The Indefatigable Confidence of Elite Athletes
With the start of spring training, Phillies’ slugger emeritus Ryan Howard took questions from the Philadelphia sports media on Tuesday. Given that this will certainly be Howard’s last spring training in Clearwater as a player, and in light of a fairly peculiar set of accusations from Al-Jezeera over the winter, the desire for the media to speak with Howard seemed reasonable. However, Howard was defensive and bristled at the line of questioning:
“Last year was a tough year,” Howard said. “Last year was a tough year. I wasn’t happy with the media. I was always happy with my team. I wasn’t happy with the media last year…
…The way I felt with everything that I’ve done here in Philadelphia, I just felt I was being portrayed as something worse,” Howard said. “To be honest with you guys, I felt like I was being portrayed as the bad guy. That’s why I didn’t talk to you all last year. I didn’t have a problem at all with my teammates.”
Later in the press conference, he defended his performance.
“The track record speaks for itself,” he said. “I’ve always been a guy that’s been a team player. And I’m always going to be a competitor. I always want to be able to go out there and it doesn’t matter righty or lefty, I know I can get the job done. I know all the talk over the past few years, this and that. I’m not going to focus on that. For me, it’s taking advantage of the opportunities when I get to go out there and play…
“..Check the numbers, check the track record. I know I can hit lefties. There’s been talk in the media and all this kind of stuff over the past three years about not hitting lefties and whatever. It’s about just going out there and doing it…
“..I think there was one year that I had, what, the most RBIs and home runs against lefties? That was what, two years ago? I think people forget that.
Actually, the record does speak for itself Ryan, and you just haven’t been a valuable major-league hitter over the last few years. For three of the past four years, Ryan Howard has been a well-below average hitter in the big leagues. As a matter of fact, these statistics are so clear, that one would think a rational human being has to feel or know they haven’t been effective.
Just as you are beginning to wonder what planet Howard has been living on, you get a clue as to his thinking from this statement:
“As far as last year? There’s nothing you can do about it. Last year is last year. This is a fresh year. Just as last year was bad, this year I can go out and hit .300 against lefties. Then what do you say? If I was able to go out and hit .300 against lefties this year. Then what?”
One of the reasons why Ryan Howard was one of the greatest sluggers in baseball from 2005 through 2011 was the supreme belief in his abilities and his ability to forget his failures. Remember, even in his prime, at peak oppo-boppo, Howard would strike out 199 times in a season. For most of us, failing that many times at whatever the task was would shatter our confidence. But not Howard — or any other elite athlete for that matter.
In order to be the top 1% of the human race in any endeavor, whether it’s on a playing field or in a corporate boardroom or a research lab, you have to have an unwavering faith in your abilities and the probability that you will succeed. While Howard’s defensiveness may seem odd to us as fans, we can’t forget that this is a characteristic ubiquitous to all people who perform at an elite level.
If you think Ryan Howard’s at-bats are tough to watch now, just imagine what would happen if he was telling all of us, “Yeah, lefties… I just don’t have an answer for those guys.”
Chip Kelly Apparently Devalues Value
Understatement: What an odd offseason for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Since head coach Chip Kelly was given control of personnel at the end of last season, he has drastically altered the roster. He traded away Lesean McCoy, the franchise’ all-time leading rusher and declined to go the extra mile to retain free agent Jeremy Maclin, the Eagles’ 2014 leading receiver. Also gone are Todd Herremans, a staple on the offensive line and Trent Cole, a staple on the defensive line. First-string quarterback Nick Foles was traded, along with a draft pick for oft-injured, former No. 1 pick Sam Bradford.
In their place, are a host of free agents that fit Kelly’s preferences more closely both in terms of style of play and attitude. Each transaction, be it a release or a trade or a signing, when judged on their own, are either logical or defensible or maybe even savvy. Examined in total and Kelly begins to look like a mad scientist rather than a guru or genius.
All the while, Pro-Bowl offensive guard Evan Mathis and his agent Drew “Next Question” Rosenhaus have felt for at least two years that Mathis was drastically underpaid. They made so much noise that they were given permission by the Eagles to seek out a trade. In other words, look, if you can find something better, more power to you. Kelly has consistently denied that Rosenhaus or a team have come to him with any trade offer whatsoever. The Eagles had all the leverage and they were playing it exactly that way, as they should.
But then, after Mathis failed to participate in voluntary practices last week, Kelly decided to release Mathis. No draft picks in return, no player to be named later in return. Just out and out released him. Again, the Eagles had all the leverage.
So now, the offensive line, which was already the oldest in the league in terms of the age of the starters and was already quite thin after it was ignored in the draft and free agency is now even thinner and less talented. And it wasn’t a matter of re-allocating resources the way much of the offeseason could be described since this was a release, not a trade.
If you are someone who values value, then this offseason just got even more peculiar. If you are someone who likes to leverage leverage, this season got even more peculiar.
For those of you scoring at home, that is now two very good professional football players who were released by Chip Kelly with nothing in return. Coaches are certainly entitled to want players that have the types of the attitudes that they think are important and as we all know, there’s no “i” in team. But consistently giving away very good players is counterproductive no matter how much you value teamwork.
Dom Brown’s Michael Irvin Jersey is Ruining His Career
An interesting observation from Hollis Thomas this morning on WIP radio:
Hollis Thomas on @WIPMorningShow just made a great point: Dom Brown’s troubles began at plate began when he wore the Michael Irvin jersey.
— Tom G. ⛳ (@doctomg) July 7, 2014
Got me to thinking… is that really true? Certainly seemed like it.
Dom Brown posted the image of himself wearing the Michael Irvin jersey in early September of 2013. Below is Brown’s monthly OPS+, which describes his OPS in relation to the league’s for that particular month.
Brown was trending in the wrong direction by September of 2013 anyway, but it’s quite clear, by anyone using any sense of logic or rational thought that if Dom Brown were to burn that jersey, it will save his career.
So Many Games, So Many Reasons to Watch
One of the most interesting things about baseball is that every game counts for something. Every year, for over a hundred years, teams play at least 150 games in a season. That’s a LOT of games. Over the course of his career, Cal Ripken played in 3,001 games. The Phillies have lost over 10,000 games all by themselves.
So you would think, that with so many games –every day of every week for around half of every year for over a hundred years– we would begin to view them the same as random pennies in the pocket of your jacket or cheerios on the floor of the family SUV. Inconsequential. Discardable. So many that you don’t even notice them anymore. They’re just there. Continue reading →
This About Sums It Up
The folks over at Deadspin did a great little slo-mo mashup of a group of Phillies fans facial expressions as they went from elation to dejection during last night’s loss to the Braves. It occurred to me, the video personifies quite accurately what it has been like to be a Phillies fan from 2009 to the present day.
Ryan Howard Had a Good First Day
As has been said many, many times, baseball is a game of numbers and when a team beats another team 14-10, there are going to be numerous numbers that come out of it. For those looking for some glimmer of hope, something to latch onto in regards to the new Phillies season, this was perhaps the best statistic of all:
Keeping the Phaith 