Walter Reed and Confirmation Bias

A quick aside, if I may, on the whole Walter Reed Medical Hospital issue.

It is fitting that the three players who missed the event were Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez, and Luis Castillo, three of the most universally disliked Mets. Public opinion of these guys ranges from indifferent (for Beltran) to reviled (the others). So how wonderful for the headline writers, that it happened to be those three.

Andy Martino over at the Daily News had an interesting blog the other day where he pointed out what a perfect storm this situation has been for those who would try to sell newspapers or try to run those player out of town. As he mentions, it brings up issues of conformity, the military, performance, and ethnicity.

I have said this before and I will say it many more times - baseball provides an incredible window for us as a society, and individuals, in so many ways. Baseball provides an amazing opportunity for us to view experimentation. To instantly observe the impact of our decisions. To be able to evaluate, immediately and with mathematical precision, the inputs and outcomes surrounding every move. If you're interested in that, these is a phenomenal blog called Management By Baseball, which is one of my favorites, which discusses that kind of thing in every post.

In this case, however, baseball allows us an incredible opportunity to view the phenomenon known as confirmation bias. A quick definition, per wikipedia:

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.[Note 1][1] As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs

When you first heard that Beltran, Castillo, and Perez were the only Mets to miss the trip to Walter Reed, what did you think? What was the FIRST thing you thought? And would it have been the same thing you would have thought if it was David Wright, Mike Pelfrey, and Jeff Francoeur? What if it was a mixed bag of heroes and villians? What if the group was Jon Niese, Francisco Rodriguez, and Josh Thole?

My guess is that your reactions to each of those were drastically different. Even as a guy who openly admits to loving Carlos Beltran, and thinking Oliver Perez is not a super-villian, my first thoughts were not friendly ones. I did not immediately think that maybe they had good reasons for missing it -- but I did, upon hearing it, think "man, there is no way this story is as bad as it sounds, right?"

It turns out, of course, that it is not. But it is the kind of thing that someone - if they were lazy, or uncritical - could use to confirm what they already believe. Others, of course, may simply enjoy an opportunity to take their frustration at those players ineffectiveness on the ballfield and turn it into something personal, something which would allow them to focus their anger.

One more interesting take on this whole debacle before I go. I did not realize that this gentleman was a veteran before now, but a writer named Dave Singer over at NY Sports Dog had a very thoughtful take on things:

The fact of the matter is that this wasn't a visit to the zoo, it wasn't some mandatory fun, it was a visit to Walter Reed to pay tribute to fighting men. Why on Earth should someone be forced to do it? If it was voluntary, then why make a fuss over anyone who didn't attend?
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Here's something you may or may not care about--those guys at Walter Reed get visits all the time. It's not like this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet their hero.

He's absolutely right. As always, it is instructive to get the opinion of someone way, way, way closer to the situation before jumping to conclusions. I appreciate the opinion of a veteran on this, the same way that I would value the opinion of a doctor or construction worker in their particular field, and the same way that I am annoyed by non-lawyers who make gross and stupid assumptions about the practice of law.

But baseball is a great sport, in the multitude of ways in which is parallels life. It happens every day, it requires determination as much as talent, sometimes it is slow, sometimes it is fast, and sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. And only baseball can teach things in this special way.

Next time, let's try not to have a knee-jerk reaction to news like this. Let's be aware of the fact that we may be trying to confirm a bias which already exists. Let's realize that there are dozens upon dozens of explanations and factors and influences operating behind the scenes that we have no idea about. And perhaps, next time, if we do all of this, those same people won't have been made to feel like jerks because they jumped to conclusions.

Oliver Perez, a Confession and a Plan

You're not going to hear me say this a lot, everyone, so enjoy this.

I was wrong.

I was totally wrong on Oliver Perez, and it's finally become time for me to admit it. The guy can't get anyone out. There is no role for him. He's worse than a replacement reliever that we could dredge out of the minors. It's over.

Before We All Pile on Oliver Perez for Lack of "Heart" or Anything Else...

It just looks like he has nothing left. I don't mean to make excuses for the guy (who, by the way, was really the only pre-season prediction I was off the mark with) but facts are facts.

I look at the Upton at bat tonight as a microcosm of what Perez has become. He got ahead 0-2, with one of the strikes a well-struck foul ball. Then? He had nothing to finish with. After trying to back-door two slurves to Upton and running the count to 3-2, it looked like he had just no desire whatsoever to challenge the batter. He had nothing to challenge him WITH.

The Montero at-bat was similar. After getting Montero 0-2, he nibbled around. He no longer has the velocity on the fastball to beat people, and without it, the slider just isn't effective. Batters appear to be "on" his pitches. And why the experimentation with the silly side-arm motion?

It's hard to say, as a casual observer, if this is exactly the case. I don't know what is going on in the mind of Oliver Perez, and if he's really lost faith in his ability to challenge hitters. But I do know that when a pitcher loses a couple ticks off of their fastball, and doesn't have a diverse repetoire (a third pitch), that the pitcher is in big trouble. I do also know what it feels like to have two strikes on a batter and have NO IDEA what you can throw to finish him off, because he's better than you.

That's really what it looks like with Ollie. And for that, there's no remedy.

Oliver Perez and Sunk Cost, a Discussion

An Adam Rubin article the other day about Oliver Perez and the concept of sunk cost got me thinking. I believe that most people, although they properly define what a "sunk cost" is, actually have the issue completely backwards. As for the Rubin article, for starters, the most pertinent parts of it went like this:

ECON 101

What’s spent is spent.

Sounds simple enough, right? Yet Major League Baseball teams often stick with things that aren’t working simply because they’re already on the hook to pay for it.

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The bottom line: Are Mets officials keeping the struggling Perez around because he is a valued member of the 25-man roster, whom they are confident will have a pitching renaissance? Or are they loathe to releasing Perez -- who has declined to go to the minor leagues -- because he’s in the second season of a three-year, $36 million deal?

I happen to love Adam Rubin and think he's one of the best beat writers around - but I think he's a little off the mark here. But he's not alone.

A search of "Oliver Perez" and "sunk cost" on Google turns up over 1,700 results. Here are some other examples from other respected sources:

The Oliver Perez Volatility Experiment

One of the things you hear as a Mets fan over and over again is how there is a "Good Ollie and Bad Ollie." That Oliver Perez is a coin flip. That you never know what he will give you on a given night.

It can be frustrating to watch the guy sometimes, but you may be surprised to learn that Oliver Perez is not much more or less "volatile" than any other average starter.

For the purposes of this discussion, volatility simply means the size of the gap between his good starts and his bad starts. A less volatile pitcher will have, obviously, less variation between the two. I am sure that many other, smarter people have tackled this issue, but I think seeing a graphical comparison between a few Mets will be helpful.

The below chart compares three pitchers. Oliver Perez and John Maine from 2007, the last season they both pitched full seasons, and Johan Santana from 2008. I included Johan as an exemplar of what an ace looks like in comparison to two average starters.

This Is Why Hope Springs Eternal

For those of you who have followed Fonzie Forever, you know we were less than thrilled with the Mets this offseason. We didn't like the moves they made, didn't make, or tried to make (but failed)[1]. We didn't like the lack of commitment to a plan - to either compete or to rebuild. We didn't like the way they handled the Beltran injury situation.

It is fairly common knowledge, we think, that the general tone of most Mets-related blogging could fairly be described as snide, snarky, or negative much of the time. We've tried not to pile on unecessarily. But no matter where you come from, I don't think that anyone has been a fan of what the Mets have done over the last few months.

With all of that said, hope still springs eternal. The Star-Ledger had a little article on Sunday morning which is a great example of spring training optimism:

Ollie Looking Good Today at Port St. Lucie

Courtesy of Adam Rubin of the Daily News, we have some video of Oliver Perez throwing today at Mets camp.



Obviously, first day of camp, but he looks good. Metsblog opined that he looks "more balanced," which I agree with.

Part of my optimism for Ollie's recovery has to do with the way I feel about last year's injury. Injuries to pitchers do not faze me at all unless they are to the arm or if they somehow linger. Knee, leg, back, foot -- so long as it can be 100% fixed, I don't mind them at all. Why?

Let's face it -- the human body was never intended to throw a baseball. It's awful for the elbow, it's hell on the shoulder. Even if you do it perfectly, it wears you down and frays your tendons and makes a mess of you. When a pitcher is injured, however, he can't do any of that harmful stuff.

I feel that when a pitcher is injured with something not arm-related, they can spend more time honing the other parts of their craft which need honing. They can do yoga, study tape, lift weights, do endurance running -- whatever aspect of their game needs work aside from ACTUALLY throwing the baseball.

So to me, I see an injury like Ollie's as an opportunity for a guy with a great arm but with awful mechanics (plant foot terrible, falling off toward third) to be able to work on his strength, conditioning, flexibility, and technique.

Hopefully, he was able to do that over the last eight months or so and come back better equipped to perform this season. Of course -- the throwing the baseball is the most important part. But I'm glad that he was able to avoid doing that for half a year, and maybe he will come back stronger than ever.

Oliver Perez Will Be Our #2 Starter In 2010

You heard it here first, folks: Oliver Perez is going to be our #2 this season.

I know that Ollie is not popular around Met circles. I know that he is overpaid and that he was awful last year. I know that everyone is constantly getting indigestion because of Ollie's inconsistent performances. But forget all of that for a moment.

An impartial look at the facts points at one inevitable conclusion: between Perez, Pelfrey, and Maine, Oliver Perez is the best bet to deliver a great pitching performance in 2010.

Nobody was as surprised about this conclusion as I was when I came to it. However, there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about Perez:

Why Be Optimistic?

Oliver Perez Loss In Fastball Velocity

I am working up a big post on Oliver, but since his drop in velocity was in the news today, I figured I would excerpt the relevant portion today.

Metsblog relayed an article by Matthew Carruth over at fangraphs today pointing out that Oliver Perez was among the "leaders" in velocity lost off their fastball between 2008 in 2009. Oliver's fastball was 1.2 mph slower in 2009, which was the 15th biggest loss in baseball.

Matt Cerrone had this to say about that finding:

…i have to think that is mostly because of his knee, and not being able to get the right pivot off his front leg…

I could not agree more with this.

Recent Transactions Potpourri: Minaya Asleep At The Wheel?

These are not huge transactions, but they both are very, VERY significant for the Mets. In my opinion, both of these moves were far more relevant to the Mets interests than the Lackey signing, or the Halladay trade.

Both of these moves involved players who could have addressed the Mets needs - yet neither of them were linked in rumor to our team. Both of them are structured in ways that would have helped a team in the Mets' position.

Usually I defend Minaya -- but right now, I'm worried.


Nick Johnson signed with the Yankees

The Good:
- Nick has a career .402 on-base percentage. He's been even better recently, posting OBP's of .428, .415, and .426(!) the last three seasons.
- He's been rated as an above-average defensive first baseman for five out of the last seven years.
- He signed a contract which was short in length (one year) and small in value ($5.5 million).
- He is only 31.

The Bad:
- He doesn't hit for much power - only 8 home runs last season.
- He is injury prone, playing 131, 147, 0, 38, and 133 games in the last five years

That is a VERY reasonable contract for a VERY good hitter. He would have been a perfect fit on the Mets. Sure, he may have wanted more money to come here than to go to the Yankees, the team he came up through the minors with, but still.

His short contract would have been perfect for the Mets, if they think Ike Davis is the real deal. He won't insist on playing 150 games, as he's a veteran with a history of being injury prone and bouncing back and forth in the lineup. He's a perfect fit for Citifield itself as his value stems so much from his ability to work pitchers and get on base in front of the big boppers.

I think it would have been a complete dereliction of duty if Minaya was not in on negotiations with Nick Johnson at this price.

From 06-09, Johnson has hit 283/.426/.462 for an 887 OPS in 318 games.
From 06-09, Bay has hit .272/.371/.503 for an 874 OPS in 610 games.

Bay is probably a better bet because of his durability, but Johnson has been a BETTER hitter and BETTER defender when healthy. And I'd rather have Johnson for $5.5 million than commit five times the years and over TEN times the salary to Bay.

Mariners Trade Carlos Silva to Cubs for Milton Bradley

What can you say about Milton Bradley? He's a hitter. A great hitter. Over the last five years (on five different teams) he has hit .289/.390/.483 for a 873 OPS. He's hit 74 home runs and struck out only 360 times. Some believe he's a headache but when you are, on average, a three wins above average hitter, it's worth it.

The thing that makes this trade a master stroke for Seattle, is that they got rid of Carlos Silva. Silva is a disaster -- a worse pitcher than Oliver Perez with the exact same contract. How the Mariners were able to flip Silva for Bradley is a mystery to me, but congratulations to them.

Dave Cameron broke down the trade here. And he's right in saying Carlos Silva might find new life in the National League. But more importantly - where were the Mets on this?

For a team looking for offense, Bradley would have been a great fit. The Mets have more than enough personality and leadership in their clubhouse that Bradley would not have been a problem (if one even believes in things like that affecting a baseball club). Also -- we had just the bad contract to trade the Cubs!

Instead of the rumored Castillo-Bradley swap we heard about all winter, how about a Perez-Bradley swap? Perez is infinitely more talented than Carlos Silva. Does anyone think the Cubs would have said no if we offered them Perez for Bradley? Especially in light of this trade? I don't.

Right now, cash is going from the Mariners to the Cubs to compensate for Silva's uselessness -- but that doesn't change things. At the very least, the Mets NEEDED to be in on this negotiation. Where were they?

Conclusion

I'm not saying this is what I would have done, but if the Mets had signed Johnson and traded for Bradley, the lineup they could have put out there every day would have been phenomenal.

SS Reyes
1B Johnson
CF Beltran
3B Wright
RF Bradley
LF Pagan
C Blanco/Thole
2B Castillo

At this point, we'd only have added $5.5 million to the payroll because of the Johnson signing. We'd have the rest of our budget free -- as reported, in the neighborhood of $25-$30 million -- to address the rotation. And even if things didn't work out, Johnson would be gone in 2011 and Bradley in 2012.