SB Nation User Blog: rubin sierra

Beane's approval rating--POLL

rubin sierra — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:54:18 -0000

So, everybody has an opinion about Billy Beane. It’s not that he’s under more scrutiny than his peers--that distinction belongs to the larger-market GMs. Rather, because of a certain best-selling book which must not be named (not again), Billy has come to stand for all sorts of things--like the ideas that walks are under-valued and steals are over-valued--or at least used to be. More than anything, though, I think Billy came to stand for the idea that a smart general manager can make up for financial disadvantages. It was particularly bold for him to allow himself to stand for that idea, and for those who agreed with it, he became celebrated--even labeled by some as a genius. Then there were those who disagreed--they still write the “fIRe BeAnE hE sUCKs aNd sHouLD Go JOIn hiS PAl MAchO,” fAnPOsts on this site.

So what else is new? This argument has been ongoing since before AN launched, and we have all read it 100 times. But amidst the volume of that argument (because the disagreement between the two sides is so passionate), I don’t think we’ve ever had a very clear gauge of, well, how many people are on each side? In other words, the argument itself has obscured the issue of who might be winning the argument, i.e., which side has had more converts. What I’m suggesting is a CNN Gallup poll tracking Beane’s approval rating, and now that I mention it, I can’t believe that this doesn’t already exist. After all, every debate over GM performance is irrelevant, except to the extent that it changes the hearts and minds of fans.

Of course, they conduct polls for politicians and not for team executives because the former are CHOSEN based on a popular vote. I’m not advocating that team executives should be chosen this way; I’m only a fan of democracy in certain contexts--I hate the fan vote for the All-Star starters, for example. But at the same time, as we all know, popularity is important--even for dictators. You want to have the people on your side, and it would be interesting to know to what extent, over the last five years, people have been on Beane’s side--it would be interesting to have this kind of data for every GM. I’ll be somewhat interested in knowing what Beane’s approval rating is right now (thus the poll below), but it will be more instructive to see that rating fluctuate over time. I suspect, for example, that Beane’s rating went down after most of his recent trades--Bradley, Loaiza, Haren, Swisher, Harden and Blanton. In between Swisher and Harden, I bet it went up sharply during the A’s surprising first half of this season, just as I bet it fell after the Hudson-Mulder trades and then rebounded sharply when the young A’s got surprisingly good in June of 2005. Of course, absent hard data, this is all meaningless speculation.

So here’s a start--the first Beane Approval Rating poll. I think this ought to be done every so often --once a month, maybe? Twice a year? Maybe somebody in admin wants to take the idea and run with it; I know you might have a hard time believing this, but I’m not paid for these contributions of mine to AN, and so if you want an official poll, well, you get what you pay for. Now, allow to me stop typing before I say anything more that might unduly influence the vote. Go A’s.

Poll

Do you approve of Billy Beane's job performance as general manager?

Yes

250 votes

No

67 votes

317 votes | Poll has closed

DLD 3-3-33 ... or something

rubin sierra — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:52:39 -0000

Alas, the Fanpost editor has stymied all of our top DLD talents. With them on a work stoppage, amateurs like myself step into the void. Alas ...

Bruce Jenkins wrote a column mostly from the Giants' perspective, after the A's 23-5 win on Friday. After attempting to soothe Giants fans' fears by saying they shouldn't give up on Zito yet, he went on to address the general bland-ness of Bay Area managers.

A good way to fall asleep - and I mean completely gone, complete with snoring and drooling - is to listen to Bruce Bochy or Bob Geren, respective managers of the Giants and A's. Don't get me wrong; they're terrific guys. They're just not too lively, and each is presiding over a deathly quiet camp

But boring ain't all bad, Jenkins points out. He asks if you would prefer the camp of Manny Acta's Washington Nationals, whose camp features a guy with an infamous reputation (Elijah Dukes), the sibling of another such infamous guy (Dmitri Young), another guy whose reputation might be headed in that direction (Lastings Milledge) and two guys with all sorts of steroids taint on their reps (Bret Boone and Paul LoDuca). (Characterizations are Jenkins', paraphrased)

The KC Star's Joe Posnanski is no sabermatrician, but he does like to tinker with stats occasionally. In the most two recent entries on his blog, he questions whether teams need a certain number of star players to win, or whether they can cobble together pennants by amassing high quantites of merely above-average players. The funnest part of the column is where he determines who all the star players were in the American League last year.

Boston 8 (Varitek, Youkilis, Pedroia, Lowell, Manny, Ortiz, Beckett, Schilling).
New York 7 (Posada, Cano, Jeter, A-Rod, Matsui, Abreu, Wang).
Cleveland 7 (Martinez, Garko, Peralta, Sizemore, Hafner, Carmona, Sabathia).
Anaheim 6 (Kotchman, Figgins, Anderson, Vlady, Lackey, Escobar)
Detroit 6 (Polanco, Guillen, Granderson, Ordonez, Sheffield, Verlander).
Baltimore 5 (Roberts, Markakis, Tejada, Bedard, Guthrie)
Seattle 4 (Beltre, Ibanez, Suzuki, Guillen).
Minnesota 4 (Mauer, Morneau, Hunter, Santana).
Toronto: 4 (Glaus, Rios, Thomas, Halladay … Burnett just missed).
Tampa Bay 4 (Pena, Crawford, Upton, Kazmir)
Chicago 3 (Thome, Vazquez, Buehrle).
Oakland 2 (Haren, Swisher).
Kansas City 2 (Meche, Bannister)
Texas 1 (Young)

Oh well.

Also, pimping Ray Ratto like I always do: on stadiums selling out their naming rights. The latest is that Wrigley might do so.

Dump away.

Belated weekend link dump: I like writing

rubin sierra — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:09:06 -0000

So I'm Rubin Sierra, but those of you who know me probably know me as "that guy who's always talking about how much he likes Ray Ratto." But I don't just like Ray Ratto; I like sportswriting in general, and I'm rather opinionated about what I like. While I don't generally agree with AN as to what constitutes good sportswriting (see above), the opinions of AN have expanded the number of columnists I read a bit. Years ago, somebody in AN turned me on to ESPN's Bill Simmons, who I've since read pretty regularly, even if he is a bit long-winded and a bit too much of a frat-boy. More recently, I've gotten hip to the stylings of The Kansas City Star's Joe Posnanski. I like.

And then, most recently, I got hip to the writings of Chuck Klosterman. Although Klosterman is, for the most part, not a sportswriter, although he does write the occasional sports piece for ESPN's Page 2. But he's a good writer, and as I was pouring through his archives I came across this piece about Harry Potter, which I enjoyed especially after having read this long AN thread about HP the day before. Klosterman's take on the HP phenomen:

The bookish kids reading Harry Potter novels may not go on to control the world, but they will almost certainly go on to control the mass media. In fifteen years, they will be publishing books and directing films and writing broad jokes for unfunny situation comedies that will undoubtedly be downloaded directly into our brains. And like all generations of artists, they will traffic in their own nostalgia. They will use their shared knowledge and experiences as the foundation for discourse. So I wonder: Because I don't understand Harry Potter, am I doomed to misunderstand everything else?

So you see, AN, how your patience with me has allowed my horizons to expand beyond Ray Ratto. Tis a great joy. Oh and hell, here's the latest from Ratto. Sifting through the snark, I deduce that its main point is to remind us that the A's are collecting revenue-sharing money this year, while the Giants are not. Almost enough to make you want to start a "Zito" chant.
One more link: want to commit a CGV? This is the thread to do it in! Amazingly still not deleted as of 1 p.m. Sunday, some 14 hours after it was started.

Ratto wonders if Swisher trade means Bonds IS coming

rubin sierra — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:41:32 -0000

So somewhere in the 609-comment Swisher thread, there's a link to a strangely-abbreviated Ray Ratto column. However, while AN did get the chance to weigh in on RR's latest bold prediction, I think we all missed Ratto's latest ponderous musings: Until now.

This is about how Billy Beane has traded his way into needing a drawing card just to make the 90 losses seem more palatable, and how his ongoing fascination with Bonds may just get the better of him at last.

So, feel free to use this thread to discuss the desirability of Bonds. Or hell, use it as a link dump, since that's what it was in its original rendition, which went more or less as follows:

Presumably because he's jealous of his fellow snark-peddler's higher salary, monkeyball linked to the column in manner that I'd say was sarcastically dismissive of the author.

Ray Ratto's legions of fans were outraged.

Ratto's SF Gate column essentially exists only to make a prediction similar to Ratto's infamous 63-win prediction of 2004--probably just to get a rise out of AN.

However, his CBS Sportsline column flew right under the radar here: it is a discussion of how the Swisher trade might make a Bonds acquisition more likely.

Yes, Ratto did argue essentially the opposite one month ago. So, you know, off with his head. Down with Ratto! Huzzah!

Poll

Bonds: want him or not

Want him

73 votes

Don't want him

128 votes

201 votes | Poll has closed

The Kevin Thompson DLD, 10/15

rubin sierra — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:15:42 -0000

First-time dumper, long-time lurker.

This dump is in honor of the great Kevin Thompson, who the Pirates stole away from us on this sad, sad Monday.

I have a fond memory of Kevin Thompson. I was at the A's game a couple of weeks ago, the last game of the year, when I heard the PA announcer announce the number-nine hitter for the green-and-gold: Kevin Thompson.

"Who's Kevin Thompson?" I asked.

Elsewhere, the Onion reveals some things you didn't know about ESPN's John Clayton and the Red Sux's Curt Schilling.

Busy college football weekend, I didn't see any of the games, but it sounds like they were all good ones. Cal San Jose St. Stanford LSU

Apparently a half an hour till the playoffs start. So dump fast!

Shake Yo Fist at the Media

rubin sierra — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 01:26:27 -0000

Blaming the Media is one of our favorite pasttimes, right up there with whining about the other team's lack of class and Blaming the Umpires. But sometimes, the media earns its bad reputation. Like today.

I'm speaking of the team effort by John Shea and Susan Slusser in today's Chronicle. Already discussed on this site deep down in the 220-comment "Here we go" diary and also the meat of the "Some players unhappy with Geren" diary, this was the Chronicle's response to the Oakland Tribune's Carl Stewardtalks-to-Milton-Bradley piece from the previous day.

Now, Steward broke the big story here, but his conduct was far less reprehensible than that of his SF counterparts. He caught up with an ex-Athletic who we hadn't heard from since his mysterious DFA. That Milton continues being Milton is no surprise to anybody, but that's an argument for GMs not to sign him; not for reporters not to interview him. He's a good player, and the more he hits .370, the more he's going to get interviewed.. Steward did the interview, and wrote it up. If anything, he probably took too many pains to avoid offending Milt in the way he wrote it up. Nevertheless ...

The really atrocious story was the one in the Chronicle, which as others here have noted had trying-to-keep-up-with-the-Stewards written all over it. Which gets right to the root of the problem. A day late and with nothing to say, the Chron forged ahead, conducting its own idiotic interview of MB, which must have gone something like, "Uhh, could you just say to me on the phone what you just told Carl yesterday?". And then, the Chron went to its off-the-record source inside the A's clubhouse to bury the on-field manager.

When did it get those player comments? Well, worst-case scenario, it got them yesterday after Steward's piece came out. Worst-case because that reflects this mentality: "My competitor ran an article that made the A's look bad, so now I have to go and do the same thing. I'm going to call some players now and go fishing for bad stuff about the manager." Fishing for the type of quote you want as a reporter is bad enough, but fishing for trouble-making quotes is even worse.

So let's give Sluss-n-Shea the benefit of the doubt--the quotes were not the product of fishing, they came from earlier this season, and our would-be journalists just decided to use them now. Even then, the use of an off-the-record source here is highly questionable. Without anybody willing to cop to having said them, these complaints don't rise to the level of being newsworthy.

The A's have no doubt been too secretive for too long. At the same time, it's always seemed to me that Slusser has been complicit in that secrecy. I'm no insider--all I know is that her writing has always sounded to me like the company line. That the Chron decided to go the way it did today possibly reflects some acknowledgement of that ongoing inadequacy in its A's coverage.

The result, however, was a disater--a bunch of sound and fury when none was really called for. The Chron needed to run the pertinent quotes from the Trib piece in its own notes, and credit the Tribune in doing so. "bla bla bla" MB told the Tribune, it would have said. The placement in the notes on page 5 would have reflected the low credibility every reasonable person puts in whatever comes out of Bradley's mouth.

Instead, we get the type of rumor-mongering that gives all reporters a bad name--the kind of crap that makes folks like Beane secretive and distrustful of the media in the first place. Needless to say, we deserve better.

Dear Zito-haters,

rubin sierra — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:00:33 -0000

<vent>
Go ahead and bash Zito for his control issues. Dude walks too many people. Bash him for falling short of his potential: After his Cy Young 2002, I think we all expected better than the 2003-06 that he delivered. So bash him for peaking too early in his career.

But for God's sake, stop bashing him for his decision to sign with the Giants.

Oh, hell, keep doing it if it makes you feel better about yourself. After all, this guy had a major life decision to make, one in which millions of dollars hung in the balance, one that would decide where he'd spend the next 5-7 years of his life--and whose interests did he look out for? His own!? How dare he!?

It was suggested elsewhere on this website that Zito could have conceivably taken half of the $126 milliion the Giants gave him to return to the A's. It was stated that "if I'm truly going to admire one of these athletes as an individual beyond the game, it's going to take action like" that.

Well how about this: thank God for Zito and those that know him that he has his priorities straight, and that he's more concerned with his own well-being than he is with earning the admiration of fans whom he doesn't know from Adam Piatt.

Guys like Zito have hit the lottery by having a major talent in a major sport, and they are being paid as lottery-winners. And they have a chance to use that money as we all dream we would if we won the lottery--to make themselves and their families set for life, to never have to worry about money again. If they're generous, to give some of it to charity.

And a drawback of all this is that they are going to have to live the rest of their lives with people wanting to take some of that money from them--people who say 'after all, you don't really need it, you have so much.' People will come to them with a million causes they should support, a million investment opportunities they should get involved in, a million ideas about what they should do with their money.

And that's what I'm hearing when I hear some of you questioning Zito's decision to take the biggest contract offered him: You are complaining that he didn't donate to your cause, one of the most ludicrous causes I've ever heard of: it's the "take less money to play for my favorite team, because it's the team you played with last year" cause.

Or the even-more-ridiculous, "take less money to play with a team that I think has a better chance of winning a championship" cause. Never mind that your opinion of which team has the better chance of winning a championship is as worthless as Harold Reynolds'. How is it admirable to opt to play for a front-runner? If the Yankees and the Royals were the main bidders for Zito, explain to me how admirable it would be for Zito to take less to play for the Yankees. In truth, players in general do prefer to play for good teams over bad ones, but the size of the discount they will give good teams is a sign not of nobility but of a different KIND of selfishness.

Now, if Zito were to agree to donate his salary to these causes of yours, where would the money go to? Ahh, I know--to needy baseball executives, who would get to pay players less and pocket the extra money for themselves.

Speaking of which (and by now I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, since I've probably already offended or bored anyone who disagrees with me and they've quit reading): how in the world can you bash Zito for caring more about the almighty dollar than he does about pursuing championships, and fail to bash A's management in the same breath on the same score?

In other words, if Zito can fall under the microscope for putting profit ahead of your personal hopes for the A's or your personal idea of what his legacy as a baseball player will be, then how can A's management not fall under that same judgement? Aren't they choosing to stay profitable as a business at the expense of keeping talent on the team? At the expense of the legacy of the A's? Hell yes they are. And I would submit that there's nothing wrong with that.

But as long as you're getting all judgemental, you might as well say that if you're going to truly admire an owner as an individual beyond the game, you would expect him to run the organization at a loss, Eddie D style, or Wally Haas style. I don't know about you, but I'm under the impression that the owners are richer than the players, so who should really be giving up money here, if anybody should?

In conclusion, if I'm really going to admire any of you beyond this website, it's going to take an action like this: send me an e-mail with your credit card number in it and written permission for me to use it as I see fit. Or you could send me an e-mail pleading poverty, but making a written promise to send me some money the minute you get rich.

Oh crap, I've gone on forever, and I probably pretty-much embodied the kind of pompousness that I was trying to attack. But if there's a better way to spend a Friday night, I can't imagine what that would be.

Have a good weekend.</vent>

Poetic Ode to Monkeyball

rubin sierra — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:59:38 -0000

I didn't realize the song I was covering (Wonderwall, Oasis--here's 30 seconds worth of the sound, so you can get it stuck in your head like it was in '98) was so short; but then, I'm glad it is, because I've got to go to sleep. Feel free to add more verses.

Kotsay is gonna be the A
That is gonna bat number two,
And now, saint's havin' a cow
Saying Macha you don't have a clue
I don't believe that Stomper isn't
really FSU. <tears oblique> ooooowwww

Drumbeat, in the bleachers high street
Close enough to hear M-Bradley shout.
Swish-er went to visit Jennifer
He's in the basement and he can't get out.
Blez doesn't believe we're gonna need
A transcription of that interview ... <tears oblique> ooooowwwww

And all the monkeys' blindfolds--well, they're blinding
And still they type out insights and they're rhyming
There are many posts that I
Would like to reply to
But I don't know how

Bobby Crosbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Not funnier than Bill Cosbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
But snerk-iest of allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Is our monkeyballllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Full lyrics of wonderwall here. As you can see, the above verses simply repeat in various orders; although like I suggested before, perhaps some more verses are called for. Just not tonight.

Ambien Nation--113/162nds Report Card--Without Grades

rubin sierra — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 10:54:47 -0000

Sort of a hippy/progressive report card, like they used to have (and maybe still do have) at Santa Cruz. Also, the reports will be not so much evaluations but rather little discoveries I make when checking each player's on-line profile. Or litle snerky remarks I've been wanting to "report" about each player.

position players
Jason Kendall: After an 0-for on Tuesday, Kendall's .271 average is exactly what it was at the end of 2005.
Mark Kotsay: clubhouse veteran is still young enough to have started his career with the expansion Marlins.
Milton Bradley: I still can't believe he hit a walkoff 3-run jack against B.J. Ryan on AN Day. As long as we can keep him on the field, this guy is definitely a "Gamer".
Frank Thomas: I can't stop dreading watching him walk in the offseason.
Eric Chavez: Our lovable head case.
Jay Payton: Our Kotsay Lite is having an up-year, compensating for Kotsay's down-year.
Nick Swisher: Seems to have regressed to last year's mean. What? What did I say?
Bobby Crosby: Has stolen 8 bases in 9 attempts. <dodges negativity>
Mark Ellis: Continues to be the team's most unicorn-friendly player.
Marco Scutaro: Is approaching Mike Gallego-like status in terms of impressively staying in or near the everyday lineup despite all expectations to the contrary.
Antonio Perez: A lovable underdog in a different sense than Scutaro--in the sense that anybody hitting under .100 in August is a lovable underdog.
Dan Johnson: Would replace Perez on major-league roster if not for some rule about options.
Bobby Kielty: Continues to stubbornly prevent the 2003 Lilly-for-Kielty deal from being characterized as a total disaster.
Adam Melhuse: Is two years older than Kendall.

pitchers
Barry Zito: It's not his choice of agents that makes me sure he's gone; it's Beane's comment that the team will have to operate "the same way it has" until some stadium dollars have materialized.
Dan Haren: Consistently on the verge of great.
Joe Blanton: Consistently on the verge of good.
Esteban Loaiza: Consistently mediocre, no verge about it.
Rich Harden: The bitterest pill of 2006.
Kirk Sarloos: Like Melhuse, always a guy the A's go to reluctantly.
Shane Komine: Not the savior he initially appeared to be. But still, potentially, pretty good.
Brad Halsey: Making us forget Juan Cruz.
Chad Gaudin: Making us forget the minor leaguer(s) and/or cash considerations and/or draft picks we traded for him. Making us forget how the hell we ever got him.
Joe Kennedy: On the DL.
Ron Flores: Trying to make us forget Joe Kennedy.
Jay Witasick: Last pitched June 19 in Colorado. Last posted July 27th in "Calling the ladies of AN."
Kiko Calero: Very solid. In 2003, he was a 28-year-old rookie.
Justin Duchscherer: Too good to have only pitched 35 innings this year.
Huston Street: Not lights out, but lights dimmed significantly, making a rally much more difficult to start.

Poll

What grade do you give the A's?

The A's are creative

5 votes

The A's can focus when they're interested in the game.

3 votes

The A's help me see the world in different ways.

6 votes

The A's are emerging as spellers.

6 votes

The A's need to apply themselves more.

5 votes

25 votes | Poll has closed

Ambien Nation--Nothing is as it seems

rubin sierra — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 11:46:50 -0000

Things are not what they appear; not always, anyway. This would appear to many, for example, to be a dreary-dull time in the sports calendar, a time during which PTI leads with stories on the Buick Open, on Floyd Landis, and on NFL preseason. But we A's fans know it as the best time of the year: Fire season, if you will, when our green-and-gold enigmas (they're great; no wait, they suck, time to lower expectations) ignite their secret win-win-win machines.

Just as things are not as they seem in the sports world, so it is on AN. On first glance, nothing remarkable about August 7 on AN. But upon further review--helluva day, folks.

And to try the analogy one more time: Surface appearance would tell you that the diary Wow. by AsFoLife would have little in common with the diary A Defense of Reason and Sanity by oaktoon. And this time on closer examination, there are plenty more differences. But there is also one profound similarity: unintentional comedy.

The Wow. diary is actually in response to the Defense diary, and of course it should have just been a comment. Lots of diaries are posted like this every day, 0-5 comments are posted, and then they are universally forgotten. Unless the thread gets hijacked, as this one did. With a twist. The highjacking started with WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! which led routinely to the posting of a link by bbg: www.deathclock.com. Pretty cool link. But then came this retort, by eshock: "WTF is wrong with you people TASTELESS COMMENTS. I'm disgusted. Mocking a 10 year old's horrible painful death."

I think I'm going to make that comment, or part of it, my sig.

Anyway, that deathclock alone made the Wow. diary worth visiting. I found out that I'm going to die on 2/17/29, at the relatively young age of 51. If that's true, I suppose I should get my priorities straight and try to enjoy every minute, yada yada yada. But I couldn't stop myself from going ahead and reading through oaktoon's diary and the comments below--even though the diary title itself was more-than-humorous enough.

I must confess, I enjoyed the thread as well. I'm pretty conflict-avoidant myself (I'm kind of a wuss), but I really enjoy watching other people argue. It's like, during those times when they're fighting, people are laid bare. Fighting cuts through the bullshit; it charges the air with electricity.

Of course, I'm not the only one. The diary attracted a crowd, didn't it? Anyway, from the crowd, and in the ring, many comments were made. I thought I'd pick out a few winners and ask you the username to vote on which you liked best ... A Comment of the Day award for this special, special day.

I'd like to include as one of the choices a rather long-ass comment by Tony which I will merely refer to in the poll as "Tony's 'shit.' comment. Happily, included in this link is the discussion it provoked, which of course concerns in large part the movie "Red Dawn." Dawn, which is about 45 minutes away. G'night!

Poll

Quote of the Day

"WTF is wrong with you people TASTELESS COMMENTS. I'm disgusted. Mocking a 10 year old's horrible painful death." by eshock

4 votes

"Also, are you trying to win the 'Most Ironic Diary Title Ever' award? :-)" by jeepers

12 votes

"What Is Wonderful About This Discussion is the coexistence of learned intellectual discussion (complete with big words) with the most goofy badinage I've ever had the pleasure (and I mean that) to read. Wow! This is great--It's Einstein meets Pink

3 votes

"I get nervous because I might set off the bomb that is oaktoon's sensitivity. I applaud his passion though and his posts and diaries are often filled with 'truthiness'. And thats the W0rd." by WhiteElephantGuy

2 votes

Tony's 'shit.' comment (for text, see link in diary)

5 votes

"Nice win bitches!" by Tony

13 votes

39 votes | Poll has closed