In the above post, you say that you couldn’t see A-Rod working out a deal with David Eckstein for pitch-tipping purposes. You don’t elaborate, but I assume (tentatively) that this is because you see David Eckstein in a very positive light. Who wouldn’t? He’s tiny, and he works REALLY hard. That said, MY perception of David Eckstein, as well as players like him (effort guys), is based on things like legging out singles when his team is down by 7 runs in the 8th.

I would hate to think that something so pure as “Never Give Up” could actually be tainted… or fogged.

This scenario would make more sense to me, particuarly in A-Rod’s case. Remember either last season or the season before when he shouted “Mine!” while running the bases to try and confuse the fielders on a popup.

Also I think that when it comes to baseball the term innocent untill proven guilty has been somewhat distorted over the last ten years and is now taken more as innocent until accused/alleged.

Therefore, in my opinion, only A-Rod’s stats warrant investigation, because we don’t know who the supposed co-conspirators were.

And Joe Posnanski’s numbers of a blowout OPS of 1.084 vs. a non-blowout OPS of 1.088 suggests just the opposite. Further, we’d expect his OPS to shift in these situations once he got to NY and, again, that didn’t happen.

If it did happen – and Selena Roberts (double-chin, moles, and all) is a demonstrative liar about her coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax – then, in my opinion, this would warrant an immediate lifetime ban for A-Rod.

But Joe Posnanski’s research suggests the opposite; and it was a very good idea on your part, Joe (although I understand that it’s inconclusive).

—–

Because the Texas pitching staff was so awful, if somebody wanted to do it, they could use the Log-5 method to see whether the opposing middle infielders hit higher than they’d be expected to in blowout games using that method.

Better yet, 100% of the time A-Rod was on the infield, he was being videotaped by the camera behind home plate. Every single second is recorded. Proving this would be easy as hell. Get the videos and prove it.

The fact that this was NOT done by the Ugly Woman suggests that it’s as silly as her claim that he took steroids in high school because he grew.

And remember, Buck Showalter, Michael Young, and a host of other notables have said in no uncertain terms that it’s all crap.

I compare her research and reliance on “anonymous sources” with a book like “The Fix” by Declan Hill. This book is about match fixing in professional football (soccer). Mr. Hill spent several years on the story, spoke to lots of unsavory types and yet was able to get many of them on the record. In addition, unlike Ms. Roberts allegations of pitch tipping that are not supported by any data, Mr. Hill examines specific games that are alleged to have been fixed.

When publishers do not demand a certain level of research, they demean the subject and the project. That is what I think happened with the A-Rod book and suspect that it will be readily available in any dollar bin within six months. I will await the next A-Rod which will hopefully be written by someone with better judgement and research skills.

As Shonepup has already pointed out, your math is off. But you are also off on the assumption that there are that many opportunities in blowouts.

To do a real quick analysis, I picked the 1998 Yankees on the assumption that they would have a lot of blowouts (or at least would be expected to, given that they won 114 games).

Of all their games, 55 ended with a run differential >= 5. In some of these games, the “blowout” was not in place until late in the game (e.g., 1-run lead bottom 8th, 2 outs, home teams hits a GS: final result is a blowout, but perhaps only one player batted after the blowout was in place). For sake of argument, let’s say that about half of those games were blowouts by the 7th inning; call it 26 games, since it makes the math easier.

So, that would be one game per week. Using the 7th-inning cutoff as above, roughly 1/3 the innings of these games were played in blowout situations. That means that an average full-time player would be batting in about 9 games worth of blowout innings; let’s say that comes to 40 plate appearances. To be really generous, let’s say that tipping pitches increases BA by 100%, so a .300 hitter becomes a .600 hitter.

Therefore, in the course of a season, a .300 hitter would get perhaps 12 extra hits if their productivity doubled because of their foreknowledge of the pitch coming. In a 600AB season, that makes the difference between .300 and .320 for the season.

Now, if any of my assumptions are too high (which they probably are), we get a much smaller result. For example, home-team blowouts would mean no batting in the 9th inning; players are more likely to be substituted in a blowout, etc.

Realistically, I don’t think this would have an impact of more than perhaps .005 in BA, or .305 instead of .300. (Not to mention the fact that knowing the pitch doesn’t necessarily help; Joe DiMaggio was known for telling his teammates that even if they knew the pitch coming, they were not to tell him because it would screw up his mental preparation.)

Whether A-Rod did or did not tip pitches, I don’t know (and neither does Selena Roberts). I do know that even if he did, the difference in performance is just slightly more than trivial.

Also, as Shark #37 points out, this is not particularly news. I don’t recall the Mick talking about it, but Denny McLain flat-out admitted that he grooved the pitch for Mantle’s last HR of his career. In fact, he had to do it more than once, because Mickey didn’t believe he was being serious on the first pitch.

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/1175681.html

For those interested in more details, here are search results for “Selena Roberts Duke lacrosse”):

http://tinyurl.com/crv2mh

Furthermore, one might wonder exactly how she got 4 confirmations (or so she claims) of A-Rod’s failed drug test, yet ABSOLUTELY NONE for any of the other 103 players who failed the same test the same year. (If she did, I certainly haven’t heard about it.) Or was she only asking about A-Rod to get material for her book and/or to demean him?

Contrary to what Ian #2 believes, I wouldn’t take Selena Roberts’ word for anything over A-Rod’s; hell, I wouldn’t take her word over that of any GWBush press secretary.