Few things annoy me more than when people insist that an outcome must be attributable to some easily-identifiable cause. Life is full of randomness, why can’t people admit this? It may not satisfying answer, but it is frequently the correct answer.

A few weeks ago I was watching a baseball game, when a historically-bad relief pitcher entered the game. Instead of giving up a walk and a few hits, capped off with a homer, he recorded three straight outs. No doubt, this performance was well within the range of expected outcome for this pitcher: outs are common in baseball, and even the worst pitchers frequently record three straight outs. But, this couldn’t have been the answer to the announcer, oh no. “That extra side-work he’s been doing with the pitching coach must have paid off,” we were told.

As I was restraining myself from yanking my hair out in tufts, I glanced over at my copy of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow and thought of sending it to the offending announcer. It was recommended to me by a blog reader, and I have enjoyed reading it. Mlodinow, coauthor of A Brief History in Time with Stephen Hawking, uses his own life experience to explain the mathematical history of randomness while explaining its practical applications.

While it’s the type of book that I like, it may have some additional attraction to baseball fans. Mlodinow is clearly a baseball fan as he uses some baseball historical events to explain randomness. For example, he estimated likelihood of the Braves blowing the 1996 World Series to the Yankees….like I needed reminding. Though the baseball examples are few, they are appreciated.

One of the nice book features is the explanation of difficult concepts through simple examples, without resorting to typical mathematical notation. You may been exposed to these concepts before in a probability and statistics class, but the answer was difficult to grasp among the lines and symbols. In fact, if you know someone taking such a class, the book should clarify and reinforce many of the concepts learned in the course. If you’re a fan of pop-science books, then I think you might like as well.

With the Brewers’ elimination from the playoffs, speculation about the future of hired gun CC Sabathia has already started. And though the Brewers only brought in Sabathia in for a 2008 playoff run, the front office is open to the idea of retaining its ace.

The rising small-market Milwaukee Brewers are seriously considering a surprise run at keeping superstar pitcher CC Sabathia, but while Sabathia said he enjoyed his time in Milwaukee very much after the Brewers were eliminated by the Phillies, Brewers people also understand they’d be in over their heads if the bids go well beyond Johan Santana’s pitching record $137.5 million, six-year deal.

“The Brewers will be in, unless the money gets crazy,” said one person familiar with their thinking.

So, what will the Brewers have to spend to keep Sabathia? According to my projected marginal revenue product model, Sabathia will be worth $144 million for a six-year deal, which translates to $24 million a year. (If you’re not familiar with my model, it is based on recent performance and takes into account aging and league salary growth.)

Basically, it’s going to take Santana money to sign him. I don’t know if this is “crazy” money, but I suspect it will be the going market rate for Sabathia’s services.

From Will Carroll and Eric Seidman.

Andre Ethier recently said that he felt he was seeing better pitches with Manny Ramirez batting behind him….To test this, I looked at the Pitch F/X data for Ethier from 3/31 to 8/27, when he was not hitting ahead of Manny, and compared it to the data from 8/28 until the end of the season, when Manny was protecting him….He saw virtually the same amount of fastballs and same percentage of pitches in a pretty generous strike zone before hitting in front of Manny and after. It might seem like he is seeing better pitches but it could be some type of placebo effect.

This fits with what I’ve found. Thanks to studes for the pointer.

Congratulations to Dave B. for correctly predicting that Jeff Francoeur would walk 39 times this season. The early-season part of The French God of Walks contest was won by the first entrant, and David B. was the second entrant. Also interesting is that the first entrant, Jack, would have won if Francoeur had taken the same number of plate appearances as he had in 2007. Basically, Francouer’s walk total would have been identical to his 2008 total of 42. The lessons here are that Francoeur’s walking eye didn’t change a bit and that winning Sabernomics contests requires entering quickly.

The season was a disaster for Francoeur; not because of his overall poor performance, but because he didn’t improve where he needs improvement. In fact, I think much of Francoeur’s 2008 struggles can be attributed to bad luck, and then adjusting for bad luck in a way that made things worse. At season’s end, Francoeur’s PrOPS was .726, which isn’t too far off from his career OPS of .746. I agree with most people that Francoeur will bounce back to the player he was. The problem is that a mid-.700s OPS from a corner outfielder isn’t good.

Francoeur’s walks, strikeouts, and hitting power were quite similar to his 2007 performances. His strikeout rate was a little lower (17% versus 18.5%) and his isolated power was down a bit (120 versus 151). His base-stealing remains abysmal. He attempted one steal and was caught. How is it possible that a man recruited to play safety for several major college football programs is unable to steal a single base in a season? Brian McCann, who runs like turkey flies, stole five bases without getting caught.

On top of this, his defense—the area where he had been good—declined significantly. After winning in a Gold Glove in 2007, Francoeur was an absolute disaster in the field in 2008. According to John Dewan’s Plus/Minus ($) Francoeur was the sixth-best right fielder in 2007, making 10 plays more than the average right fielder. In 2008, he ranked 28th among right fielders, making 17 fewer plays than the average right fielder.

Many commentators have blamed Francouer’s 2008 on a weight-training program designed to increase his hitting power. This, they say, accounts for his decline in the field and the bat. While I might be willing to buy the explanation for the fielding—though he didn’t appear to get any better after shedding the weight—I think it had no impact on his hitting. If anything, he should have increased his power as he expected. One thing we have learned in recent history is that increasing muscle mass does not hurt bat-speed. That myth went out the window with late-80s Oakland A’s. And furthermore, Francoeur’s fundamental holes are the same ones he has always had. The reason his power didn’t improve is that you can’t hit the pitches he’s hitting (non-strikes), or not hitting, any harder.

I expect Francoeur will improve until his late-twenties before plateauing and declining in his early-thirties like most players. At his peak, I expect he will be an .800 OPS hitter, which is about average for the position. That is, at his best, he will be average for his position. And the peak will occur after he is no longer controlled by the Braves. 2005 was a fluke, and people just need to accept that.

Kyle Lohse has agreed to a four-year, $41 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. It wasn’t that long ago when Lohse was looking for work. He supposedly turned down a three-year $20 million offer during the previous off-season, before finally settling on a one-year $4.25 million (incentives pushed this number up a bit) deal with the Cardinals. At the time, many pundits loudly criticized (with laughter) Lohse’s agent Scott Boras for expecting a multi-year deal with an annual value of $10 million. The initial signing by the Cardinals was supposedly proof of Boras’s hubris.

Well, it turns out that Boras was right. If Lohse had signed the deal three-year $20 million deal, he would have missed out on this deal. I have Lohse valued at $47 million over the next four seasons, and I’m sure Boras was well aware of his client’s value. The opportunity cost of signing a bad deal now is not signing a better one later; it’s a good lesson to remember.

The AJC runs a piece this morning that looks at the role of stadium construction on economic development. Dennis Coates explains the findings from the economics literature.

But economists almost unanimously agree such stadium deals are bad for taxpayers. A 2005 survey found 90 percent of economists agreeing that governments should not subsidize sports teams.

“The only ones who think they’re going to create development and jobs aren’t economists,” said Dennis Coates, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County economics professor who has been studying stadium financing deals for 13 years.

Coates said economists find that spending on hotels, meals and similar side fare to a baseball game represents leisure money that probably would have been spent on another recreational activity anyway. Development around stadiums would have been built elsewhere, they argue. And to top it all off, studies show that per-person income in communities with professional sports teams is sometimes lower than in those without because of all the money that gets siphoned off to the places where players live and the team’s corporate ownership is located.

But, Commissioner Bert Nasuti doesn’t get it.

Such arguments are nonsense to Gwinnett County Commissioner Bert Nasuti, who came up with the idea of bringing pro ball to the county and has been an unwavering defender of the deal to build the stadium for the top minor-league affiliate of the Atlanta Braves.

Nasuti said he doesn’t understand how the county won’t gain with an estimated 400,000 people spending money at the stadium each baseball season, not to mention all the people who will live, work or shop year-round at developments now under review around the stadium site.

“I really don’t believe that without the anchor amenity of a baseball stadium there that Brand Morgan or any other developer would do the level of development that’s going to be there,” he said.

Nasuti, who claims to have majored in economics as an undergraduate commits a major fallacy in his analysis—the type of gaffe that shouldn’t be made by someone who holds the power to tax. He focuses on the seen benefits and ignores the difficult-to-see costs. 19th-Century economist Frederic Bastiat eloquently pointed out the deficiency in this type of argument in his classic essay “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.”

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

It is easy to envision a stadium full of fans watching a Triple-A baseball team in Gwinnett County: fans paying for parking, buying tickets, purchasing concessions. How could anyone argue that this isn’t an economic benefit? It’s all very simple to a “good economist.” The money that fans spend on the game has to come from somewhere; and that somewhere is likely other entertainment options within the community. Professor Coates details this quite clearly in his preceding statement.

It is incorrect to claim that such expenditures are net beneficial to the community. Instead, we are seeing dollars shuffled around the community from one area to another. These effects are possibly quite difficult to see. If every restaurant in the area lost a waiter as a result restaurant patrons choosing to attend Braves games, the opportunity cost is not immediately visible for those who are not trained at where to look. Professor Coates’s work with economist Brad Humphreys have looked the aggregate effect on communities and their findings are unambiguous that sports teams convey zero economic benefits to their hosts. If Gwinnett is going to be an exception, we need to hear an explanation as to why.

There is no doubt that Brad Morgan and other nearby land owners will gain from being close to the new stadium, but other local merchants will be worse off as consumers shift their purchases to the stadium. The estimated 400,000 people’s expenditures represent a wealth transfer, not new wealth.

Another argument made in the article is that there exist non-monetary benefits to the stadium, and that the added taxes borne by citizens is low enough that citizens would tolerate it.

Rodney Fort, a sports economist at the University of Michigan, said the intangible value of having a new recreational opportunity, team to root for and all that goes along with it can produce quality-of-life benefits that can help justify public spending on a project.

The dollar figures are often fairly small spread out across a community’s population, Fort argues.

Seattle officials used a similar argument in seeking to publicly finance a new stadium years ago, Fort said. Backers produced ads comparing the cost to that of a Big Mac sandwich every month.

“A lot of people are going to say, ‘No, it’s not worth a Big Mac a month,’ ” Fort said. “But a lot of people are going to say, ‘Yeah, that’s worth it.’ “

I agree. In fact, I have told numerous individuals that I might be willing to support the Gwinnett plan if it had been sold to the voters differently. Instead, the deal was cut in a back room and without any opportunity for public feedback. Despite what community leaders claim, I have never seen a project pushed through in secret. The public was told that the stadium would pay for itself from day one, which is untrue and deliberately misleading. Furthermore, the stadium proponents have done nothing but tout the economic benefits of the plan. If you are going to take people’s money, just take it. Don’t couple it with a lecture on how your taking it is good for everyone, especially when you are wrong.

So, how much will the new stadium cost? I broke it down to the household level here: $110 now, with an additional $90 spread out over the next 30 years. If the stadium generated $15 million in economic stimulus every year, this would be a good deal, but it won’t do so. And the fact that government officials with the power to tax have taken so little care to research the facts ought be embarrass them.

$700 billion could build 437.5 new Yankee Stadiums. I’m not sure which is more absurd: that $700 billion buys so many stadiums or that it buys so few.

Addendum: Alternatively, it could build 11,864.4 Gwinnett Braves stadiums (at $59 million a pop). Expect this number to fall in the coming months.

Per AJC.

“We need to demonstrate to our citizens that we are doing everything we possibly can,” County Administrator Jock Connell said Wednesday after announcing the initiative.

The groups will seek to find $35 million in reduced expenses or increased revenues, and should make their recommendations by November, in time to be included in the 2009 budget.

“There will be some aggressive recommendations,” Deputy County Administrator Michael Comer predicted.

The $35 million figure roughly matches the amount of money county officials have budgeted to spend from the county’s reserve fund this year due to stagnant or declining revenues and rising costs.

The figure also roughly matches the tax revenue ($31 million) and first-year bond payment($2.4 million) devoted to the new Gwinnett Braves stadium. But, don’t worry, Gwinnett government officials are looking out for their citizens.

Connell said he told department heads to remember that their jobs are to serve residents.

Just like the stadium is already paying for itself.

Terance Moore reveals some infighting within the Braves organization involving some guys at the very top.

When Hank Aaron leaves you a message to call his southwest Atlanta home as soon as possible, you dial his number even faster than that. Said the man who is baseball’s legitimate home run king instead of that other guy, “Something has just been bothering me, really. I don’t mind other things, but somehow, some things need to be spelled out correctly.”…

“I was listening to something [last week] on television where Bobby was talking about how, when Chipper came to the team, he took him aside to tell him what we did to get him here, and I was stunned, really,” said Aaron, before recalling a conversation he had with Braves officials in 1990 when they owned the No. 1 pick before that June draft. By the time of the draft, Aaron had been promoted to senior vice president.

Said Aaron, with a sigh, “I told Bobby. I told them all, and I told them, ‘Y’all better go and get Chipper Jones.’ “

That was opposed to pitcher Todd Van Poppel, Cox’s first choice, according to Aaron. “I talked to Van Poppel’s daddy, and he told me that he wasn’t going to sign with the Braves, but that’s who Bobby wanted with that first pick, because he always was into getting pitching.”

Cox looked perplexed when informed of Aaron’s remarks, saying, “Well, we had a lot of people see [Van Poppel], and they liked him. Some other [Braves scouts] went to see Chipper, and they liked him a lot. I can’t remember if I had Hank talk to Van Poppel’s father or not, but [Van Poppel] was unsignable. And we needed to know that beforehand. So that’s why it really was an easy decision to take Chipper. He wanted to sign. He wasn’t playing games with the college thing. It was simple. I mean, Chipper was the guy.”…

If this sounds like a conflict between Aaron and Cox, now the Braves’ field manager, well, you make the call. Said Aaron of his relationship with Cox, “I just talk to him, you know. What bothers me is that when he became general manager [in 1985], there absolutely was no connection between the two of us.

I’m not surprised with a clash of egos, but I am surprised that this has gone so public. Aaron wasn’t caught off guard by a good question. He called a columnist at the AJC and gave him something to put in his column. It sounds like Aaron does not plan to continue to work with/for the Braves. I’m surprised that Aaron’s participation in an ownership group seeking to purchase the Cubs has gotten little media attention.

One of my favorite things about being a sports fan is reading between the lines. We don’t know what front office personnel do behind closed doors, and it’s fun to speculate based on actions that we can observe. This season, a few events have caused me to believe that serious rifts exist within the Braves management.

First, we had the demotion/promotion of Jeff Francoeur. He spent three games in Mississippi, where we were told he would spend a few weeks. His immediate recall, following vocal on-the-record comments blasting Braves management by Francoeur, was completely out of character for the Braves. It was only a few years ago when John Smoltz had to apologize for calling John Schuerholz a “homeboy”. Frenchy said much worse and never backed down nor apologized; yet, his starting right field job was waiting for him after his brief hiatus. Frank Wren glossed over Francoeur’s comments as fiery competitor talk. In other words, Frank Wren may have the title of GM, but he’s not calling the shots on his own. Someone changed his mind—or wasn’t in on the initial demotion discussions—after Francoeur was sent down. Also, evident is that though Bobby Cox was in on the demotion discussions, he did not agree with the decision as Frenchy returned to the starting line-up immediately upon his return.

Next, we had the rumors of Bobby Cox’s retirement. Several sources close to the Braves reported that Cox’s return to the Braves next season was in doubt. There was open speculation that several coaches were on the hot seat. Reading between the lines, inside sources were telling reporters off the record that either: there was a high probability that Cox and some members of his staff would not be back or tensions between the front office and the managers were escalating. Cox put a stop to the rumors by declaring that he would be back, and the Braves soon released a statement saying that all the coaches would be back.

And now we have Hank Aaron making comments about decisions that were made two decades prior. Does it really matter what happened? Do these guys have memories good enough to remember exactly what went down? This was a personal shot.

Some sort of conflict is going on within the Braves organization. I’m not sure what it is, but all signs point to an agitated group. It looks like Hank Aaron will be leaving soon, and I won’t be shocked if others follow him out the door.

I went to the Braves-Phillies game at Turner Field last night. As with all games at the Ted, it was a fun affair. It turns out that it was Gwinnett Braves night, and my seats were right around the corner from a suite reserved for the Gwinnett Braves.

As I waited in line for my $1 hot dog—hot dogs are $1 on Thursdays in September, but I’d prefer a price hike to keep the lines down—I had a direct view into the room full of Gwinnett County power brokers. I saw Commissioner Bert Nasuti. A friend of mine was egging me on to go introduce myself, but I didn’t want to ruin his night nor mine. If he won’t return my e-mail, I suspect he wouldn’t be to keen to have surprise face-to-face meeting. I was there to enjoy the game, and so was he. As I learned from living in Washington, DC, you don’t talk politics when your out to have fun.

After I gave up on the hot dog to go get a beer, I walked right by John Schuerholz. Again, I was encouraged to approach him, but I wasn’t in the mood. I suspect he doesn’t enjoy being accosted by random people at the ballpark.

The person/thing I most wanted to meet was Gwinnett Braves mascot General Gimme. I was hoping for a picture with him for the website. Unfortunately, our paths never crossed, or he was scared of my shadow.