More on Jeter and the Hall

I responded to some of Ezzie's comments on my post below here. However I thought of two better counter arguments that rebut Ezzie's argument that I feel are post-worthy.

Ezzie is arguing that Jeter's defense is so bad that he should be compared with other position players and not other SS. And although Ezzie has never explicitly concluded that Jeter shouldn't make the Hall, he's implying that compared to other position players Jeter wouldn't stack up. I have two responses:

1) Ezzie is penalizing Jeter twice for being a bad fielder. BP puts Jeter at -128 for his career, so basically his bad fielding is very much taken into consideration. Jeter gets a boost because he's a SS, but his bad fielding at the position definitely hurts him.

If we compare Jeter to other players we cannot automatically take his -128 runs defensively into account. If Jeter played a different position, we can safely assume he wouldn't be that bad defensively. How would he do? There's no way to know. But let's assume Jeter had played CF his whole career and was an average CF. That would leave Jeter with 411 runs above average for his career. He's 33 and should probably play another solid 6-7 years.

Let's assume he averages 15 runs above average for the rest of his career (a reasonable assumption considering just last season he was 53 runs above average offensively). That'll leave him with around 500 runs above average. That would put Jeter ahead of all the CF I mentioned on Noyam's Bernie post plus Duke Snider and a whole bunch of other nondescript HOFers.

Even if Jeter played LF, a position he would surely be at least average at, he would be ahead of Joe Medwick, Lou Brock, Ralph Kiner (although his career was cut short), Al Simmons, and would compare favorably with Willie Stargell and Dave Winfield. If I assume Jeter would have added 10 runs defensively a year and adds 10 runs offensively a year until he retires after 20 seasons, he'd end up with close to 700 runs above average. At any position, that's a HOF.

2) Instead of using Batting and Fielding Runs Above Average, I'll instead look at Batting and Fielding Runs Above Replacement, BRAR and FRAR. The difference is FRAA only takes into account the player's peers at his position. FRAR instead starts a player at a different amount of runs based on position. So for example, a SS will start with 33 runs automatically, while a 1B will only start with 10. That makes the positional difference 23 runs, which seems about right.

This allows us to compare players at different positions. Jeter right now is 908 runs above replacement. Let's assume he plays another 6 years. If we discount his first season, where he played 15 games and was actually a subpar performer, he's played 12 seasons. He's averaging 21.6 FRAR and 54 BRAR, so he's 75.6 runs above a replacement player. If he keeps that rate, for 6 more seasons, he'll end up with 453 more runs, which will leave him with 1360 runs above replacement. Let's say he drops off a little and only averages 60 runs above replacement. That's 360 runs so it's about 1260 runs above bench for his career.

Of course all of this assumes he stays at SS. If he moves to LF, he'll lose 19 runs a season based on positional value, but he'll probably be a better LF than SS, so I'm assuming he'll get a decent amount of that back.

So let's see how he compares with some HOFers.

1) Kirby Puckett finished with 842 runs above bench.
2) Harmon Killerbrew ended up with 889 runs above bench.

Jeter is already ahead of two clear-cut, well-known, HOFers.

What about someone like Eddie Murray? He finished with 1238, below Jeter's projected finish. How about a great hitter like Wade Boggs? 1347, right around Jeter's lower projected finish. How about the great Tony Gwynn? 1107. Brooks Robinson was an amazing defensive 3B. Where did he end up? 1066.

The list goes on and on. I'm not picking random, lower tier HOFers. These guys are all well-known and at least a number of them were first ballot picks, including Gwynn just last year. I'll pick another very famous player who just recently made into the Hall. Paul Molitor. Received 431 of 508 votes in 2004 or 84.8%. What did he finish with? 1189, below Jeter's projections.

There just aren't any serious arguments against Jeter's future Hall induction.

Update: Since I've been using BP's stats primarily, I decided to look at the HardBall Times' numbers to see where Jeter should rank. Unlike BP, THT does not have a lot of free stats on current players and nothing on past players. THT basically has the stats of the players' last four seasons and career numbers.

Here's Jeter. At the bottom there's a stat called Win Shares. Win Shares is a Bill James creation (for those of you who have never heard of Bill James, you should get to know his work). Unlike BP's WARP3, which looks at a player's numbers and calculates how many wins above a replacement player those numbers should added up to, Win Shares takes a team's total victories, multiplies them by 3, and then divides the total among the player's on the team.

Some would argue that Win Shares are not as fair a metric simply because players on winning teams are going to get more Shares due to the contributions of their teammates. That's not a bad argument, and I wouldn't only use Win Shares when evaluating a player. THT has also come up with Win Shares above Bench, a stat that compares a player's Win Shares with the amount an replacement player would have received at that position. WSAB might be a better stat, but THT doesn't have career win shares on it site, so I don't have access to it.

Ok, on to Jeter. Jeter has 300 Win Shares. He has played 12 full seasons so that comes out to a clean 25 WS a season. Assuming he plays another 6-8 years at that average and he'll end up with between 450-500 WS. That's a reasonable estimate given his past performance.

Luckily Dave Studeman ranked the top 80 players ever before 2007 based on WSAB and also included their WS total. We can go down the list and look at some of the best players of all-time.

The first 20 or so guys are clearly out of Jeter's league. After that, the WS totals begin to drop. Sam Crawford and Reggie Jackson both have around 440 WS for their career. Willie McCovey has 408. George Brett has 432. Arky Vaughan only had 356. Tony Gwynn? 398. There is no doubt in my mind that Jeter can easily reach 400 WS for his career.

This is just another stat that confirms what we already know: Jeter is a HOFer.

The Importance Of Sabermetrics

This post was a comment on Noyam's Jeter post.

Somewhere between 25-30 years ago, people started taking a serious look into what makes a baseball team successful. Analyzing the various statistics, they looked for links between specific numbers and winning. One thing they noticed is that, almost universally, winning teams had a high OBP. They reasoned that there was a correlation between winning and a high team OBP. They concluded that successful teams are the teams that get on base the most. The second most common feature was a high SLG. Teams that hit for power also tended to do well. In other words, OBP and SLG were, by far, the best indicators of a team’s success. Better than batting average, home runs, stolen bases, runs, and RBIs.

These analysts reasoned that if successful teams are those which get on base the most, the most valuable players are the ones with the highest OBP. If getting on base is the single most important component of a winning team, a smart team should look for players who make the least outs. Those players are the most valuable. Obviously not all teams have figured this out yet, but that’s to their detriment.

What makes a player “good?” A good player is one who is valuable. The “best” player on a team is the one who is the most valuable to that team. Value is best determined by looking at a player’s OBP first, then SLG, and then going to other stats. This is true whether looking at the MVP race or trying to figure out who should make the Hall.

While this strategy makes sense, people soon realized some obvious flaws. Some players play in great hitters parks, while others hit in stadiums with huge outfields. Moreover some players played in eras with dominant pitching or rules that tilted the game towards pitching. For example, in 1968 Carl Yastrzemski won the batting title with a .301 batting average. In 1930, the mean batting average was .301. Obviously Yastrzemski was much more valuable to his team in 1968 than the average player was in 1930. Therefore OPS (OBP + SLG) is greatly flawed when comparing players from different eras, and sometimes even players from the same era.

That’s where OPS+ comes in. It takes into account stadium and league differences and calculates the player’s OPS in relation to the rest of the players in the league. For example a player with a OPS+ of 120 has an OPS that is 20% better than the average player in his league, taking into account ballpark advantages/disadvantages. OPS+ is very useful because it allows us to compare Derek Jeter to, say, Honus Wagner even though the latter played in the dead ball era when no one hit home runs or slugged at a very high percentage.

While OPS+ is a major improvement over OPS, it suffers from similar flaws. OPS+ does not take into account positional value. Sabermetics assume that the further down one gets on the defensive spectrum, the more valuable the player is, everything else being equal.

Here’s an example. Take a look at a regular baseball team. Let’s use the Mets. How many Mets starters (excluding pitcher) could play 1B adequately (not average, but good enough that his defense isn’t so atrocious that it greatly outweighs his offensive contributions)? I would guess all 8. How many could play LF? Probably everyone except Delgado. What about RF? Again probably everyone besides Delgado. What about 3B? Here’s where the biggest drop off occurs. Obviously Wright, probably Reyes and Castillo, and with enough practice, maybe Lo Duca. What about SS? Reyes and that’s probably it. Maybe Wright could figure it out or Castillo in his prime could be decent. But that’s it.

That’s the point. SS consistently rank at the bottom or next to the bottom offensively. The average 1B is a much better offensive player than the average SS. A team could increase its offensive output tremendously by playing an average 1B at SS. Why don’t teams do that? Well let’s ask why don’t the Cardinals play Pujols at SS and find a league average 1B to take his place? Because he would be so bad defensively that the offensive improvement from a league average SS to a league average 1B would be negated and then some.

Basically only a few select players can play SS, while almost anyone in the majors can play 1B. So everything else being equal, if two players have same numbers but one plays 1B and the other SS, the latter is more valuable because he can play a prime defensive position.
OPS+ doesn’t take this problem into account. It equates a SS with a 120 OPS+ with a 1B with the same OPS+. The two are not equally valuable.

Another major problem is that OPS+, like OPS, overvalues SLG relative to OBP. As I showed earlier, OBP is the statistic more closely correlated with winning and is the more important statistic. Equating OBP and SLG by simply adding them up does not paint an accurate picture of value.

EQA takes into account the latter problem by weighing OBP more than SLG, while VORP and WARP3 adjust for positional differences. That’s why despite David Ortiz’s power being down this season, his EQA is the highest of his career (his OBP is much higher than in past years). It’s also why Hanley Ramirez is second in VORP (behind ARod), even though Prince Fielder has a higher OPS+. WARP3 tries to take into account defense as well, and is probably the most comprehensive statistic available (although it’s not without its share of flaws).

These statistics are far more advanced and useful than batting average or RBI. They remove a lot of the subjectivity that plagues baseball analysis. Rather then simply looking at a player and saying “eh, .317 average and only 200 homers, that’s not great” they allow you to compare Jeter to other players and especially SS of other eras. And Jeter clearly stacks up to those guys.

Is Jeter A Hall-Of-Famer?

Inspired by this post by Noyam, I'd like to take a look at Derek Jeter's qualifications for HOF membership. But first it's important to note that the question "is Jeter a HOFer?" is really three distinct questions:

1) Should Jeter be a HOFer? This question, which is normative, requires looking for a standard which someone would have to reach in order to be a HOFer. It does not consider the admission of other players dispositive. So while Phil Rizzuto's induction might be relevant, it does not definitively answer the question.

2) Will Jeter be a HOFer? This questions looks to who is already in the Hall and gleans a standard from the current inductees. This question is more descriptive: based on who already made the Hall, does Jeter reach that standard? Unlike the first question, Rizzuto's induction is definitive because it shows that the standard is low enough to encompass shortstops who aren't even average major league hitters.

3) Will the writers vote for Jeter? This question is purely predictive. While there is overlap between the predictive and descriptive questions, they are not the same. Rafael Palmero might be a HOF based on who is already accepted into the Hall, but the voters will likely vote to keep him out because of steroid suspicions.

I believe the answer to all three questions is yes. I'm going to answer the to answer each question starting with the 3rd.

Will the writers vote for Jeter? Absolutely. This one is a no-brainer. Here's the evidence:

1) 3,000+ hits with a .300+ batting average (at worst).
2) 3+ Gold gloves.
3) 4+ rings.
4) A penchant for coming up big in the clutch.

The voters will see a very good hitter (somewhat warranted), a very good defender (not even close), and a winner. Seems like the quintessential HOFer in their eyes.

2) Will Jeter be a HOFer? This question is pretty easy too. Middle infielders such as Rizzuto (93 OPS+), Bill Mazeroski (84), and Pee Wee Reese (99) are in the Hall, despite mediocre to bad offensive numbers. Jeter's OPS+ is 123, which means, given modifications for era and home park, Jeter is 23% better than the average player and much better than the above players. Sure they were better defensively (in some cases much), but they weren't Ozzie Smith, who was a first-ballot HOFer. So Jeter will make it considering the other players who made it before him.

3) Should Jeter be a HOFer? This question is the most difficult and requires defining some standards. The HOF should be a place for the "best" players, and the best players are the ones who are the most valuable. Value is often position dependant, which means players playing SS should not be compared to 1B and LF. A SS can be just as valuable with worse offensive numbers solely by playing SS adequately.

So Jeter's candidacy does not hinge on his ability to hit like Pujols, Frank Thomas or Barry Bonds (three contemporary HOF-worthy players). He just needs to hit well enough to, with his position, be considered valuable enough to be considered good enough to make the Hall.

Obviously this question will overlap with the last question a bit. In order to determine who is valuable, we must look for some paradigms. In other words, who are the shortstops who should be in the Hall? Well at the top there's Honus Wagner (150) and Arky Vaughan (136), both of whom were far better than Jeter and are probably the top 2 SS in major league history (although if ARod had stayed at SS, he might have had something to say about that).

Let's look at two first ballot HOFers, Cal Ripken Jr. and Robin Yount. Both were surefire HOFs and fall within the top SS of all time. How does Jeter compare?

Ripken's OPS+ was 112, probably below where Jeter will end up when he retires. What about more advanced stats such as EQA and WARP3? Ripken's EQA is .285, which is way below Jeter's .303. While Ripken's WARP3 is 170.7 to Jeter's 101.1, Jeter still has another 7-8 years left and while he probably won't catch Ripken's WARP3, he'll be close.

Yount, of course, moved to the outfield later in his career, like Ernie Banks (.288 EQA), who also switched positions (and hopefully one day Jeter). Yount's EQA was .287, closer to Ripken than Jeter, and his WARP3 was 136.8, which Jeter should be able to top.

I've searched in vain for many SSs with a .300+ EQA. Here's a list of all the SS in the HOF. Only Wagner and Vaughan qualify. Only Luke Appling even had a .290 + EQA. In other words even if Jeter's decline is drastic and he ends up at around .290, that'd still put him in the top 4 offensive SS in major league history.

Yes, Jeter's defense is far worse than most of the players on that list. But his offense is so much better, that it's hard to imagine him falling below those players. Even if we set the line for induction at .280 EQA and/or above average defense and get rid of players such as Reese or Rizzuto, even if we take into account Jeter's terrible defense, and even if we assume a drastic drop off in performance as he gets older (which I doubt), it's hard to imagine Jeter not being as good when everything is said and done as Appling, Yount, or Banks. His numbers will basically be a carbon copy of their careers.

Sometime around 2020 Jeter will have his own well-deserved plaque in Cooperstown.

Request

Shifra and I are currently in London and have have meals in Hendon on Shabbos, but we don't have a place to stay yet for Shabbos and Saturday night. If anyone has any ideas, we'd appreciate it. We're calling Chabad there, but if anyone knows anyone personally, that'd be best.

Update: We found a place.

Hey Remember Me?

Wow, how long has it been? Months. Since my last post I officially graduated law school, studied 8-12 hours a day for a month for a ridiculously long and intense 3 day exam, and took (and hopefully passed) the Bar. Then it took 2-3 weeks to even be able to read anything with the word "law" in it.

Luckily I've been following the Yankees all season. What a crazy season. At one point the Yankees were 14.5 games out of 1st and left for dead. Now they only 4 games behind Boston and tied for the Wild Card. They have the highest run differential in the majors (by far) and their differential is twice as large as any other team in the majors besides Boston. Over the first 115 games of the season they are hitting at a better clip than they did last season.

Since the All-Star break the entire Yankees team is OPSing at the same rate as last year's AL MVP. I expect the team's performance to drop a little since they are now hitting a rough patch in the schedule, but there's nothing keeping this team out of the postseason. They are clearly better than Detroit, Seattle, and as we saw this weekend, the Indians. And they can probably catch Boston, depending on how they do head-to-head in the last 6 games.

I'm gonna miss the first 3 game set against the Sox because I'll be in London (delayed honeymoon), but it's going to be exciting. I can't wait for the playoffs.

Now all I need is a job....

Update: Since July 13, the entire Yankee team has an OPS of .953. To put that into perspective there are only 13 players in all of baseball who have a better OPS than that this season. It's better than Vlad Guerrero. Better than David Wright and Sheffield. What an amazing offensive outburst.

Why I Believe The Cosmological Argument Fails

ExGH has decided to focus his blog on dealing with the issues of "truth." To start off he made a few arguments against the Cosmological Argument for G-d. To get us started, the Cosmological Argument for G-d contends that (to use ExGH's formulation):

1. Every physical thing has a cause.
2. The universe is a physical thing.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.
4. It is impossible for there to be an infinite regress of causes.
5. Therefore there must be first cause which had no prior cause.
6. This first cause is also known as God (or is God).
7. Therefore God created the universe.

Put more simply since everything must have a cause, and we cannot have an unlimited chain of causes, there must be a first cause that is not bound by the rules of causality. That cause must be immaterial and outside of the SpaceTime continuum.

My biggest problem with this proof is the assertion that the Universe must have a cause; I basically argue against the first premise. Our experiences tell us that everything observable has a cause and using induction we can derive a principle that everything material has a cause. My problem is that our observations only take place within spacetime. It seems like faulty logic to presume that the same rules that apply to material items within spacetime also apply to the origin of spacetime itself. Sure, spacetime is material and probably bound by the physical laws of the universe, but when spacetime came into existence those rules could not have existed since spacetime itself did not exist yet. If the rules of the universe are contingent on spacetime's existence and spacetime did not exist, I fail to see why spacetime itself must have been caused.

Basically there are two ways to answer the infinite regress problem: 1) an immaterial object outside of spacetime created the universe or 2) the universe came into existence on its own. Supporters of the First Cause argument will tell you that (2) is a poor answer because the Universe itself is material and therefore is bound by the same rules as everything in it. I, as noted above, disagree. But here's the problem with (1):

Remember the original premise is that all physical objects need a cause (or stated more philosophically, all material objects must be caused). Why? Because everything we've ever encountered required a cause, so it seems plausible that even things we don't understand were caused. Ok that's reasonable. But why stop there? If everything we've observed could not have come into existence without a cause, then why don't we assume that immaterial objects too require a cause?

One possible response is that we have no experience with immaterial things so we can't apply the observable rules to them. But that's not a good answer. First of all that could mean that immaterial objects don't even exist. If we have no experience with them, how do we know they exist at all? But even if one concedes that they do exist, why do we assume they aren't bound by causality? If everything we know has a cause, and supporters of the First Cause proof are willing to apply that principle to the universe and then conclude it must have a cause, why not apply it to immaterial things as well?

Another response would be that the universe is sufficiently similar enough to the material objects we can perceive in order for us to justify applying the general principle of causality to it. Since the universe is material and everything else that we experience is material and caused, we can therefore assume that the universe, since it exists, must have required a cause. On the other hand, immaterial objects are so different from material ones that we cannot make the comparison. Why not? Because immaterial objects exist outside of spacetime, so causality doesn't necessarily apply.

But "before" spacetime existed, it also existed outside of spacetime. What that ambiguous sentence means is that at the time spacetime came into existence, spacetime did not yet exist and therefore the spacetime was created within the same conditions as immaterial things --outside of spacetime and causality. So I don't see the distinction.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't understand how this argument substantiates anything. Why is the possibility that an immaterial object caused the universe more compelling than the argument that the universe caused itself?

Halacha, Discretion, and Experiences

For years I was under the misimpression that law has clear cut answers. But thanks to reading a myriad Posner books, and learning about the New Formalists, I've come to realize that no mature theory of law can seriously contend that law is just the mechanical application of principles to the facts. The law is littered with judicial discretion and indeterminate lacunae. I don't think anyone can seriously argue today that judges do not have a lot of discretion.

I was having a debate about Halacha and authority earlier, and encountered an interesting argument. I've always heard that the most authoritative Poskim are those who are "Kulo Torah," meaning people who are immersed in Torah 24/7 and not tainted by other modes of thought. For a while that argument struck me as inconsistent. If Halacha is just the application of already existing and immutable principles, then why do we care about the thought-process of the legal decisor? Either the answer is right or it is wrong and the resolution can be determined by anyone familiar with the facts and principles. So what does "Kulo Torah" have to do with anything?

So the answer seems to be that Halacha is more than just syllogisms; it involves balancing, weighing, and discretion. A person who is involved in the Halachic system is better able to determine what weight to grant specific issues and how to balance them properly. So it's the recognition of judicial discretion that explains why the Gedolim are better able to decide Halachic cases than someone who is influenced by secular society.

While this argument seems sound, it ignores a crucial element. Discretion is based on not just what one learns and how one thinks, but also what one experiences. The proper way to weigh the factors is to ascertain the value the Torah places on each factor, and come to a conclusion. While that makes sense, it does not acknowledge that balancing cannot be done without understanding how to the factors are relevant to the facts.

Basically the argument assumes that when the Halachic question cannot be solved by simply applying the law to the facts, the decisor has discretion. Say we have factor A and B. The Posek, via his Halachic thinking that is generated by decades of studying only Torah, will look at the factors and weigh them. The proper weight to impute to each factor is based on the texts and the Halachic corpus as a whole. That's why only someone who is really immersed in Torah, and only Torah, can really decide difficult and indeterminate Halachic questions.

But that argument ignores how experience relates to the facts. Say we have a case of a raped girl who wants an abortion. The Posek might weigh the value of the fetal life and the prohibitions against injuring oneself and wasting seed against the psychological harm to the girl. But no Posek in history can ever truly understand that harm because no Posek is a woman. He cannot understand what it means to be raped and how that affects women.

This problem is why Posner argues that the courts should be diverse, in order to reflect the varying experiences of the judges. While an individual judge might not have had the same experience of the litigants in a specific case, across the legal system enough judges will have similar experiences, so everything will even out.

But Halacha prohibits woman Rabbis. It does allow female experiences to influence the discretionary decisions of the Rabbinic judges. So how are those experiences integrated into the system?

To summarize this already too long post, we have two conceptions of a legal system (I'm oversimplifying, but if my dilemma is a result of that simplification, please let me know). One presumes that legal questions can be answered by applying law to facts. Who the judge is and how he views law is immaterial; a machine can come to the same conclusion. Under this view of law women judges are unnecessary but experiences don't matter. Under this conception any random posek can answer the question and we don't need someone who is "Kulo Torah."

On the other side we have a notion that law involves discretion and balancing. Under that view, we can understand why the Posek must be immersed in only Torah, since otherwise his discretion will be tainted by outside forces. But then how can we not allow the totality of experiences to be integrated into the law? How can we ignore the experiences of half our population?

This problem seems to be pretty acute. Any solutions?

Formalism, Hart-Fuller, and the NBA

Check out Michael Dorf's excellent posts (here and here) on the legal analysis used to suspend two Suns players. Very interesting.

Morality and Halacha

Ok, how is that for a unique and interesting title? Yeah, this issue has come up in a variety of debates and topics and no one has a clear answer (or do they? Let me know if they do).

Yesterday I spent a few hours arguing with "Ed" on R' Harry Maryles' blog. Basically the conversation revolved around a number of issues, namely whether degrading Blacks for pedagogical purposes is a positive activity. Ed argued that children learn better from real world examples and since Blacks have an extremely high rate of drug use and out-of-wedlock children, there is no reason to not use them as an example. Basically, he tells his children, "don't be like those Shvartzes" when he wants to teach them a lesson (no, I am not making this up).

His argument hinges on the Chofez Chaim's argument that its permitted to denigrate evil people in order that others will not learn from their deeds. Since Blacks do bad things, we should tell our children not to act like that. I responded that not all Blacks are bad, and we shouldn't lump them all together. Moreover, it is important not to degrade people when other means are available to accomplish one's purpose.

Basically our argument seems to hinge on a disagreement about a fundamental premise. I believe that degrading people is bad even if Halacha does not prohibit it. Ed seems to believe that such degradation is, at the very least, morally neutral. Since teaching children life lessons is a positive activity, there's no reason to not use Blacks as examples of bad behavior. I, on the other hand, believe that denigration is only acceptable when used for an important end and the other means of getting there are not as efficient. In this case we can just use positive examples as what to do rather than negative examples of what not to do.

Now that I got that out, here's my issue: Halacha does not prohibit Loshon Hara about non-Jews. It, as far as I know, does not promote it either as a general rule. So there's a lacunae in Halacha. How do we fill that gap? Ideally we should use Halachic principles to fill the hole, but I don't really know if that's possible (frankly I'm not even sure what that means). Anytime we get to murky moral and ethical questions, the question is usually underdeterminate, meaning there's more than one correct answer. We generally answer the question based on our moral intuitions, which come from our environment, studies, and other sources.

So when I disagree with Ed, it's basically my intuition filling that gap. When Ed claims that telling Lashon Hara about non-Jews is an acceptable activity, it's his moral views coming into play.

This post wasn't really that well thought out, but I'm trying to figure out if moral intuitions have a role to play in non-Halachic questions. Personally I can't see how they don't.

Bingo

Bill Simmons is right on the money. I was watching the Nets-Cavs game on Sunday and the announcers kept talking about how Lebron is the only superstar left in the playoff. One remembered Nash, but considered Lebron the only real superstar left.

I'm sitting there thinking, "Hello, Tim Duncan plays for the Spurs, and I'm pretty sure they're still in the playoffs." It's amazing how people overlook the player who is probably the best PF in league history; the guy who has been the best player on the planet since Shaq declined (maybe since Jordan). Can anyone imagine Duncan's team getting knocked out by a team like Golden State?

If you were building a team for one season and could pick anyone, who wouldn't pick Duncan?

It's Been A While

Ok, I haven't posted in a while and a week before finals is probably not the best time to start blogging again, but I want to write something quickly about the Yankees.

The Yankees are currently 8-11, a mark topped by 21 of the 30 major league teams. That's pretty bad, especially for a team that was supposed to compete for the championship. So does this slow start portend a season of disaster?

Not necessarily. Look at the Run Differential (runs scored - runs allowed) of all the major league teams. The Yankees are +20, 4th in all of baseball and only 5 behind the AL leading Red Sox. Surprised? I'm not. Here's why:

Only one of their 11 losses were by more than 2 runs and that sole 4 run loss was was the result of a Farnsworth meltdown in the 8th inning. In other words, the Yankees have been in every game. They've won their 8 games by a total of 39 runs, about 5 runs a game. Point being, that almost all their losses have been close and could easily have gone the other way. So even if nothing changed, I'd expect the Yankees to pick it up and end up with close to 90 wins.

But something will change. Of their original 5 starters, only Andy Pettitte and Kei Igawa have made more than 2 starts. Wang made his first start yesterday and Mussina was injured in the 3rd inning of his first game. Pavano only pitched twice, as many times as Chase Wright, who wasn't even considered in their top 8 pitchers on the depth chart before the season. Injuries are affecting not only their top 5 starters, but also the depth, like Karstens and Sanchez. Tomorrow when Phillip Hughes makes his major league debut, the Yankees will be using their 9th starting pitcher in their first 21 games!

But forget about quality; they are also getting the least innings per start in the majors, forcing their bullpen into excessive use, and making them less effective. The bullpen is already tired from having to pitch almost 5 innings a game.

The Yankees should get back Wang healthy for the rest of the year, and Mussina for much of it. If Mussina, Wang and Pettite all pitch around 180-200 innings, we should expect an improvement in the quality of the bullpen's performance just based on being used less often. Even if Igawa doesn't get the hang of the AL and Pavano never comes back, just having those three pitchers healthy and pitching, improves the team's pitching numbers. We should expect a significant improvement if the staff just gets reasonably healthy. And of course Clemens, if he should sign, would at the very least be a vast improvement just by going 6 innings and pitching solidly every start.

So I'm assuming the runs allowed aspect of the equation should improve dramatically, making the run differential even more vast. But what about the runs scored? I don't see a significant dropoff on the horizon. Sure, ARod is white hot right now, but no one else in the lineup is having an above average year, and some are slumping (Jeter for example). Even when A-Rod comes back to Earth, I'd expect only a minor dropoff in overall run scoring.

If everything goes right, this team will win 100 games. If injuries continue to mount, but at a normal pace (like last year), they'll probably win between 90-95. If they get Clemens, watch out.

Are They Joking?

I'm not sure, but is this ESPN article claiming the Mets have the best lineup in baseball followed by the Cubs and Yankees? I sure hope not. The Mets' lineup is really good, but not in the same league as the Yankees' (literally). In a position by position comparison, the Yankees would probably win every spot except CF. And the Cubs? They had one of the worst offenses in baseball last year, and adding Soriano isn't nearly enough to leapfrog the Yankees (or even the Cardinals).

I hope this article is ranking teams that need their offense to play well in order to compete. If that's the case, the Yankees should not be ranked so high (considering their pitching improvements this year), but the Mets should top the list.

As an aside, I intend to start blogging again seriously once I figure out the quirks in my computer and I get a schedule set given my part-time job.

Quick MVP Rant

Remember how I strongly I disagreed with picking Justin Morneau over MVP for AL MVP? Well I still do and here's another reason why:

As I mentioned before, shortstop is an inherently more valuable position on the baseball diamond than first base. Very few players can play shortstop effectively, while almost any major leaguer (and many minor leaguers) can be an average first baseman. So if two players, A and B, had the exact same numbers over the course of a season, while A was a 1B and B a SS, B is more valuable.

How much more valuable though? I think the best way to look at it is as so: When A produces his numbers at 1B, he relegates the team to playing an average SS. But when B plays as well offensively as A, he allows the team to pick up an average 1B. So the difference in value between A and B is the difference between an average 1B and an average SS.

Luckily we can figure that out statistically. Here's a list of the positional averages in both leagues this year. One of the comments has a link to an excel spreadsheet that breaks down the averages in each league. 1B have an average OPS of .819, while SS (not surprisingly the worst offensive position in the league) have an average OPS of .742, a difference of 77 points.
Last year Jeter's OPS was .900, while Morneau's was .934. If we add the difference in OPS between positions to Jeter's OPS, Jeter's OPS ends up being 33 points higher. (As an aside: Jeter's OPS+, which takes into account ballpark factors is 138 or 38% over average, while Morneau's is 140, only 2% higher than Jeter’s. These numbers do not take into account positional differences.)

Even more striking is Jeter's advantage in OBP, which is overwhelmingly considered the more important part of OPS by most sabermetricians (in Moneyball it noted that Billy Beane considered a point of OBP to be three times more valuable than SLG!). 1B average a OBP twenty points higher than SS. If we add twenty points to Jeter's .417 OBP, we get a .437 OBP relative to Morneau's .375, a 62 point differential. If each point is worth 3 times as much as a point of SLG, then Morneau's 21 point SLG advantage after adjustments for position (Morneau hit .559, while Jeter hit .483. But since 1B have a 55 point advantage in slugging over SS, Jeter's SLG relative to Morneau was .538) is greatly outweighed by Jeter's overwhelming 62 point advantage in OBP.

Put simply, there is no serious statistical analysis that finds Morneau more valuable than Jeter.

Sorry For The Delay

It's been a while since I last blogged, but I have a good excuse. You see, right before I started school again my computer died. And after getting it checked out, I found out it's dead for good. So now I have one semester of school left and no more laptop.

Luckily a former roommate left his old laptop in the apartment and I'm using that for now. But after spending the last two days with this computer I'm not sure I can handle the random crashes and slow response time so I might go looking for something usable for the rest of the semester. Anyway, hopefully now that I'm sort of settled in, I'm hoping to get back to blogging soon.

Over break I finished, The Missing Peace, and read Active Liberty and Moneyball. Once I'm done with with Frontiers of Legal Theory, I will have read 10 of Richard Posner's 30 or so books. Not bad, huh?

I Don't Understand The Point

A few weeks ago, Yuli Tamir, Israel's education minister, decided to issue new geography textbooks that contain the Green Line. Last week, the Knesset Education Committee issued a non-binding directive to continue using the old books that don't distinguish between Israel and the territories.

I understand that Israel doesn't want to prejudge a final status agreement by granting the Palestinians rights to the West Bank. But how can they ignore the Green Line completely? Forget for a minute that every single country in the world recognizes the Green Line or that a large number of Israelis consider the West Bank disputed at the very least (and many consider it occupied). As Yehuda Ben Meir correctly points out, every single Israeli government, including those headed by Begin and Shamir, distinguished between Israel proper (including the areas that were annexed) and the West Bank, which is run by a military government. So the country itself recognizes the Green Line, and why shouldn't the children know that?

Why I'm Hopelessly Conflicted

I just finished reading Dennis Ross' The Missing Peace, which is a ridiculously detailed account of the peace process going all the way back to the Reagan administration. It's over 800 pages and recounts pretty much every meeting he had with Israeli or Arab negotiators. It took months to read and it's about 300 pages too long, but it's an important read.

The amazing thing is that throughout the book I found myself agreeing with him. A lot. Maybe if Bibi was just a little more forthcoming, or if Shamir took Madrid seriously we'd have peace. But at the same time I know that Arafat had no intention of making peace and the only way to stop the Intifada was to destroy the terrorist organizations as much as possible.

The problem is these two ideas are mutually exclusive, and I'm going to explain why in my next post. Despite that I'm sympathetic to Ross' ideology as well as Bibi's. In this post, I'd like to explain why.

As surprising as it might sound, I did not follow politics in high school. I knew the President and Vice President but I couldn't tell you much about Madeline Albright or William Cohen. I barely knew anything about the Monica Lewinsky fiasco and there's no way I could have named a single Supreme Court justice.

That all changed when I decided to spend a year in Israel (it ended up being extended to two years). I went to Hakotel from 98-00, which were the two years before the Intifada started raging. As one might guess Hesder Yeshivas are typically right-wing, and I was no different than anyone else. Like th rest of the place I "knew" that the Palestinians had no interest in making peace with Israel and only wanted to carve up the land so they could take it all. I "knew" that Barak was an idiot for even talking to them (forget about promising to transfer Abu Dis) and that Bibi's electoral loss was a tragedy. In all honesty I probably would have voted for National Union if I was a citizen.

After my two years I came back to the U.S. and started YU. The Camp David Summit happened over the summer, and I didn't really follow what was going on. I was astounded that Barak was crazy enough to offer the Palestinians a state, but I doubted that anything would actually happen.

Then the Intifada started. Given my argumentative nature I started perusing message boards on the Internet, especially the Israeli Politics board on AOL. At that point the message board had some intelligent people on both sides of the issue, and I was shocked to hear legitimate arguments coming from a pro-Palestinian poster. As I decided to do some research I realized that not all Palestinians are bad and that Israel has not always been historically right.

And one day I realized that my views were irretrievably flawed. I had no solution. I had spent months arguing that Israel did not start the Six Day War, did not expel the Palestinians in 1948 en masse, and had a right to exist. I was sure (as I still am) that the Palestinians were to blame for the Intifada and that Israel was getting a bad rap. But while all of that might be true, I had no answer to the central question underlying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: what's the endgame?

Despite flirting with Kahane's theories (I actually wrote a paper defending his views for an English class), I knew that solution was too fraught with moral and practical mines to even take seriously. On the other hand, annexing the territories is a bad idea because of the Palestinian demographic advantage. Nevertheless something had to be done. The status quo was not an endgame. We couldn't keep the territories forever.

The only answer was to create a Palestinian State and withdraw from most of the West Bank and Gaza. I still believe that's the only solution. But I knew that solution could not be implemented under the Arafat regime because he had no interest in peace. So Israel should remain in control of the territories until the Palestinians get their act together and focus more on nation building than destroying Israel.

But it doesn't take a genius to realize that the IDF imposing curfews, checkpoints, and engaging in military action will make the average Palestinian want peace with Israel less. At the same time, relaxing these conditions is a grave threat to Israel and strengthens the terrorist groups. So what do we do?

That is the essential paradox. On one hand we need to make life for the Palestinians better because only then will they feel they have something to lose by killing Israelis. On the other hand making their life better requires making Israel's life worse.

In my next post I intend to show why this paradox cannot be solved and why we have to make a difficult choice.

Intellectuals Really Are Second Best

Time and time again we hear how intellectuals are out of touch, in ivory towers, or clueless. And for years I never understood the argument. The simple version of the argument assumes that intellectuals are too focused on abstract concepts and ignore reality, while the people on the ground know the ideas can't work in the real world. For example, criminologists and police officers often disagree over how to approach crime. The former deal with the concept of crime and try to use intellectual tools to fix the problem. Cops, on the other hand, are on the ground and focus on crime on a day to day basis. They understand that the plans coming from the universities won't work in the real world because they live in that world, while the intellectuals live in the world of the abstract.

I never bought this argument. Not being on the ground would seem to be a positive, not a negative. The people who rationally study the subject matter and are not affected by the day-to-day happenings are more likely to be dispassionate and objective. Police officers are probably more emotionally invested and less objective. If intellectuals are less emotional and more objective, why not listen to them?

I think I finally understand the argument. Economics (and now legal theory) understands that theory presupposes ideal conditions that cannot be obtained and therefore theory should look for the "second best" possibility. For example, many theories of constitutional interpretation presume judges of great intellect, conditions which are impossible to fulfill. They also ignore institutional constraints (such as how Congress or the President will react to certain constitutional ideologies). In short most legal theories assume optimal conditions, which are not just practical.

I think the same idea applies to intellectuals across the board. The ability to perceive flaws in the system that render it not ideal is the difference between judges and law professors. Judges, especially on the lower courts, deal with the day-to-day minutia of the system and understand that some methods of interpretation(without pragmatic overrides) are impractical and would make the problem worse. Law professors don't have that experience and are lacking information that would lead them to recognize that the legal system can only strive for second best.

Intellectuals, by virtue of their inexperience with the real world, are incapable of recognizing that the world is really only second best. They incorrectly assume ideal conditions, which are utopian, and therefore their theories fail.

Oh or Oi? An observation in male and female differences

Hi, this is Shifra, just thought I'd blog a little, seeing as Nephtuli placed me on the list of contributors a while ago (appears sheepish).

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about the following observation: girls in the yeshiva world (Bais Yaakov system) are taught to pronounce their "cholem" sounds, such as in the word "yom," as "yom," whereas the boys are taught to pronounce the sound as "oi," causing the word to sound like "yoim." In the same family, and same philosophically-minded schools, the same words are pronounced quite differently. Does anyone have a reason as to why this occurs?

Maybe Trading Randy Isn't Such a Good Idea After all?

As you probably heard the Yankees are looking to trade Randy Johnson to the Diamondbacks. Since Johnson ERA last year was over 5, it would seem like a good idea especially if we can get something decent back for him.

However after reading this article, I'm not so sure. Basically the author uses statistics that measure the extent which a pitcher's defense and luck affected his numbers. DIPS, or defense independent pitching statistics, takes into account the statistics that the pitcher has complete control over (strikeouts, walks, HBP and home runs) and filters out everything else. The basic idea assumes that pitchers really have no ability to control balls that are hit into play so sometimes they get lucky or unlucky.

Last year, according to DIPS and LIPS (luck independent pitching statistics) Randy Johnson was one of the most unlucky pitchers in the majors (interestingly Wang was the most lucky, which makes sense considering he rarely strikes anyone out and everything is put into play). If the statistics are accurate, we should expect him to have a much better year in 2007.

I need to study these stats more closely before I can have a strong opinion either way. I've become more enamored with sabermetrics over the past year, so I can see how DIPS could be relatively accurate. Nevertheless, trading Randy as a salary dump is probably not a good idea unless Roger Clemens is in the bag.

Did I Miss Something?

I intend to write a long post on Israel soon, but until then this one will have to suffice. So apparently there's a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which Palestinian groups routinely violate by firing rockets into Sderot. So it makes sense that the Palestinians are responsible for violating the ceasefire, right?

"PLO executive committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo, who also serves as an advisor to Abbas, warned that the Israeli decision would lead to the breakdown of the cease-fire. He described the decision to target Kassam launchers as a "breach" of the cease-fire agreement."

Huh?

Basically they can shoot at Israel but if Israel retaliates, the Israelis are breaking the ceasefire?!

On Word Limits On Law School Exams

There is a big debate going on about enforcing word limits on law school exams on PrawfsBlawg. A professor's take-home exam clearly stated that the word limit will be strictly enforced and that exceeding the limit is not allowed. A student went a few words over; what should he do?

I only skimmed the long thread, so maybe I missed some important comments, but I think the important question is why word limits are necessary at all? Are they in place to guide students or to make grading easier for the professor? Both objectives are valuable in my opinion, but the former is more important because grading is part of a professor's job. The guidance that a word limit offers is tangible because most questions or fact patterns are vague and students need to know whether to write a whole treatise on property law or whether to just focus on one narrow issue. And that's especially true where the exam is timed.

So how should the offender be penalized? I think the best answer is to stop reading at the word limit or at the end of the sentence thereafter. I don't see any point in actually punishing the offender; if he spent his time thinking of issues, analyzing them, and making arguments both ways in excess of the word limit, he's punishing himself when the professor ignores that work. What purpose does extra punishment serve?

One professor, Mike Dimino (who I've mentioned before), argued that the student should get a F (!) because he broke the rule. Recognizing that failing a student could be more of a problem for a professor than it is worth, he advised a two-pronged penalty: stop reading and deduct points. I don't understand the point of the latter. Dimino claims that a professor who stops reading at the word limit is not penalizing the student, because the student could take a chance and exceed the limit, and if the professor abides by his rules, the student is worse off. But that isn't true. The student who wastes his time writing extra is being punished. But more to the point, why must students be punished anyway? As long as he doesn't benefit from the extra words, who cares? Is it the law school's job to punish people who exceed word limits? These people take themselves way too seriously.

Odd Imbalance in Sports

It seems strange, but right now in the three major sports (baseball, basketball, and football) there is a major gap between the two conferences or leagues. Which sport offers the greatest gap?

Baseball

Here are the baseball standings for 2006. While the American League boasted 5 teams with 90 wins or better, the National League only had one. The AL had 8 teams with 85 wins or more and the NL only had 4. If we move the bar down a little, the gap narrows a bit: the NL had 6 teams over .500 while the AL had 8. But putting that into perspective, every one of the AL's over .500 teams were at least 10 games over, while the NL had two teams that were 5 games over or less.

Even more to the point, the AL dominated in interleague play 154-98, a .611 winning percentage that would have won every division in baseball. And while the Cards won the World Series, I don't put too much stock into a short 7 game series. The Cards went 5-10 in interleague play. If they switched place with their Missouri neighbors, they would have ended up in the exact same place in the AL Central: last.

Football

The season isn't over but it's clear which conference is better at this point. The AFC has 4 teams with double digit wins; the NFC has one. Put another way, no division leading team in the AFC has more than 4 loses. The NFC has three such teams.

And it gets worse. The AFC has 8 teams that are 8-6 or better; the NFC has 5. The AFC has 12 (out of 16, which is 66%) teams that are .500 or better. The NFC has 7. There is serious talk of a 8-8 team making the playoffs in the NFC. 10-6 should be enough to do it in the AFC.

Interconference games are the reason for the disparity. The AFC's record against the NFC is 38-22, which is about a .633 winning percentage. Put into perspective, that percentage would win the NFC West, and would be a tad behind the Saints and Cowboys for bye weeks.

Basketball

Let's take a look at the NBA. The East has only 4 teams that are over .500. The West has 7. If we make the rules more strict, the West has 7 teams with a better than .600 winning percentage, while the East only has 3. The West also has 4 teams with a better than .700 percentage, while the East has none. Oh did I fail to mention that the Atlantic division leading Celtics are 3 games under .500?

The interconference rate in pretty high as well. I might be off by a number of two, but the West is beating the East 84-52, which comes out to about a .608 clip. A team with that percentage would be tied with Cleveland and a tad behind Orlando for the second spot in the East. They would also be tied for 7th in the West.

So based purely on interleague and interconference percentage, it would seem the NFL has the greatest gap between its two conferences. We'll have to see where everything ends up in the NBA, because the season is barely 25 games old. The NFL is pretty set, since most teams of the interconference games are finished.

Of course this analysis isn't completely acurate since we need to take schedule into consideration. We also have to look at home/away records. But as it stands right now, the winner of any of the better leagues or conferences is clearly the best team in its sport.

What I Learned From Finals

Ok, it's been a while but I've been putting off blogging for more important things, like finals. Finals aren't over yet, but the worst is past and so I'll start blogging at a decent pace in the future. But here's one thing I learned during my Federal Income Tax final:

I've always been bothered by how people in Yeshiva never say Gezuntheit after someone sneezes. We've been taught that learning is very important that one shouldn't even waste time on saying Gezuntheit. I've never bought that argument because it's common courtesy to say Gezuntheit and it almost seems rude not to do so. Sure we'd be wasting a split second, but who doesn't do that anyway?

The issue became more pronounced when I got to law school and noticed that people say Gezuntheit during class. Basically it's acceptable for the class to be interrupted because of common courtesy. If people are willing to stop a whole class, is it really that bad to stop learning for a second?

Last week I was taking a 4 hour final, which like pretty much every other law school final, was time pressured. While during class people spend their time playing Solitaire or going on-line, I assure you no one wastes time on a law school final.

So I was taking the test and heard someone sneeze. There was no Gezuntheit. It happened again. And again there was silence. I listened to a few sneezes and heard nothing. Hmmmm, why did no one respond?

The obvious answer is that every second counted. Everyone is locked in (except me I guess) and even if they do notice a sneeze, they aren't going to waste valuable time saying Gezuntheit.

I guess the same idea applies to learning Torah. We should consider the time we spend learning as valuable as the time we spend taking our law school finals. We should be completely focused and every second should count, even more than the courtesy of saying Gezuntheit.

Who's Voting For the MVPs?

OK, despite my DSL failing I'm going to post using dialup. The MVP voters are clearly not watching the same sport I do.

My picks for MVP were Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter.

First the NL MVP award went to Ryan Howard. Howard is not a bad pick, but it's hard to see the award not going to Albert Pujols, who pretty much beat Howard at every statistic that mattered.

Now onto the real travesty, which was Justin Morneau beating out Derek Jeter and Joe Mauer for the AL MVP. I could understand Mauer winning the award, and practically he might really have been the most valuable player in the majors this year. But Morneau? How is he more valuable than Jermaine Dye or Jim Thome?

The voters seem to be stuck using "traditional" stats such as home runs and runs batted in to make these decisions. Howard edged Pujols in both those categories. And Morneau easily topped both Jeter and Mauer in both stats.

It's as if the voters felt they couldn't give the award to Jeter or Mauer when they had a player who batted .320 and had over 30 hrs and 130 rbi. But that's plain stupid. First Jeter and Mauer both batted higher with runners in scoring position, so Morneau's rbi total is basically irrelevant. And while Morneau did have more power, both Jeter and Mauer had substantially higher OBPs. Why choose power over the ability to get on?

And here's the main point: Both Jeter and Mauer put up their numbers from middle of the infield positions where good hitters are at a premium. A shortstop with an OPS of .900 is much more valuable than a first baseman with an .934 OPS. It's why Jeter had a substantially higher VORP (the best in the league). It's also why Jeter led the league in win shares and had the second highest WARP3 (which measures wins over replacement player) in baseball (behind Pujols).

Here's what makes this even more ridiculous: Jeter won the Henry Aaron award for best hitter in the AL (an award he did not deserve) and won the gold glove at SS (which he also did not deserve). Morneau won neither. How is he more valuable again?

Update: Noyam makes the same point, but better than I did.

Frumteens Responds To Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) Theory!

Who would think that Frumteens would have even heard of it? Maybe he's responding to me?

Here's his argument:

"There are APikorsim who ask, how do you knwo that G-d created the world? Maybe it was the SPaghetti Monster?

The answer is, it is possible that the spaghetti monster created the planet earth, or people, but since the spaghetti monster is, presumably, a physical entity, or at the very least, an entity with certian attributes which makes him the spaghetti monster, then it cannot be he First Cause, who created all reality. In other words - the spaghetti monstrer could not have created the world since he is part of the world. Simply put: If the spaghetti monster created the world, who created the spaghetti monster? There has ot be a First Cause at the end of the chain, with no attributes or limitaitons at all.

Call that First Cause whatever you want --- Jews refer to it as Hashem."

Let's leave aside the flaws in First Cause theory for a moment. If there's a first cause, why can't it be the FSM? Frumteens claims because the FSM has to be part of the world (because he has to have specific attributes to be a flying spaghetti monster) and therefore can't be the first cause.

But why must the first cause have no recognizable attributes? G-d clearly has some attributes because something with no attributes is nothing. For G-d to be the first cause whatever attributes he has must have existed prior to creation. So why is it impossible for spaghetti to exist before creation?

Why is the FSM anymore part of the world (or reality) than G-d?

The Death Of A Great

Milton Friedman died today. For a good bio on his life see his Wiki entry. His economic work led to a revival of free market theory and a resurance of libertarian thought.

(Hat Tip: Volokh)

Wow Steroids Really Do Work!

To get a sense how much better Barry Bonds was than everyone else in 04, look at this chart. You don't even have to know what it means. Just look at how much higher his numbers were.

Did He Just Say That?!!!

"This is gut-check time for James Dolan, who if he doesn't have Kiki Vandeweghe's phone number memorized by now he should have it tattooed to his forearm."

He's right about Isaiah Thomas, but should stay away from Holocaust imagery.

Nah, He's No MVP

Check out Phil Taylor's article on Si.com today. His basic theory? That Derek Jeter doesn't deserve the MVP because he never "accepted" ARod. Seriously.

A shortstop with the second best VORP in the AL and one of the best batting averages with runners in scoring position shouldn't win the MVP because he never sat down with ARod and told him he was his friend. Mindboggling.

What Good Is Objective Morality?

Rabbi Avi Shafran, in a Cross-Currents post that is being discussed all over the J-blogosphere (see here particularly), alleges that atheists are unable to provide a legitimate reason why people should behave ethically (that is engage in actions that are "good" as opposed to the ones which are "bad"). He argues that,

If our perception that some deeds are good and others are not is but a quirk of natural selection, none of us need feel any commitment to morality or thics.

Believers, on the other hand, accept a divine morality that is objective, in that we know the essence of what is right or wrong without appealing to our own subjective intuitions. An atheist might feel that murder is wrong, but what makes his opinion anymore valid than the serial killer on death row?

I believe this argument is flawed for a number of reasons. In theory I could see a value to objective morality, but reality negates that possibility.

But I want to focus on one specific point, which I think mitigates the whole argument for objective morality. While I accept that G-d gave us ethical guidelines that we must obey (and am willing to agree that those guidelines prescribe "good" conduct), those same guidelines are subject to human wants and desires.

Let me us an analogy. Very few serious legal scholars believe that all legal questions have correct answers. The easy questions certainly do. A person who drives through a red light is certainly subject to a fine. The difficult questions, however, usually have large grey areas and are subject to intuition and moral judgment.

The same applies to ethical guidelines. Let's assume that murder is the unnecessary killing of innocents. I think most people would agree that killing a random schoolchild for the fun of it is immoral. However, what about killing a bus full of Israeli civilians in retaliation for the IDF's targeted killing of a big Hamas leader? The suicide bomber might reason that the killing is necessary in order to prevent further attacks on Hamas. Moreover, he might argue that most Israeli civilians are soldiers or that they support the immoral regime politically, economically, and psychologically and are not innocents.

Now I'd assume most of us reading this post would disagree. But even if we agreed with the terrorists definition, we'd still disagree with his application of the principle to material facts.

I'm not even making the obvious point that if there is an objective morality, we still have no way of being sure what it is. Even if the whole world would agree about certain principles and their definitions, we'd still disagree about how to apply them. In what way are those ethical beliefs more objective than the atheists who disagree on the principles and the application? Sure, we're one step ahead because we believe we have the principles down pat, but as every good lawyer know, the law is in the details. The application is the key.

Land for peace is a classic example. Much of the Religious Zionist world believes that ceding land is wrong. Others argue that saving lives is paramount. Which group is right? I think both make compelling arguments from a halachic and moral standpoint. But if both positions are reasonable, then in what way are Jewish ethics anymore objective than Peter Singer's? Singer and other Utilitarians might disagree about animal rights (even if for the most part they agree about the general principle of the greatest good for the greatest number), just as we disagree about land for peace. Who's right? I don't know. But let's not pretend that believers have access to some divine morality that is clearly defined in every situation.

The Coolest Thing In History

Check out this new self-parking Lexus. Wow. My only question is whether it can fit into those tiny spots in the City.

On The Mets And The Rest Of The Postseason

I wanted to write about this last week but life got in the way. So here goes:

1) Wow, the Mets blew it. For all the talk about how the Yankees choked, the Mets lost to an inferior team mainly because their hitting (clearly the best in the NL) didn't get the job done. One run off Jeff Suppan all series? No more than two runs off of Jeff Weaver in any game? Barely touching a mediocre (to put it mildly) bullpen? Come on.

2) The Mets starting pitching was supposed to be its Achilles heel, but John Maine and Oliver Perez were good enough to win the last two games. Both weren't spectacular and left too many pitches over the plate, but were helped out by an average offensive team that was terrible because of the injuries to Rolen and Edmonds. Preston Wilson and Juan Encarnacion were absolutely horrid, and Rolen couldn't catch up with a high fastball all series. How could the Mets lose that series?

3) Was there a better situation for the Mets than Carlos Beltran up with the bases loaded and two outs with a chance to tie or win the game? He had a 1.180 OPS with runners in scoring position and two outs this year. Striking out looking on three pitches has to be the worst possible outcome I could think off.

4) Endy Chavez made one of the best catches (given its importance) in baseball history.

5) The Cardinals are the worst World Series team of the century (and probably since I started following baseball). They only had one pitcher with an ERA under 4 and only two with an ERA under 5. They have no relievers with an ERA under 3 on the postseason roster. They have only one starter with a .300 average (guess who?). Juan Encarnacion looks like he couldn't hit a ball with a shovel right now and Preston Wilson swings at everything. Their catcher (a .216 hitter) is managing to put up good numbers in the playoffs, but that won't last. .216 hitters don't usually bat .300 in the postseason.

6) If Detroit played like they did on Saturday night during the Yankees series, the Yanks would be up 2-0 with the Big Unit on the mound tomorrow night.

Why Dawkins Is Way Overboard

Thomas Nagel reviews Richard Dawkins' God Delusion in the current edition of the The New Republic (Subscribers only). Although Nagel is not religious, he opposes Dawkins' attempt to delegitimize religion. Most importantly he takes issue with Dawkins' rejection of the proofs for G-d, especially the argument from design.

Put simply the argument from design looks at a sophisticated piece of machinery (a watch for example) and notices that it could not have come about on its own. It therefore concludes that the universe, which is infinitely more complex, certainly must have a creator.

Dawkins challenges this argument on two grounds, the positive and negative. His negative argument finds the flaw in the argument, that it only moves the question one step further back: Since G-d is even more complex, who created G-d? The positive rejection notes that universes and life are not like machines. Life is dynamic and came about slowly over billions of years. Watches can't build themselves, but millions of interactions over billions of years could rationally lead to human life.

Nagel takes issue with Dawkins' negative argument, arguing that he fails to understand its significance. He states that

If the God hypothesis makes sense at all, it offers a different kind of explanation from those of physical science: purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world. The point of the hypothesis is to claim that not all explanation is physical, and that there is a mental, purposive, or intentional explanation more fundamental than the basic laws of physics, because it explains even them.

In other words, G-d works outside of the physical reality and as such is not subject to its rules. Hence he would not need to be created. I agree with Nagel that Dawkins' counterargument here is poor.

Nagel responds to the positive rejection by noting the complexity of DNA and how natural selection does not explain it adequately. For Darwinian natural selection to have come about, the organisms subject to mutations (ok maybe not the word Darwin would have used) must have a type of genetic code which allows for mutation. But how did something as complex as DNA come about?

Even Dawkins notices the problem. His answers (according to Nagel) are basically the anthropic principle (that there are billions of possible worlds and our world ended up being the lucky one). Not a very good answer.

Nagel's best point comes at the end of the article. He focuses on how scientists, especially afraid of how religion curtails scientific thought, have searched for a physical answer for everything. The philosophical dispute about Materialism is based on this point. Is there a physical source for our thoughts, desires, and ideas?

Assuming that we can use "reductive physicalism" to answer all of life's questions is a fallacy. As Nagel puts it,

This reductionist dream is nourished by the extraordinary success of the physical sciences in our time, not least in their recent application to the understanding of life through molecular biology. It is natural to try to take any successful intellectual method as far as it will go. Yet the impulse to find an explanation of everything in physics has over the last fifty years gotten out of control. The concepts of physical science provide a very special, and partial, description of the world that experience reveals to us. It is the world with all subjective consciousness, sensory appearances, thought, value, purpose, and will left out. What remains is the mathematically describable order of things and events in space and time.

That conceptual purification launched the extraordinary development of physics and chemistry that has taken place since the seventeenth century. But reductive physicalism turns this description into an exclusive ontology. The reductionist project usually tries to reclaim some of the originally excluded aspects of the world, by analyzing them in physical--that is, behavioral or neurophysiological--terms; but it denies reality to what cannot be so reduced. I believe the project is doomed--that conscious experience, thought, value, and so forth are not illusions, even though they cannot be identified with physical facts.

Nagel is right. There is no evidence that science can solve all of life's problems. It's a method that works well to describe the physical reality, but is no more qualified than religion when answering metaphysical questions or searching for epistemic truths.

Wow, Don't We Sound Good Now....

Listen to this clip.

Made me cringe but I have to admit, it's funny at times. The only question I have is whether the girl's father is going to kill her now or when she comes home.

Liberal Hysteria

In Quiet Revolution, Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick makes an unbelievable claim about what the post-apocalyptic world would look like:

"What would happen if Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia got their way? What is their vision for America? And if you say to people what their vision is: Say goodbye to worker's rights. Say goodbye to environmental protection. Say goodbye to women's rights. Say goodbye to the rights of the disabled. Say goodbye to all the progress we've made in terms of race and gender in this country, and privacy."

That's like saying if Roe was overturned, then abortion would be outlawed across the country.

Hat Tip to the good people over at Volokh.

Update: I finally watched the video, which I found to be unbelievably tendentious. They show how the "American people" opposed Bork, but neglect to mention how Scalia was confirmed unanimously. They attack the opposition on the to the constitutional right of privacy, but forget to tell us how Hugo Black, staunch defender of civil rights, dissented in Griswold.

The video makes it seem like "ultra-conservatives" (you know the people from which 3 out of the last 4 Presidents came from and the group that has controlled the House since 1994) have a clear plan to take over the country and impose their will by getting their people on the bench where they could actively entrench conservative values and overturn all the "progress" we made over the last 70 years.

They complain that judges Scalia and Thomas have a radical (!) view of the Commerce Clause (imagine saying the clause doesn't afford Congress plenary power) and that they support the President's view of the unitary executive (only partially true as anyone who read Scalia's opinion in Hamdi will know).

Put simply the video ignores context and eschews nuance and balance for the sake of emotion and politics. I'm sure conservative groups do the same thing, and send me a similar video and I'll bash it just as much.

Is Compulsory Participation A Good Idea?

Although I've missed it, there has been a raging debate between law students and professors about the justness of "cold calling" students. For the uninitiated, cold calling is when the professor randomly calls on students (yes, like everything else in law we just made up a fancy name for an obvious concept).

The debate started when a professor recounted the previous day's events, when a student was not only unprepared for class, but wasn't paying attention (gasp!). The professor decided to penalize the student by decreasing his grade and calling on him every day for the rest of the semester. However, he realized that this tactic was unfair to the rest of the students and was "not nearly severe enough" so he decided to ask around for ideas on how other professors penalize their students when they dare enter class without knowing the intricacies of Pennoyer v. Neff (yes, I realize I'm exaggerating here).

But let's ask the obvious question: should professors call on students at all? Should they even take questions and comments or allow students to volunteer?

Amazingly most the thread and subsequent posts focused on the second question. They made arguments supporting the proposition that interaction is beneficial to understanding and learning, or that "[s]tudy after study after study indicates that just listening to lectures is NOT the most effective way to learn pretty much anything" or even that class participation could be used as a measuring rod for prospective performance on the final exam.

Of course the answer would be to make attendance and participation optional and allow students to participate. I agree that professors who lecture and won't allow questions or students the chance to be faced with responding under pressure are doing their student's a grave disservice.

That said, I don't see how the argument that education is better served when students can participate leads to the conclusion that students should be forced to participate. Sure it might be a benefit to the student, but since when are paying customers (and that's what we are) obligated to take benefits?

The few response to the "students are customers" argument either center on the idea that students aren't customers, or that we just don't know enough and the professors know better.

One professor argues that teachers would be derelict if they allowed students to slack off. Here's his argument:

I agree that someone who takes swimming lessons is a "consumer" of that educational lesson, but that doesn't mean a swimming teacher is fulfilling her responsibility if she allows a putative student to say, "I paid for you to tell me how to swim, and I'll do it on dry land, thank you very much." The teacher is fully entitled to say, "I know how to swim and you don't. I know how to teach someone to swim, and you don't. My job is to teach you how not to drown, and I believe it requires you to get in the water. If you don't like it, go elsewhere."

Assuming the customer is a competent adult, I just don't understand why the teacher isn't completely morally within her rights to say just allow the student to jump around on dry land. The teacher should of course inform the student that swimming is done in the water and that she cannot teach the student properly if he refuses to jump in. But why must the teacher "force" student to learn?

Moreover, as numerous commentators pointed out, many law students simply come to school to pass the tests and get that degree. They aren't interested in learning to "think like a lawyer" (if such a thing even exists). They are paying tens of thousands of dollars to receive a degree that will be a gateway to a high-paying job. In that case it's the teacher's job (at least using the above argument) to facilitate their ability to receive that job, not to teach them a "special" mode of thinking.

Another argument is that students are subsidized by the government, through loan breaks on the state and federal level. Even if that argument is true, and therefore students are not consumers in the usual sense of the term because law schools have a responsibility to other actors, I fail to see the connection to how professors should force students to read the material and respond to questions. In fact it's not that the law schools have diverse responsibilities; the students are responsible to become good lawyers. Even if someone could prove the utterly implausible link between reading for class and participating and becoming a good lawyer, I fail to see under what moral theory the professors are allowed to impose on students their obligations.

In a follow up Dimino explicitly makes the argument that professors know better and should be allowed to do what's best for the students (he also makes a minor argument about how forcing students to participate weeds out the poor students, which is a legitimate aim, but one that could be fulfilled through a variety of means with far less cost). Students need to learn to be professional, and being forced to prepare for class will do that.

Right, students with at least one college level degree have no idea how to be professional. Only through forced preparation can they learn to be good, professional, on the ball lawyers. It's not like the punitive measure of, say, being fired might convince them later in life to actually read the briefs and cases on point. Nah, they need a "superior" professor (who I'm sure has numerous degrees in education and has mastered all the penological methodologies out there) to teach them work ethic. Apparently, Dimino thinks none of us has graduated 5th grade.

The Yankees: A Post-Mortem

Normally I want to watch my team end its season, win or lose. Watching a team fail gives me closure, and although it's hard, I'd rather be there as they go down. But I must say that I'm glad the Yankees lost on Yom Tov. I realize Detroit is a good team, but there is no excuse for the Yankees to score only 3 meaningless runs in two of the most important games. Something has to give. It's hard to describe how an offense this loaded with talent, with this much diversity (the Yanks were at the top of the league in stolen bases and home runs), with this much experience, could fold so quickly and easily. The Yankees didn't even put up a fight.

I don't want to diminish Detroit's accomplishments against the Yankees and over the course of the season -- they did lead the majors ERA in a division with the Indians, White Sox and Twins -- but we have to expect more from a team with all-stars at every position.

What needs to be done? I'm not sure firing Torre is the answer. Looking at the big picture, we can take solace in the fact that during Torre's 11 year tenure in the Bronx the Yankees have made the playoffs 11 times (including winning the division 9 times, including 8 in a row), won the championship 4 times, won 6 pennants, and played in the ALCS 7 different years. Not too many teams would look askance on winning the pennant more than half the time during a manager's stay.

But this is New York and these are the Yankees. "Just" making the World Series (something they haven't done in three years) is not enough. George Steinbrenner expects championships, and who can blame him? He ponies up the cash for the biggest payroll in sports history, and merely coming close is not a good enough return on the dollar.

So what am I looking for the Yankees to do? I have a few recommendations (none of which call for trading A-Rod unless we can get a big-time pitcher in return).

1) Shore up the bullpen. With the exception of Rivera, who is still great but getting up in years, the bullpen is inconsistent and mediocre. Farnsworth was a mistake from the start, and while Proctor isn't bad he cannot be the key setup guy for a championship team. Villone, Myers, and Bruney are adequate, but they need a big-time pitcher in the pen.

2) Get another big name starter. The two biggest names on the block are Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt. Rumor has it that Schmidt wants to stay on the West coast, so Zito is the big pitcher left. There will be a bidding war for one of Scott Boras' most recent clients, but when it comes to money, the Yankees always prevail.

The question is whether they should go after Zito at all. Although he was great in the beginning of his career, his numbers tapered off until his resurgence. Moreover, he has played his whole career in a pitchers park, so we can't really project anything from those numbers.

Nevertheless a few factors portend future success in the Bronx. Zito is a lefty and while overall the Stadium is a hitter's park, lefties do substantially better because of the deep power alleys in left center. Furthermore Zito pitched relatively well in the playoffs and doesn't seem like the type of pitcher who will wilt under the New York spotlight.

Zito is a risk, but there's no choice. With the exception of Wang, the Yankees don't have a single reliable pitcher on the staff. Mussina is getting old and Randy Johnson is done. Maybe Philip Hughes is the answer, but something proactive must be done.

3) Do not pick up Sheffield's or Mussina's option. Maybe bring them back at a lower price, but if they leave, thank them for their time and send them off. The aging superstar cannot play a major role in the Yankees' resuscitation.

There are no easy answers, and nothing I've said here is novel. The lineup is unbelievable and the defense is adequate. But what they need is pitching because pitching is what gets it done in the playoffs. And the playoffs is where the Yankees' failure is most evident.

National League MVP

Ok, this one is much easier. The American League had a number of candidates from a variety of competitive teams. The National League has far fewer competitive teams, which limits the number of qualified candidates.

Basically it boils down to Albert Pujols vs. Ryan Howard (with a nod to Carlos Beltran).

First we'll start with Beltran. He had a "paltry" OPS. of .982. But like Jeter, his numbers go up as the situation becomes more important. An OPS. of 1.159 with runners in scoring position and a 1.180 OPS. with runners in scoring position and two outs is not too shabby. Moreover, he has 38 Win Shares, 1 beyond Pujols, who leads baseball. His VORP of 67.6 is mediocre compared to Pujols and Howard, however.

But we must remember that he plays a gold glove center field and stole 18 bases. And given Rule 1, I might be willing to put him ahead of Howard, but Pujols is too much better.

Howard's big advantage is his games played. Howard played in 159, compared to Pujols' 143 and Beltran's 140. He also has a high 1.084 OPS. and an OBP. of .425, far better than Beltran. But like David Ortiz and Frank Thomas, his numbers are deceiving. He hits far better with no one on than with runners in scoring position (he batted .256 with runners in scoring position and .247 with runners in scoring position and two outs). His OPS. in both circumstances is below .950.

He also doesn't play much defense and he only had 31 Win Shares.

Let's look at Pujols. An OPS. of 1.102 only increases with runners in scoring position (1.337) and with runners in scoring position and two outs (1.407). He had a mindboggling .581 OBP. (and a .435 average) and a .826 SLG. His OPS. is just a tad shy of 1.300 with runners on and two outs.

He had 39 win shares, a 86.6 VORP (5 runs better than Howard) and practically carried his mediocre team to the postseason.

If I had to rank them I'd probably go with Pujols, Beltran, and Howard. Howard vs. Beltran is tough because of Howard's extra games, superior OPS., and substantially better VORP. Beltran plays (much) better defense, hits better in big situations, and has 7 more win shares.

Pujols, however, has the best OPS, batting average, OBP., SLG., OPS., OPS. with runners on and two outs, with runners in scoring position, and in scoring and two outs. He also has the most Win Shares and the highest VORP. And he singlehandedly led his team to the playoffs.

I can't see Pujols not winning this award. It's not even close.

Jeter For MVP

And now for the rare sports break....

I'm going to lay it all out on the table. I'm a Yankee fan and, yes, I'm biased. But I think one can make a strong argument for Derek Jeter as AL MVP.

First I'm going to lay out the ground rules.

1) The MVP can generally only come from a team that is in contention. In the extraordinary case where a player from a bad team has a spectacular season and his competition from the good teams are mediocre, it might be possible. However, this season is not an example of that rare situation. My argument assumes that a player's value on a poor team is less than a similar player's value on a good team, everything else equal.

Assume player X's value adds 10 wins to his teams total and they make the playoffs. Now further assume that player Y's value adds 20 wins to his teams total and they only lose 90 games instead of 110. Which player is more valuable? If we assume that making the playoffs is the most important attribute of a team's (regular season) performance, player X's increase to his team's performance is greater than that of player Y's to his team.

Moreover, everything works on a spectrum. On the right end is the playoffs; on the left is a miserable season. The farther left a team is, the better its players must do. As we move to the right, a player's value increases and his numbers need not be as good. If a team makes the playoffs, its players are equal to the players on the other playoff teams.

2) The number of games a player plays is very important. Even if player X is great on a per-game basis, if he only plays 120 games he is requiring his team to play a backup for 42 games. If player Y plays 162 games at a worse per game basis, he could be more valuable overall.

3) No pitchers. They're too hard to compare to players.

Some minor rules:

A) While OPS. (onbase percentage plus slugging percentage) is the most important stat, OBP. (onbase percentage) is the more important. I'll explain why. OBP. measures how many times a player reaches base, or put in a different way, how many times a player does not make an out. SLG., on the other hand, measures what a player does in those instances when he gets a hit. A player's job is to not make an out. Outs are the currency of baseball because they are finite. A player who does not use up his team's currency is more valuable than a player who scores runs every time he gets a hit, but makes far more outs. The former gives his teammates more opportunities to score runs.

B) Hitting is more important than fielding, baserunning, and intangibles. But those are important as well and can add a lot to a player's value if the hitting measures are close.

C) Not all hits are born equal. A hit with a runner in scoring position is more important than a hit with no one on base.

OK, here we go. Given my above rules, Travis Hafner and Manny Ramirez are ineligible under Rule 1 and 2 (The Red Sox haven't been competitive since August) and Grady Sizemore under Rule 1.

Here are the other candidates who are left:

1) Derek Jeter
2) David Ortiz
3) Vlad Guerrero
4) Jim Thome
5) Jermaine Dye
6) Paul Konerko
7) Joe Mauer
8) Justin Morneau
9) Frank Thomas
10) Jason Giambi

Three of these players are DH's, which means they are zeros at defense. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing because other players might be negatives defensively. But they don't add anything defensively.

Weeding Out The Pretenders

From this list Ortiz has the highest OPS. But numbers can misleading. Take a look at Jeter's numbers (via Yahoo Sports). His numbers actually increase when runners get in scoring position. Now compare those numbers to Ortiz. Look at how his numbers go down as the situation gets more important (with the exception of bases loaded). Jeter actually has a higher SLG. with runners in scoring position and with runners in scoring position and two outs. His OPS. is higher in both those scenarios as well.

33 of Ortiz's HRs came with no one on base. With men on and two outs, he only had three more RBIs than Jeter.

Despite Ortiz's superior OPS. numbers, it's hard to justify giving the MVP to a player whose numbers went down as the situation became more important. And I haven't even started looking at the other advantages Jeter has.

Next we can knock off Vlad Guerrero. His OPS. is only .34 points higher than Jeter's and his batting average is lower. While his OPS. with runners in scoring position and two outs is a few points higher than Jeter's, his OPS. with runners in scoring position is paltry. One might argue that no one pitches to him with runners in scoring position, but then how do explain the 62 point difference in OBP. between him and Jeter?

Furthermore Rule 1 comes into play here. Given that Jeter is a shortstop, has better overall numbers with runners on, and stole 19 more bases while being caught the same number of times, Jeter wins.

Next comes the White Sox bashers. First remember Rule 1 applies (although it would only matter if the numbers are almost even).

Jim Thome's OPS. is much better than Jeter's with runners in scoring position. However his OPS. with runners in scoring position and two outs is almost three hundred points (!) lower. The disparity with bases loaded is even worse.

Thome does have a higher OPS. with runners on and two outs (although he has a lower AVG. and OBP.). But Jeter has the advantage in intangibles. He has far more stolen bases, plays a gold glove shortstop and his VORP is 16 runs higher (put simply, Value Over Replacement Player is the measure of how many runs a player creates over a replacement player who would have to play if the starter was injured or traded). Applying rule 1, Jeter has to get the nod.

I'll look at Dye later, so next comes Paul Konerko. Konerko is an easy one. His OPS. is barely 30 points higher and Jeter has better numbers across the board with runners in scoring position. If Thome can't top Jeter Konerko sure can't.

Now we come to Justin Morneau. Morneau suffers from the same problem as Konerko. Jeter has much better numbers with runners in scoring position, a substantially higher VORP, and six more Win Shares (more on this in relation to Dye). And to top it off, he wins in the position, baserunning, and intangibles category.

Frank Thomas is no better than Morneau or Konerko. He has a monster OPS. with no one on and no outs, but his numbers go down in other situations. Nope.

Jason Giambi is surprisingly good. His numbers with runners in scoring position are better than Jeter's and he's almost as good with runners on and two outs. However his VORP is over thirty runs worse than Jeter's and he played 15 less games. And he has ten less Win Shares.

The Real Competition

The three best candidates are Jermaine Dye, Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter.

Let's compare Dye first. His OPS. is 100 points higher, and his OPS. with runners in scoring position is about 70 points higher. His OPS. with runners in scoring position and two outs is a little lower, but Jeter has a huge advantage in OBP. in both situations. His bases loaded numbers are substantially lower. With runners on and two outs Dye has a much better OPS. and Jeter's OBP. advantage is only 30 points. It's close but Jeter wins because of Rule 1, baserunning, position, VORP (almost 14 runs), and Win Shares (Win Shares are a measure of how many wins a player adds to a team). Jeter had 33 wins shares to Dye's 26. And what do you know? 7 wins is the difference between the Yanks (best record in the league) and the White Sox (not in the playoffs).

Mauer is even closer. His OBP. and SLG. are slightly better, making his OPS. 34 points higher. His OPS. with runners in scoring position is a little lower (1.041 to Jeter's 1.063) with a higher OBP. (.497 to .482) and his OPS. with runners in scoring position and two outs is much higher (1.200 to Jeter's 1.075). Runners on and two outs is a staggering 1.181 to .996 for Jeter.

These numbers are big disparities. It's very close but Jeter wins for a few reasons: His VORP is almost 13 runs higher, Jeter has two more Win Shares, he stole substantially more bases (and is an excellent baserunner), and I have to give him the advantage in intangibles.

Jeter vs. Mauer might be a case where my Yankee bias shines, but I think I've made a strong argument for Jeter against all the other players.

Jeter For MVP!

Next up will be NL MVP, which is much easier.