The Yin Blog

The Civil War: who to root for?

Wow, this is pretty cool.  My first year here, and Oregon and Oregon State are playing their annual rival match for the right to go to the Rose Bowl (and trash Ohio State)!

Since I'm new to the area, though, now I'm at a loss about which team to root for.  When I moved from Los Angeles to Iowa City, it was easy, since my employer was the University of Iowa, and I had no preconceived reasons to root against it (as I would have against a number of "bully" schools).  Here, however, it's entirely different.  I'm not teaching at the University of Oregon, so there's no employment-related reason to favor the Oregon Ducks.  Indeed, Oregon has a law school, so in a very indirect sense, it's a competitor!  Oregon State, on the other hand, does not have a law school.  So that favors the Oregon State Beavers.

When we turn to the mascots, the duck is not a particularly fearsome mascot, though neither is the beaver.  The beaver, at least, is a mammal that engages in engineering feats (dams), which is appropriate given Oregon State's engineering focus.  On the other hand, the beaver is also Caltech's mascot, and therefore brings up the negative memories that I have of that place.  I suppose this points in favor of the Ducks.

In the end, I'm drawn to the underdog.  Although both teams have been strong in the 2000s, I remember how much of a doormat Oregon State was during my time at Berkeley, and it's been almost 45 years since the Beavers have gone to the Rose Bowl (compared to 15 for the Ducks).

So . . . go Beavers!

I moved to the right state!

Because of Halloween trick or treating, I didn't get to see all of the Oregon-USC football game, but what I saw, including the end, was plenty satisfying.  It's hilarious to think that the USC football team has not won in the state of Oregon in four years now!

Winning by losing, Olympic bid edition

My good friend Nick Johnson has a funny and insightful post arguing that Chicago is better off for not having won the bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, because cities that host the Olympics usually end up paying for the privilege, rather than making money on tourism, etc.  

In a vaguely analogous way, it kind of reminds me of what happened in Los Angeles after both professional football teams left -- the Raiders to Oakland and the Rams to St. Louis.  Instantly, Sunday football improved tenfold!  Instead of blacked out games (because neither team sold out), we were treated to the *best* games of the day.  Good riddance, I came to see.

Serena Williams' meltdown at the US Open

Wow, I read about Serena Williams' match-losing meltdown and then managed to catch a rerun of her US Open semi-final match against Kim Clijsters.  The short version is that Williams was down 4-6, 5-6 (15-30) when she faulted her first serve, and then was called for a foot fault on her second serve.  At that point, the game score became 15-40, meaning that if Clijsters won the next point, the match was over.  Williams approached the line judge, shook her racquet, and said something that sounded (to me) vaguely like "shoving this ball down your ****** throat."  Now, in fairness, earlier parts were not entirely audible, and the press reported the quote as "If I could, I would take this ***** ball and . . . " then the part I heard.

I have to say, on replay, it sure did not look like a foot fault to me.  But that's really beside the point.  You can't gesture threatening at the line judge and not expect to be penalized.  The line judge reported feeling apprehensive at the time.  Let's not forget that earlier in the match, Williams got so angry about losing a point that she smashed her racquet on the ground . . . and broke it!

If it was a bad call, Williams should have appealed to the chair umpire to overrule the line judge.

The declining stigma of strikeouts in baseball

My baseball brain having been warped by fantasy baseball long ago, I've long thought that strikeouts were overly stigmatized as being worse than other outs.  I mean, they're usually not as bad as double plays (unless there are no outs and you have runners on first and third, in which case it's debatable whether the two outs are worth the one run).  I don't mind drafting players who strike out 100+ times a season as long as they walk a lot too; that combination usually comes with home runs, runs scored, and RBIs.

Here's an interesting article on Yahoo! that suggests that players and managers are basically in agreement with my take.

My 2009 fantasy baseball team

It's springtime, which means it's fantasy baseball season.  We had our live draft on Wednesday night, 11 managers including -- for the first time -- another law prof!  I had the #9 pick, which was kind of a bummer since there were no obvious superstars likely to drop that far down.

I didn't do a whole lot of advance reading (too busy with other stuff), but I did go into the draft with my usual strategy of trying to draft power hitters early and holding off on pitchers -- especially closers -- until at least after the 5th round.  I also decided that I was going to be extremely ageist and avoid any hitters who were 30 or over, if I could.

Here are my picks:

1. Ian Kinsler (Tex - 2b)

Other choices here were Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, or Chase Utley.  All three Phillies players are over 30, so I went with Kinsler, who's likely to get better rather than slightly worse.  My preference would have been to take a bigger hitter rather than a middle infielder, but what can you do?

2. Mark Teixeira (NYY - 1b)

I can only hope that putting Teixeria in the middle of the Yankees lineup will produce awesome stats . . . .

3. Nick Markakis (Balt. - of)

Shares my first son's name (sort of).  Enough said.

4. Carlos Quentin (CWS - of)

Hopefully not just a flash in the pan.  But another youngster with upside.

5. Joe Mauer (Minn. - c)

In retrospect, this was probably a mistake.  Sure, he's got a nice batting average, but he hasn't been stealing bases, and he doesn't have much power.  I could have taken Jake Peavy or Dan Haren, which would have been a round earlier than I would normally take pitching, but still would have been better.

6. Josh Beckett (Bos. - sp)

I was all set to take Chad Billingsley here, but then, while waiting for my turn, I was reading about his recent groin injury.  Maybe it wasn't that serious a problem, but I decided not to risk it.

7. Felix Hernandez (Sea. - sp)

Most of the picks around this one went to other starting pitchers or older hitters.  I drafted Hernandez a couple of years ago, too early as it turned out, but I like the strikeout potential and the home ballpark.

8. Francisco Rodriguez (NYM - rp)

I don't like to draft closers early, but K-Rod has amazing stuff and is going to a pitcher's park.  I don't expect him to get 60+ saves again, but I do expect lots of Ks and great ERA and whip.

9. Rich Harden (ChC - sp)

Great results when he pitches.  Roy Oswalt was the pick right before this one.  I've always like Oswalt as a player, but last year (when I drafted him) was kind of scary, so it's just as well he was off the board for me.  I do wonder if I should've taken Yovani Gallardo instead of Harden, though.

10. Conor Jackson (Ari. - of/1b)

My outfield was looking thin, and the available choices down the road were getting ugly.

11. B.J. Ryan (Tor. - rp)

Another closer with terrific peripherals.  I had some other starting pitchers that I was keeping an eye on, but enough that I could afford to wait.  The same thing was true for shortstops and third basemen; having missed out on the obvious choices, I was content to wait.

12. Zack Greinke (KC - sp)

I believe Greinke was the first KC Royal taken in our draft!  Yeah, KC is a pretty bad team, and I've stayed away from Greinke in the past because of his unimpressive K rate.  However, I was surprised to see that he had picked things up in that department last year, so I took a chance with him.

13. Johnny Cueto (Cin. - sp)

Cueto looked mighty good at times last year.  Whether I was right to take him or Erik Bedard, who went a few picks later, will depend on Bedard's health, I suspect.

14. Frank Francisco (Tex. - rp)

He only had 5 saves last year, but it looks like the closer's job is his.

15. Felipe Lopez (Ari. - 2b/ss/3b)

This was a pick of faith. . . .  I do like players who have multiple infield eligibility for their flexibility.  Lopez stole 20+ bases in 2006 and 2007, and apparently Kirk Gibson is one of the bench coaches for Arizona, so hopefully that will inspire/goad Lopez into being more aggressive.

16. John Danks (CWS - sp)

The White Sox have two promising young pitchers, Gavin Floyd and Danks.  Danks has better K numbers and a worse W-L record, both of which point to him as the better option this year.

17. Jim Thome (CWS - dh)

I need a DH.  Thome can still crank the ball when he plays.  Do  you know, one year I accidentally drafted Jim Thome with the #1 pick in the draft?  I think I won that year's league, too, notwithstanding the mistake.

18. Hank Blalock (Tex. - 3b)

Apparently, this was a mistake.  I didn't realize that the Texas Rangers were moving Michael Young from shortstop to third base. . . .

19. Dan Wheeler (TB - rp)

Mostly here I was looking for a relief pitcher with good ERA and whip, and the chance at some wins and occasional saves.  Besides, Tampa Bay's closer is Troy Percival, who's almost as old as I am.  He could break down at any moment.

20. Dioner Navarro (TB - c)

Just a back up catcher for when Mauer takes a day off.

21. Ryan Theriot (ChC - ss)

I had signed off, so this was Yahoo!'s autopick for me.

***

Overall, I'm somewhat dissatisfied with my team's relative lack of power, which is the result of drafting a core of young players.  I guess we'll see if my risk aversion pays off.  In the meantime, I decided to rectify my Blalock mistake by cutting him and adding Scott Downs (Tor. - rp) as a backup to Ryan.

Baseball and university salaries

My good friend Nick Johnson has an interesting post in which he uses the Tampa Bay Rays as an example of how "you get what you pay for" isn't true in baseball.  He then uses that example to spring forward to university administrator salaries:

It's a story worth remembering next time we buy the "you get what you pay for" line when hiring university administrators (we've recently picked up another one in the $500,000-$1,000,000 range (salary, plus benefits, expenses, deferred compensation, etc.).

It's not clear to me if Nick is saying that the Rays refute the notion that you must have a large payroll if you want to make it to the World Series, which would certainly be correct, or that total payroll doesn't matter, which seems to me to be incorrect.

If we look at the 2008 payrolls for each team, we see that the playoff teams ranked as follows:

Red Sox #4

White Sox #5

Angels #6

Cubs #7

Dodgers #8

Phillies #13

Brewers #15

Rays #29

(out of 30 teams)

All but one of the playoff teams ranked in the top half by payroll, and the #3 ranked team (Mets) was edged out on the last day of the season for the NL wild card by the #15 team.

So, while it is certainly true that the Yankees (#1), Tigers (#2), and Mets didn't get what they paid for, the next group of teams kind of did.  And apart from the Rays, the only small payroll team that came close to the payoffs was the Twins (#24), who were beaten by the White Sox in the one-game play-in following the end of the regular season.

In baseball, having a big payroll is neither necessary nor sufficient for guaranteeing the playoffs, but it seems highly correlated.  Of course, there are lots of reasons to think that university administrators are different from baseball players, and universities from baseball teams, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Nerds rule!

Wow, my Cal Golden Bears trashed #11 Oregon, 45-24; that opening game loss to Tennessee seems pretty well forgotten, and Cal is still undefeated in the Pac-10.  In other words, it still controls its own destiny.

Meanwhile, I love the AP reporter's observation about Cal:

[Head coach Jeff] Tedford has turned Cal into a football power -- but it's still Cal. Cosmologist George F. Smoot, who won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday, was introduced before the game to the cheering student section, which chanted "Nobel Prize! Nobel Prize!"

Embarrassment in Iowa City

So, uh, the Iowa Hawkeyes didn't put up a very good fight against the #1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes this weekend, losing 38-17.

But that wasn't the most embarrassing thing to happen to my family in Iowa City this weekend.  No, that ignominy would be the fact that on Saturday night, before game time (the game started at 7 pm here so it could be on prime time TV), as we were going out to a restaurant to eat dinner, my wife had inadvertently put on a red shirt and white pants. . . .  D'oh!  To be fair to her, it probably should have been my duty to check for inappropriate "school colors," but I think I've already become inured to that particular combination, seeing as it's Stanford colors.

Still, it was pretty mortifying to walk into the restaurant and see that the waiters and waitresses were all wearing black and gold "Go Hawks!" shirts.

Reggie Bush, the NCAA, and group punishment

USC running back Reggie Bush is the subject of a Pac-10 investigation into whether he violated NCAA rules prohibiting players from getting special benefits from agents.  Bush's parents lived in a home owned by a sports agent, who was allegedly promised $4500 a month in rent (yikes!).  According to the agent, Bush's parents never paid the rent, saying that Bush would pay the agent back after signing with a professional team.

Let me emphasize that the investigation is just beginning, so (a) we don't know if the sports agent's allegations are true, and (b) even if they are true, we don't know if there is enough of a connection to Bush that it would be a violation of NCAA rules.

What I found interesting is that if Bush did violate the NCAA rules, USC may forfeit all the games from last season that Bush played in, which in turn would obviously mean that USC would forfeit its 2005 Pac-10 title.  Would it be fair to punish the entire team for the infraction of a single player?  After all, the criminal justice system does not punish the parents of convicted serial killers, or the friends of a rapist, or whatever.  It's true that in some cases, often white collar cases, the punishment of a business owner or a corporation may have the indirect effect of harming innocent employees; for example, when Arthur Andersen was convicted, it collapsed and suddenly about 100,000 people were unemployed.  Similarly, when people are incarcerated, their families suffer, especially if the person being imprisoned was the primary breadwinner.

Still, those instances are ones where the system does not intend to punish those innocent persons; and the harms are a consequence of punishment meted out to the wrongdoer.  In the NCAA example, however, the sanction is intended to punish the team directly (I think).

Here's why it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to punish the team.  First, forfeiting games is not the same thing as incarceration, or even fines.  It's not punishment in the criminal sense.  Second, football is a team sport, and part of why we should celebrate it as part of our collegiate system is that it builds camraderies and teamwork.  Therefore, letting teams know that if a player on the team cheats, the entire will suffer should have a deterrent effect that causes teams to want to police themselves.  Even if Bush doesn't really care about his teammates, some of them will be turning pro with him, others in the next few years, and he'll have to face them as teammates or opponents.