What Does It Matter?
January 5, 2007


As you may or may not know, I won AL Tout again.  It marks my second championship in three years, a feat not unprecedented but still fairly rare: only 4 people have ever won either of Tout's single-universe leagues twice.  This effort was unique in that I set a league record for most points in a season.  It also marked the closest race ever, a mere half point seperated the first and second place finishers. 

And as with just about any league, the finish did not come without some controversy.  Near the end of the draft I nabbed Frank Thomas with a last second bid.  The loser in that bidding war (such that it was - I acquired Thomas for $3) would not have been significantly affected in the standings (one point in RBI, maybe one point in home runs but still 30+ points out of first), but nevertheless made an issue of the incident all season, and truth be told I probably wouldn't have finished first without the Big Hurt.  I undoubtedly would have made other decisions during the course of the season than I did, but the probability is that whatever I did would not have been enough to compensate for Thomas' big rebound year.  Nevertheless, I did get the bid in, the auctioneer confirmed it and the rest is history.  It's funny but I did a mock auction for this year's Rotowire magazine and the automated auctioneer awarded players on several last second bids without allowing the bidding to continue.  At least the live one in AL Tout allowed the bidding to continue, so it's not as if the outcome was the auctioneer's fault.  Regardless, last second bids happen quite a bit in every auction and I have always maintained that if you are counting on getting a guy like Frank Thomas for $2, even coming off a bad year, then there's more of a problem with your pre-draft valuation and budgeting than in the bidding/auction process itself.

The more interesting story is how I ended up in a position to win.  For most of the season, Steve Moyer of Baseball Info Solutions had what was generally perceived to be an insumountable lead.  It was only because other guys in the league made trades to better their positions that I was able to move up in the ranks.  My team was competitive in every category except batting average, but only competitive in the sense that I was hovering somewhere between 4th and 7th in them.  The difference maker was that I was very close to moving up in each of those categories so even minor adjustments could make a significant impact in the standings.  When other teams traded their strengths to move up in their weaker categories, I passed them.  Those same trades ended up costing Steve the same way they helped me, just enough people passing him to enable me to close ground.  I passed enough of them that I ended up finishing second in homers, third in RBI and no lower than second in saves, ERA, WHIP and strikeouts.  The irony is that I tried to make trades all season to shore up holes on my roster but never found the right complimentary deal that would help me more than it would hurt me.  So I ended up winning the league in spite of my best efforts.  

But the whole episode does raise an interesting question: is it enough just to win?  Or does the manner in which one wins a contest matter?  I have noted previously that even though the record books will show that Iowa won the Capital One Bowl a couple years ago against LSU, that the victory was fraudulent due to pathetic officiating on the final play of the game.  The same was true in this year's LSU/Auburn game that might have cost LSU a chance at the national title. 

The most infamous case of officiating determining the outcome was the USSR's victory over the US in the basketball finals of the 1972 Olympics.   It was a close contest that was ultimately decided by the worst officiating in sports history.  With three seconds left in the game, Doug Collins shot two free throws to put the US ahead 50-49.  The Russian coach tried to call time-out between his shots but the horn to signal the time-out sounded while Collins was shooting his second shot.  After it went in, the Russians immediately inbounded the ball but play was stopped at mid-court by an official who then awarded them the time-out with one second left on the clock.  FIBA Secretary General William Jones went onto the floor and demanded that the clock be reset to three seconds.  He had no authority to do so, yet nevertheless the clock officials complied.  The Russians inbounded the ball again with a Hail Mary pass but it was intercepted and the game was over... except that the clock had not been reset properly before the ref signaled for play to resume and so the Russians were again awarded the ball with three seconds to play.  Neither of the two decisions to replay the last seconds were allowed by any rule of the game.  To make matters worse, this time the line official signaled to the American player guarding the inbounds pass that he was too close to the line (he was not) and as he backed up the Russian player inbounded the ball (with his foot making a line violation, no less) with another Hail Mary, only this time a Russian player grabbed it for a winning lay-up.  Final score: Russia 51, US 50.  To this day none of the American players have accepted their silver medals, one even going so far as to stipulate in his will that none of his descendants will either.  So did the Russians win?  The record books unanimously say "yes".  But did they really?  Most non-Russians would contend that they did not. 

I have contended at times that if the technology was available, sports would be better off with automated umpires and referees because the human ones make so many mistakes; let the players decide the games, not the refs.  Of course, as evidenced by the automated auctioneer, technology isn't always perfect either.  However, it seems to be human nature to distrust the judgment of other humans.  The umpires in baseball make fewer mistakes than other sports' officials simply because of the way the game is set up but still... has anyone in St. Louis forgiven Don Denkinger? 
The entire enterprise of sabremetrics is founded on the principle that human perceptions can't be trusted.  It is one of the ultimate ironies in sports that the data baseball statistical analysts depend on is entirely generated by the subjectivity they hope to eliminate.  It is human perception and their varying interpretations of often ethereal scoring rules that generate the statistics that people use to make their quantitative judgments.  The reality reflected in the data is biased by human perception and largely contrived.  So using strictly numbers to evaluate a baseball player is like flying in a plane whose design was never tested in a wind tunnel.  But I digress...

It was written in Fantasyland that before the 2004 season I had averaged a 6th place finish in AL Tout.  That much was true.  But the author didn't say anything about the fact that my first year in Tout Wars (2002) was my first experience playing in an AL-only league or that I had found out that I was going to be in the AL League little more than a month before the auction.  So my ninth place finish shouldn't have been that surprising.  Still, I managed to finish ahead of three other participants.  It also failed to mention that in 2003, the year before the book, I finished third in the league just two points out of first, having made up five and a half points in the final week of the season.  But it does make a difference in perception about my ability to play that I was so close to winning just one year after my first exposure to the league format, yet all the book's author was willing to venture about me was that I was "prickly" and "deluded", and that I finally won because of "a lifestyle that alowed me to watch a lot of baseball".  Nevermind that at that time I was employed by Major League Baseball to watch and record everything that happened in baseball games.  Was "lifestyle" the right word choice, or would "job" have been more accurate?

The book also made no mention about the numerous times that I offered to forgive or mitigate the butter bet after it was clear I was going to win it.  Even after I won the bet I offered to let him fulfill it by eating some etouffe with me at my favorite Cajun restaurant.   The author also conveniently neglected to mention the numerous trade offers I got from him like Josh Phelps for Matt Lawton and FAAB, Willie Bloomquist for Bernie Williams, Ryan Ludwick for Joey Gathright, Doug Mientkiewicz for Omar Infante and/or Jerry Hairston and my personal favorite, Carlos Silva, BJ Surhoff and Mientkiewicz for Bernie Williams, Matt Stairs and Jose Valentin.  Does any of that matter? 

According to Mr. Walker, no.  His response to the many concerns I had with his book was "but you won."  But that ignores the truth that my winning is a material fact, something that can not be changed or interpreted, whereas the character he described as Trace Wood is blurred, colored and refigured by his perceptions (or desire to make an interesting foil) and that anyone who hasn't met me yet has read his book now shares that perception without ever knowing me. 



At this point, I really don't know the value of winning Tout again.   It means that I beat the "best field ever assembled" (at least according to the book) twice in three years.  But the reality of the matter is that both wins are not equal.  In 2004, just as in 2003 and 2002, I got far less credit than I deserved.  This year I will get too much credit.