Oh Writer's Block

Have you ever had one of those moments when you feel like your head is dancing around an idea, but you just can't materialize it? I've been having that a lot lately with my writing. In my mind, I have the desire to write, edit, and publish, but I haven't been inspired lately. This is probably due in large to the mostly repetitive nature of my life--wake up, look for job, waste time, go back to sleep.

I enjoy writing, and critiquing writing to the point that it's better. Unfortunately I'm not content simply writing for the sake of writing--I hate putting out content that I think is sub-par. This is partly why you may see this blog go at least a week without an entry, and why my sports blog days stopped. An attempt to hold myself to a schedule regardless of other foci ultimately results in regurgitated pseudo-intelligent jargon. What I mean by this is that I don't enjoy simply rephrasing other peoples' ideas with my own personal style. Even if I'm not the first to come up with an idea, I don't like putting my name on something that I'm sure I heard from someone else. I feel like the Sports Journalism industry often results in this--the same ideas by a few quality thinkers repackaged and rephrased for the masses, but I digress.

What is the cure for Writers' Block then? Almost certainly its to have a more eventful and fresh life. Here we reach the dichotomy of the suburbanite--keeping things fresh and inventive while keeping things stable and safe. How then do I inject flavor and feeling while not jeopardizing my mediocre and bland life? Do I read inventive and challenging books? Do I go and see the most interesting portions of otherwise common California landscapes? Are these things worthwhile, or is the truth that we're all just boring people leading uninteresting lives?

Maybe I do lead an uninteresting life, but that doesn't mean I can't write uninterestingly. I'm sure that somewhere in my life there's enough worth and pizazz to entertain a reader for five minutes. To admit to the otherwise is to give up on social interactions in the modern world, and that's too scary a proposition for me at the moment.

Defending Beane

This post originated as a response to a post on Athletics Nation (a blog which I frequent and you should too) which criticized the idea of holding on to prospects instead of trading them for big ticket names. The poster contended that whichever contending team signs Roy Halladay will win the World Series this year, and that trading Dan Haren was bad since our team would be much better right now with Dan Haren then with the package we got in exchange for him.

I'll link you the original post; and subsequently here is my response:

First lets talk about Haren. You say that trading Haren was a bad deal, but how would we be if we still had Haren? You’re assuming that we’re able to sign Haren to an extension similar to the one the Diamondbacks did, which is 44 million over 4 years, and this probably isn’t true. This year, the team is still bogged down with the contracts of Crosby and Chavez, and any money we gave to Dan Haren instead almost certainly assures that we don’t have as good of a draft as we did, since we can’t sign Green and the like to any sort of decent deal. Furthermore, do you really think that Haren makes this team a contender? Dan Haren was 6.4 WAR last year, and even if he were to somehow improve to an amazing 8 WAR this year, we’re still in last place since we no longer have the bat of Holliday and the decent arm of Brett Anderson. This team right now is awful with or without Dan Haren.

Next, somehow you assume that postseason performance is a constant factor. You’re under the idea that if the postseason were to be replayed again with robots that directly clone the abilities of the aforementioned players, that it would turn out exactly the same, when in all likelihood it would not. Baseball is a game where a couple inches on a short fly ball to right field means a single drops in scoring a tying run, or a few degrees of heat means a ball flies over the fence. It’s perfectly OK to assume that if the Washington Nationals made the playoffs, they have a reasonable chance of making the World Series (remember, baseball is a game where even the worst teams win 1/3 of their games, unlike say football.) What I’m getting at here is that if the As had a few breaks in 2006 and won the series, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Furthermore, if Matt Stairs hadn’t had a certain pinch hit blast then we’d be talking about how the Phillies couldn’t get it done, and how the Rays (read: a team that focuses on long term growth as opposed to quick gain) truly have the best philosophy. The Phillies, on the other hand, really didn’t pick up a huge signing. Blanton was a very middle-of-the-road starter at best, and yet somehow you think this proves your point because signing guys wins championships, when in fact it only slightly improves a still up in the air outcome.

Furthermore, and I love this: " If the Dodgers get him, even if its for Kershaw, they are going to the World Series, same with the Phillies." How is this an absolute guarantee for success? Both he Dodgers and the Angels last year acquired HUGE upgrades to their offenses last year in the forms of Manny Ramirez and Mark Teixeira respectively, and I don’t see either of them with World Series rings. Just because a team makes a big acquisition to try to make their team win more now it in no way assures a victory.

Remember when the Brewers traded their best prospect (Matt LaPorta) for CC Sabathia, in the hopes of winning it all? Yes, they made the playoffs, but no World Series occurred. My point here is that, while signing big free agents and making trade-deadline deals can improve a team’s chances to make the postseason, it should only be done in a context of a team that has a chance to win. The Oakland As would not have been in that position with Haren, with Harden, with Swisher, or with basically anybody else because of a generally poor team surrounding them. Beane made the Haren deal realizing that, as long as the contracts of Chavez and Crosby are sucking up his funds he will never be able to put together a contending team because he just does not have the funds.

The Oakland As do not sell out every game. We do not buy merchandise in the way the Red Sox fans do, and we are on the shitty end of the Bay Area stick to be honest for marketing purposes. Assuming that we will magically garner the funds possible to make a team viable through holding on to big names and somehow still adding to them other big names is just deluding yourself. Our only hope, as has been for the last 10 years, is to try to accumulate enough good prospects that a team pans out of them that can contend (like Zito, Mulder, Giambi, Hudson, Tejada, etc.) When a team like that comes along, then we can think about making big signings (like we did with Dye.) Until then I’m definitely not in favor of holding on to big names only to watch our team despair in Nationals-esque awfulness.

My point here is that, while Haren would make this team better, it would not make us a contender and we are much better off with a much improved possibility of making the postseason in the future, since our future team will probably be much more well-rounded instead of a Twins-esque 3 man show.

On Social Networking and Impersonality

Where once there were battle lines and territory markers, now there are only cross-feeds and re-posting. Put into more concrete terms, Social Networking sites have shifted from loyally supported communities to amalgamated rehashings of eachother. Somewhere along the way people lost the notion of having their own personal corner of the internet, and instead began striving for a broader audience. Now there are many people who not only post trite facts about themselves on one site--they Tweet it, and Status it, and Blog it, and any number of high-tech buzz verbs.

The first blog I ever tried was a LiveJournal account, and by choosing it I put myself in with a more purist crowd which championed content over personality in MySpace. This wasn't totally intentional--I just wanted to be part of the crowd, and viewing peoples' livejournals didn't require me to listen to their music. Looking back on the archives, there are only posts of any real substance months apart. The vast majority of the blog was taken up with Quizzes, Tests, and boring recounts of unevenful days. I remember asking a friend once why he never comments on my posts (even though I commented on his.) He responded with an insightful "Because I don't care about what you accomplished in Final Fantasy XI today." Thankfully I was able to move past the idea that the bland things of my life are more important than the bland parts of everyone else's lives.

What's the point of this? I think the majority of the internet either disagrees with me, or hasn't yet come to that conclusion. I don't think I'm the only one out there that only reads quizzes that other people post if I'm mentioned in them. The interesting thing here is that instead of trying to produce solid content which may engage their friends, people instead just try a new audience. There are plenty of tools available for the average person to post something, and then have it simultaneously posted on X different websites to try and fish comments from the populace.

As an unemployed person, I often go onto Craigslist.com and recently in the "Writing Jobs" tab I've seen advertisements for a person who is proficient enough to build up steam for their company over a bunch of different websites. This gives me the image of a man, hunched over his computer, and just typing the same garbage over and over onto any social media site that will have him. For some reason there's this idea that if you spit nonsense enough times in enough communities that someone will like you.

The moral of this story is that I wish people would try to just write more engaging content. A while back there was a big hubbub about Sports Bloggers because they could say anything they wanted...and people assumed that they were real reporters I guess. The reality is that the internet is a true meritocracy--if you write like a 5th grader, you'll get about as much attention. I can only aspire to be a good enough writer that I'm engaging enough that I can get comments without random name drops.

Define Hypocritical: Cross-posted on my facebook account.

Refined like Silver

One of the most common refrains made in attempts to try to knock Christianity is "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Clearly if there is an omnipotent, all-loving god, then he would make a world in which suffering did not exist. The simple answer to this is that God allowed free will, and free will allows for bad choices and thus bad outcomes, but if we rely on this answer we run the risk of limiting God's power, which is always dangerous. There are certainly instances in which God uses suffering in order to prepare his people for the future.

Since we believe God is omnipotent (he did, you know, create the world after all) we need to always remember that nothing is outside God's influence. Suffering and hardship are indeed part of his plan, and can be seen as a blessing. Take Psalm 66 for example, where the Psalmist is thankful for his current situation:

"Praise our God, O peoples,

let the sound of his praise be heard;

he has preserved our lives

and kept our feet from slipping.

For you, O God, tested us;

you refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison

and laid burdens on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads;

we went through fire and water,

but you brought us to a place of abundance." --Psalm 66:8-12. NIV.

The word refinement is somewhat of a Christian Buzz-Word in that it gets tossed around a lot but isn't examined in any depth often. Regardless, this image is powerful as it accurately reflects man as an impure product. Everyone would admit that there are certain things they dislike about their life; choices that they made that they would have made differently. The Psalmist argues here that suffering is God's way of taking regret and turning it into something holy. Our mistakes, through the refining process of suffering, make us into wiser and hopefully more Godly people. Of course this process is not easy; such mistakes can lead to all sorts of economical, physical, and emotional problems which test our faith in God and life itself, but this is how we are "refined." Just as precious metals like silver are refined in heat and fire, so we are refined as Christians through suffering and hardship.

This presents another quandary for the Christian; why doesn't simply teach us the lesson magically through his "Super God Powers" instead of forcing us to go through suffering? On earth, it appears that the Christian denies him or herself many of Earth's pleasures in order to follow God. Why does God choose to make pleasurable things on Earth only to disallow his people from them? I would argue that things seen as pleasure able by civilization are not necessarily inherently pleasurable. Psalm 49 has some words for this regard:

"Do not be overawed when a man grows rich,

when the splendor of his house increases;

for he will take nothing with him when he dies,

his splendor will not descend with him.

Though while he lived he counted himself blessed--

and men praise you when you prosper--

he will join the generation of his fathers,

who will never see the light of life.

A man who has riches without understanding

is like the beasts that perish." Psalm 49: 16-20. NIV.

It may seem a tired cliche, but we as Christians need to remember that our life lies through God and not through the Earth. The greatest joy of accepting Jesus into one's life is the knowledge that said acceptance begets eternal life with God. As we look around at other men accumulating wealth and vicariously great praise from the world around, we can remember that wealth and the praise of man are only valuable within the system that created them. As we watch the economy crumble around us, it has become very palpable that any wealth we hold is totally dependent on many factors we have no control of. Many men choose to gain wealth within an earthly system, and they reap what they sow. Perhaps they are happy for a short time, but are eternally still at the mercy of the system and will undoubtedly receive nothing at the end of their life but death. If we as Christians decide to place our efforts and faith in the system of God, then we will gain his riches, which transcend this earth. These riches may not allow for earthly pleasure, or the praise of man, but it will allow for safety and infinitely greater rewards in the long term.

God creates suffering and forbiddances in order to refine us and teach us to rely on him instead of Earth. As we make choices within an earthly system and fail, God uses the concept of suffering to teach us to rely on him, and thus reap greater rewards than we could possibly imagine. God gives us free will, and blesses us with a teaching method to show us the benefits of relying on him. The challenge for us then is this: Will we be so selfish as to curse God for his wrath, or will we be wise enough to recognize his love in spite of our mistakes?

Dirty Awful Fun

Yesterday while killing time I drove past Catamaran Park in Foster City, a park near the house where I spent most of my younger years. The city apparently has spent a great deal of effort turning the entire grass field in artificial turf, and boy does it look nice. I'm seeing this in a lot of parks these days (Danville has a field I umpire at occasionally where base hits turn into Triples routinely) and the suburbs soon will see entire generations grow up playing on artificial turf in areas where the weather is perfect for grass.

I'm not sure if this is good or not. I'm not going to soapbox and here and claim that I'm old and sign of the times blah blah good ol days--but I am going to say that the first time I played on turf I was dumbfounded. After being stomped by Burlingame's football team my freshman year of High School, I got back to the locker room and attempted to stamp the mud out of my cleats only to find they had been scraped clean. Now, when I was a kid I had a new pair of Baseball pants every two weeks because I would slide so much I would tear myself a new...you get the picture. I think I wasn't alone in being a kid that liked getting dirty.

What is the impetus for turf? Is it easier to maintain? You don't have to mow it, or re-paint lines on it for sporting events, or worry about gophers and other such pesky critters, but is that such a big deal? We're eventually cutting jobs in our community I would assume, and furthermore we're taking away a little bit of what ties us to the planet. Now I'll be the first to admit that getting stung by a bee is no fun at all, but is it worth (what I assume) is a multi-million dollar turf project?

Sports play differently on turf--the balls roll quicker and longer, changing the game a bit. You often times have to buy a second set of shoes to play on turf in order to maximize your game; using regular spikes isn't as effective as "turf shoes." I feel like this movement may just be an "Emperor's New Clothes" movement. As in, everybody else in the suburbs is doing it, so we need to do it or else folks won't think we're as postmodern as the rest of the world. Heaven forbid your child comes home completely disgusting from mud football, complete with an ensuing cold and a giant grin on his face that can only come from dirty, awful fun.

Don't think: It can only hurt the Ball Club

Baseball has a lot of tired cliches.  One most people know of is that "Baseball is a thinking man's game."  The idea is that because there is a fair amount of guesswork involved with the batter-pitcher faceoff as well as the proper timing of such plays as a bunt, steal, and hit-and run that one needs a certain amount of intelligence to succeed at the game.  I'm curious if so called smart baseball actually leads to success in this day and age.

Let's start off by outlining a few "Smart Baseball" plays.  I'll use this term to loosely define a term in which one makes a conscious decision to go outside the norm (i.e. just hit it/just pitch it) to try to gain an advantage.  Certainly the Sacrifice Bunt/Sacrifice Hit qualify; the team purposefully gives up an out in order to gain a run or move a runner closer to scoring a run.  Going by MLB.com we get the following top 5 for Sacrifice Flies:

1. Minnesota Twins: 74
2. Boston Red Sox: 62
3. Toronto Blue Jays: 56
4. Texas Rangers: 54
5. Tampa Bay Rays: 52

And the rest tail off slowly between 51 and 34.  Now let's look at Sacrifice Hits (mostly likely a bunt, but could also be a sharply hit ball where the only play is at first:)

1. Colorado Rockies: 90
2. New York Mets: 73
3. Cincinatti Reds: 72
4. St. Louis Cardinals: 71
5. Philadelphia Phillies: 71

The teams above who lead the league in Sacrifice Flies seem to have little correlation with doing the same with Sacrifice Bunts, as they ranked 16th, 27th, 18th, 20th, and dead last respectively. Whereas the teams who lead the league in Sacrifice Hits ranked 25th, 9th, 21st, 17th, and 23rd respectively on the list of Sacrifice Flies.  With possibly the exception of the Mets there seems to be little correlation last year of teams actively sacrificing by doing things both ways.

What else constitutes a smart play?  How about the Intentional Walk?  If there is a runner on 2nd and the 2003 version of Barry Bonds approaching the plate with one out and a tie game, it is almost undeniably a smart decision to pitch to whichever inferior hitter is following Bonds that day.  Let's take a look at teams which issued intentional walks to see if they have any correlation there:

1. Atlanta Braves: 80
2. Florida Marlins: 66
3. Philadelphia Phillies: 64
4. Detroit Tigers: 63
5. San Diego Padres: 61

And again the rest trail off between 59 all the way down to 15.  There may be some logic here outside the numbers though.  Perhaps the teams that intentional walk often do so because their pitching staff isn't particularly good.  The Braves had a very weak rotation last year after John Smoltz and the rather inconsistent Jair Jurrjens became their ace.  The Marlins were nothing particularly special on the mound, and one could say the same about the Tigers.  The Phillies and the Padres though are teams known for their pitching.  The Phillies had the strongest bullpen in the league last year, with a closer who never blew a save, and a rotation anchored by Cole Hamels.  The Padres as well had at the very least a decent pitching rotation, which could be called dominant at times when Jake Peavy and Chris Young were healthy.  The bottom of the roation shows us little as well, since the worst team (the Kansas City Royals) had a rather good young pitching staff, with one of the most underrated closers in the game (Joakim Soria.)  This all leads me to believe that Intentional Walks bear little relevance to smart play as well, since there seems to be no corelation between the lists with the aforementioned "smart" sacrifice plays.

This leads me to wonder truly how much thinking is involved in Baseball.  Clearly there are times when a smart decision can help, but I'm failing to find any evidence that smart decisions are made consistently by any particular team.  Perhaps if I ran a study over multiple years and various managers, but at the very least I can conclude that no team seemed to define themselves by their smart plays.  As a fan it makes me curious about real baseball mindsets.  Occasionally I'll hear men in the business say the contrary as well.  I once heard Curt Young (managers of the A's) say in a radio interview that this game isn't as mental as everyone thinks, and Dan Uggla (slugging second baseman of the Marlins) has made it well known that he just looks to hit the ball over the fence every time and never seems to know what kind of pitch he hit or missed.

The point here is this:  Baseball insiders will often say that Baseball is a mental game, and how the complexities are mind boggling and endless.  I would encourage you not to take their word on it.  Though there are good and bad ways to play Baseball, if you're anything like me you'll derive more enjoyment out of thinking about the game and trying to understand their logic (or lack of it) instead of just swallowing it.

What do you think?  Are certain teams or managers more intelligent with their decisions, even if the numbers don't show it?  Is the "smart decision" purely a myth?  Is there a middle ground here?

Offensive Struggles

The A's opened the season on a tear, as most people know, and have recently digressed back into mediocrity, or worse. The main reason for this is that the A's haven't been scoring runs, and there is unfortunately an obvious reason. The team was aided by some outstanding performances by guys who shouldn't've been counted on as main offensive producers. Let's look at a few of these:

Kurt Suzuki: He peaked right around April 18th, with a line of .339/.409/.390. He was seeing the ball well--not a lot of power, but a great On Base Percentage and all the makings of a solid contact hitter, which is what the A's were hoping for. They tried to move him up to the leadoff spot, but that experiment failed. Since April 18th (the day he was moved up) he's gotten progressively worse, and is now standing at .237/.300/282, a 2007 line that brings up bad memories of 2007 Jason Kendall. The A's envisioned Suzuki as a bottom of the order hitter, more known for his defensive capabilities, and it looks like his psyche may be a bit fragile for top of the order duties while trying to juggle an ever-shifting starting rotation.

Daric Barton: Barton hasn't lost much playing time with the Thomas trade, although many fans are screaming that maybe he should. Since May 5th his OPS has dropped 60 points and his batting average has dropped 30. He's slugging a mere .338, and though he wasn't projected to be a power hitter, it's hard to justify a guy who gives poor defense and so little pop playing 1st base, a position typically reserved for power hitters without much moblity (Paul Konerko/Carlos Pena types.)

Frank Thomas: The main issue here is that with the acquisition of the Big Hurt, the A's committed to him as their DH, leaving Mike Sweeney on the bench. Sweeney was off to a hot start, and he's still OPSing .813, whereas Thomas is still scuffling with a .690 OPS and a very low .339 slugging. Unfortunately with Thomas, you often get slow starts, but the A's are committed to waiting for him to get his swing back. The drop leaves the DH slot much colder, and that hurts since the DH is so key to the young A's team.

Donnie Murphy: He did his best Marco Scutaro impression while filling in around the infield and gaining the fans love with his swell batting, but he's pretty quickly regressed. This was probably due to the injury which landed him on the Disabled List recently, as he's now OPSing a mere .558 as opposed to the .828 he had at the end of April. Gregorio Petit is doing his best to take away that utility slot from Murphy, but the A's are really waiting for Ellis to come back from the DL and start producing.

All of these guys, combined with the continued inuries/demotions of Mark Ellis, Travis Buck and Santiago Casilla have hurt the A's recently. On the plus side, Rich Harden seems healthy, and could draw a lot of attention if he stays healthy. We're getting a better idea of what the team may look like down the road, and may get a better sink/swim feeling as we approach the mid mark. Should these guys continue to drop to average level, and the producers not pick it up, I wouldn't be surprised to see Rich Harden, Joe Blanton, and Huston Street get more trade rumors as the year progresses.