Ken Funck wonders what would happen if baseball writers spoke a language that required justification for each verb. The language Tuyuca requires the basis of knowledge (assumption, personal knowledge) as part of the verb-ending. Maybe baseball writers should also try E-Prime.

Nick Steiner shows that Bad A.J. (Burnett) looks a great deal like Good A.J. Yankee fans of course disagree but I believe we call that observation bias.

The Nats Blog wonders if signing a ground ball pitcher like Jason Marquis represents foolhardiness for a team with terrible defense. Maybe they trade Adam Dunn to the AL and upgrade the infield defense mid-season?

Jeff found a radio program that combines Major League Baseball and country music. Past guests include Frank Thomas, Ryan Langerhans, Billy Ray Cyrus, Jason Bay, and personal favorite Matt Stairs. 

The DiamondView series rolls on, and as promised, we will proceed division-by-division in reverse standings order. We covered the Yankees over the weekend; for more details please review that article. This time out, our graphical high vizier Justin Bopp has added the positional average as a transparency to each image. Please provide feedback, as we will continue to improve this series.

Next, we'll cover the second place (and wild card winning) Boston Red Sox. 

1B Kevin Youkilis

The Greek God of Walks was as true to his name this year as ever. He combined his renowned patience with his newfound (as of 2008) power. A two corner player, Youkilis can also pick it at first. His biggest weakness is his base running, but as the lovely transparency shows, he flies past his one-sacker peers. Fun fact: his OPS has never declined from one season to the next during his major league career. 

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Pat Andriola compares this year's non-tender class to those of 2007 and 2008. He is of the opinion that this year's is clearly the best. But is that just hindsight talking?

Pizza Cutter quantifies the catcher "mentoring" effect. Dr. Cutter uses hierarchical linear modeling and you may be surprised to learn that none other than Jason Kendall appears on both of his leader boards. However, he counsels that the effect is small.

The SEC has done the unthinkable: added a clock to baseball. Actually, they've added two clocks. A 20 second timer between pitches (with no one on base) and a 90 second timer between half innings. The average SEC game last year was three hours and twenty minutes in length.

MGL takes his aging show on the road over to THT. It's more digestible this way, but if you already read the PDF, I don't think there's much new here.

Patriot on the advantages and disadvantages of using plate appearances as your denominator. If you find this article interesting then you are a bona fide nerd. I mean that as a high compliment.

I am very pleased to announce our newest series, in which we will give you a peek at the hitting performances from 2009, team-by-team, division-by-division, using Justin Bopp's excellent DiamondView. The honor of going first falls to the World Champion New York Yankees. But first, let me explain what our data expert (Jeff Zimmerman) and our graphics expert (Justin Bopp) have cooked up for you all.

There are four categories per player: defense (UZR/150), speed (EqBRR), power (ISO), and on-base (OBP). Each category is scaled as a percentile of the major league totals (for more details, see the original article linked above). Also included on each chart (in dark tones behind the image for the player) is the positional average at the player's dominant position. Justin then sprinkles his magic graphics dust (I really have no idea how he does it), and the results are like you see here. 

Three caveats before we begin. First, we have excluded the DH because it's abhorrent to the spirit of baseball since there is no meaningful way to rate their defense. Second, the data used include only last year's performance. Finally, catcher defense remains problematic, so each catcher is given the same defensive mark. This is certainly not optimal, and we'll see if we can't come up with a better way to do things going forward. If you have a suggestion, please leave it in the comments.

Without further ado, here are the 2009 New York Yankees.

1B Mark Teixeira

UZR didn't like Teixeira's 2009 season one bit, but Yankee fans tell a different tune. In all likelihood he'll bounce back with the glove next year. That'll make him a nearly all-around player, as you can see his hitting is phenomenal. I think he likes his new home park.

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Texas Leaguer's PITCHf/x tool is something you should add to your bookmarks right now. My jaw dropped at the spray charts. 

Hey, check it out! Erik Manning is writing for the world-wide leader! Just for fun, I'll pick nits and say that even with all the home runs, Bonds was actually better in '04 than he was in '01

Jim Caple on the guys who lobby the HOF voters. Yes Lederer is in there.

Connie Mack + Vin Scully = all of baseball history. They both made their debuts in Washington, oddly enough.

Erik Hahmann turns the tables on Carson Cistulli. Read at least to the answer about the Royals.

Jonah Goldwater says Jason Bay is acting like a drunk guy in a game theory experiment. Or maybe he's acting like the sober guy? In any event, it's bad.

Derek Jeter is the best leadoff hitter in baseball. Let Patriot count the ways... 

When I read Geoff Young, I find myself knowing less after I'm done that I knew when I started. And now he tells me that's the whole point? Oh, brother, now I'm really confused. The punchline:

The downside to this type of skepticism is that people often think you are a complete nutjob. Worse, they may be right.

I remain skeptical.

For your daily dose of contrariness, Greg Fertel thinks Brett Garner is more valuable than Jason Bay, even without considering contracts. Oho! Doth my UZR deceive me?

Forecasters, start your engines. The game is afoot for the title of "most accurate." I'm sticking with my tea leaves, thank you very much.

Though it's Insider-only, Tom Haberstroh uses PITCHf/x to rank the game's nastiest pitches. Top three: Lincecum's change of speed (2009 vintage), Mo's cutter, Sabathia's slider (2008).

The logical fallacy of the day is the "all else equal" fallacy. Regression analyses are particularly susceptible to this type of mistake. Ceteris paribus, this is my favorite logical fallacy.

The big news is the three-team trade that will send Roy Halladay to Philadelphia and Cliff Lee to Seattle. Phuture Phillies has a comprehensive look at the deal.

Pitchers & Poets successfully uses the phrase "psycho-transactional chasm" in connection with the trade. 

It wouldn't be December without Rich Lederer beating the drum for Bert Blyleven's enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. He reminds us that Bert only has three more shots at Cooperstown.

Larry at Wezen-Ball points us to one of the best new reasons to become a SABR member (discounted memberships available for those younger than 30): access to The Sporting News archives dating back to 1886 [sic].

An interesting take on Mark Teixeira's effective use of an uppercut swing, by Jonas Fester. I think the reason guys like Teixeira and Howard get away with it is because of how quick their wrists are.

Wezen-Ball looks back at one of the iconic baseball card series, the Donruss Diamond Kings. I loved my Darren Daulton 1993 Diamond King card as much as a boy can love anything. Find it, and all the others, here.

David Appelman has unveiled wRC+ on Fangraphs. It's lean, it's mean, and it includes baserunning and park adjustments. Here's the career leaderboard. Did you know Mario Mendoza ranks below Eddie Cicotte?

DanUpBaby at VEB has another excellent dramatization, this time about the non-tenders. Let's just say it features Charon, the ferryman of the River Styx.

This BBTF discussion features a link to a fascinating article that drills down into offensive distribution to see the effect on the Pythagorean expectation. You can also find other links on the same topic in the comments at BBTF. Even if the territory has been trod before, I found it interesting nonetheless.

MGL joins the aging fray with a 20 page PDF. He tries many different methods, including correcting for survivor bias by using "phantom" seasons. If you just want the punch line, he comes down on the peak age at 27-28 side.

Tim Dierkes has a list of the most interesting non-tenders. I was entirely unaware that anyone called Mike MacDougal "Mac the Ninth," but I find it very amusing. (Thanks to Jesse Spector.)

The love letters to non-tendered players are streaming in. Here's R.J. on Gabe Gross, WHYGAVS on Matt Capps, McCovey Chronicles on Ryan Garko, and Lookout Landing on Ryan Langerhans. Just read the last paragraph of Jeff's Langerhans post.

Russell's paradox as applied to the speed of Rickey Henderson. We can be certain that no one steals more bases than Rickey.

BONUS: Rich Lederer unveils the Baseball Analysts podcast.

From the "Yeah, and I'd Like a Pony" files, John Lackey has said he would like to receive a deal that exceeds A.J. Burnett's in both yearly salary and length. Last offseason, Burnett signed a five-year, $82.5MM deal with the Yankees, which pays him a cool $16.5MM per year. Exceeding that deal would almost certainly put Lackey into the rarefied $100 million air currently occupied only by C.C. Sabathia, Johan Santana, and Barry Zito. 

Many laughed when they heard what Lackey was asking for. But then I looked at the numbers, and that's when the comparison began to seem apt.

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Maury Brown has the complete list of Rule 5 draftees. Kevin Goldstein adds his (subscriber-only) analysis; he lists Rangers' pick Ben Snyder as most likely to stick in the majors (2-1 odds).

Why an all-decade Pirates team is like absolute zero. Jason Kendall's career has been in a Bose-Einstein condensate state for years, am I right? 

Sky Kalkman is not only not forgotten, he's not even gone! You can still find him on Twitter and he often stirs up good discussion. Case in point: Dave Cameron on the marginal value of a win to a team.

Sean Forman is now a member of the BBWAA. That fact speaks to a deep level of justice in the universe. What percentage of BBWAA members do you figure use BB-Ref on a daily basis? 80%? My guess is that's too low.

It's nearly impossible to tell when Carson Cistulli is being serious. The fact that he fits Charles Simic in with Mike Lupica and Billy Madison suggests we shouldn't worry about it, since he's always entertaining.

Tommy "Blogger on a Mission" Rancel has already done a nice write-up of the Soriano trade, but I wanted to look back at the decision that started the chain of events leading to the trade. The Braves decided to offer arbitration to both of their Type A free agent relievers: Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano. Before either player decided whether or not to accept, the Braves signed free agents Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito for a combined $10 million plus the compensation pick they will surrender to the Red Sox. 

Mike Gonzalez declined the Braves' offer of arbitration, meaning the Braves are likely to recoup at least one draft pick. But Soriano surprised the Braves--and many fans--by accepting the Braves' offer. Some went so far as to say that the decision to offer arbitration to their departing free agents had blown up in their faces. Many see the return the Braves got on Soriano from the Rays (N*SYNC member reliever Jesse Chavez, acquired earlier this offseason from the Pirates for Akinori Iwamura) as evidence that the Braves were over a barrel and had to trade Soriano for pennies on the dollar. 

The relevant question isn't whether the Braves got pennies on the dollar. It's whether they'd rather have pennies or nothing.

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Bill James on what you cannot learn from college baseball statistics. Who cares what you can learn from something? I'd rather know what not to know.

Mop Up Duty takes the (CHONE) projected WAR for all free agent signings, adds some brief analysis, and color codes. A nice breakdown. 

Would Tim Lincecum have won the Cy Young this year if the new (longer) ballot had been used? John Shea says yes.

What does the Curtis Granderson trade have to do with the CBA renegotiations? Ben Kabak asks the $200 million question.

Chris Moore have a Bayesian hot dog with me. Could there be a reason why Tom Glavine always seemed to get the outside call? 

The longest disquisition of athlete handedness I have ever read. The previous comment is intended as a compliment. Curtis Granderson, take heart!

The ink-stained wretch is headed to the MLB Network. Not much to add here except that a young Tommy may have read for Peter Gammons' byline before any other.

Tango points us to Sean Smith, who is reverse engineering the implied $/WAR of each free agent signing this offseason.

Sam Page at Amazin' Avenue tells the story of the year he attended the Winter Meetings. Don't wait until you are sick of reading rumors to read this and you won't be sorry.

Tommy Rancel continues his excellent interview series, and he sits down with Rays' Coordinator of Baseball Operations and Baseball Prospectus alum James Click. Read this interview.

Bloomberg L.P. enters the baseball statistics market. Is this a sign of market saturation? Is the market for statistical analysis growing or is this the sign the bubble may be popping? 

True Blue LA looks back at the Mike Marshall (the pitcher and mechanics guru) for Willie Davis trade. Eric Stephen manages to tell the story almost entirely with baseball cards, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that that is awesome.

MLB Notebook's Jonathan Etkowicz likes Chris Tillman more than Brian Matusz, but sees both as integral parts of the future of starting pitching in B'more. Who do you like more?

Alex Remington of Big League Stew has been on a bit of a roll lately. First, he began offering a series of primers on important statistics--the most recent entry is on FIP. He also offered up ten noteworthy offensive statistics of the 2000s. For the decade, Barry Bonds' OBP was .517. For the decade.

Rangers owner Tom Hicks was a founding partner of a private equity firm. Is it any surprise that he used leveraged buyouts to finance his sports team purchases? Adam Morris at Lone Star Ball says no. The Rangers could be sold as early as next week.

Colin Wyers proves that paying attention in physics class can be awesome. If you didn't think batted ball classification had anything do with astronomy, then you were dearly mistaken.

Andrew Gelman and Eric Seidman in an e-mail exchange about the "pinch hitter" theory. Seidman underscores what editors and relief pitchers have in common.

Ever wonder what Omar Minaya's eBay account would look like? And don't miss the first comment.

I have a new favorite little league baseball team. I bet that statistics have lessened their enjoyment of the game.

Most of the free agents on the market this winter have already been linked via rumor to most of the teams. The Red Sox, for example, have been linked to almost every single free agent of note. But two free agents, Mark DeRosa and Placido Polanco, have been linked to more teams than most. And while Placido Polanco appears likely to return to Philadelphia (at least, that's the rumor of the hour), no shortage of teams has inquired about his availability.

DeRosa and Polanco can both play second or third base. But that's about where the similarities end. So what is it about these two players in particular that has made them hot stove darlings? One factor is certainly the weak nature of this year's free agent class (especially up the middle). But surely that can't be the only reason.

My suspicion is that it has to do with the liquidity of the market at the price points for Polanco and DeRosa. So even though their talents are distributed much differently, they both represent a price/production point that could be both valuable and affordable to most teams.

Let's compare the two players to find out why.

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The latest issue of the journal Bayesian Analysis contains a series of articles on Bayesian modeling of hitting in baseball. It includes a contribution by Phil Birnbaum.

Should instant replay in sports be conducted de novo or with deference to the call on the field? Joseph Blocher makes the analogy to appellate procedure and argues that none of the reasons for deference in appellate review (most notably, that lower courts are better at determining questions of fact) apply to instant replay. Does it matter that, under some systems, the people reviewing the call are the same as the people making the call?

Sky Andrecheck attempts to determine the cost of WAR in each of the compensation regimes. For an interesting discussion, including smart critiques of his method, see the comments at Tango's blog.

Jerry Crasnick has a thorough and interesting article about Marvin Miller's HOF credentials. For the record, I think if we're going to allow people other than players, managers, and GMs, we ought to allow people who did not work directly for teams. Once that move is made, the game is over and Miller deserves enshrinement. But all of that assumes a dispassionate voting mechanism.

Finally, congratulations to Larry at wezen-ball, who is celebrating the anniversary of his site. We wish you many more to come.

Today is arbitration offer day. Dave Cameron has an interesting look at a team's decision to offer arbitration or not. If I had to guess the single biggest mistake teams will make this offseason it will be failing to offer arbitration out of fear that the player will accept. 

Tim Dierkes has a comprehensive guide to free agent arbitration offers. Teams have to make their offers by 12am EST.

Arbitration offers don't get your blood-boiling? Fungoes counsels patience and backs it up with a histogram of historical activity. Since 2000, the single day with the greatest activity has been December 6th. This is probably the best visualization I have seen all week. 

Drew Fairservice gives anything but fair service to the various projection algorithms. He includes a comically bad pick for each; I especially enjoyed the "LOLine" for ZiPS, Jeremy Guthrie.

Maury Brown goes into depth about Tim Lincecum's potential near-certain record-breaking arbitration case. Keep in mind the disaster scenario for the Giants is for Lincecum to win at arbitration, which would set him down the highest possible path for years to come. This should keep them from low-balling him too much.

I missed his birthday on the 29th, but here's a great collection of calls by Vin Scully. Happy 82 to one of the best.

How Jared Diamond explains the usefulness of strikeouts, or what Mark Reynolds and Anna Karenina have in common. I think what you're really seeing here is some other cause which is correlated with strikeouts that is eliminated as players move up the ladder. Just for convenience, I'll call it "batting eye." 

Jim Bouton's triumphant return to the major leagues after eight seasons in the wild. If you haven't read Ball Four then I suggest you add it to your holiday gift list.

Photographer Scott Rovak captures the moment at which Albert Pujols takes the life of an innocent baseball. Whoever titled this iteration of the file did so "albert_mash_blog.jpg" which would make for a killer dance move or album title.

FanGraphs has undertaken fan projections for all players. Since fans are most likely to project totals for the players they know best, I suspect that ordinal rankings may be accurate but that all players will be projected optimistically. But of course this is a cooperative game and so it is subject to assumptions about knowledge of the participants.

There is essentially zero correlation between Game Score consistency (as measured by standard deviation) and won-loss record. Game Score goes on my list of all-time least favorite metrics but Bill Baer provides interesting insight nonetheless.

New title, same great links. No pepper against the fence.

Shawn Hoffman takes a swing at the revenue-sharing kerfuffle. He notes that the whole dispute is an artifact of the secrecy of the teams' actual numbers.

Professor Morong offers at the list of 300 times on base/300 total bases seasons. Only 19 players have done it at least twice in their careers. I learned from this that Paul Waner's nickname was the Big Poison, which is awesome.

Is math a basic human instinct? You wouldn't guess so based on, well, intuition, but some evidence suggests otherwise.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden has a mound visit with Strat-O-Matic inventor Hal Richman and researcher Scott Simkus. They discuss the history and future of Strat as well as the new Negro League card set. 

Tom M. Tango, with a swing a long drive, hits the Grand CSV of Unification. Let your databases interact with impunity.

Carson Cistulli offers yet another "Etherview," which for my money is the best interview series on the web. This time, he's got Dan Szymborski, BBTF maven, ZiPS creator, and classical pianist.

A contest for the ugliest and most useless visualization on the internet. I'm sure the competition will be fierce. What does it say when the two images offered on the contest site are useless but visually satisfying?

Albert Pujols' Hall of Fame Monitor is now 226. Would you take even money that he'd crack the top ten by age 35? You can find the explanation here.

Colin Wyers makes me so happy I think I might SQueaL. See? What I lack in technical expertise I make up for in godawful puns.

Enjoy your holidays, folks.

Do metrics blind our perception? There is perhaps a legitimate risk that you get only what you quantify, but you must ask the question, "how important are the things we cannot quantify?"

Listen to Larry, for he is wise. I bet you didn't think linguistics had anything to do with sabermetrics. I would say something clever but I would distort his provocative intent.

At what price Josh Johnson, or why overpaying in prospects can sometimes be worth it. Featuring Sky Kalkman's Trade Value Calculator.

Andrew Gelman's handy statistical lexicon. Now newly updated!

A different look at UZR projections from Steve Sommer. Maybe it's wrong, since Erik FanShotted it, but if linking to this is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Jonah Keri explains why the Yankees should go after young players. So...you're saying Matt Holliday, right? 

Doug Glanville explains the allure of free agency, or you never knew Arlington could be so seductive.

Dan Turkenkopf peeks his head above ground and declares four more years of HR/FB park factors. "Notorious Hitter's Park" Citizen's Bank Park's four-year average is a scant 94, while the bottom three are Petco (75), Kaufmann (78), and Busch Stadium (84).

Is it time to rethink the traditional fantasy auction? Brian Mills suggests a second-price, sealed bid auction. For my part, you can have my open auction if you're willing to come to my mom's basement and fight me for it.

Colin Wyers has a short guide to setting up a Retrosheet SQL database. He has promised more detailed instructions to follow.

Maury Brown has revenue sharing figures for 2002, 2003, and 2005. How about Les Expos? 

Dave Cameron on the value of depth, or how to minimize risk while adding wins. Of course, there is the difficulty of knowing whether a player whose production falls in the right-tail of the distribution is relying on luck versus skill, which makes the manager's decision difficult.

The Olympia Olympian has an interview with Mariners' head statistical analyst Tony Blengino. He discusses the free agent market and player valuation.

Tommy Rancel has an interview with new Rays' Director of Pro Scouting Matt Arnold. He discusses, among other things, how his economics background influences his scouting.

San Antonio College's The Ranger has an interview with economics professor and BtB alum Cyril Morong. He discusses what got him interested in sabermetrics. You can, of course, find his blog here.

Sky Andrecheck has a column at Sports Illustrated on why the free agent valuation system is an effective tax on Type A free agents. That'll teach those relievers not to rack up meaningless saves.

Today it was announced that Tim Lincecum would join Zack Greinke as this year's second Cy Young award winner. Both had excellent seasons. While Greinke likely has the edge due to Lincecum's more favorable league and park, both exhibited no real weakness. Both struck out more than a batter per inning, both walked fewer than three batters per nine innings, and both allowed fewer than a dozen home runs.

After Greinke's furious start, there was some concern that his superlative season might be lost as he bumped slightly in the middle of the season. Lincecum, by comparison, appeared to be more consistent: he had no string of dominance as convincing as Greinke's April, but neither did he have any periods in which he struggled.

I decided to calculate each pitcher's single-game FIP and xFIP (based on batted ball data from FanGraphs) and run it through the R CLI. I then applied a LOWESS regression to each pitcher's season to give an idea of how each pitcher's fortunes changed from month to month. Here they are, by FIP (click to enlarge):

xFIP comparison below the jump.

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Jeremy Greenhouse's Visual Scouting Report 1.0: Bay vs. Holliday. The heat is on!

A Wrigley mystery contained in a photo. If you'd like to take a crack at it without seeing the answer, the question is: "of which game was this picture taken?"

Was Zack Greinke's 2009 more like Ben Sheets' 2004 or Mark Prior's 2003? Note that both Prior and Sheets gave up more home runs than everyone's new favorite sabermetrician.

J.C. Bradbury compares methods for evaluating player aging. This is his most even-handed blog piece on the subject to date.

The free agency market officially opens tonight at midnight. Who's ready to overpay a weak class?

J.C. Bradbury takes on the world! He argues players peak at age 29-30, then Phil Birnbaum replies, then Bradbury fires back armed with graphs, then Colin Wyers gets into it. Bottom line is that this stuff is hard and any attempt to analyze the data will include assumptions that are open to criticism. Stay tuned.

What is the value of inductive reasoning? Would your answer change if I told you you had only one data point? What about if I told you that outsiders (Football or otherwise) have systematic bias as well?

The Last Expo's 2004 is a living reminder that statistical flukes happen all the time. He somehow scored more runs than Ichiro! in the same year that the latter broke the single season hits record.

How to become a trade-rumormonger, or everything you ever wanted to know about Jon Heyman's job but were afraid to ask, by Matt Swartz. Sadly it is behind BPro's pay wall.

My favorite law review note of all time: "The Common Law Origins of the Infield-Fly Rule." For fun, read the footnotes. 

The art and science of well-timed acquisitions and trades. Why everyone looks like a genius in hindsight and true value is tough to find.

Tommy Rancel interviewed Andrew Friedman. He discusses the fact that he does not have a contract with the Rays, picking late in the draft, and Carl Crawford.

Michael Jong has disaggregated Tango's Fans Scouting Report and moved Dan Uggla around the diamond. He would likely be a few runs below average at both 3B and LF.

Albert Pujols is really good, even in Korea. Here's an excerpt:

Albert Pujols에 대해서는 별다른 설명이 필요하지 않을 것이다. 다만.. 초인적인 공격 스탯 외에도 주목할 부분은 바로 16 SB/4 CS이다. Albert Pujols가 팀내 도루 1위라니...!!! 그것도 80%의 성공률로..!!! 그는 그다지 발이 빠른 편은 아니지만... 메이저리그에서 아마도 가장 aggressive한 주자일 것이다. 때로는 지나치게 공격적으로 베이스러닝을 하다가 홈에서 아웃당하는 경우가 있긴 하지만... 상대의 허를 찌르는 도루 솜씨는 정말 훌륭하다. [emphasis in original]

Aggressive indeed.

Time to bust out your Kirt Manwaring Rated Rookie cards, kids. It's that time of year!

Rookie of the Year is a bit of a strange award. It's given, I presume, to the rookie-eligible player who had the most valuable season in each league. It has good historical pedigree, as Jackie Robinson won the inaugural award in 1947 (when there was only one RoY for both leagues). Nevertheless, it produces some odd results and gives a lot of weight to the perception of the "sophomore slump."

Consider this: after you adjust for the development curve and the salutary effects of experience, would you expect a random player chosen from the pool of first year players to be better than a random player chosen from the pool of ten year players?

Your first instinct might be to say that it shouldn't matter; after all, if we're adjusting for age then the average player is the average player. Except, as in the classic Monty Hall problem, my setup makes the second choice more attractive by providing the chooser with additional information. In this case, the ten year player has survived the ruthless selection that occurs at the major league level. As a result, a Good Bayesian should update his priors and select the veteran.

So what, you say. It doesn't matter that the award is given to an overall less deserving set of players. The point is to recognize the best newcomer to the league!

Well, I'm not sure that makes sense either.

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