@kneemoe1: Perhaps you mistake what I meant by "midgets". It has nothing to do with physical size.
Thoughts on a couple of points not answered individually:
As to "sunk costs": I am in reality a major advocate of ball clubs learning to understand what they are. I noted the studio's sunk costs only to emphasize how far the project had gone when it was cancelled, that it was not just a concept that was being killed.
"Total Average" isn't the standard measure because it isn't very good for anything. It is not enough to include the components of run-making to get a useful equation for it: those elements have to be combined in a way that reliably produces actual real-world runs results, not some arbitrary relative measure. The whole point of modern analysis is that it is not just another round of arbitrary, made-up relative comparison measures suitable only for fueling tavern debates, but rather measures that do--within the known limits of accuracy of probabilistic analysis--reliably produce absolute, not relative, measures that can be compared with actual results.
A note on the photo: being less vain than many of the folk who post snide cracks here, I don't have photos of myself lying about; that one was cropped down from one sent to us by friends at whose wedding reception it was taken, and was the only one I could find when asked for one. I assumed--ever-dangerous thing to do--that it would be seen as intentional humor.
@Artie Fufkin: Such nonsense is why I made a whole site on the topic, but I have found that the old saw is correct: you cannot use reason to get a man out of a position that he didn't use reason to get into. People believe what they want to believe about PEDs, and there is no mountain of contrary evidence large enough to dissuade those who will not examine that evidence with an open mind. I get awfully tired of emails and posted comments from people who say, in so many words, that they didn't go past the first few paragraphs of the first page of the site before they stopped reading. As it says there, this is not a show for season ticket holders to Short Attention-Span Theater.
And "bitter old man"? Dear me. I kept quiet about my work when I was doing it and for years after. It was Michael Lewis and Alan Schwarz who came to me with questions and who put my name out in public; I never wrote anything, including the articles here, save by invitation. I am not bitter, I am thankful that I got to do what I got to do. I am, though, sorry that so many hard-working others still have little or no public recognition.
@twentyfivemillionreasons: Yes, he has. But though Joe is often very wrong about some--OK, many (OK, most)--strategic and tactical aspects of the game, I like the man: he is honest, forthright, and well-intentioned. And he is usually quite insightful about the sheer physical aspects of play.
@Johnny LaRue: Ask my editor: I supplied one short one. In any event, no, they are not: footnotes can run to most of a page in books.
@Gus Johnson's Cardiologist: Look, I was in those places at those times and did those things; asked to write a story about those places and times, what was I supposed to do? Say that I didn't do those things, or did them badly, or that they didn't end up being influential? Maybe an article by Eddie Epstein about the joys of trying to explain runs created per nine innings to Roland Hemond would have been as interesting, but I was asked about what happened where I was, not what might have happened elsewhere. Eddie is an insufficiently lauded hero who didn't have the luck I did. There are--as I tried to take pains to point out--many more.
@crazyjoedavola: I didn't write it, Alan did; and I saw no way to use part of the quotation without using all of it.
@EroticTangerines: Obvious today, that is. A quarter-century ago, it was rather less than obvious to most baseball men; even today, as certain national baseball broadcasters demonstrate, it is not univerally grasped.
@owlcroft: Somehow the post lost the search terms, probably because I put them in angle brackets. The term is simply "baseball analysis" (no quotation marks).
@Chris Hanson's Axe: The bare word "analysis" in a baseball context today usually means, and is understood from the context to mean, statistical analysis. Google Is Your Friend: search on
@Catenaccio: And what, pray tell, is? (Please tell me you aren't going to say "gas".)
At the moment, the all-MLB "Power Factor"--the ratio of Total Bases to Hits, an excellent power indicator--is at about 1.63. That is high, but not excessively so, roughly equalling what it was in 2000 and 2001. Since those years, it has been dribbling down a little, but the current number--which, as has been pointed out, is from truly minimal data--is not grossly out of line.
As to whether Eric Walker--that's me--is a nut, or has qualifications, you could, as Casey famously said, look it up. There is information at the bottom of the front page of the article-linked site on steroids, and a page of its own on my main baseball site, [highboskage.com] (the HBH Baseball Analysis Web Site). That site also has a full page on the juiced baseball of 1993 (the page is titled "The SillyBall").
