Tigers and the Slough of Despond - 2015 Edition

Latest rumor I've heard is the Tigers dumping Brad at the end of the season, and hiring Ron Gardenhire, an over the hill manager with a mediocre track record.   Early in his managing career at Minnesota, Gardenhire did well with a low payroll team.  But from 2011 through '14, his best record was 70-92 (.432)

I suppose a disappointing season might generate a knee jerk reaction. If it were to be this, I see very little merit in the action.

Let's take a look at the Tigers season and see if we can identify problems.

Tigers have given up 5.06 runs per game. That's a run differential of -102, as of today. Only Colorado and Philadelphia are worse. They've actually exceeded their Pythagorean win expectation by 5 games. By the BaseRuns metric, they're exactly where they should be.

It comes down to pitching, not Brad.

One criticism is he leaves his pitchers in too long.

Brad's dilemma is - if you take a starter out, who are you going to replace him with? Hardy (57 Innings Pitched, 1.26 WHIP) and Wilson (65.1, 1.06) are the only decent relievers in the stable, and they can't go out every day. Next best is Verhagen (15.1, 1.37) but his sample size is small. League Average WHIP is 1.3 to 1.4. By this metric, everybody else is from below average to Awful. Also, per WHIP, the only decent starters are JV and Norris, but Norris is on the DL.

It's pitching, not Brad.

In games decided by 1 or 2 runs, the Tigers are 31-31. In games decided by 4 runs, they're 8-11. In games decided by 5 or more runs, they're 17-27. I would expect that if managing is gong to make a difference, it would be in close games. They're dead even there. The story of this season is giving up tons of runs, and getting blown out.

It's pitching, not Brad.

Tigers are tied for the highest batting avg in MLB with KC, at .271; 4th in OBP at .326; 4th in slugging at .427; but 11th in runs scored, 159 behind No 1 Toronto. Baseball statisticians do not believe that clutch hitting is a thing. All this hitting with a lower than expected scoring rate actually comes down to bad luck.

I don't see any rational reason for dumping Brad.

That's Why They Get the Big Bucks

I’m quite sure that if I suddenly obtained one million dollars, I’d find some constructive use for it.  Ditto the 2nd million, 3rd, 4th, and maybe even the fifth.  But each successive million provides less marginal utility.  Eventually, unless your goal is to own a small 3rd world country, the largest ranch in Texas, or a stable of Republican politicians, the meaning of that next million is close to zero.

Where is that point?  It will vary from person to person, but, realistically, could it be more than a dozen or two?  Can having $50 million really make one happier, more secure, or able to eat in better restaurants than having $30 million?

Which brings me to Mike Babcock, and belatedly to Max Scherzer.  Each of them went out in search of greener [a word I use advisedly] pastures.  Selling one’s services to the highest bidder is free enterprise in action, I guess.  Clearly, for each of them it was about the money.

Which takes me back to my primary question - how much is enough?  is any amount satisfactory? Can these gentlemen provide sufficient value for the money they are receiving?

In Max’s case, one can construe a non-monetary rationale.  The Nats  have a lot of potential to get him a world series ring.  But, at 24-17, they currently have the same record as the Tigers. Well, you takes yer money and you takes yer chances.

For Babcock, though, it’s nothing but the money.  He’s leaving a highly successful, possibly even over-achieving, organization to join the Maple Leafs - what local Detroit sports writer Pat Caputo calls “a dysfunctional organization with a psychotic fan base.”

I don’t harbor a great deal of animosity toward either of them.  Some, though - just not a lot.  I wish for Max a level of modest success that makes the high premium paid for him look like a massively foolish misallocation of resources.  For Babcock - I wish him several years of frustration and disappointment, and ultimately a great deal of longing and regret.

Because, isn’t that the end game when money is the only thing you care about? 

Still More on Christie

Brought to you by two Bosses.

The Wrong Man for the Wrong Job

I might have a marginally less jaundiced view of Michigan governor Rick Snyder's emergency manager solution to Detroit's economic problems if 1) the approach didn't have a known track record of dismal failure; B) The people of Michigan hadn't rejected the E.M. approach in our most recent and, in retrospect, meaningless election; and iii) if Snyder hadn't chosen as E. M. a man who is incapable of managing his own personal finances.

I do not see this coming to a good end.

But on the plus side, Kevyn Orr was able to pull out his wallet and fork over about $16,000 in unpaid taxes.

Twice in two years.

Update:  According to Snyder spokesweaselperson Sandra Wurfel, "There was apparently an oversight related to a childcare provider unemployment insurance payment."    This is blamed on a 3rd party accountant.  Aside from the craven blame shifting, one must wonder how this innocent mistake could happen four consecutive years.

Republicans, All Wrong, All the Time, Part 34 -- Thus Spake The Rube

For the hundredth time the foreign-born Muslim commie Nazi extends an olive branch across the aisle, and for the hundredth time it's dashed to the floor, stomped on and set ablaze - along with the latest spokes-liars trousers.   It became a conflagration that the infamous water-stop could not staunch.

Early in Marco Rubio's alleged rebuttal to B. Hoover Obama's latest exercise in political theater it became painfully obvious that his pants were on fire.  This was even before it became obvious that his diatribe was utterly incoherent.  Steve Benen explaines.

By any sensible measure, Rubio's entire pitch was incoherent gibberish. He thinks President Obama is hostile to free enterprise and wants to increase the deficit, neither of which makes any sense. Rubio thinks the housing crisis was caused by big government, which is simply idiotic. Rubio celebrates his family's history of dependence on government social programs like student loans and Medicare, while articulating a policy agenda that guts government social programs like student loans and Medicare.

Forget ideology, subjectivity, and areas of opinion -- the fact is Marco Rubio's speech was filled with a series of claims with no meaningful connection to reality. The senator even thinks combating the climate crisis means asking government to "control the weather," which is just genuinely dumb.

Part way through I started taking notes, and discovered an unappetizing platter of rewarmed left-overs [or more accurately: right-overs] of Romney's failed presidential campaign, where lying and incoherence were the norm.  It was deja vu all over again. Viz:

Obama's obsession with raising taxes
Solyndra [God help us - I am not making this up]
We should open Federal lands to energy exploration
Grow Energy industry [but not renewables]
Lower Corp tax rate
Incentivise school districts
Schools of choice
Solve the debt problem [As if BHO ignored it - or, more importantly - as if it were a real problem]
Obama created the debt with excessive spending  [my personal favorite]
Need a balanced budget amendment  [the ignorance - it burns, too]
Obama's in favor of leaving Medicare just the way it is [though he clearly stated otherwise]
He also wants to unconstitutionally undermine 2nd amendment rights
The President's devastating cuts to our military [Seriously -- WTH?!?]
Moral breakdown in society - need more faith
Economic liberty

That's what I was able to capture as Rubio's litany of [mostly] decades old Republican clap-trap spewed forth almost faster than I could record it.

One of the MSNBC commentators pointed out that this nonsense wasn't directed to the American public, who I hope are beginning to see through the smoke screen, but to the hard-core right-wing base.  As such, it's Rubio's first gambit in his run for the 2016 presidential nomination.

I don't know if I should laugh, cry, or drink myself into a stupor.

Bork's Deep and Abiding Influence

After his defeat as a Supreme Court nominee in 1987, Robert Bork gradually faded away from the public consciousness.  I can tell you, in the intervening 25 years, I probably gave him no thought at all.

But Bork had enormous influence on the modern interpretation of anti-trust law, perhaps single-handedly redefining the scope and purpose of anti-trust legislation.  Basically, Bork was pro-efficiency and anti-anti-trust.  He swallowed whole the bait-bucket of Chicago-economic-school ideas of market efficiency, and built the entire framework of his pro-trust belief system on that invalid foundation.

It seems fair to say that it is in large part because of Bork's influence that we now have trans-national mega-corporations with huge monopolies and oligopolies.  These corporations have no inherent loyalty to anyone nor anything.  In my view, the oligarchs that run them do not even have a general sense of loyalty to stock-holders, let alone the broader universe of sake-holders, who mainly exist to be exploited.

Efficiency, in and of itself is a good thing.  But it cannot be achieved in a vacuum - there are externalities that are largely negative.  For one thing, the efficiencies are mainly internalized and do not necessarily represent a more broadly efficient society.  Second, as a market gets concentrated, competition decreases and the pressure to improve, or even maintain status-quo efficiency slowly erodes.  This ultimately leads to a situation where big, lumbering, inefficient but extremely powerful entities control the economic and political landscape.  Yes, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big insurance, Big Finance, I am looking at you.

Perhaps worse, though, is the power asymmetry that results from size and influence.  Suppliers, customers, and the public at large are overwhelmed by the sheer might of these institutions, leading to even greater concentrations of power and wealth.

The end game is some version of economic collapse.  It happened in the 1930's, and - due largely to Chicago-style economic thinking, we've spent the last 40 years unlearning the lessons of that time - it happened again in 2008.

Most of the time, evil doesn't manifest as some cackling cartoon villain or mad-man on a murderous rampage.  It results, in a far more banal but far-reaching way, from the highly refined ideas of men like Robert Bork who value abstract concepts like efficiency over the effects the programs they institute over the lives of real human beings.

Hoisted from the Archives (and the OTHER 47%)

Four years ago today, on my Tumbler blog that was never read by anyone, I posted what I am about to repost here today.  Though this is in a way a continuation of the anti-Sarah Palin rant that got me blogging in the first place, you can almost just plug in Paul Ryan and not lose much continuity.

Except  for the title, of course.

The Perils of ‘Populist Chic’

In my idle moments I wonder what is to become of the Republican party?  I think the political process needs differing points of view, brought together by right-minded, clear thinkers.  On a good day, from this clash of ideas can come balance and something approaching the truth.

But that is for later.  For now, the country has gone so far off track, we need united resolve to get back on course.  I believe Obama has the skills and character to make a serious attempt, and he’ll need the cooperation of both houses of Congress.  For now, at least, the Democratic sweep is the best thing that could have happened in this election.

Meanwhile, the Republican party needs a long walk in the wilderness, to search for its soul.  It cannot be with the hijacking Bushite neocons, who have violated every legitimate conservative principle.  If it is with the religious right, then God help us all.  One of our country’s founding principles was the avoidance of theocracy.

Sadly, though, Sarah Palin remains the darling of the Republican party - as unbelievable as it seems after their defeat.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/07/poll-64-percent-of-republ_n_142284.html

She represents not only theocracy, but a particularly vapid and dangerous brand of anti-intellectual populism.  The same kind of populism displayed by Hitler.

Here is an article about the intellectual decline of the Republican party.

Notable quote:
There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of American public debate and helped to keep it sober. Those days are gone. As for political judgment, the promotion of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead. And all of us, even liberals like myself, are poorer for it.

This is the final paragraph, and the first clue I had that the writer wasn’t a conservative.

http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB122610558004810243.html?mod=article-outset-box#articleTabs%3Darticle

The comments tab accompanying the article will take you into the dark cave where the Palin fans lurk.  Their unabashed love for Palin, and forthright contempt for Obama are astounding.  These people display the worst of partisanship - the idea that one of ours is right and good, always; and one of theirs is wrong and bad, always.

Good luck, Barack.  This is 47% of the country you will soon be governing.

Well, what happened is that the Rethugs sold themselves figuratively to the insane Tea Party and literally to Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers.  It came pretty close to working.  But I firmly believe that the Rethugs were done in by their own over-each.  I'm astounded by how close the vote count was in my beloved Ohio.  It could be that a back-lash to Romney's flat-ass idiotic anti-Chrysler last minute campaign ads energized Ohio Dems, and that voter suppression energized them in both OH and FLA, where people stood in line to vote past 2:00 a.m. Wednesday.  [It's obvious that this is part of the Rethug's make-it-hard-to-vote strategy.]

About 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, when it was all over except the wailing, gnashing of teeth and a two hour wait for the Romney to concede, I posted this on my FB page.

I want to thank the Republican party for all their voter suppression and intimidation efforts, mid-game rule changes, war on women, nomination of bat shit crazy tea-party candidates, inexplicably stupid campaigning in the closing moments, and unidentified billionaire super-pac funding, without which the lethargic Democratic party would never have mobilized enough to re-elect President Obama.

The lesson of 2010, re-emphasized here, is that if we show up, we win, and if we don't the Rethugs win.  It's that simple.  We outnumber them, but - with their hot buttons, dog-whistles and fear-mongering, they have a highly motivated base composed of angry white men, religious fanatics, racists, the stupid, the insane, the ignorant, and the easily swayed, who will come out and vote for them in force. The utter dependability of these cadres gave the Rethugs the luxury of not having to think in any sensible way about policy or the actual practice of governance.  And that has been their demise.  Amid all the post election finger-pointing and recrimination, the Rethugs have not been able to realize that their vacuous policies of trickle down rich-coddling, anti-science war on information, war on women, and contempt for half the country are not a recipe for success.  And they are not going to get it, because their world view rests squarely on denial of reality.

What I was hoping for back in '08 was that the Republican Party would get its groove back and become the sane and responsible party that it had not been since at least the time of Nixon.  That was a forlorn hope then, and remains so now.  For the good of sane conservatives - if such there be - the nation, and indeed the world, the Rethug party must be destroyed.

And this will be no loss.  Genuine conservatism is now well represented within the Democratic party.  There is a huge vacuum on the political left.  But our system simply cannot accommodate more than two parties.   For it to manifest itself, the Rethugs have to disappear.

Tomorrow will not be too soon.