Theory: Sean Casey isn't all that nice (a misguided sabermetric analysis)

Thorzul posted today when going through one of his group breaks that Sean Casey is pretty universally recognized as one of the nicest guys in baseball. I don't know Sean Casey. Have never met him. Never interacted with him. But I have a theory that he really isn't the nicest guy in baseball. He's just sort of average nice but given the circumstances of other players' interactions with him, he is made out to be extremely nice. Let me explain.

As with any good theory, we have to make assumptions about the conditions in which we are operating. Assumption 1 is that Sean Casey did not become recognized as a nice guy until 2001. Up until 2000 he was still a young guy, probably kept quiet, maybe even went unnoticed. Then things changed in 2001.

What happened in 2001? The Reds pitching fell apart. Here is the Reds staff ERA rank in the NL out of sixteen teams by year:
2001: 14
2002: 11
2003: 15
2004: 15
2005: 16

That is five years of subpar pitching. Five years where opposing teams hitters were getting hits and drawing walks at a frequency not encountered anywhere else in the National League. Now imagine you are an opposing player facing the Reds in a three game series. Chances are you reached first a lot. Chances are you were feeling good about yourself and how your team was doing. You get down there and the first baseman says "Hey, nice hit". Next time up you draw a walk and you hear "Good eye up there". Maybe you get out the next time but the next time up you single again and you get a word of encouragement again. By the end of the series, you might have had 7 or 8 encounters with this "friendly" first baseman. Maybe you say something to one of your teammates and they have experienced the same thing.

This goes on for five years. Five years, every time you face the Reds you seem to have a good game and there is Sean Casey with his two or three little words of encouragement waiting for you down at first base.

Who do opposing players encounter more than the first baseman? The catcher but the umpire is always there too making things awkward. Plus, Casey was there ALL THE TIME. The only National League first baseman to play more games for one team during that time was Todd Helton and Helton always had that scary beard going on.

Maybe Casey is really nice but let's not discount the possibility that he just had more opportunities to than anyone else and that even a modest level of friendliness seems like a lot when you're having your third straight three hit game and your team is winning 12-2.

Casey v. Dunn. It's a nice-off!

I wrote recently about how I feel that Sean Casey, regularly regarded as the nicest guy in baseball, may be just sort of average nice but took advantage of his field position and playing for crappy pitching staffs to make himself seem excessively nice.

My theory had the potential to be proven this season with my favorite player, Adam Dunn, playing first for the Washington Nationals (who, actually should have decent pitching, but I'll ignore it because that would affect the theory). The Washington Post ran this article today about how Dunn is looking forward to socializing at first. Sean Casey, he is not:

"I've got my buddies, and we've got a lot of things to talk about. Other people, I have no idea what to talk about. For instance, say Brian McCann was over there, I would probably make some sort of fat joke, something like that. I would talk to David Wright about how he can't hit homers any more. It depends."

You know that Casey would be telling McCann how svelte he is and talking up Wright's Ruthian power. I'm sure he told Alex Rodriguez that he was every bit as talented, handsome and classy as Derek Jeter.

I'm beginning to think that Sean Casey may have been nice after all.

Cards from Number 5 Type - Part 2, The Reds

You can see the previous entry for the introduction. Here are my five favorite Reds cards I got from Matthew.

Start off with some old-timey baseball. Harry Wright and the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Great card.

I was a big fan of Hal Morris and it's always fun to get a card of his. 

It has been widely reported that Sean Casey is an ass. We'll put him up here anyway.

The main reason why I put the Reds number two was the opportunity to get an Adam Dunn card I didn't have. Bo and lehold, I did. I'm rooting for a comeback by him this season but I'm not feeling terribly optimistic.

I always liked Kirk Saarloos. I thought he had a shot to be a big time pitcher but something happened to him during the 2003 season. Maybe the level of competition caught up to him, maybe he was hurt, but he no longer seemed to be the dominant guy he had been in college and the minors (and even the majors his rookie season). It's a shame. I think there are more sad stories in baseball than good stories. Kirk's back at his alma mater, Cal State Fullerton, as an assistant baseball coach.

His name also puts him in select company. Only three other major league baseball players have two different pairs of consecutive vowels in their last names. Can you name them?

Thanks once again, Matthew, for the cards.

Winners of the Damon Rutherford Card Design Contest

Well, Robert Coover's birthday came and went and I had two entries into the contest to design a card of the character Damon Rutherford in Coover's novel The Universal Baseball Association.

There are a few explanations for why I had only two entries:
1. No one wanted to be bothered to read a book and find out about Rutherford.
2. I have far less traffic than I thought.
3. The cards designed by Mark and Matt were so good, everyone else was frightened off.
4. Sean Casey, jerk that he is, organized a boycott of the site.




I'm going with reason #3. I liked both designs. They each had their merits. So Mark and Matt will be getting a baseball novel or two and some baseball cards. Congratulations and good work!