The Mets have a bit of a problem on their hands. Well, okay, it's not an actual problem, or at least it's not a problem as a net matter, but it will have some problematic aspects. They have too many good young pitchers. Too many good young starting pitchers, that is. By my count it's about six guys, not even counting a few players who seem like they might be able to be MLB-average inning-eater types like Dillon Gee. They've got Matt Harvey, 24, who just set a new Mets record for lowest ERA in his first 30 career starts. They've got Jon Niese, 26, a lefty whose career 4.09 ERA is probably quite a bit worse than he's actually pitched. They've got Zack Wheeler, 23, who's just made it to the majors and is off to a 4-1 start that's better than he's pitched but who has similar stuff to Harvey (read: 98-mph gas and wicked breaking balls). They've got Noah Syndergaard, 20, the centerpiece of the R.A. Dickey trade, who sports a career 2.54 minor league ERA with 298 strikeouts and just 77 walks in 269.2 career innings. They've got Rafael Montero, 22, with just 58 walks in 303.2 career minor league innings to go with 282 strikeouts. They've also got a bunch of exciting young arms like Domingo Tapia, 21, career 3.79 minor league ERA, and Gabriel Ynoa, 20, career 2.55 minor league ERA, who are further from the majors but at least a few of whom should be similarly situated to Montero and Syndergaard in another couple of years.
And then there's Jenrry Mejia, the Mets' original highly-touted pitching prospect of recent years. In fact, he was highly touted so long ago that he feels like a failed prospect at this point. After being misused throughout the 2010 season, bounced around between starting, relieving, the majors and the minors, he developed a need for Tommy John surgery after just five minor league starts in 2011. Upon his return from that surgery late last year, which was a pretty quick rehab anyway, he lost the natural cutting action on his fastball that had made him such an exciting prospect. He looked like he might, at best, end up as a competent middle reliever, but it seemed that neither quality starter nor dominant late-inning reliever were in his future anymore. Until today, his 2013 MLB debut in a spot-start role for a double-header. Apparently he's made some mechanical adjustments and the cut is back on his fastball. So far he's thrown 6 innings, during which time he's struck out 7, walked none, allowed 7 hits, and gotten 8 groundball outs. Oh, and all the hits were singles, of which only one or two were at all hard-hit. All on just 84 pitches. Oh, and he has yet to allow a run. He's not on track for a complete game or anything, and has allowed his fair share of hits, but this is a dominant outing so far.
And if he's back in the conversation as a potentially above-average starting pitcher, then the 2014 or 2015 rotation starts to look very crowded. Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Mejia, Montero, Syndergaard. That's one too many. Oh, and you've got Dillon Gee on the outside looking in, which is perhaps appropriate given his career 4.06 ERA but he's shown, at times, that perhaps he can be better than that. So the Mets are seriously loaded with starting-pitching assets, and will need to figure out whom to trade and whom to slot into the rotation. This is how good Mets teams look, with a glut of good young pitching. It's pretty exciting.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Making Stuff: Not That Much Fun
As this Matt Yglesias post points out, the share of American jobs that are counted as "manufacturing" jobs has been shrinking, pretty much steadily, for decades. Six decades, give or take. Now, during the Obama Administration, it's basically flat-lining, which people are hailing as a manufacturing renaissance when of course it is no such thing. Basically, just before WWII around 31% of all jobs were manufacturing ones, at the height of the war that number had jumped to nearly 39%, it fell back to maybe 32% after the war, and then it just kept going down, and now we're at 9% and stabilized. I don't have a whole lot to say about this 'cause I'm not mostly an economist, but one thought I do have about it is that this is the story of progress. The actual work of making stuff in a modern industrialized economy is pretty lousy. You're basically a factory worker, which doesn't even have as much spiritual satisfaction from beholding the product of your labor as an actual tradesman of the late-Medieval or early modern period. Now, many manufacturing jobs are good jobs, because we've developed a social convention that because manufacturing is such lousy work you should be well-compensated for it, a convention that of course was the doing mostly of unions fighting for it. In fact, actually, I think you could take the relative success of unionization in manufacturing trades as evidence that the work is terrible, because terrible work creates pissed-off workers, who decide to fight back. But there's no reason why other jobs have to be particularly worse as employment than manufacturing jobs, and I think most jobs in the "service" sector of the economy basically just involve much more pleasant work than manufacturing ones do. Maybe I'm being a bit naive about how soul-crushing a lot of office jobs or retail jobs are, who knows, but there's certainly a lot less around your work-place that can kill you. So on the production side of things, moving away from manufacturing is a sign of progress: we're doing less unpleasant work. If that means that the average terms of employment have gotten worse, that's only because we've let them, and we could as a society decide to change that.
It's also progress when you think about the consumption side. I don't think the demand for physical stuff in society is limitless. People basically kind of just need a certain amount of physical stuff to enable them to do the things they want to do. Therefore, it makes all kinds of sense that as a society gets richer and more prosperous and as its productive capacity increases, there will not be a correspondingly large increase in the amount of physical stuff it requires. Certainly from an environmental perspective we should hope that there wouldn't be. This allows, or almost sort of forces, that increasingly prosperous society to devote less and less of its efforts to the manufacture of physical stuff. Or, to put it another way, manufactured goods are emphatically not something on which a thriving society will naturally spend its increase in wealth. Things like better education, better health care, a better array of restaurants and foodstuffs, more entertainment, etc., and also more leisure i.e. time spent not working on anything, definitely are the things that increasingly rich societies will divert more and more attention to, so it is completely natural that we should see manufacturing jobs become a much more marginal part of the economy. After all, the exact same thing happened to agriculture, and we've managed to live with the consequences of lots of awesome food and we don't all have to be farmers. There's no reason to fear the consequence of lots of awesome stuff and we don't all have to be factory workers, either.
It's also progress when you think about the consumption side. I don't think the demand for physical stuff in society is limitless. People basically kind of just need a certain amount of physical stuff to enable them to do the things they want to do. Therefore, it makes all kinds of sense that as a society gets richer and more prosperous and as its productive capacity increases, there will not be a correspondingly large increase in the amount of physical stuff it requires. Certainly from an environmental perspective we should hope that there wouldn't be. This allows, or almost sort of forces, that increasingly prosperous society to devote less and less of its efforts to the manufacture of physical stuff. Or, to put it another way, manufactured goods are emphatically not something on which a thriving society will naturally spend its increase in wealth. Things like better education, better health care, a better array of restaurants and foodstuffs, more entertainment, etc., and also more leisure i.e. time spent not working on anything, definitely are the things that increasingly rich societies will divert more and more attention to, so it is completely natural that we should see manufacturing jobs become a much more marginal part of the economy. After all, the exact same thing happened to agriculture, and we've managed to live with the consequences of lots of awesome food and we don't all have to be farmers. There's no reason to fear the consequence of lots of awesome stuff and we don't all have to be factory workers, either.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
"A Better Bargain"?
That's apparently the new Obama slogan/catchphrase/hashtag (no, seriously) from his economic speech today. The idea is that his agenda is to "build a better bargain for the middle class." Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Oh, right: from two different Roosevelts and Harry Truman. How about, instead of using a phrase that's an obvious rip-off of "New Deal" or "Fair Deal" or "Square Deal," or really kind of trying to be all of those at once, they finally embrace the obvious slogan to describe Obama's long-term economic agenda?
Jeez, Slow Down!
Sort of continuing the theme from my recent post arguing against the insane, over-the-top rhetoric about slow play, I thought I'd share an anecdote from my round of golf today. My dad and I were playing at our local course, and we both played pretty badly. I shot a 60 for nine holes, and he had a 58. We finished our round in slightly under two hours, maybe 115 minutes overall, so less than one minute per aggregate group stroke. (As my dad points out, it's not clear that there isn't some causality from rushing the play to the poor play, but that's beside the point right now.) Now, there isn't a formal par time for this course, but I definitely feel that a four-hour eighteen hole round is very much the standard. At the somewhat-tougher course my family plays in Cape May, there is an official par time and it's around 2:12 or 2:15 for each nine. My dad and I played in under par time today, in other words, I'm fairly certain. You definitely couldn't accuse us of slow play; I was actually surprised how fast it all went, given how awful I in particular was.
But that's all measuring against what I might call the objective or absolute standard, comparing our overall time performance against a theoretical ideal. The typical way to measure pace of play on a golf course, however, is subjective/relative: are you keeping pace with the group in front of you? Now, that's not always relevant, if your group is a foursome who tee off just behind a fast single or whatever, but what is true is that if you do keep pace with the group in front of you then you are doing nothing wrong in terms of pace of play, though the converse might not hold. Today, the group in front of us was a foursome, so we, being a twosome, should have had no trouble keeping up with them. And, as I said, we were not playing shamefully slow; we were playing rather, though not incredibly, quickly.
But they left us in their dust. They were in carts, we were walking, and after a few holes we just lost contact with them, and were playing as if there were no one in front of us. They must have been playing insanely fast, given that they were a foursome, basically just zipping from one shot to the next in their carts and not taking much time over anything. There was another twosome behind us, also in carts and therefore waiting for us on most shots, and the fact that we had failed to keep up with that foursome made the whole thing feel a bit uncomfortable, despite, as I keep reiterating, the fact that we were not playing overly slowly.
And that's really the point of the whole anecdote. If most of the groups out there on public courses are playing at such a hectic pace, using carts and a lack of care over their shots to achieve times way below standard, it creates an environment in which a twosome of conscientious golfers playing the game seriously and trying to hit each shot as best they can, i.e. taking time over their shots, but not playing slowly are constantly made to feel rushed. And, of course, as the authorities of the game encourage impatience and hurrying of one's neighboring fellow golfers in the name of combating slow play, one increasingly must assume that the people in the group behind you are in fact getting very impatient, and probably even feeling self-righteous about it. They may or may not be, but that is increasingly held up as the honorable, appropriate reaction for people in that position. It makes the whole thing very uncomfortable, and needlessly so: is it really that onerous to take the full four hours to play a round of golf? I get not wanting to spend five hours on something you expect to finish an hour earlier, but if you only have three hours or three and a half, don't go out expecting to play eighteen holes of golf. You'll have to rush yourself, and worse, you'll end up rushing the people around you. And that is at least as much a sin as making the group behind you wait a few extra minutes to finish their round.
But that's all measuring against what I might call the objective or absolute standard, comparing our overall time performance against a theoretical ideal. The typical way to measure pace of play on a golf course, however, is subjective/relative: are you keeping pace with the group in front of you? Now, that's not always relevant, if your group is a foursome who tee off just behind a fast single or whatever, but what is true is that if you do keep pace with the group in front of you then you are doing nothing wrong in terms of pace of play, though the converse might not hold. Today, the group in front of us was a foursome, so we, being a twosome, should have had no trouble keeping up with them. And, as I said, we were not playing shamefully slow; we were playing rather, though not incredibly, quickly.
But they left us in their dust. They were in carts, we were walking, and after a few holes we just lost contact with them, and were playing as if there were no one in front of us. They must have been playing insanely fast, given that they were a foursome, basically just zipping from one shot to the next in their carts and not taking much time over anything. There was another twosome behind us, also in carts and therefore waiting for us on most shots, and the fact that we had failed to keep up with that foursome made the whole thing feel a bit uncomfortable, despite, as I keep reiterating, the fact that we were not playing overly slowly.
And that's really the point of the whole anecdote. If most of the groups out there on public courses are playing at such a hectic pace, using carts and a lack of care over their shots to achieve times way below standard, it creates an environment in which a twosome of conscientious golfers playing the game seriously and trying to hit each shot as best they can, i.e. taking time over their shots, but not playing slowly are constantly made to feel rushed. And, of course, as the authorities of the game encourage impatience and hurrying of one's neighboring fellow golfers in the name of combating slow play, one increasingly must assume that the people in the group behind you are in fact getting very impatient, and probably even feeling self-righteous about it. They may or may not be, but that is increasingly held up as the honorable, appropriate reaction for people in that position. It makes the whole thing very uncomfortable, and needlessly so: is it really that onerous to take the full four hours to play a round of golf? I get not wanting to spend five hours on something you expect to finish an hour earlier, but if you only have three hours or three and a half, don't go out expecting to play eighteen holes of golf. You'll have to rush yourself, and worse, you'll end up rushing the people around you. And that is at least as much a sin as making the group behind you wait a few extra minutes to finish their round.
Ike Davis, Non-Automatic Out
It's not good for a Major League baseball team to have spots in its batting order that are essentially automatic outs. National League teams all have one of those, for the first several innings anyway, for the pitcher, but they all have that in common so it more or less cancels out (except for the Pirates). But you don't want any other spots to be that bad, and if they are, hopefully you're getting Ozzie Smith-type defense out of it and you can bury the guy in the 8 or 9 spot. Having, say, someone you want to think of as your cleanup hitter, a power-hitting first baseman, say, suddenly decide to become an automatic out is basically an unremitting disaster, especially since you'll probably spend a while leaving them in the #4 spot, and then gradually moving them down to #5, and then #6, and then maybe #7. So they're not just making outs all the time, they're making outs in more important spots than you'd really like to be giving them, given how terrible they are.
Anyone who's watched any of the 2013 Mets, of course, knows I'm talking about one Ike Davis. As he did in 2012, he got off to a very slow start, but a) he didn't have a Spring Training bout of valley fever as an excuse, and b) he didn't ever snap out of it. On June 9th, Ike was batting .161 with a .242 on-base percentage and a paltry .258 slugging percentage. He had hit only five home runs, only three doubles, and had driven in only 16 runs in 207 plate appearances over 55 games. Terrible numbers for anyone, but as I said, a catastrophe of epic scale from a left-handed slugging first baseman expected to protect David Wright in the cleanup spot. Accordingly, Ike got his ass sent down to AAA, to the Las Vegas 51s. There, however, he seemed to find his stroke, hitting .293/.424/.667 in 21 games and belting 7 home runs, to go along with 7 doubles. The Pacific Coast League in general, and Vegas in particular, is a great offensive environment, but a 1.091 OPS is pretty bloody terrific in any environment. So they brought Ike back.
Now, Keith Hernandez keeps saying that he thinks Ike looks the same as he did in the early part of the season, out in front on pitches, lunging, etc. But the simple fact is that Ike has stopped being an automatic out. The power isn't really there, but everything else is. In his first game back, on June 5th, Ike went 3-5 with a walk, two runs scored, two driven in, and a strikeout. And the strikeout was on a borderline 3-2 pitch that I thought was a ball. In other words, in 6 plate appearances Ike had 6 good showings; he didn't give away a single at-bat. That looked very promising. Obviously he hasn't kept that pace up, but since his return he's got a .256 batting average with, more importantly, a very nice .370 OBP. The power still isn't there; of his 10 hits, 2 have been doubles but he hasn't had any home runs, so the slugging percentage stands at just .308. That will need to change, and the fact that the two doubles were in the last two games is encouraging. But the simple fact is that 37% of the time Ike Davis strides to the plate since his return to MLB, he does not make an out. Before being sent down, that number was 24%. That's the difference between terrible and great, at this particular, very important, aspect of overall performance. If he can keep it up I have no doubt the power will show up, because he just does have tremendous raw power, and he might be able to put together a monster second half as he did last year.
If so, he'll be perhaps the toughest player in all of baseball to forecast going forward. Which is the real Ike Davis, the guy who's a threat to hit 40 home runs or the guy who isn't a threat to break the Mendoza line?
Anyone who's watched any of the 2013 Mets, of course, knows I'm talking about one Ike Davis. As he did in 2012, he got off to a very slow start, but a) he didn't have a Spring Training bout of valley fever as an excuse, and b) he didn't ever snap out of it. On June 9th, Ike was batting .161 with a .242 on-base percentage and a paltry .258 slugging percentage. He had hit only five home runs, only three doubles, and had driven in only 16 runs in 207 plate appearances over 55 games. Terrible numbers for anyone, but as I said, a catastrophe of epic scale from a left-handed slugging first baseman expected to protect David Wright in the cleanup spot. Accordingly, Ike got his ass sent down to AAA, to the Las Vegas 51s. There, however, he seemed to find his stroke, hitting .293/.424/.667 in 21 games and belting 7 home runs, to go along with 7 doubles. The Pacific Coast League in general, and Vegas in particular, is a great offensive environment, but a 1.091 OPS is pretty bloody terrific in any environment. So they brought Ike back.
Now, Keith Hernandez keeps saying that he thinks Ike looks the same as he did in the early part of the season, out in front on pitches, lunging, etc. But the simple fact is that Ike has stopped being an automatic out. The power isn't really there, but everything else is. In his first game back, on June 5th, Ike went 3-5 with a walk, two runs scored, two driven in, and a strikeout. And the strikeout was on a borderline 3-2 pitch that I thought was a ball. In other words, in 6 plate appearances Ike had 6 good showings; he didn't give away a single at-bat. That looked very promising. Obviously he hasn't kept that pace up, but since his return he's got a .256 batting average with, more importantly, a very nice .370 OBP. The power still isn't there; of his 10 hits, 2 have been doubles but he hasn't had any home runs, so the slugging percentage stands at just .308. That will need to change, and the fact that the two doubles were in the last two games is encouraging. But the simple fact is that 37% of the time Ike Davis strides to the plate since his return to MLB, he does not make an out. Before being sent down, that number was 24%. That's the difference between terrible and great, at this particular, very important, aspect of overall performance. If he can keep it up I have no doubt the power will show up, because he just does have tremendous raw power, and he might be able to put together a monster second half as he did last year.
If so, he'll be perhaps the toughest player in all of baseball to forecast going forward. Which is the real Ike Davis, the guy who's a threat to hit 40 home runs or the guy who isn't a threat to break the Mendoza line?
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Save John Boehner!
Or perhaps more like "save" John Boehner.
First, read this post by Jonathan Chait, and then perhaps also read the long-form piece he links to in the first sentence. Basically the point is that John Boehner's ongoing struggles to control the insane right-hand flank of his caucus, which is about 60% of that caucus, are, well, an ongoing struggle, and not getting any easier. Okay, now you're caught up, and I can make my point, which is this:
It seems possible that, sometime in the future, John Boehner might lose his Speakership. Well, okay, as phrased that's a certainty. More interestingly it seems likely that he might lose his Speakership to a Republican, possibly before the end of 2014 or possibly in the next Congress, when it's quite likely we'll still have a Republican majority. But actually I should rephrase this again: it's quite possible that Boehner might, without his party having become the minority, lose the party leadership election, i.e. lose the support of a majority of his caucus. Ordinarily that is tantamount to losing your Speakership, but in this case it might not be, and this is where my proposal comes in.
Suppose we reach a situation sometime early next year, or late this year, where 60% of House Republicans would prefer a different leader. Maybe Paul Ryan, maybe Paul Broun, who knows. They're crazy, and I shan't bother trying to predict their craziness on this score. The other 40% of the Republican caucus, however, still wants Boehner as their leader, and as Speaker. That's about 94 votes for Boehner, and 140 for the designated loon. There are also, in the House of Representatives, 200 Democrats. Now, I honestly don't know what happens if they all vote for Pelosi, who's presumably their first choice for Speaker right now. I think we go into further balloting, and probably eventually one or the other Republican side gives up and they coalesce around one candidate. But what if the Democrats vote John Boehner for Speaker?
That would give him a majority.
A majority most of whom were Democrats.
And it would make him Nancy Pelosi's pet.
Now, this strategy is not guaranteed to succeed. In fact, making it work would be kind of tricky. The ordinary play is that parties hold internal leadership elections and then, when it comes time to vote for Speaker, they all fall in line behind the person who won the internal election. But there are 200 Democrats, so if they were disciplined about things we would only need 18 Republicans, one of whom would presumably John Boehner himself, to go along with it. There are 234 Republicans; that's 7.7% of the caucus required. The more conservative guy could get 92% support from his caucus and yet lose to the fusion Boehner ticket. So we would just need a) for Boehner himself to feel sufficiently desperate to retain his job that he'd be willing to do it using Democratic votes, and to become Pelosi's pet (which might honestly be easier than his current gig, heh) and b) for 17 other Republicans to feel sufficiently loyal to Boehner and/or betrayed, threatened, etc. by the Tea Party types to go along with it.
The former, well, in his heart of hearts I imagine Boehner would do it in a heartbeat, but I'm not sure he'd be able to actually do it in reality. For one thing, he'd almost certainly lose his next primary, so it would be a short-term solution, but if he's lost the Speakership anyway that might be better than the alternatives. As for the latter, they'd also definitely lose their next primaries, so I doubt it would be possible. And I honestly doubt the Democrats will be creative enough to think of it, although if there's one Democrat who might be it's definitely Nancy Pelosi. Still, I think it would be a pretty effective strategy to mess with the Republicans and maybe, just maybe, make it possible to get an act of legislation through the Chamber. The only alternative, I think, is just pure, unremitting chaos as soon as the insurgent faction get a majority of their caucus. Oh wait, that's exactly what's happening right now.
First, read this post by Jonathan Chait, and then perhaps also read the long-form piece he links to in the first sentence. Basically the point is that John Boehner's ongoing struggles to control the insane right-hand flank of his caucus, which is about 60% of that caucus, are, well, an ongoing struggle, and not getting any easier. Okay, now you're caught up, and I can make my point, which is this:
It seems possible that, sometime in the future, John Boehner might lose his Speakership. Well, okay, as phrased that's a certainty. More interestingly it seems likely that he might lose his Speakership to a Republican, possibly before the end of 2014 or possibly in the next Congress, when it's quite likely we'll still have a Republican majority. But actually I should rephrase this again: it's quite possible that Boehner might, without his party having become the minority, lose the party leadership election, i.e. lose the support of a majority of his caucus. Ordinarily that is tantamount to losing your Speakership, but in this case it might not be, and this is where my proposal comes in.
Suppose we reach a situation sometime early next year, or late this year, where 60% of House Republicans would prefer a different leader. Maybe Paul Ryan, maybe Paul Broun, who knows. They're crazy, and I shan't bother trying to predict their craziness on this score. The other 40% of the Republican caucus, however, still wants Boehner as their leader, and as Speaker. That's about 94 votes for Boehner, and 140 for the designated loon. There are also, in the House of Representatives, 200 Democrats. Now, I honestly don't know what happens if they all vote for Pelosi, who's presumably their first choice for Speaker right now. I think we go into further balloting, and probably eventually one or the other Republican side gives up and they coalesce around one candidate. But what if the Democrats vote John Boehner for Speaker?
That would give him a majority.
A majority most of whom were Democrats.
And it would make him Nancy Pelosi's pet.
Now, this strategy is not guaranteed to succeed. In fact, making it work would be kind of tricky. The ordinary play is that parties hold internal leadership elections and then, when it comes time to vote for Speaker, they all fall in line behind the person who won the internal election. But there are 200 Democrats, so if they were disciplined about things we would only need 18 Republicans, one of whom would presumably John Boehner himself, to go along with it. There are 234 Republicans; that's 7.7% of the caucus required. The more conservative guy could get 92% support from his caucus and yet lose to the fusion Boehner ticket. So we would just need a) for Boehner himself to feel sufficiently desperate to retain his job that he'd be willing to do it using Democratic votes, and to become Pelosi's pet (which might honestly be easier than his current gig, heh) and b) for 17 other Republicans to feel sufficiently loyal to Boehner and/or betrayed, threatened, etc. by the Tea Party types to go along with it.
The former, well, in his heart of hearts I imagine Boehner would do it in a heartbeat, but I'm not sure he'd be able to actually do it in reality. For one thing, he'd almost certainly lose his next primary, so it would be a short-term solution, but if he's lost the Speakership anyway that might be better than the alternatives. As for the latter, they'd also definitely lose their next primaries, so I doubt it would be possible. And I honestly doubt the Democrats will be creative enough to think of it, although if there's one Democrat who might be it's definitely Nancy Pelosi. Still, I think it would be a pretty effective strategy to mess with the Republicans and maybe, just maybe, make it possible to get an act of legislation through the Chamber. The only alternative, I think, is just pure, unremitting chaos as soon as the insurgent faction get a majority of their caucus. Oh wait, that's exactly what's happening right now.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
The Leads Tiger Has Almost Held
The third round of the 2013 British Open Championship just concluded, and it concluded with a late stumble by Tiger Woods. He had played very steady golf all day, sprinkling in a birdie here to counterbalance a bogey there, while Lee Westwood surged and fell back; at one point Westwood had a three-shot lead open in about a fifteen-minute span which he then lost in the next half-hour. But after a Westwood bogey on 16, which featured a great putt holed just to salvage the bogey, the par-5 17th hole proved a bit of a turning-point. Playing into the wind, Tiger failed to get his fairway wood lay-up shot over the cross-bunkers, and had to pitch out. He and Westwood both hit to the fringe just left of the back-left pin, but with Westwood lying three to Tiger's four. Tiger missed, Westwood drained it, and all of a sudden Lee had a two-shot lead and Tiger wasn't going to be in the final group tomorrow any more.
And he wasn't going to hold a share of the lead.
That bit is the crucial bit, or, well, so we're told. Famously, in each of his fourteen major championship victories Tiger has at least been tied for the lead after three rounds. The stat was even stronger before the 2009 PGA Championship, when it was an if-and-only-if proposition: all fourteen times Tiger had held the 54-hole lead, he won, and he had never won without holding the lead. Then, of course, he held the 54-hole lead at Hazeltine National but lost the tournament to Y.E. Yang. In retrospect that was the beginning of his decline. And now he has a chance to break it. The television coverage was discussing his highest positions through three rounds of a major since his last win at the 2008 U.S. Open. Obviously Hazeltine, where he was leading outright, was his best position, but he's been in the top five a few other times. He's tied for second now, but even more important, I think, is the indicator given by a personally-invented stat of mine, Total Shots Trailing. This is a very simple concept: for every player ahead of you in the field, you add the number of shots by which you are behind them at any given point. Today, for instance, Tiger finds himself tied for second, so there's only one person ahead of him, and that person is Lee Westwood, whom he trails by 2 shots, so his TST is 2. I feel like this metric does a good job of combining the information contained in "he's X shots off the lead" with the information in "he's in a tie for Yth place," and though I haven't seen any large-scale empirical studies on the subject I imagine it does a good job predicting how plausible a player's comeback is.
To get a bit of a sense of how Tiger's done when he's been incredibly close to the lead with 18 holes to go in a major but wasn't leading himself, I examined every major he's played as a professional when his 54-hole TST was less than 10 strokes, obviously excluding the ones where he won the tournament. Actually I haven't done the examining yet, just generated the list, so I'm as curious as you are what I'll find, or probably more curious, actually, since it was my idea in the first place. Tournaments will be listed in descending order of Tiger's TST, so starting with the 9-shotters if there are any and finishing up with those where he was in the best non-leading position possible.
And he wasn't going to hold a share of the lead.
That bit is the crucial bit, or, well, so we're told. Famously, in each of his fourteen major championship victories Tiger has at least been tied for the lead after three rounds. The stat was even stronger before the 2009 PGA Championship, when it was an if-and-only-if proposition: all fourteen times Tiger had held the 54-hole lead, he won, and he had never won without holding the lead. Then, of course, he held the 54-hole lead at Hazeltine National but lost the tournament to Y.E. Yang. In retrospect that was the beginning of his decline. And now he has a chance to break it. The television coverage was discussing his highest positions through three rounds of a major since his last win at the 2008 U.S. Open. Obviously Hazeltine, where he was leading outright, was his best position, but he's been in the top five a few other times. He's tied for second now, but even more important, I think, is the indicator given by a personally-invented stat of mine, Total Shots Trailing. This is a very simple concept: for every player ahead of you in the field, you add the number of shots by which you are behind them at any given point. Today, for instance, Tiger finds himself tied for second, so there's only one person ahead of him, and that person is Lee Westwood, whom he trails by 2 shots, so his TST is 2. I feel like this metric does a good job of combining the information contained in "he's X shots off the lead" with the information in "he's in a tie for Yth place," and though I haven't seen any large-scale empirical studies on the subject I imagine it does a good job predicting how plausible a player's comeback is.
To get a bit of a sense of how Tiger's done when he's been incredibly close to the lead with 18 holes to go in a major but wasn't leading himself, I examined every major he's played as a professional when his 54-hole TST was less than 10 strokes, obviously excluding the ones where he won the tournament. Actually I haven't done the examining yet, just generated the list, so I'm as curious as you are what I'll find, or probably more curious, actually, since it was my idea in the first place. Tournaments will be listed in descending order of Tiger's TST, so starting with the 9-shotters if there are any and finishing up with those where he was in the best non-leading position possible.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
A *Year*?!? For *THAT*?!?!?!
So, a fan ran onto the field at the MLB All-Star Game at Citi Field on Tuesday. It was apparently a Twitter dare; he said he'd do it if he got 1000 re-tweets, which he did, so he did. As a result, he has been charged with "interfering with a professional sporting event," which as my dad points out is a curious thing to make a criminal offense; it's a rather blatant example of the state just acting as the private security force for powerful private organizations. (Although I suppose MLB isn't exactly a private organization...) But here's my point: the penalty he faces, in addition to a potential $5000 in civil penalties, presumably from suits by MLB and maybe also the Mets, is a $1000 criminal fine and... up to a year in jail!
A year.
That's right.
Of course, it is eminently not right. This is insane. This is the kind of thing for which 30-day or 15-day sentences were invented. This is basically a misdemeanor. It's someone making a bit of trouble and being a bit immature, and not in one of the ways that people can be immature in and it's fine because it doesn't really affect anyone else. Running onto the field at the All-Star Game does not suggest that you're someone with a particularly criminal tendency or that you're dangerous, although of course we're not supposed to lock people up because we have reason to think they might become dangerous criminals in the future anyway. It's basically a harmless (in the grand scheme of things) prank; I was watching the TV coverage pretty closely and I didn't even notice that this had happened. So yeah, throw the guy in a cell for a couple of weeks and let him think over why what he did was stupid, but don't ruin his life.
Because you know what turns people into dangerous criminals? One thing is having their lives ruined. Another is spending a year in the slammer with people who actually are dangerous criminals, and who make it difficult to survive without essentially becoming one yourself. In a sense this particular incident is trivial, because it's about one guy who ran onto the field at the All-Star Game. But in two other senses it is anything but: first, because it might honestly ruin that guy's life for no good reason, and second because the way we treat criminal "justice" in this country is insane. Jail sentences have been inflated beyond all proportion and it's one of the worst things about our country. It's divorced from any purpose at this point, not even pure vengeful retribution I think because no one can maintain that Dylan McCue-Masone's heinous crimes demand harsh retribution.
In fact, to be completely honest I think the only interpretation of this particular sentence is as a form of something I saw in a description of the eighteenth-century English legal system: terror. The courts of justice are being used to allow the rich and powerful to keep the little people in a state of terror, knowing that if they put one toe over the line set by their betters, they will be crushed. This is a philosophically indefensible thing for a government to be doing, and it needs to stop.
A year.
That's right.
Of course, it is eminently not right. This is insane. This is the kind of thing for which 30-day or 15-day sentences were invented. This is basically a misdemeanor. It's someone making a bit of trouble and being a bit immature, and not in one of the ways that people can be immature in and it's fine because it doesn't really affect anyone else. Running onto the field at the All-Star Game does not suggest that you're someone with a particularly criminal tendency or that you're dangerous, although of course we're not supposed to lock people up because we have reason to think they might become dangerous criminals in the future anyway. It's basically a harmless (in the grand scheme of things) prank; I was watching the TV coverage pretty closely and I didn't even notice that this had happened. So yeah, throw the guy in a cell for a couple of weeks and let him think over why what he did was stupid, but don't ruin his life.
Because you know what turns people into dangerous criminals? One thing is having their lives ruined. Another is spending a year in the slammer with people who actually are dangerous criminals, and who make it difficult to survive without essentially becoming one yourself. In a sense this particular incident is trivial, because it's about one guy who ran onto the field at the All-Star Game. But in two other senses it is anything but: first, because it might honestly ruin that guy's life for no good reason, and second because the way we treat criminal "justice" in this country is insane. Jail sentences have been inflated beyond all proportion and it's one of the worst things about our country. It's divorced from any purpose at this point, not even pure vengeful retribution I think because no one can maintain that Dylan McCue-Masone's heinous crimes demand harsh retribution.
In fact, to be completely honest I think the only interpretation of this particular sentence is as a form of something I saw in a description of the eighteenth-century English legal system: terror. The courts of justice are being used to allow the rich and powerful to keep the little people in a state of terror, knowing that if they put one toe over the line set by their betters, they will be crushed. This is a philosophically indefensible thing for a government to be doing, and it needs to stop.
And That's Supposed To Be A Good Thing?
Quoth Joe Lieberman, regarding the recent filibuster compromise:
Joe Lieberman: oligarch. But I guess we knew that already, as long as Joe Lieberman is one of the few who get to do the ruling.
“With 51 votes, the majority party might just herd their people together to get whatever they want. But there is another dynamic. It empowers small groups of people to affect the outcome.”...and that's supposed to be a good thing? You know what we call it when a small, essentially arbitrarily-chosen group of people gets to affect the outcome of public policy? Oligarchy. Literally, the rule of the few. You know what we call it when the majority gets to do the lawmaking? Democracy.
Joe Lieberman: oligarch. But I guess we knew that already, as long as Joe Lieberman is one of the few who get to do the ruling.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
No, the Big Contracts Aren't the Problem
I was just listening to an interview by Jeff Wilpon in which he discussed the Mets' likely strategy for this off-season. His message was that the team is unlikely to look to build primarily through free agency, that they will probably shy away from massive contracts, that when they've gotten in trouble in the past it's been because of too many big contracts, and that they might try to emulate the model of the Red Sox from this past off-season, when Boston signed a large number of mid-level free agents to short but multi-year deals. This gave them depth, an awful lot of actually solid/good baseball players who could form a decent mix even if some of them got injured, which some of them have, and the Red Sox are leading their division. Of course, another AL division leader is the Detroit Tigers, who recently signed both Prince Fielder and Justin Verlander to $200 million deals, and the other leader is the Oakland Athletics, who never sign any free agents 'cause they don't have the money. So, you know. Perhaps the empirical verdict isn't so clear.
But I was struck by Wilpon's description of the Mets' own past. Is it true that they've gotten in trouble from their super-sized contracts in the past? I don't think so. Here's the thing: the Mets have given out three enormous free agent contracts in their history. All three were among the better signings in team history. It has been, in fact, those more mid-level contracts that haven't worked out, and that have created baggage for the team.
But I was struck by Wilpon's description of the Mets' own past. Is it true that they've gotten in trouble from their super-sized contracts in the past? I don't think so. Here's the thing: the Mets have given out three enormous free agent contracts in their history. All three were among the better signings in team history. It has been, in fact, those more mid-level contracts that haven't worked out, and that have created baggage for the team.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Fixing the Home Run Derby
I am, perhaps, unusual in that I kind of like the Home Run Derby. Well, except for Chris Berman's announcing. That guy is a menace to sporting event telecasts everywhere. But I like the event itself, unlike most sophisticated baseball fans. I don't really have a great lead-in from that fact to the topic of this piece itself, I just sort of thought it was useful background information. So, with that in mind, here goes.
I just saw on FanGraphs an article proposing "the easiest possible fix for the Home Run Derby." Currently, the Derby winner is determined through a three-round structure, where those with the highest home run total in or after each round advance. (As of 2013, I believe, the totals are cumulative in Round 2 but the two remaining players start from scratch for the final round, which has been criticized.) The alternate approach advocated by the article would be to scratch the separate rounds altogether and simply award the victory to the player who hits the longest fair ball over the wall. This, it is argued, would create a focus on the home runs that are actually impressive, i.e. the absolute bombs; it would potentially create a focus on a different kind of player, those with silly raw power rather than the best in-game home run hitters (something many fans have apparently been longing for); and it would keep the drama at its highest until the very last swing of the tournament. If there's a 520-foot shot on the board, well, whoever's got that last swing better swing for a little more than the fences.
Okay, that's reasonably interesting. But there was a modified version proposed in the comment thread that aligned with my own intuition: instead of letting the longest single home run win, have the winner be the player with the most total feet of home runs. But as other commenters were quick to point out, this collapses pretty quickly back to "most total home runs." At Citi Field, for instance, a line drive into Utley's Corner down the right-field line might go 330, while a Mark Reynolds-style blast into the Acela Club could be close to 500. But the difference between those two is miniscule compared to the difference between the wall-scraper and a 407-foot fly ball to straight-away center, which would count for precisely nothing. There's an advantage at the margins to hitting longer home runs, but ultimately it's only a marginal advantage.
So here's my idea: MLB already thinks it can estimate how far a home run ball would've flown before landing had there not been a stadium concourse in the way. Presumably it's not that hard for them to estimate where the ball would've landed, or where it crossed the fence, or something. So it shouldn't be difficult at all to calculate how far past the wall a ball flew. Again at Citi Field, a 450-foot home run to straight-away center would have carried the wall by 42 feet. So my idea is, rather than either having the winner be the guy with the most total feet of bombs or the guy with the single longest bomb, make it the guy who cleared the fences by the most total feet, between his various home runs. Unless I'm missing something, this is a way to balance between the competing goals that doesn't produce any perverse distortions. Raw power is rewarded, but more than one mammoth blast would be demanded. There would be no pre-determined relationship between the winner and either the guy with the most total home runs or the guy with the single longest one; it would be whoever could craft the best balance between those two desires. It would also increase the volatility, because on any one swing a player could make up an awful lot of ground, rather than just scoring a single point. Obviously MLB isn't going to make this kind of change any time soon, but I think it probably would make the whole thing a bit more interesting.
I just saw on FanGraphs an article proposing "the easiest possible fix for the Home Run Derby." Currently, the Derby winner is determined through a three-round structure, where those with the highest home run total in or after each round advance. (As of 2013, I believe, the totals are cumulative in Round 2 but the two remaining players start from scratch for the final round, which has been criticized.) The alternate approach advocated by the article would be to scratch the separate rounds altogether and simply award the victory to the player who hits the longest fair ball over the wall. This, it is argued, would create a focus on the home runs that are actually impressive, i.e. the absolute bombs; it would potentially create a focus on a different kind of player, those with silly raw power rather than the best in-game home run hitters (something many fans have apparently been longing for); and it would keep the drama at its highest until the very last swing of the tournament. If there's a 520-foot shot on the board, well, whoever's got that last swing better swing for a little more than the fences.
Okay, that's reasonably interesting. But there was a modified version proposed in the comment thread that aligned with my own intuition: instead of letting the longest single home run win, have the winner be the player with the most total feet of home runs. But as other commenters were quick to point out, this collapses pretty quickly back to "most total home runs." At Citi Field, for instance, a line drive into Utley's Corner down the right-field line might go 330, while a Mark Reynolds-style blast into the Acela Club could be close to 500. But the difference between those two is miniscule compared to the difference between the wall-scraper and a 407-foot fly ball to straight-away center, which would count for precisely nothing. There's an advantage at the margins to hitting longer home runs, but ultimately it's only a marginal advantage.
So here's my idea: MLB already thinks it can estimate how far a home run ball would've flown before landing had there not been a stadium concourse in the way. Presumably it's not that hard for them to estimate where the ball would've landed, or where it crossed the fence, or something. So it shouldn't be difficult at all to calculate how far past the wall a ball flew. Again at Citi Field, a 450-foot home run to straight-away center would have carried the wall by 42 feet. So my idea is, rather than either having the winner be the guy with the most total feet of bombs or the guy with the single longest bomb, make it the guy who cleared the fences by the most total feet, between his various home runs. Unless I'm missing something, this is a way to balance between the competing goals that doesn't produce any perverse distortions. Raw power is rewarded, but more than one mammoth blast would be demanded. There would be no pre-determined relationship between the winner and either the guy with the most total home runs or the guy with the single longest one; it would be whoever could craft the best balance between those two desires. It would also increase the volatility, because on any one swing a player could make up an awful lot of ground, rather than just scoring a single point. Obviously MLB isn't going to make this kind of change any time soon, but I think it probably would make the whole thing a bit more interesting.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
While We're Young?
While I'm on the theme of golf, let's talk about this whole new "While We're Young" campaign. It is, perhaps, the natural result of the years-long obsession with "pace of play," but it's got an added new element: obnoxiousness. The obnoxiousness comes from this scene in the movie Caddyshack:
Because this movie is famous, and a lot of people find it very funny (although honestly I don't think that scene in particular is particularly funny, having just actually watched it), it is apparently considered acceptable to adopt that line as the slogan for the anti-slow play campaign. And the golfing authorities are running lots of ads now on this theme, that involve famous players either telling other people or being told by other people, "While we're young!" Some of these are actually kind of funny: a few involve Arnold Palmer saying the line, which is funny since he's, you know, eighty; another features Tiger Woods carefully studying a putt, and then being told by a group of young kids who are waiting behind him on a miniature golf course to hurry it up. He misses the putt, they say something about how he thinks it's a major, and then he mutters, "no respect."
Because this movie is famous, and a lot of people find it very funny (although honestly I don't think that scene in particular is particularly funny, having just actually watched it), it is apparently considered acceptable to adopt that line as the slogan for the anti-slow play campaign. And the golfing authorities are running lots of ads now on this theme, that involve famous players either telling other people or being told by other people, "While we're young!" Some of these are actually kind of funny: a few involve Arnold Palmer saying the line, which is funny since he's, you know, eighty; another features Tiger Woods carefully studying a putt, and then being told by a group of young kids who are waiting behind him on a miniature golf course to hurry it up. He misses the putt, they say something about how he thinks it's a major, and then he mutters, "no respect."
"Champions Tour" Is Just A Much Worse Name
This is kind of random, but I'm sitting here watching the U.S. Senior Open Championship and I heard someone mention that so-and-so had joined the Champions Tour earlier this year, and I had the following thought. The impetus behind the switch from "Senior Tour" to "Champions Tour" is the idea that it's more complementary to the players. "Senior Tour" sounds like a tour with a bunch of old dudes on it, guys who are washed up, past their primes, etc. "Champions Tour" sounds, or is at least trying to sound, like a tour full of all the great champions of yesteryear.
But there's a problem with this, and there is scarcely better demonstration of it than Michael Allen, the man currently leading the Senior Open by several shots. His career PGA Tour win total is... zero. He had one European Tour win, one minor-tour win (I believe the minor tour was called the NIKE Tour at the time), and that was it. He played in 369 total PGA Tour events, managed 17 top 10s including three runner-up finishes, and never managed to win a tournament. He was not what you'd call a "champion." Then, on January 31st, 2009, he turned fifty, so though not a champion, he was a senior. And he received a special invitation to play in the Senior PGA Championship (all the majors have kept the traditional "Senior" designation), because though he never won anything he did have a solid career earnings on the PGA Tour. He won that tournament, his first Champions Tour event. Since then he's won three other senior tournaments, has nine further top-10 finishes in the senior majors, and is leading the Senior Open right now.
And it is my impression that quite a few players on the so-called Champions Tour fit this profile. They never won any of the "real" majors. Maybe they snuck a tournament victory here or there, but not many. Some of them may not have been touring professionals in their youth at all. And some of them go on to have spectacular careers after turning fifty. The list of players with the most Senior Tour wins confirms this: Hale Irwin and Lee Trevino, No.s 1 and 2, are definitely "champions," but Gil Morgan, Miller Barber, Bob Charles, Don January, Chi-Chi Rodriguez, Jim Colbert, and Bruce Crampton, who occupy the 3 through 9 spots, had a total of one career men's major to their credit (Bob Charles' win at the 1963 British Open, the only left-handed major winner until Mike Weir in 2003) and 64 PGA Tour wins. They won a total of twelve Senior majors and 156 Senior tournaments. They got better, competitively speaking, after turning fifty. Each of these guys were solid players, but you wouldn't have thought of them as great champions. Others like Bruce Fleisher, Mike Hill, Loren Roberts, Jim Thorpe, etc. fit the same pattern: decent Tour players for a while who turned 50 and then started winning.
And, in my opinion, this creates a dual problem with the "Champions Tour" name. For starters, it's dishonest. These are not all the great players of yesteryear. It's some of the great players of yesteryear, the ones like Fred Couples or Tom Watson who wanted to keep playing full-time competitive golf and whose games stayed in pretty good shape, and some guys who maybe you would've heard of twenty years ago if you followed the Tour closely, but not if you were just a casual fan. But also, and perhaps more importantly, it's insulting to the players, specifically to those players who aren't Couples or Watson or Nicklaus or Irwin. It's insulting to the guys like Michael Allen, or Gil Morgan, or Loren Roberts. It suggests that the point of the Champions Tour is to watch the guys who were the greatest champions when they were all in their prime, not simply to watch the best golfers who are old enough that it doesn't make sense to ask them to play against guys half their age. And that suggests that guys like Michael Allen don't belong, that they aren't the point. They're interlopers, or a distraction, because they weren't great champions on their initial golfing life.
Of course, it's not a very strong implication, and it's sufficiently indirect that I'm probably the only one who's noticed. But still, I think it's abundantly clear that they should've just stuck with calling it the Senior Tour. Because that's what it is, and a Senior Tour is cool enough on its own terms.
But there's a problem with this, and there is scarcely better demonstration of it than Michael Allen, the man currently leading the Senior Open by several shots. His career PGA Tour win total is... zero. He had one European Tour win, one minor-tour win (I believe the minor tour was called the NIKE Tour at the time), and that was it. He played in 369 total PGA Tour events, managed 17 top 10s including three runner-up finishes, and never managed to win a tournament. He was not what you'd call a "champion." Then, on January 31st, 2009, he turned fifty, so though not a champion, he was a senior. And he received a special invitation to play in the Senior PGA Championship (all the majors have kept the traditional "Senior" designation), because though he never won anything he did have a solid career earnings on the PGA Tour. He won that tournament, his first Champions Tour event. Since then he's won three other senior tournaments, has nine further top-10 finishes in the senior majors, and is leading the Senior Open right now.
And it is my impression that quite a few players on the so-called Champions Tour fit this profile. They never won any of the "real" majors. Maybe they snuck a tournament victory here or there, but not many. Some of them may not have been touring professionals in their youth at all. And some of them go on to have spectacular careers after turning fifty. The list of players with the most Senior Tour wins confirms this: Hale Irwin and Lee Trevino, No.s 1 and 2, are definitely "champions," but Gil Morgan, Miller Barber, Bob Charles, Don January, Chi-Chi Rodriguez, Jim Colbert, and Bruce Crampton, who occupy the 3 through 9 spots, had a total of one career men's major to their credit (Bob Charles' win at the 1963 British Open, the only left-handed major winner until Mike Weir in 2003) and 64 PGA Tour wins. They won a total of twelve Senior majors and 156 Senior tournaments. They got better, competitively speaking, after turning fifty. Each of these guys were solid players, but you wouldn't have thought of them as great champions. Others like Bruce Fleisher, Mike Hill, Loren Roberts, Jim Thorpe, etc. fit the same pattern: decent Tour players for a while who turned 50 and then started winning.
And, in my opinion, this creates a dual problem with the "Champions Tour" name. For starters, it's dishonest. These are not all the great players of yesteryear. It's some of the great players of yesteryear, the ones like Fred Couples or Tom Watson who wanted to keep playing full-time competitive golf and whose games stayed in pretty good shape, and some guys who maybe you would've heard of twenty years ago if you followed the Tour closely, but not if you were just a casual fan. But also, and perhaps more importantly, it's insulting to the players, specifically to those players who aren't Couples or Watson or Nicklaus or Irwin. It's insulting to the guys like Michael Allen, or Gil Morgan, or Loren Roberts. It suggests that the point of the Champions Tour is to watch the guys who were the greatest champions when they were all in their prime, not simply to watch the best golfers who are old enough that it doesn't make sense to ask them to play against guys half their age. And that suggests that guys like Michael Allen don't belong, that they aren't the point. They're interlopers, or a distraction, because they weren't great champions on their initial golfing life.
Of course, it's not a very strong implication, and it's sufficiently indirect that I'm probably the only one who's noticed. But still, I think it's abundantly clear that they should've just stuck with calling it the Senior Tour. Because that's what it is, and a Senior Tour is cool enough on its own terms.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Perhaps the Founders Would Be Disappointed. So What?
Gallup apparently has a habit of asking, on one of its late-July polls, whether the respondents believe that "the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be pleased or disappointed by the way the United States turned out." They asked this for the Fourth of July in 1999, when 55% to 44% the public believed the Founding Fathers would be disappointed. Then there was a little surge of, I dunno, patriotism? Something, anyway, because when they asked it during the summer of 2001 (note that this is prior to September of 2001, so this wasn't a rally-'round-the-flag thing) the numbers had flipped: 54% to 42%. The bounce receded a bit by 2003, with a 50%/48% split in favor of "pleased."
Well, all that's changed now: just 27% think they'd be pleased, while 71% think they'd be disappointed.
I have two comments to make about these numbers, one short and one long. First, the short one: while I understand it on a psychological level, on any rational level it is insane for the numbers to have changed that much over the last decade. Right now we're in an economic slump, sure. That has astoundingly little to do with how the country has turned out when we're talking about 250 years! I suppose some of the stuff about intractable war has become more obvious in that time, and I guess if you're a right-winger you've probably gone all Clarence Thomas on the entire Obama Presidency. But, c'mon, in both of those dimensions honestly, from where we were in 1776 we were at least 90% or 95% of the way, ten years ago, to where we are now. The country just isn't that different from its 2001 version, compared to the mutual differences to the early Republic. If you think the tipping-point was in that particular decade, well, I'd be curious to hear you defend it.
Now the long one: I'm in the 71%. I think the vast majority of the Founders would be kind of livid if they were taken on a TARDIS trip from July 4th, 1776 to July 4th, 2013. Part of the reason why is that you have a lot of different changes, each with the potential to alienate a different Founding-era constituency. Any founder particularly wedded to the idea of America as a uniformly Protestant, or even just Christian, or even just religious nation would be disappointed. Any founder particularly uncomfortable with the idea of, you know, gay people--and let's be honest, that's essentially all of 'em!--would be disappointed. Thomas Jefferson's dream of an agrarian republic? Crashed and burned. And then, of course, there's the whole contingent who were committed to the supremacy and superiority of the white race, and the larger contingent who were committed to the political supremacy of the male sex. They're both in for a shock. (Of course, some of their wives and slaves might like what they would see in 2013, but none of them signed the Declaration.)
There may be other, subtler issues that would cause some to be disappointed. Yes, many of them probably wouldn't like how powerful the federal government has become, or that we have standing armies now, or that the practice of corporal punishment of children has gone mostly out of fashion. Or whatever. And psychologically, my guess is that finding one big change that a given Founder thought was a big negative would be enough to put that guy squarely in the Disappointed camp. Some might be judicious enough to say, okay, that's not how I envisioned it, but it looks like a nice place altogether, prosperous and free overall, and maybe my vision of the future didn't do so bad, not compared to all the hardline pro-slavery guys anyway. And honestly I think Alexander Hamilton would just plain love it. But most of them, I think, would find something to hate in how the future panned out, so I think it definitely true that most of them would consider themselves Disappointed.
But, guess what? They'd be wrong! All of those changes that they would be disappointed in? They were great! Racial and gender equality is awesome! Sexual liberation is awesome! Cities are awesome! Religion is not awesome! (Okay, I guess if you're particularly religious you might not be with me on that point...) And, you know what? All you conservatives who love to talk about how the Obama Administration is betraying the Founders' ideal of limited government? If Paul Ryan's budget were passed into law tomorrow, it would be a rounding error on the tally of how far the federal government's powers have been enlarged since 1789. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Among other things, as the Founders probably knew much better than modern "constitutional conservatives," big spending maketh not big government, and spending cuts don't fight tyranny. If you repealed the Social Security Act of 1935 and all subsequent amendments and additions thereto, you'd change the dynamic of federal power, but last I checked the Republican Party is firmly against that course of action, which means that all those conservatives are positively thrilled that we've expanded the federal government way beyond what the Founders envisioned. They just think, of course, that we went too far a couple years back. (Though of course, they're the ones happiest about something the Founders really thought was a sign of tyrannical government, namely our marvelous modern standing army.)
Really, there's only one way in which America, 2013 is substantially worse than America, 1776: our environment has spent the intervening 237 years being degraded with a vengeance, and in ways whose full devastating impact will not be fully known for another century. Other than that, all the myriad massive changes which have swept through this nation and the entire world which the people of 1776 could not have envisioned and probably would not have liked the thought of had they known they were coming have been for the better. We are a nation larger, more populous, more prosperous, more powerful, more cohesive, more egalitarian, more democratic, and, I think, freer than any reasonable extrapolation from 1776 could have foreseen. And if the Founders don't like it, they're free to spin around in their graves all they like.
(Except Alexander Hamilton, though. Seriously, that dude was awesome, and way ahead of his time. He'd feel right at home now.)
Well, all that's changed now: just 27% think they'd be pleased, while 71% think they'd be disappointed.
I have two comments to make about these numbers, one short and one long. First, the short one: while I understand it on a psychological level, on any rational level it is insane for the numbers to have changed that much over the last decade. Right now we're in an economic slump, sure. That has astoundingly little to do with how the country has turned out when we're talking about 250 years! I suppose some of the stuff about intractable war has become more obvious in that time, and I guess if you're a right-winger you've probably gone all Clarence Thomas on the entire Obama Presidency. But, c'mon, in both of those dimensions honestly, from where we were in 1776 we were at least 90% or 95% of the way, ten years ago, to where we are now. The country just isn't that different from its 2001 version, compared to the mutual differences to the early Republic. If you think the tipping-point was in that particular decade, well, I'd be curious to hear you defend it.
Now the long one: I'm in the 71%. I think the vast majority of the Founders would be kind of livid if they were taken on a TARDIS trip from July 4th, 1776 to July 4th, 2013. Part of the reason why is that you have a lot of different changes, each with the potential to alienate a different Founding-era constituency. Any founder particularly wedded to the idea of America as a uniformly Protestant, or even just Christian, or even just religious nation would be disappointed. Any founder particularly uncomfortable with the idea of, you know, gay people--and let's be honest, that's essentially all of 'em!--would be disappointed. Thomas Jefferson's dream of an agrarian republic? Crashed and burned. And then, of course, there's the whole contingent who were committed to the supremacy and superiority of the white race, and the larger contingent who were committed to the political supremacy of the male sex. They're both in for a shock. (Of course, some of their wives and slaves might like what they would see in 2013, but none of them signed the Declaration.)
There may be other, subtler issues that would cause some to be disappointed. Yes, many of them probably wouldn't like how powerful the federal government has become, or that we have standing armies now, or that the practice of corporal punishment of children has gone mostly out of fashion. Or whatever. And psychologically, my guess is that finding one big change that a given Founder thought was a big negative would be enough to put that guy squarely in the Disappointed camp. Some might be judicious enough to say, okay, that's not how I envisioned it, but it looks like a nice place altogether, prosperous and free overall, and maybe my vision of the future didn't do so bad, not compared to all the hardline pro-slavery guys anyway. And honestly I think Alexander Hamilton would just plain love it. But most of them, I think, would find something to hate in how the future panned out, so I think it definitely true that most of them would consider themselves Disappointed.
But, guess what? They'd be wrong! All of those changes that they would be disappointed in? They were great! Racial and gender equality is awesome! Sexual liberation is awesome! Cities are awesome! Religion is not awesome! (Okay, I guess if you're particularly religious you might not be with me on that point...) And, you know what? All you conservatives who love to talk about how the Obama Administration is betraying the Founders' ideal of limited government? If Paul Ryan's budget were passed into law tomorrow, it would be a rounding error on the tally of how far the federal government's powers have been enlarged since 1789. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Among other things, as the Founders probably knew much better than modern "constitutional conservatives," big spending maketh not big government, and spending cuts don't fight tyranny. If you repealed the Social Security Act of 1935 and all subsequent amendments and additions thereto, you'd change the dynamic of federal power, but last I checked the Republican Party is firmly against that course of action, which means that all those conservatives are positively thrilled that we've expanded the federal government way beyond what the Founders envisioned. They just think, of course, that we went too far a couple years back. (Though of course, they're the ones happiest about something the Founders really thought was a sign of tyrannical government, namely our marvelous modern standing army.)
Really, there's only one way in which America, 2013 is substantially worse than America, 1776: our environment has spent the intervening 237 years being degraded with a vengeance, and in ways whose full devastating impact will not be fully known for another century. Other than that, all the myriad massive changes which have swept through this nation and the entire world which the people of 1776 could not have envisioned and probably would not have liked the thought of had they known they were coming have been for the better. We are a nation larger, more populous, more prosperous, more powerful, more cohesive, more egalitarian, more democratic, and, I think, freer than any reasonable extrapolation from 1776 could have foreseen. And if the Founders don't like it, they're free to spin around in their graves all they like.
(Except Alexander Hamilton, though. Seriously, that dude was awesome, and way ahead of his time. He'd feel right at home now.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)