Former MLB DOI Agent Eddie Dominguez' Baseball Cop

Primary sources require disciplined listening.  Individuals involved in an activity consciously and unconsciously tend to convey fact tinged with a little haze.  The haze can structure a narrative that is highly directed on the objectives and intent of the source.  If you are a proponent of enforcement then the truth you convey will be from that perspective and may miss details or perhaps orients details from an enforcement perspective.  The haze also tends to be an attempt to make the source appear more favorably to what he thinks you value.  Sometimes this takes the form of someone repeatedly trying to validate themselves in your eyes with name dropping, mentioning of extensive accomplishments, and favorable anecdotal asides.

Baseball Cop is a new book written by the former Major League Baseball Department of Investigations agent Eddie Dominguez, a law enforcement veteran with a long and diverse multi-decade long career that spans from the Boston streets in local investigations to FBI work and to international investigations.  This work is part a biography and part a thesis in how MLB's DoI (largely established as an outcome of the Mitchell PED report) has evolved from a somewhat independent investigative unit to an extension of MLB's executive push at controlling public relations.  While the book is certainly tinged by Dominguez' need to validate his own perspective and his whole-hearted support of enforcement approaches, one cannot deny that his charge against MLB and their DoI program appears valid and needs further assessment.  His book includes many specific details that have been published before in articles and other books, which puts credibility to what he states.

As troubling as Dominguez's allegations are, it is unsettling how little traction this book has gotten in the media, whether mainstream or on the fringes in sports blogging.  The book further carries on a fairly well established theme that Major League Baseball is less interested in the goals of enforcement of rules or establishing a truly useful and comprehensive health and safety drug program in comparison to their heavy handed approaches that appear to be more about making a public statement and suggesting a greater level of control than they actually have.  Some think the lack of attention is due to a greater conspiracy between sports media and MLB offices, but I question that.  However, I have no alternative suggestion.  Dominguez is not Jose Canseco.  From what I can see, his words should be considered.

Briefly, the book is largely about how the Department of Investigation for Major League Baseball was created out of MLB's public crisis in the 2000s from the Performance Enhancing Drugs hearings.  Mitchell's report found a need for developing an independent investigation unit that would be free from MLB or MLBPA oversight.  MLB appears to have gotten frustrated with DoI following up on their own leads and involving law enforcement, so MLB began to isolate DoI and secretly run parallel efforts.  In the end with much of the public outrage subsided, MLB transformed DoI from multiple employees with field experience to more of a court-based, stream-lined group who would contract out investigations.  That transformation led to refusal to further investigate what MLB appeared to gauge as sensitive subjects.

While several important aspects arise, the impact is somewhat mitigated by the author.  Dominguez' writing style is akin to that guy in the bar who speaks louder than is required because he wants people other than his buddy to hear him.  He wants you to know that he knows people, that he is connected.  He wants you to know that he has won awards.  He wants to ensure that you respect him and presents you with the rationale and logic required to come to that conclusion.  To me, it is reminiscent to how a friend of mine who is a Baltimore police detective communicates.  It feels like how someone would communicate to an informant or suspect in order to verbally overpower any hesitancy in accepting the person talking.  While this can be frustrating and ruin the reading experience a bit, if you can work through that as a reader then a great deal of interesting information is there to consume.

The author sometimes appears to not realize instances where he is being used by others.  For instance, there is a story conveyed where Theo Epstein calls Dominguez up to get him to investigate the White Sox behavior leading up to Dayan Viciedo's signing.  It seems, first off, wholly inappropriate that Epstein is pleading with Dominguez to investigate the White Sox and giving a reason being that the Cubs want to sign him instead.  It also is peculiar for Epstein to suggest something untoward is happening because it would be remarkable if Epstein was not involved in similar things.  The Cubs are allegedly one of many (almost every) clubs that pre-agrees to deals with international talent.  That notion is repeatedly made every single year by MLB writers when a new international period ramps up at the end of June and beginning of July.  From the outside and reading Dominguez' account, it looks like Epstein is simply brushing back the White Sox and trying to frustrate them.

It is also important to recognize what law enforcement does.  Law enforcement is not necessarily interested in the truth, but in facts that support a truth.  That is an important distinction.  For instance, Dominguez writes about his contacts and the degree to which they think PEDs are still used in baseball.  One piece of evidence suggested is that increase in home runs that have spiked up over the past couple seasons.  The section is written to put this forward as a primary driver of the increase in power.  What this does is establish the PED issue and enforcement need contained in the book.  The fact that several studies have shown a difference in the ball that results in it traveling further is not noted as it does not carry forward the desired law enforcement objective.  It is important when reading this that Dominguez is offering his best truth and his truth (all our truths are) is impacted by his perspective, how he sees the world.

Again, warts and all, this work is important.  The book declares that MLB values itself more than anything else.  It falls in with a line of evidence in an all too common tale that spans across industries: organizational human resource operations are not there to protect victims or establish truth, but to further the needs of the organization.  MLB likely does not see DoI as a group to enforce rules of law, but a group that enforces rules of law when it makes MLB look good.  Dominguez appears to have misunderstood that reality and it cost him his job.  It is a story that should resound with anyone who works for someone else.  It is a reminder that you may one day find yourself as a victim who is under the heel of your more powerful employer.

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Baseball Cop: the darkside of America's national pastime
by Eddie Dominguez
Hachette Books
pp. 304

Highlighting Jon Shepherd's Best Work at Camden Depot

Camden Depot has become one of the go-to destinations to read in-depth discussion and analysis of the Baltimore Orioles. Obviously my view isn't objective, but I don't think anyone would say that's hyperbole. And all of the credit for crafting Camden Depot goes to Jon Shepherd, who founded the site in 2007. In that time, he published more than 700 articles (and plenty of others elsewhere), cultivating the readership into what it is today.

As Jon wrote a few days ago, he's leaving the site to work as a statistical analyst for Baseball Prospectus. So I thought it would be a good idea to provide links to some of his best work, both analyzing Orioles' topics and baseball in general.

• The Wieters Shift (May 2008): Jon tackled the topic of Matt Wieters potentially moving from catcher to first base.
• What is Nick Markakis Worth? (May 2008): Jon looked at the worth of Nick Markakis and accurately predicted his six-year contract.
• GM Family Tree Offseason 2010 (December 2009): Jon constructed a family tree of general managers around the majors. It's not the easiest thing to follow, but it's impressive.
• Why Baseball Players Use Human Growth Hormone? Part I: Addressing the Debate (February 2011): Jon waxed poetic about baseball players' use of performance enhancing drugs: "[T]he clubhouse is not a stickler for the scientific method."
• How Has Pitching Velocity Changed in the Past Decade? (October 2011): Jon examined the rise in velocity among starters and relievers.
• Bad Outfield Defense or a Bad Fielding Metric? (October 2011): Jon investigated the peculiarities of UZR among Orioles' outfielders at Camden Yards.
• An Interview With Yoo Jee-ho About the Orioles and South Korea (February 2012): Jon talked with Yoo Jee-ho of the Yonhap News Agency about the O's dealings with the Korean Baseball Organization and Korean Baseball Association after the Kim Seong-min controversy.
• Receivers in Name Only (May 2014): Jon broke down the superior value of defensive catchers vs. non-defensive catchers.

So congratulate Jon (unless you really don't want to, which is cool) and enjoy looking back at some of his excellent research and analysis.

How the Chris Davis Suspension Affects the Rest of the Season

Yesterday it was announced that Chris Davis will be suspended for 25 games for the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs.  The suspension is extended to the playoffs as well, so after missing the final 17 regular season games, Davis would also miss the first 8 playoff games, should the team make it that far.  The failed drug test was due to the use of amphetamines, and Davis admitted to taking Adderall during a press conference following MLB’s announcement of his suspension.  This is actually the second positive amphetamine test for Davis, as the first positive test only triggers follow-up testing, and isn’t publicly reported.

Chris Davis (photo courtesy of Keith Allison)

Davis was a key contributor to the team’s playoff run in 2012 and a revelation in 2013, as he enjoyed a career year in basically every single offensive category, hitting .286/.370/.634 (AVG/OBP/SLG), with 53 home runs.  The performance was good enough to finish 3^rd in the AL MVP voting behind Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera.  This year has been a different story though, as Davis has struggled, hitting just .196/.300/.404.

So how will his absence affect the remainder of the Orioles’ season?  Well, if you’re talking about the regular season, the answer is not much, if at all.  The team currently holds a very comfortable 10 game lead in the AL East with 17 games to go, so the loss of Davis won’t change their chances of making the playoffs.  The Zips projection system at Fangraphs expects Davis to be worth 0.3 wins above replacement the rest of the year.  Kelly Johnson (who I expect to be the primary third baseman moving forward) is projected at 0.2 fWAR, but with approximately 20 fewer plate appearances.  Add those 20 extra plate appearances for Johnson, and he’s projected to produce about 0.3 wins as well.  Anything can happen over a 17 game span, but it’s unlikely that there will be much of a difference.

As for the playoffs, the situation is generally similar, as there are so few games that are played, literally anything can happen.  At a maximum, the Orioles would play 12 playoff games without Chris Davis (Davis would be eligible to play in the ALCS, but the Orioles would have to play with a 24 man roster until his suspension is over).  With Kelly Johnson assumed to get the majority of Davis’ playing time, let’s do a quick comparison at how we could expect each player to perform at third base for the first 12 games of the playoffs (we’re going to assume that Chris Davis would have played third base exclusively for the sake of simplicity).

Offensively, Davis has produced 1.15 runs above average for every 12 games played (according to wRAA), whereas Johnson has produced 0.40 runs above average over the same time.  When accounting for hitting alone, Johnson will be worth about 0.75 runs less than Davis over a 12 game span. On the defensive side of things, UZR has Davis’ glove work at third as 1.85 runs below average for every 12 games.  In contrast, Johnson would be worth 0.95 runs above average.  Add it all up, and according to this back of the envelope exercise, Johnson is actually expected to be worth 2.05 runs more than Chris Davis during that 12 game span.  As Matt alluded to on Thursday, these defensive values should not be viewed with a lot of confidence, especially since the amount of time each player has spent at third base combined doesn’t add up to a season’s worth of data.  What this exercise does show is that perhaps an argument could be made that the Orioles may not miss Chris Davis at all.

But I’m not trying to make that argument.  The above assumes that Chris Davis would be playing every inning of every playoff game at third base, which in reality, would not be the case.  No, the loss of Chris Davis won’t necessarily be felt over the course of 12 playoff games that he could miss, it will be felt during key moments of those 12 games that he could miss.  The loss of Chris Davis means an infield (which has already suffered the loss of Manny Machado) will lack even more depth than it already did.  It means that Baltimore will have one less defensive replacement to use near the end of a close game.  It means the Orioles will have one less competent pinch hitter to send up in a crucial moment with men in scoring position.   This wouldn’t be a big deal over a course of 12 games during a 162 games season.  But those little things become extremely vital in the playoffs, where the importance of every game is magnified, because there may not be another game tomorrow.

Decrease in Run Production Might Be Due to Defense

This is just a short little post today, but I think it raises a decent question in light of comments made my Mark Cuban about how there is no evidence that shows human growth hormone improves athletic performance.  In fact, evidence shows that it has no significant effect on performance and there is also some information developing that shows that therapies using this hormone are unlikely to produce tissue that is functional for an athlete.  In other words, hGH therapies are probably ideal for individuals who simply need to heal as opposed to those who need to heal for athletic competition as well as not for those who used it to reduce down time between cycling of other chemicals.  This really is not much of a surprise because gym rats and athletes have rarely been on the cutting edge for any therapeutical chemical use.  Conventional wisdom tends to think that everything that successful players do must work because the players are successful.  We should recognize this as being absurd.  However, we tend to believe, as a population, in fantastically simple explanations, such as magic pills and treatments devised by non-science majors who have no practical skills beyond taste testing performance supplements.

With this in mind, shouldn't we also consider the possibility that something that has been shown to increase muscle mass and improvement in some forms of athletic events, such as anabolic steroids, might also not have been all that impacting?  A few years back, I noted how we have all of a sudden been treated to an amazing improvement in fastball velocity since around 2007.  Additionally, there also appears to be a relationship between velocity and run environments.  I think that makes sense and should be readily acceptable.

Another consideration I wish to make is this: run environment and appreciation of defensive ability are also linked.

Consider the graph below showing numbers from the American League over the past decade and a half:



How does that relationship work with the run environment?



It actually fits pretty well, which is an impressive thing because errors are a very limited measurement of defensive ability.  In fact, errors are a pretty poor way to measure defensive ability as evidenced by our infamous Rubbermaid Trashcan notion.  That is, such a trashcan would have a 1.000 fielding percentage while also being the worst defender in baseball.

Anyway, I think that it is plausible to think that along with increased pitcher velocity that a greater appreciation (or measurement) of defense probably also contributed to the decline in the run environment.  This more and more marginalizes the conventional wisdom of drug testing impacting the game in a very significant way.  As teams began to realize the importance of preventing runs then they began to move away from the pure mashers who produced runs at a significant cost to defense.  At least, that would be the narrative explanation to carry forth this hypothesis.