Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Great Moments in Omertà


Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! on the damn nigh unfathomable loyalty of one Greg Anderson:

No matter what you think of Bonds, Anderson or anyone purposefully thwarting the nation’s rule of law, the level of loyalty here is something to behold. Judge Illston said last week that she can’t find a precedent “where someone was imprisoned for a year during grand jury proceedings and then called to trial and jailed again.”

Every other identified steroid dealer in baseball – Kirk Radomski, Brian McNamee, etc. – quickly made deals with prosecutors, trading information for leniency.

Anderson, on the other hand, has served time not as punishment for something he did, but for something he wouldn’t do, in this case talk. Most folks try to avoid a punishment they deserve. Anderson had already done the time for his crime and double jeopardy laws protect him from further prosecution.

He’s volunteered his freedom to protect Bonds.

Contrary to an impression you may get from time to time, I do not think that Barry Bonds is a martyr and I do not think that Greg Anderson is a hero. Or vice versa. One can't help but be impressed, however, -- in the most judgment-free fashion -- with Bonds' discipline and Anderson's resolve. We haven't seen them on 60 Minutes and, with the exception of some third hand accounts, we haven't heard much in terms of stress and strife from Bonds' camp. Roger Clemens decided not to go gentle into that goodnight. Bonds and his people have certainly chosen a different tack. As a lawyer who occasionally represents strong-willed clients, I offer my compliments to Bonds and his legal team.

Of course the elephant in the room is this:

Bonds, who made nearly $200 million in salary playing baseball, could agree to take care of Anderson and his family for his loyalty. It’s what the Corleones did for Frank Pentangeli when he played dumb at that congressional hearing.

Doing so is legal. While perceived hush money for a convicted felon might hurt Bonds in the court of public opinion, that’s not the concern anymore.

Well, sorta. If Anderson and Bonds have never spoken about any of this and later, after the trial is over and Bonds is out of legal jeopardy, Bonds gratuitously decided to set Anderson up for life, sure, there's nothing wrong with that. The key inquiry, however, -- and one which I'm sure someone has been assigned to at least passively monitor in the U.S. Attorneys' Office -- is whether anything of value was promised or provided Anderson before now, because that would certainly not be legal. That would be obstruction of justice and bribery of a potential witnesses and all manner of other nasty stuff.

Did it happen? Lots of people have an opinion on this, but that's all it is. The truth is we'd probably never know even if it had. Because no matter what else you can say about Bonds and Anderson, you certainly have to say that they are about as cool a couple of customers as you're ever likely to see.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:35pm (4) Comments

Too Low for Zero


With the way things have been going for the Nats lately, they'd kill for even mediocre play this season. Well, for at least one day this summer, mediocre playing is exactly what will be on display in Nationals' Park.

(thanks to Charles K. for the heads up)
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:05pm (5) Comments

If only anyone had any money to invest . . .


Not every market is FUBAR:

The stock market is tanking, while real estate values show no signs of coming back any time soon. Ten-year Treasuries are yielding less than 3% interest, as are three-year certificates of deposit.

So where to park your money? Try sports collectibles. Even as a rough economy has shot a soft underbelly into parts of memorabilia world, the steady flow of quality pieces making their way into the market has most prices standing firm.

"Overall, prices are holding their own or appreciating steadily," says Leila Dunbar, a former Sotheby's senior vice president who now runs her own appraisal and consulting business for sports and entertainment collectibles. No one is saying that about any other asset class right now.

Can't wait for the baseball-backed securities markets to get humming, then we'll all be rich! Forever!

(Thanks to Pete Toms for the link)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:28pm (3) Comments

Attendance Clauses


Darren Rovell has a piece about Ken Griffey's new contract containing a clause that gives him a substantial bonus for an unspecfied attendance bump in Seattle this year. More interesting was the rundown of past clauses:

In 1997, the St. Louis Cardinals drew 2.63 million fans. So when they signed Mark McGwire, they agreed to give him $1 per for each fan that entered Busch Stadium beyond 2.75 million. McGwire earned $445,691 extra when the home run race of 1998 brought in a then team record 3.19 million fans that season.

In 2002, Kenny Lofton had an attendance clause in his contract that stated that if the White Sox went above a certain attendance number, he'd earn $1.4 million. Lofton was later traded to the Giants and it was eventually negated.

In 2004, Roger Clemens took a hometown discount and agreed to a $5 million deal with the Houston Astros that included attendance incentives. He reportedly earned $3 million from the attendance bump that year.

It's always helpful to remember that the scariest of the steroid bogeymen put so many butts in the seats that their teams saw fit to pay them millions on top of their already generous salaries for the effort. It wasn't just ballplayers who benefitted from the steroid era, folks. Teams got rich, interest was stoked, and, I suspect anyway, newspapers were sold. Any lamentation of the era that doesn't recognize that it is not worthy of serious consideration.

What's the deal with Kenny Lofton's clause? Has anyone ever thought of him as a gate attraction? Isn't such a clause in his contract akin to John Van Benschoten getting a Cy Young bonus or Otis Nixon getting one for being named People's Sexiest Man Alive? Have you ever dropped what you're doing to go to a game because Kenny Lofton was involved? Heck, he's played for just about every team by now, so I suspect everyone who has ever wanted to see Lofton play already has.

And this isn't even the first strange Kenny Lofton sighting for me this week. In the lobby of the state office tower in which I work is a display of high schoolers' artwork honoring Black History Month. Among the paintings and sketches are portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr., depictions of the March on Selma, and many other important figures and inspiring moments in Black history. Included among them -- for reasons that are totally unclear -- is a pencil sketch of Kenny Lofton. For a minute I thought it was just a poor effort at Jackie Robinson, but nope, it's even labeled "Kenny Lofton." Far be it from me to pass judgment on who is and who isn't an important figure in Black history, but I suspect that not many who are experts in the field include him in the pantheon.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:29pm (2) Comments

Comment of the Day


This from Beanster, in the Alyssa Milano thead:

I don’t believe the Alyssa Effect has received sufficient attention by the statistical community. I took a closer look at the data based on dating information provided by this site.

While only 3 of her 26 documented relationships are major league starting pitchers, I think the results are interesting and reasonably predictive in the event she reneges on her 2008 pledge to swear off dating baseball players.

Exhibit A: Carl Pavano (2003)
During their 2003 relationship, Pavano made 33 starts and posting 12 wins with a 4.30 ERA (33/12/4.30). In 2004 after their breakup he improved dramatically to (31/18/3.00). However this euphoria proved short lived, as Yankee fans can attest, and he regressed in 2005 to (17/4/4.77).

Exhibit B: Barry Zito (2004-05)
Zito’s dating numbers averaged (34.5/12.5/4.53), remarkably similar to Pavano’s. After the breakup he also improved in 2006 to (34/16/3.83), nearly as big an improvement as Pavano’s. What happened the year after? You guessed it, regression to (33/11/4.53).

Exhibit C: Brad Penny (2006)
Penny’s dating year of 2006 was also an unspectacular (29/7/3.90). He then experienced what I am now terming the Milano Bounce with a nice (33/16/4.33) and continued this into 2008 with a (33/16/3.03). Because we are not using precise dates on the relationship, the numbers are only estimates but it appears Brad remained mentally strong for a longer period before succumbing to the inevitable Milano Meltdown with a 2009 line of (19/6/6.27).

Conclusions:
For GM’s and fantasy enthusiasts, the conclusions from a small but consistent sample size are: (1) expect mediocrity during the dating period, possibly related to distractions brought on by the newly smitten couple, (2) buy low as soon as a breakup is announced to take advantage of the Milano Bounce, and (3) sell high after one season to be safe before the predictable Milano Meltdown sets in.

Statistics don't lie, my friends. And my readers -- thankfully -- don't have lives.


Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:20am (13) Comments

MoneyLaw


This has only the vaguest of baseball connections -- the oh-so-common Moneyball analogy -- but I know a lot of lawyers read this blog, so I offer it up anyway:

When asked whether his firm might reduce prices in light of the meltdown, Linklaters senior partner David Cheyne replied, "[Clients] might have doubts as to whether a firm is really able to deliver quality at a suicide rate."

I'm sure Mr. Cheyne is a supremely capable person, and perhaps he was misquoted, but he appears to be saying: quality = cost.

So can Linklaters deliver quality at $900/hour, but not at $700? Does that even begin to make any sense? Of course, if Linklaters can find enough clients who will buy their hours at $900 instead of $700, they will sell their hours for $900--that's how markets set prices. But what does that have to do with quality? If clients will only agree to buy hours at $700, will the firm's lawyers go on a quality sit-down strike? The banks that lost nearly a trillion dollars, were they using the $700 lawyers; and did the banks that avoided losses use the $900 lawyers?
Or does equating quality with cost just obscure our understanding of quality? . . .

. . . In nearly every field our understanding of quality has moved from capabilities to outcomes, from generalities to specifics, from one-shot to systemic, from lore to metrics, from entitlement to performance. As in so many other areas, law is behind this evolution, and now must catch up.

Baseball sometimes gets criticized for being hopelessly behind the times when it comes to business efficiency -- there's a reason why a business writer like Lewis was able to see what was going on in baseball before most people in baseball did -- but it has nothin' on the private practice of law. Thankfully for consumers of legal services, there are some Billy Beanes out there trying to exploit the inefficiencies.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:36am (10) Comments

Alyssa Milano writes


Here's something to add to your reading list:

Alyssa Milano is in love; she has been for some time. But the object of her affection isn't the subject of tabloid gossip or an actor; in fact, it isn't even a guy. It's a game, a game of nine innings that uses a ball made of leather and cork. A game called baseball.

Now in Safe at Home, Alyssa Milano, the mind behind the bestselling sports-clothing line Touch, tells the story about her lifelong obsession with baseball, revealing what the game has meant to her and why everyone should take a chance on nine innings. Like it does for so many of us, Alyssa's baseball story begins with a father. A native Brooklynite who scorned the Dodgers for abandoning the city he loved, her father was reunited with the team when he and his young daughter moved out west for a fledging TV show called Who's the Boss. It was then that Alyssa learned one of the fundamental truths of the game: No matter where you are, no matter how old you are, baseball connects you to your past.

If I'm counsel for the Yankees or the Giants, I read this book closely, because it may very well contain an explanation as to how Pavano and Zito got totally wrecked. Maybe they can sue Milano for damages or something. I'm available for that deposition, by the way.

(thanks to Mark Armour, whose books aren't nearly as sexy as this one will be, for the heads up)

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:40am (6) Comments

The Lerners are incredibly cheap


The Nats' owners could, you know, fire Jim Bowden, but instead they are standing pat and waiting for him to get arrested or something:

Washington Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden said on Monday that he has done nothing wrong. The federal investigators looking into Bowden still aren't so sure, a source familiar with the investigation said. The Nationals, meantime, are waiting to find out, and want to learn more about Bowden's possible involvement in a growing baseball-wide scandal before they determine whether he retains his job.

But behind the scenes, according to sources, some within the team's ownership group -- which includes Managing Principal Owner Theodore N. Lerner, seven principal owners and nine founding partners -- are eager to cut ties with the general manager they inherited almost three years ago, and see the investigation as a way of facilitating Bowden's exit. The Nationals, one source said, are encouraging the investigation to return an answer on Bowden so the parties can "go on their merry way."

This is ridiculous. Bowden has already shown his incompetence through his hiring of and reliance on Rijo and his signing of Gonzalez, among many other things. The only reason the Lerners are sitting back now and hoping that this investigation bears some criminal fruit is so that they can fire him for cause or via a moral turpitude provision in his contract or something. Meanwhile, this investigation, Bowden and his Segway cast a pall over Nats' camp while Dominican free agents make a mental note not to go anywhere near the Nats for fear of having the FBI listen in on their calls. If the Lerners cared a lick about their team, they'd can Bowden now. To wait so that they can save a few bucks tells you everything you need to know about them.

If I were a Nats fan I'd probably walk up to team headquarters and pull a Thích Quảng Đức in protest of the Lerner's ownership of this team.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:57am (9) Comments

The latest on Manny


The L.A. Times has the latest story about a possibly imminent Manny signing. It could be true, and the reported details -- two guaranteed years and a vesting third based on plate appearances -- make sense. Best part, though, is this Scott Boras quote:

The Dodgers open Cactus League play Wednesday; Boras previously told The Times he expected Ramirez to be signed in time for spring training. "When I talk about spring training, I talk about when the games begin," Boras said.

And if the signing doesn't happen by Wednesday, he'll say "when I talk about spring training, I talk about March, because really, that's what feels like spring training to me." If it gets past Sunday, he'll say "when I talk about spring training, I talk about March 7th, because that sure is a lucky sounding day, isn't it . . ."

Hate all you want, but I sleep pretty well knowing that Scott Boras is out there somewhere, making the rest of the world seem sane and reasonable by comparison.

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:11am (4) Comments

Take 5


Because Red Sox games don't already go late enough:

The Boston Red Sox today announced that start times for 2009 regular season games played at Fenway Park previously scheduled for 7:05 p.m. will be moved to 7:10 p.m. This time change will not affect games scheduled for other start times, including Sunday match-ups as well as weekday and Saturday matinees.

"During the week approximately 60 percent of our fans enter the ballpark after 6:30 p.m. Moving the starts by even a few minutes will give them a little more time to make it to Fenway Park from work or home, take advantage of pregame festivities and ballpark amenities, and reach their seats before the first pitch.

Oh, and to buy beer and foam fingers and stuff. Can't forget that.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:30am (6) Comments

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