I don’t know much about the actual development of Puerto Rican prospects, but assuming the story told is correct, Brian Joura provides a nice example of how weakening of property rights hurts investment.

In 1990, Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, was added to the MLB amateur draft, meaning that players from the island were subject to the same signing rules and terms of draft eligibility as players in the U.S. and Canada. While players from countries outside the MLB amateur draft could be signed as soon as they reached the age of 16, those subject to the MLB amateur draft had to wait until they finished high school.

The result:

In the 17 years since being included in the draft, only four players from Puerto Rico have approached the level of success achieved by the players from the 1982-88 period. Only Carlos Beltran, Jorge Posada, Javy Vazquez and Jose Vidro have emerged from what previously was a booming market of star players from Puerto Rico.

What happened here?

In a word - money. When teams had to compete to sign the best talent in an open marketplace, they had to spend money, both in signing bonuses and in promoting their brand. Teams would spend money on facilities in these countries, hoping players would develop allegiances to an organization. It’s no coincidence that three of the 13 players listed above (Gonzalez, Rodriguez and Sierra) signed with the Texas Rangers. Teams added locally-based scouts to their payroll to help identify talented players at an early age so they could get the jump on other teams.

But with the addition of Puerto Rico to the annual amateur draft, a team no longer had incentive to invest money in developing relationships in Puerto Rico because a player they spent money on could be drafted by any of the other teams in MLB. So money that might have gone to Puerto Rico now went elsewhere. Like Venezuela, which has sent Bobby Abreu, Edgardo Alfonzo, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Guillen, Ramon Hernandez, Richard Hidalgo, Victor Martinez, Melvin Mora, Magglio Ordonez and Johan Santana, among others, to the majors since 1990. The Astros have been very active in Venezuela, signing Abreu, Guillen, Hidalgo and Santana from the above list.

Now that there is less benefit to finding and signing a hidden gem in Puerto Rico, teams have little reason to stay. Also, informal local “agents” who scout and develop prospects in return for a cut of future player earnings have less incentive to find at groom pre-16 talent. The draft reduced signing bonuses, and agents may have then decided spend time doing things other than finding baseball talent.

Here are two groups of players who pitched for the Braves this season.

John Smoltz Chuck James Kyle Davies Jo-Jo Reyes Jose Ascanio Macay McBride Anthony Lerew Joey Devine Blaine Boyer Kevin Barry

Tim Hudson Buddy Carlyle Lance Cormier Mark Redman Bob Wickman Peter Moylan Tyler Yates Rafael Soriano Oscar Villarreal Chad Paronto Ron Mahay Manny Acosta Mike Gonzalez Wilfredo Ledezma Jeff Bennett Octavio Dotel Steve Colyer Royce Ring

The former group includes Braves farm products, the latter group are pitchers whom the Braves brought in from elsewhere. Yes, I know that Smoltz spent some time in the Tigers organization, and some of the non-Braves group have put in short stints in the minors with the Braves, but I want to keep this simple. The lists reveal an unsettling trend for Braves fans: most of the decent pitching is coming from the outside. And the bad news continues as any potential help is too far down in the organization to count on.

I’ve heard a good bit of grumbling among Braves fans about Roger McDowell, but I’m not sure there is much to complain about. The Braves are tied for fourth in the NL ERA and the pitching staff has an ERA+ of 105. As ugly as some of the Braves pitching has been with the fourth and fifth starter spots, the team has survived. Yes, it would be nice if some of the younger products had performed better, but looking at this pattern, I’m not so sure it’s McDowell’s fault. With the sea of ill-will that followed Leo Mazzone out of town, we heard similar complaints about his inability to work with young pitchers. But, now I wonder if the problem has more to do with deficiencies in instruction or scouting of pitchers.

I believe Roger received a big vote of confidence when Davies was traded. If the front office considered McDowell the problem, I don’t think they would have moved Kyle. The Braves need young and cheap starters more than old and expensive relievers. The Braves gave up on Davies, not their pitching coach. I will not be surprised if some minor league pitching instructors move on after the season.

Two years ago, the Braves traded away the number-one-rated prospect in baseball Andy Marte. At the time, the Braves had bounced him up and down from Atlanta to Richmond for a year. Yes, prospects are prospects, but he looked ready to hit the majors full time after he was shipped to Boston and then Cleveland during the 2005-2006 offseason.

In Richmond (2005), Marte posted a .275/.372/.506 line at the age of 21. This followed a .269/.364/.525 season in Double-A Greenville. When I take a quick look at a prospect, I look at two things: walk rate and power. He had walk rate of 12.9% and isolated-power of .256 in Greenville; 13.9% and .231 in Richmond. Basically, I thought he was a lock to be a major league regular if not something special. Now, he’s not too old to give up on, but he has definitely fallen off the right track.

Since the Braves swapped him for Edgar Renteria, Marte has spent most of his time in Triple-A Buffalo. Coming into this season, I thought his 2006 was just a bad year (.261/.321/.451), but his 2007 is looking even worse (.245/.282/.439). In particular, he’s lost his ability to walk and hit for power. In 2006, his walk rate and isolated-power dropped to 8.7% and .190. In 2007, he’s at 5.3% and .194.

There have been many top prospects who just couldn’t cut it in the majors, but I cannot remember seeing someone so primed for stardom stall out in his third season in Triple-A. I wish I had the answer as to why.

Last night, I received my first lesson in scouting from an unlikely source: Keith Law of ESPN’s Scouts, Inc. I say unlikely, because Keith is generally regarded to be a stat-head. But, from the lesson I got, Keith didn’t seem to be doing much different than the scouts surrounding us.

When I arrived at the game, I saw the stands were full, which is not surprising for a Georgia high school baseball game. As I waited for the half-inning to pass before I found Keith, I saw two guys behind home plate pointing radar guns. I thought, “a few scouts are here to see this kid.” But, after he proceeded to walk the bases loaded, I realized he must not be the main target.

At the break, I located Keith and sat down. I soon found out that there were way more scouts than I had thought—they filled the stands behind the plate. The fans were sitting down the first and third base lines. As the opposing pitcher took the mound, I saw two-dozen radar guns go up, including Keith’s. “This is the kid everyone is here to see,” Keith informed me. The pitch, the mitt pops, the guns go down and tilt up so they can be read—89, 90, and 91 are on the guns I can see—then everyone starts scratching away in their notebooks.

Also, all of the scouts had stop-watches around their wrists to time the stretch and measure the speed of the batter from home to first. Note to prospects: even if you hit into an obvious out, run as hard as you can to first so that you can be timed. If you’ve never seen a gathering like this before, it’s a pretty cool experience.

Keith explained to me what he looks for in prospects and discussed a few minor prospects on the field—I won’t repeat his opinions here. Then we went over to the Mellow Mushroom for some pizza. We talked baseball, sabermetric gossip, jobs, family, and other odds and ends—we’re both 33-year-old libertarians who like Harry Potter.

If was a fun experience, and I have to say that Keith is a great guy. I want to thank him for inviting me to tag along. If you ever spot him at a game, I’m sure he’d be willing to chat with you if you approached him. I look forward to seeing his body of work grow at Scouts, Inc.

I often get e-mails from readers who are interested in working in an MLB front office. Well, here’s your chance to break in. Farhan Zaidi, an economist who works in the Oakland A’s front office e-mails me this exciting opportunity.

We just posted an internship listing on our website for someone to help us during draft season (April to June). I think it’s an excellent opportunity. I’m emailing a few bloggers and site administrators about the listing, hoping they can put it in a quick plug for it and encourage people to apply. The link and full listing are below. Any mention you could make of it on your site would be helpful.

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/mlb/help/jobs.jsp?c_id=oak#job_05

Baseball Operations Intern: 1 position
April - June
The Baseball Operations department is seeking an intern for the Spring 2007 season. The Intern will report to the Assistant General Manager and Baseball Operations Analyst. Primary duties will include but are not limited to the following:

- Assisting with data collection and analysis projects
- Research and report on all potential player personnel decisions, including Amateur Draft
- Game-charting and report generation from game-charting programs
- Prepare staff for organizational meetings
- Complete specialized projects as assigned

Requirements:
- Qualified applicants must be motivated, well organized, detail-oriented, and be able to work independently and on a deadline.

- Candidates must be proficient in all Microsoft Office programs (especially Excel).
- Proficiency in statistical packages, such as Stata, SAS, and SPSS is a plus.
- Knowledge of scripting languages (Perl, Python) for screen-scraping programming is a major plus.
- Background in math and statistics is preferred.
- Candidates must be within commutable distance of our offices in Oakland for the duration of the internship.

Interested applicants should send a cover letter and resume to Intern Coordinator, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland CA 94621, or via fax 510-563-2397, or email baseballjob@oaklandathletics.com* by March 1, 2007. Please clearly detail your technical and programming skills in your resume. No phone calls, please.

I think “excellent opportunity” is an understatement. Even if this job isn’t a good fit for you now, please take a close look at the qualifications: Excel, Stata, SAS, SPSS, Perl, Python, math, and statistics. That should speak volumes about what you need to get a leg up on the competition if you want to work in MLB.

I’ve been wanting to post some these thoughts for some time, even before the season started. But, I kept putting it off, thinking that The Natural would prove me wrong. And I was hopeful that the kid had something to teach me. I’ve hinted at my thoughts on Francoeur publicly, and discussed them more in private, but I guess I should go ahead an put my thoughts in a single post. Jeff Francoeur’s 2005 was a fluke. And it was flukey for more than one reason. That doesn’t mean he won’t be a very good baseball player one day, but his current performance in 2006 should have been expected. I don’t care how much “make-up” you have, if you can’t lay off bad pitches you’re not going to excel as a hitter.

First off, his PrOPS for 2005 ( .270 /.311 /.506 /.816) are much lower than his actual line (.300/.336/.549/.884). That is an over-performance of 68 OPS points, about 8%. He was a bit hit lucky.

Second, I believe the evidence indicates that part of Francoeur’s fast start was the result of poor scouting. In Mississippi, Francoeur posted a line of .275/.322/.487/.809 against double-A pitching. The funny thing is that his performance in the minors was slightly worse than is PrOPS numbers in the majors. Less capable minor league pitchers knew something that major league pitchers didn’t, or the Braves had Jeff on some bizarre hitting program. The way Jeff tailed way off over the rest of the 2005 season is consistent with major leaguers getting good scouting reports on the guy.

This leads to another interesting question: why did it take so long for major league teams to figure him out? There were certainly scouts watching him in double-A, why didn’t they pass along what the minor league pitchers were doing? My guess is that Francoeur’s jump surprised everyone, and that scouts were not scouting him like advance scouts typically do. Instead, they focused on his raw ability and promise. Scouts saw his poor plate discipline and just reported, “he’s not ready yet, fire it in there.” And well, that was very bad advice. And because Francoeur is blessed with amazing power, when he got pitches he could hit he hit them along way. He didn’t fluke his way to 14 home runs, you have to be gifted to hit home runs. But I think with good advance scouting reports he would not have been nearly as successful—maybe half of those homers go away. In fact, one thing teams may have learned from this experience is that unexpectedly pulling up kids from the minors can yield benefits, because other teams lack the information to get these guys out. Instead of contenders looking to get Joe Randa through a waiver-wire deal for the playoff push, maybe teams should pick up a talented prospect whom no one expected to see.

And why is it that minor league pitchers figured him out? Well, look at the incentives for the pitchers in double-A versus those in the majors. If a double-A pitcher wants to move up, he has to get outs. The best way to do that is to prepare for the guys you’re going to face, especially the best players on the team. These pitchers saw he liked to swing at everything—a friend of mine who watched him in high school said this was no secret then—and they stayed away from the zone without fearing the free pass. But for major league pitchers, Francoeur was just another rookie. Why worry about him when you’ve got to face the Jones boys? And that’s when Frenchy’s window for success opened.

The problem is that now that the window has closed, what are the Braves to do? He’s nearing the 100 PA mark, without having walked even once. And he’s leading the league in swinging at first pitches, so his pledge to work on plate discipline is not going so well. Also, he’s only had five extra-base hits, so he’s not hitting for power when he does hit the ball. This isn’t a bad-luck, small-sample-size slump. There is a real problem.

So, what should the Braves do? Some people think he should be sent down. I don’t think you can do that now. He’s been in the big leagues too long. If he goes to Richmond, all he’ll be thinking about is how to get back. I think the mental fatigue would be too much. The Braves are just going to have to gut this one out, and let him learn on the job. But, it is time to stop pretending he’s already an All-Star. Moving him down in the batting order might reduce some of the pressure, and he could split some time with Diaz and (gulp) Jordan. He’s still an excellent defender and baserunner, too. There are plenty of players in the league who are no worse. Most of them don’t get to play as much, though.

Rich Lederer moderates a discussion at the Baseball Analysts between three sabermetric consultants: Tom Tango (Tangotiger), Mitchel Lichtman (MGL), and Eric Van. This discuss many things of interest, including unionizing sabermetric consultants.

Bryan Smith reviews the his top-75 prospects at mid-season ( 1-30, 31-75). Here’s a sample on Jeff Francoeur.

19. Jeff Francoeur: Atlanta Braves (OF)- 21
AA (SOU): .275/.322/.487, 21/76, 13 SB in 335

Now in the Majors, Francoeur homered in his first game against the Cubs. He has a bunch of flaws as a player — both contact and selectivity — but makes up for it in raw talent. Still, you have to wonder how long we’ll be justifying walk rates with that comment. The Braves are huge believers in Francoeur, and have all-but-decided that he, Kelly Johnson and Andruw will make up the 2006 outfield. Expect Jeff to have the, by far, worst numbers of the group.

He also reports on Marte, McCann, and Saltalamacchia.

As I promised back in February, I have reviewed the anti-Moneyball themed Scout’s Honor: The Bravest Way To Build a Winning Team by Bill Shanks. You can read it over at The Hardball Times. Here’s a preview.

The Braves may have developed their on-field success in a way that was different from the A’s, but this does not prove that the Moneyball philosophy is flawed. In fact, quite the opposite is true. That a careful understanding and use of empirical methods based on sound statistical principles employed by a few intelligent men can achieve success similar to a very large organization of traditional scouts is proof of success, not failure. The success of the Braves is something Beane wanted to emulate, but it wasn’t feasible given the constraints imposed by his bosses. Beane had to find a way to win with less, and he did.

The A’s still use scouts; they just use fewer of them and may use them in different ways. This is something that is also clearly stated in Moneyball. The sabermetric method that the A’s employ is simply a new technology no different from the radar gun carried by the scouts Shanks loves so dearly. And just as the Luddites wished to destroy a new technology that threatened their livelihood, scouts have reason to feel threatened by the new knowledge brought forth by sabermetrics. Moneyball is not the fad that Shanks claims but a new technology. It’s superior to the old methods in some areas, but not all. It’s not going away. And while traditional scouting methods are an old part of the game, the process of technological innovation (sometimes known as creative destruction) is much older.

Thanks to the guys at The Hardball Times for publishing my review.

Addendum: A few people have commented on my review over at Baseball Primer. I thought the comments were mostly good, and there are a few from people who have actually read both books at the heart of the debate. I’m very much looking forward to Mike Emeigh’s review, and Tango Tiger just nails it (If you don’t know what it is, you’ll see.). Although one person ripped me, he/she admitted to never reading the book. ????? I’m glad I don’t have the guts to criticize people about things which I have no knowledge. It’s funny how ignorance and arrogance often correlate positively, but I guess it makes sense. The anonymity of the internet doesn’t help. There’s no real reputational cost to saying stupid things, so why not act like a complete idiot. And, of course, now someone’s going to get his/her feelings hurt and be all upset about what I said; but, if no one’s willing to stand up these losers then they’ll just keep clouding good debates with noise. The more noise, the more we need a filter. The problem is that a filter is a public good, which is under-provided. So, consider my response as an altruistic gesture… and I’m not kidding.

Also, thanks to those of you who sent me e-mails. I appreciate your comments, and I will try to get back to all of you.

Last week I posted James Hall’s interview with a baseball scout. Now, I have have an interview with a member of the A’s front office Farhan Zaidi. Who is Farhan Zaidi? Well, he’s the newest member of the A’s front office, and he has an interesting background of interest to me: he’s a PhD economist (from Cal). When I saw that Farhan had been hired, I sent him an e-mail requesting an interview. To my delight, he agreed to answer some questions once the season started. I sent him some questions just over a week ago, and he quickly got back to me. His answers are extremely fascinating, and I hope you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I learned quite a few things from his answers that I did not expect to hear, especially about what front offices really do. And if you are interested in working your way into a position like his, he has some interesting advice for you.

I would like to extend a special thank you to Farhan for taking the time to do the interview. This was an extremely nice gesture. I am grateful for your kindness.

————————————————-
What exactly do you do for the A’s?

The job has evolved into a mix of a traditional baseball operations assistant position and an analyst position. I chart all our games and prepare advance reports for our coaching staff. Right now, I’m spending a lot of my time doing analysis for the draft, in particular flagging strong statistical performers that our scouts have not gotten a chance to see yet. Once the draft is done, I’ll probably spend more time doing the kind of analysis we’re used to seeing on Baseball Prospectus, Primer, and other related sites — efficient bullpen usage, things like that.

Economists tend to have two sets of skills that are good for working for an organization like the A’s: 1) Critical thinking, which we economists imperialistically call “the economic way of thinking” and 2) technical econometric skills. Which of these do you think is most important to your job? And is there another skill that I missed?

I would definitely say the first. There are steeply diminishing returns to using advanced econometric methods in this job. Time is of the essence, and even if time weren’t an issue, I would rather do a simple analysis that is easy to explain than a more econometrically-kosher analysis that no one’s going to understand. As it is, we’re usually dealing with such big sample sizes that the signal from the data is generally strong enough to be picked up even by the most basic econometric approaches.

I do think critical thinking is incredibly valuable in this job. Ultimately, baseball operations is all about finding the right distribution of resources across the organization, and evaluating tradeoffs. Having an economics background helps in framing every decision we have to make as a tradeoff — what does a move get us, and what are we giving up? I think framing those decisions the right way goes a long way towards making the right choices.

I know you’re a student of Matthew Rabin. Rabin’s known for his work in behavioral economics, challenging some elements of the standard neoclassical paradigm. My guess is that Michael Lewis is a big fan. Is Billy Beane tapping your brain in search of new inefficiencies that only a trained Rabin student could spot?

I don’t think Billy and David really set out to hire an economist — they were looking for someone with a quantitative background who had some knowledge of the game. We don’t sit around and specifically talk about what behavioral economics models might be useful in evaluating the markets we deal with.

That being said, I do think those markets are prone to the types biases and inefficiencies that are the focus of the behavioral economics field — confirmatory bias, overconfidence, present-biasedness, loss aversion, the list goes on and on. Not all of them can necessarily be profitably exploited, but I do think the background in the field gives me a different perspective on things.

Which did you find first, sabermetrics or economics? Is there an interesting story here?

I discovered sabermetrics when I bought my first Bill James abstract way back in 1985. Can’t say I was writing economics papers back then, so I guess sabermetrics came first. I didn’t really discover economics until my senior year in high school, but even then I never saw myself combining the two. I always just thought of myself as a baseball fan who was more interested in stats than the average fan; and at the same time someone with an interest in economics.

What has been your biggest thrill so far in the job? I heard you worked on the Juan Cruz arbitration. What is working on an arbitration case like? Why do you think you won?

Hopefully once we get on a hot streak, my biggest thrill will be something that takes place on the field, but so far I’d say it was winning the arbitration case. That was really the first thing I worked on after starting with the A’s so to win the case was very validating. It was a good first thing to work on because preparing a presentation was something I was familiar with from my management consulting days (I worked at the Boston Consulting Group from 1998-2000). It was a pretty intense process, and David Forst (the Assistant GM) and I had to work pretty diligently to build our case up, piece by piece. I think we ultimately won because we established precedent was on our side. That was the big surprise to me about the arbitration process — it’s all about establishing precedent. The weight given to precedent is pretty pervasive throughout the industry — from draft bonuses to arbitration cases to free agent signings — much more than I anticipated.

Why did the A’s want Charles Thomas from the Braves over Ryan Langerhans? I can’t believe Schuerholz would have allowed a player that can’t find playing time in the current Braves outfield to be a sticking point to the Hudson deal, so you guys must have wanted Thomas. Was it defense, or did you see something else? I was pretty shocked at how well he hit in the majors, and he didn’t project badly, despite his low walk rate, in my cornball projection system.

I wasn’t with the A’s when the trade was consummated, so I can’t really speak to Thomas vs. Langerhans. I don’t think it’s some big sabermetric secret that Charles Thomas is one of the best defensive outfielders in the league. He’s also a very good baserunner (if not base stealer) and he does have some pop. I can understand the question because his offense took a quantum leap in 2004 and it’s reasonable to be suspicious of that improvement. But I think he can be an above-average hitter at the major league level (2005 start notwithstanding) and he brings a lot to the table on defense and on the bases.

What’s it like working in MLB?

It’s amazing. I absolutely love my job and feel very fortunate to be in this position. It’s very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind and lose perspective on things, so every once in a while I force myself to take a step back and appreciate the chance I’ve gotten to work for a baseball team.

That said, it is an incredibly intense and consuming position. The one thing about this job, and this industry as a whole, is that there is more information out there than any one single person could ever process. You have to accept that you can’t know everything all the time and learn to draw the line somewhere. The problem is, drawing the line is such a difficult thing to do because we all love the game so much and going through that information is generally fun and enjoyable.

What’s it like working for Billy Beane?

I feel fortunate to have the chance to seem him go about his business every day. Being a GM is an incredibly demanding job — they juggle more balls in the air than the average fan can imagine. It takes a pretty unique combination of an analytical mind, leadership quality, personality, and organization skills to be a GM. To be able to manage it all with the ease that Billy does is pretty amazing. Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed by all the “to-do’s” and responsibilities in my position, all I have to do is look to him as an example of someone who manages everything so effortlessly.

Are there any GMs on other teams that are just plain suckers?

Absolutely not. Working in baseball has given me a newfound respect for GM’s in baseball. It takes a lot to rise through the ranks of the industry to one of those 30 positions. Fans and media like to deride some GM’s as being clueless, but from what I’ve seen, being a clueless GM is an oxymoron of the highest order.

Who are the “Moneyball GMs” that we don’t know about?

I think whether a GM is a “Moneyball GM” or not is ultimately determined by the moves they make, which are, of course, open to public scrutiny. So your guess as to who those GM’s are is as good as mine. The one thing I have noticed is an increasing number of GM’s have some analytical resources at their disposal, be it a consultant or a full-time assistant. How much they actually use those resources is another matter altogether.

How are the A’s having such a collective hitting slump? It’s like the Great Depression happened to the A’s offense. I don’t think a single player is hitting up to what he should be. Is this something you plan to ride out or do you think something is really wrong? (It looks like bad luck to me).

Given the track records of the guys on our team, it’s hard to believe we’re as bad as we’ve collectively been so far. Eric Chavez is not a .213 hitter. We’re not a .669 OPS team.

This team has been built to have consistent threats 1-9 in the order, albeit without anyone at the level of a Barry Bonds or Manny Ramirez. Even if things were going well, we’d probably still be leaving a lot of runners on base. The way things are going, with guys injured and slumping, we’ve been even more exposed. I’m not saying we wouldn’t love to have another power bat in the middle of the lineup, but if guys were doing what they were expected to do, our offense might even be a relative strength.

Do the A’s know how to quantify fielding as well as hitting and pitching?

The industry in general has gotten better at quantifying fielding value, through zone ratings and the like. The biggest issue is getting that kind of fielding data at the minor league and amateur levels. In those instances, we’re still fairly reliant on scouting assessments of fielding ability and potential.

Who is the best prospect in the A’s system that we haven’t heard of yet?

Given how high-profile our farm system is because of the book, that’s a tough one. I’ll just cite two guys who are off to spectacular starts in ‘05 who were probably not on the radar before this season — Andre Ethier, an outfielder and ‘03 draftee out of OSU, and Dallas Braden, a left-handed starting pitcher and ‘04 draftee out of Texas Tech. Braden started the year in Stockton but was recently promoted up to Midland (whether Ethier has been all year).

What advice do you have for a young sabermetrician baseball fan for getting a job in a front office?

It would be a little presumptuous for me to give advice here, since that would imply that I had some sort of well thought-out plan that landed me here. The most accurate advice I could give would probably be, “get lucky.”

The one thing I’ll say is that, if an opportunity every presents itself, you have to treat it like it’s the last opportunity you’ll ever have, because it probably will be. When I found out I was going to interview with Billy and David, I spent the week before the interview preparing non-stop, for probably 18 hours a day. And I would say every last minute was worth it. So I suppose other than the somewhat facetious, “get lucky,” I would add, “be prepared.”