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Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

When Norman Mailer died recently I was surprised by the number of friends who told me that Harlot’s Ghost is the book of Mailer’s to read. I’m a huge fan, have read most of the major books and some of the less major, but lost interest in his later books.

About Harlot’s Ghost I remember bad reviews, but with such recommendations I’ll have to find a copy.

In the meantime, here is a short film directed by the excellent Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho) for a PBS TV show that is really a review of Harlot’s Ghost by the excellent Jim Wolcott. It makes me want to wade into those 1,400 page a little less, but is well worth watching for more than the simple review.

Squawking Baseball

This somewhat rambling analysis of how to stock your pitching staff (if you’re a major league GM) strikes me as very smart. Don’t pay a lot because you need a lot. Pay a little because if you take enough small chances you can find a lot in the pool.

I think we need some real studies of what happens (namely, where the good pitchers on good teams came from) to buy into this fully, but given Rany’s survey of drafts it makes total sense to me that the best investment is in hitters.

And certainly major league teams are going this way now.

The Hardball Times

I’m a little skeptical about these grand jury cases where the prosecution offers someone immunity from prosecution in return for testimony, then asks questions for which the honest answers would be personally damaging, then prosecutes for perjury.  As you can imagine, I’m thinking Barry Bonds, Scooter Libby, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton.

It isn’t that perjury isn’t a crime, but that somehow the immunity grant seems to be a special sort of torture for public figures whose reputations will be damaged by truthful testimony. The right answer, obviously, is for them to testify truthfully, but I certainly understand their decisions to try and save their asses by lying.

Keith Scherer’s informative walk through the issues in the Barry Bonds case at Hardball Times doesn’t get into that, but instead walks us through the hard issues of what happens when federal prosecuters decide to indict someone. The answers can’t be comforting to the Bonds defense team, which no doubt knows all this.

If there is real evidence I don’t know why Bonds isn’t copping a plea, and I suppose there is still time for that. But it looks like if he defends himself this thing is going to be going on for a long time. (thanks baseballmusings.com)

The Hardball Times

Josh Kalk has taken the first big step toward taming the PITCHf/x data that MLB collects and allows researchers access to. MLB’s freeness with the data promises to be a boon for sabermetrics and Kalk’s database front end, which allows you to compare how pitchers throw to different hitters and vice versa, with results displayed graphically is an inspiring beginning.

Kalk is talking about having splits ready by Christmas, and non-graphical data sometime soon, too.

I don’t have time right now to sift through all of this, but it’s potential importance makes me give thanks.

Thanks, Josh. Keep up the good work.

Joe Posnanski

I’m always awed by Joe Posnanski’s enthusiasm, which drives his stories. Is Andre Dawson in 1987 the worst MVP pick of all time? Could be, but the Hawk was winning me Rotisserie League money back in those days, and he was a gas to watch play the game. That arm, those arms! Dawson was no fraud. Enjoy and discuss.

Lokesh Dhakar

I’m not sure what these might be used for, but they sure do look nice. Also check out the sketches and, on another tack, his illustrations of different types of coffee drinks. Nice stuff.

Baseball Info Solutions

Every year I get a package from my friend Steve Moyer. Sometimes it comes when we’re together in the beginning of November at Ron Shandler and Rick Wilton’s First Pitch Arizona conference (which is a blast, a chance to see many of the next year’s rookies up close, and did I mention it was fun?) and sometimes it comes in the mail at home. What I know is that if it’s the first week of November it’s the Bill James Handbook.

What I remember, back in the day, was the Red Book from Stats, which also had Bill James’ name attached and which, for a while, Steve worked on, too. But Stats was sold to Fox and niceties like really useful baseball reference books became too small scale for them.

Steve has made a business off of the opportunities Fox threw away when it bought Stats, which isn’t to say that Fox was wrong, just that as a baseball fan I really much prefer what comes from Steve’s company, Baseball Info Solutions.

The Bill James Handbook, under the BIS aegis, has become a comprehensive statistical review of the previous baseball season, and it comes out less than 30 days after the season is over. It now has fielding rankings, managerial tendencies, home-road splits, batter and pitcher splits, projections for hitters and pitchers, and an assortment of other really interesting baseball data.

You can support this site by buying the Bill James Handbook from Amazon through the link below, or you can buy it somewhere else. My point is that there isn’t another baseball book that is more useful all season long.

ESPN

Ryan Braun deserves the Rookie of the Year award, though you can make a case for Troy Tulowitsky, too. The problem looking forward is Braun’s defense. He says: “Everybody has things they need to work on.”

This is true, but kind of irrelevant. It seems unlikely that Braun is going to be able to fix his defensive problems at third base, and in the outfield he will be playing in a totally different context. He may end up being a prodigious performer there. Or he may end up hanging at third for a while despite his deficiencies. Miguel Cabrera has held the fort at third base, though he’s really not suited for it.

But that’s the issue. These guys can hit. Can they find a position (and will their team commit to it) that does their skills justice? And as fantasy players how long will we be able to exploit this inefficiency (since we don’t count defense)?

Players changing positions are always a risk, and I would think doubly so when coming off such an unconscious season as Braun’s. That’s a little reason to doubt, and to not push him up the extra dollar when someone else is.

Baseball Prospectus

Nate appears to have uncovered something really interesting. Platoon differentials are based on the pitcher, not the hitter (mostly).

This is a reason to pay attention to platoon splits again, if they’re based on lefty hitters (righties don’t show no bias).

Nate finds some specific uses for this data in his article, but I’m not sure it’s going to matter as much in the real world as it might in roto. Any time it’s better not to play than to play, fantasy owners take notice.

The Joy of Sox

This is a woeful story of mlbam’s apparent disregard for the customers who bought mlb.tv games and the digital rights management that is keeping them from watching those games.

If this is a true story it is an abysmal breach of faith by MLBAM, the sort of thing that undermines the basic compact between seller and buyer. But the funny thing reading this blog entry and the comments after (and at the Baseball Think Factory) is that there seems to be no corroboration.

If you’ve bought baseball games from mlb.com are you having this problem? It may be that Joy of Sox is one of just a few who felt the need to plunk down cash for games, but it’s also possible he’s having a problem that isn’t affecting everyone who bought games. Before ripping the Lords of Baseball a new one I’d like to make sure they’ve done it yet again.