because you are a homer who refuses to acknowledge any viewpoint other than your own and who makes excuses about his team instead of admitting that they stink and who argues that a computer that predicted his team to finish in 4th place with 72 wins is stupid even after it predicted correctly. You aren’t standing up for a different opinion. You are taking offense to a computer predicting (correctly) that the Sox would finish with 72 wins. No one believes that computers are often right. They use statistics as a tool for prediction.

    You are called the worst fan because you started insulting the Cubs after the only Cubs comment was asking David if he was converting to a Cubs fan based on poor management decisions by the Sox. You decided that a simple question like, “David, have you converted yet?” should be answered with “man i wish the sox were in the inferior NL. geez, and man oh man there are currently quite a few players on your cub team having career years.” I don’t think anyone asked for an opinion on the Cubs here.

    Best line ever:

    “The team didn’t regress they all started off in a one of the greatest slumps ever recorded in baseball.”

    Please explain how this isn’t regression.

    GERG, MAYBE THE WHITE SOX JUST AREN’T THAT GOOD!!! LISTEN TO ROSS AND DAVID! THEY ARE SOX FANS THAT TALK SENSE.

    Ross, as a side note, I was very successful in making multiple bets with White Sox fans that they’d finish in 4th or lower. Each one was incredulous when I suggested they’d suck. Maybe I know different Sox fans than you do, but the ones I know are very Gerg like (though there are many Gerg-like Cubs fans out there too).

15. Gerg Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 11:31 am

    andy your post jumped around so much it made no sense. but with the whole slump thing. maybe we have differing opinions on regression. I see regression as an avg from 300 dropping to about 275 to 280. as well as a slight decrease in production in the rest of their stats. What i consider a slump is when a whole team bats around the mendoza line for the first half a season.

    The sox did turn it around but their massive slump is really what did this team in. greg walker should of been fired. or something needed to be done to wake up those bats.

    but andy have fun with the cubs post season stop worrying bout the sox. hopefully you will be the next steve bartman for the cubs and will go in hiding forever.

16. Andy Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 12:58 pm

    What about my post made no sense, Gerg?

    From dictionary.com,

    re·gres·sion /rɪˈgrɛʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ri-gresh-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
    –noun
    1. the act of going back to a previous place or state; return or reversion.

    Your definition of regression is off. Regression doesn’t mean that you perform worse. It means you return to the form you’ve always shown after a period of time of performing above or below that level. You could not expect Dye to perform as he did in 2006. His final numbers look a lot like his numbers from 2004 and 2005. That is called regression. Paul Konerko is a career .280 hitter. He hit .313 in 2006. It makes sense that he’d hit .259 this year to balance out to his career average. That is called regression. Take a look at Joe Crede’s 2006 stats compared to the 3 years before that. Could he have been expected to repeat those numbers after a 3 year pattern of play? Probably not…regression.

    Overall, the facts, Gerg, just don’t back you up. The Sox were 24-20 after their first 44 games. They didn’t jump out of the gates terribly despite the poor hitting. It was a combination of regression and failure to fill
    the holes that were present in the lineup in 2006 at SS, LF, and CF. The lack of production there predictably hurt the Sox again. This lack of production coupled with expected regression from some players contributed to a computer determining that the Sox would win 72 games. Honestly, I don’t believe that computers are going to be right very often, but the 2007 Sox were a pretty easy bet.

    Lastly, does my being a Cubs fan disqualify me from being able to comment on the White Sox? Is it your belief that my being a Cubs fan automatically makes me hate the Sox? If so, you’re wrong. I don’t worry about the Sox. I do believe my comments on their performance are pretty accurate. Your Cubs hatred is seething through the last paragraph of your post. You are the essence of the stereotype that I put forth about White Sox fans. You make Ross cringe.

17. Gerg Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 5:54 pm

    if they were to regress by your definition then they should go back to 280 hitters not 250. goin back to 280 is the previous state, i’m i correct? just stop ur nonsense andy. and start doin you ronnie woo woo dance.

18. David Just Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm

    This has to be the shortest post ever to create so much buzz. Flame on!

19. Zach Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    Mark my words, Danny Richar and Ryan Bukvich will carry the Sox to an AL central title next year…

    Andy, I believe you would oblige Geovany Soto to oral favors if offered, am I right in this assumption?

    Gerg, I am a self proclaimed Detroit Tigers fan, who do you think had a better batting stance back in the day?
    Mickey Tettleton (closed, low bat)or Craig (little hurt) Grabeck (Open Stance, 5-feet-2)

    Sorry for the randomness

    Go Rocks!

20. Andy Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 8:21 am

    Gerg, for once you are correct. Regression does entail returning to their average performance. However, is .259 really that statistically far away from .280? In 600 ABs (typical for a full season), 156 hits gets you a .260 average. 168 hits gets you a .280 average. That is 12 hits over the course of the full season or 1 extra hit every 2 weeks. No hitter hits exactly on their career average every year. If you perform at a .280 clip, you’ll have years above .280 and years below .280.

    I’m not exactly sure what is so hard to understand about this for you. You are a student in a university, no? I’m assuming that university is UIUC. This is a pretty basic mathematical principle.

    Zach, I am all over Geovany Soto. I got his number yesterday. We’re going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for our first date this Saturday! He’s helping me redecorate my master bathroom. Oh, and you forgot about Luis Terrero hitting 45 HRs for the Sox in 08.

21. Gerg Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    I understand the math but hitting a baseball is not as easy as you make it sound.

    You know what, 1 less hit every 2 weeks and the guy is hitting 240? 2 more every 2 weeks the guy is hittin 300. Man the way you make hitting a high average sound it appears any average joe in the league could do it. but it isn’t. So dont imply their there is no difference in a 260 hitter and a 280 hitter.

    I called you out on regression and you admitted i was correct but then you tried to say that really 260 and 280 are the same thing, but we all know that isnt true.

    So stop digging yourself a hole andy its becoming pitiful.

22. Andy Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

    I don’t have the energy to educate ignoramuses about means, standard deviations, and variances. I cannot believe you got accepted into a school like UIUC.

    An average joe can’t hit a baseball. An average major league baseball player can certainly get lucky over the course of a season and bat .300 even if he’s a career .240 hitter. A few more bloops fall in there and his BA rises. That’s the reason bad players get big contracts from time to time. Look at a guy like Cristian Guzman. He is a really bad hitter. He hit .302 in 2001. The year before he hit .247. The peripherals look very similar.

    Do yourself a favor. Read Baseball Between the Numbers. Learn a little bit about the game. Educate yourself. We can then continue this conversation after your baseball IQ has jumped from 0 to 30. Then maybe you can understand why there is a difference in a .260 hitter and a .280 hitter over the course of a career but not over the course of a season.

    Also, learn the proper way to write in English. Bad at math and bad at writing. What exactly are you good at, Gerg?

23. Gerg Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

    do yourself of favor and get over trying to post against me. hahaha lighten up dude. my opinion will not change and you tryin to change it is just wasting you time.

    In conclusion a BP computer got lucky out of 30 some teams it picked one right congrats to them. The sox season was horrid due to a young bullpen, lack of hitting, and a plague of injuries.

    Now how bout i turn this whole regression malarky around on you? according to this stat life that JUST baseball lives by, lets say hypothetically the sox did actually regress rather than be affected by a whole bunch of crap. so statistically isn’t there an opposite to regression; an improvement of some sort? so to balance out the statistical world the sox are ultimately goin to go on a tear to balance the worlds averages and win the central by 10 games. booyah.

    andy can give you give me a booyah to that. TO STATISTICAL IMPROVEMENT. hooray beeer.

24. Vincent Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    Very late to the party, but wanted to add some comments that are obvious but need to be said. .

    1) While I did not think the Sox would be below .500 in the beginning of the season (and disagreed with the BP projections), I really cannot say that I was terribly surprised by the regression into the middle/back of the pack. In the recent years, it has been rare for a championship to retain the level of excellence (aside from the Yankees, who at least have been consistent playoff contenders) for more than 2, 3 seasons. I think, as time goes on, the 2005 White Sox team is a perfect example: some solid cornerstones like Konerko and Buehrle combined with guys overachieving (Uribe, Contreras, Politte, Garland) and guys who came out of nowhere (Jenks). It was a confluence of skill as well as luck…but over time players will show their true colors.
    2) To compound the issue of the stars aligning, there is also the issue of strategic positions taken. One of the ways that the 2005 White Sox team was able to succeed is through the way its payroll was allocated; at the time there weren’t quite as many seven-figure salaried players, allowing the team to spread out the money and acquire players who aren’t spectacular but aren’t journeymen, either (Dye and Hermanson, for example). As the Sox gave out big contracts and acquired guys with big contracts (Konerko, Garland, Vazquez, Thome), the margin decreased, resulting in gambits on rejects or projects to round out the team. The bullpen, I think, has been the biggest casualty; while some of the projects have been successful (Jenks, Thornton to some degree), many have simply not panned out (Aardsma, Sisco). While some criticize this strategy as arrogance, I think this is just the reality for a team whose payroll has ballooned to more than $100 million in just two seasons. With the starting pitchers and position players taking up so much of the available resources, the bench and the bullpen gets scrap players like Timo Perez, Pablo Ozuna and Brett Prinz. With no adequate replacements or backup for struggling/aging/injured players, the Sox were doomed.
    3) I think the biggest problem that has been exposed this season, though, is the lack of quality production from the farm system. Chris Young, an up-and-coming prospect, was dealt for Vazquez with the supposed knowledge that the Sox have other good OF prospects in the minors. After another disappointing season with Sweeney/Anderson/Terreno, it’s time to take a hard look at the system that has yet to produce a solid contributor in recent drafts other than Josh Fields. If the farm system continues to underperform, the Sox will stay right where they ended.

25. Just Baseball » Blog Archive » It’s been a fun blogging season Says:
    October 31st, 2007 at 11:32 pm

    […] I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Just Baseball as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. The forum of discussion that some of my posts created made it all worthwhile for me. Especially this one. A three-word post spawned a 24-comment conversation between some of my most avid readers. […]

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