JotCast | FanGraphs Book Club - The Only Rule Is It Has To Work

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Ben Lindbergh

9:37

I wish we had! Mostly. I'm torn. At the time, it was torture when things weren't working out, and Sam and I had soul-searching discussions about whether we were screwing everything up and whether there would be a book at all. In retrospect, the book was better because of all of that stuff.

Sam

9:37

Yeah, I'm happy w/ the managers we had. We would have screwed things up with a different manager, too, just in a different and maybe more boring way.

Ben Lindbergh

9:37

So there's part of me that wishes that book had come closer to what we intended for it to be, but there's another part of me that thinks that book would've been boring.

Klubot3000

9:38

A good friend of mine is a D1 college coach, and it's been fascinating talking with him about recruiting. I've long wondered if there was a similar way to aggregate data at the HS level like you guys did at the college level for recruiting. Any suggestions for tackling that problem to find under-the-radar recruits to college?

Paul Swydan

9:38

Another one from Klubot3000. I assume he's talking about the same coach.

Sam

9:38

Honestly, I'm really glad I know Feh. Part of the goal was to understand ballplayers, and in a lot of ways he's the archetype for a certain kind of very common ballplayer. And it was fun watching him play! He could ball out!

9:39

So, no, glad we hired him.

Ben Lindbergh

9:39

I know that more and more high-school kids are playing in showcases that have tracking systems set up. So if you can get your hands on that data and analyze it better than other schools, I assume there's some opportunity there.

Sam

9:40

Plus that dude talked a LOT and when you're trying to write 120,000 words loaded with ballplayer dialogue, you're really grateful for the guys who just have no filter

Paul Swydan

9:40

Hahaha. #content

Sam

9:40

I'm just going to keep answering that question for the entirety of this chat

Ben Lindbergh

9:40

One of the things I've learned while working on my next book is that there are a lot of college programs that already operate a lot like MLB baseball operations departments. Those teams are mainly making changes to improve their in-game management and player development, but they're also sort of using them to decide which recruits to target.

Mark Steubinger

9:41

Have you guys talked to Feh at all since the events of the book? The last thing that was said about him was the texts he sent after Taylor's first game or two.

Paul Swydan

9:41

I've always wondered this too.

Ben Lindbergh

9:41

I have not

I think we're all going to be in the same documentary on ESPN soon? But Feh and Sam and I recorded our stuff for that separately

Sam

9:42

Nope. He was on a podcast talking about the book, so I heard that, but otherwise I haven't talked to him since the night he got fired, in the middle of Sonoma's square, at about 3 a.m, after both of us had spent the evening/early morning in the same bars.

Paul Swydan

9:42

Documentary?

Mike Mort

9:43

wait an ESPN doc about it, thats awesome

Ben Lindbergh

9:43

Not just about us or the book

Paul Swydan

9:43

Still though, that's pretty cool.

Speaking of:

Michelle

9:43

Sam,
Ben is working on a new book. Doesn't have to be that, but do you have any ongoing projects? (Doesn't have to be limited to writing).

Sam

9:43

Whenever I read a passage in the book where we're fighting, I think, "yup, he would describe this exactly the same, same words, same dialogue, except in his book he'd be the hero." it's hard to be in somebody else's book.

Ben Lindbergh

9:43

There's some ESPN Films series about (quoting an email here) "the frontiers of sports training, technology, recovery and more." The Stompers story is part of that. We should probably ask when it's coming out.

Sam

9:44

the subtle ways that approval is written

I am not working on a new book, nor any ongoing projects. I'm tired all the time.

Mike Mort

9:45

Looking back do one you you wish you had taken the manager reigns after feh was let go? if you did why didnt you?

Sam

9:45

I have maybe one or two things I'd like to do sometime, and I think they'd be fun, but who knows.

I think i wish we did

9:46

Yeah, I definitely wish we did.

Ben Lindbergh

9:47

I've probably never wanted anything more than I wanted Theo or Sam to take over as manager

Baber

9:47

Silly question, but actually very serious: if you had become the manager, would you have thrown a Lou Piniella-esque fit?

Sam

9:48

Well, shoot. I say that, but Yoshi had an actual future in the game, and he took that job and turned it into his dream--working in the Twins organization. (Not that specific a dream, but, you know, working for a big-league franchise.) It would have been antithetical to all the lessons we learned to get in the way of somebody with talent chasing a dream. SOOOOO, for the book, I wish we did; for my own satisfaction and curiosity, I wish we did; for the team, I actually sort of wish we did; for Taylor Eads, I wish we did; but I think it would have been evil and I'm glad we didn't.

Ben Lindbergh

9:48

I think Yoshi was receptive enough to our input that that part of the book worked out well, and in a sense it would have been a failure if the only way we could be heard was to fire everyone who was in our way

So I think I'm OK with the way it worked out

But yes, for Taylor Eads, I wish we did. I still sorta think he was good.

Sam

9:49

I... think I actually visualized this, the argument with the umpire thing, and tried to envision how I would act. I think I'd have gotten there, yes. Big blow up, lots of yelling, hopefully sort of poetic, ending in a suspension.

I still think Taylor Eads was good

Paul Swydan

9:49

Hopefully it would have gone like this:

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