While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

We've been conducting mock arbitration cases at BP for the past two weeks, but back in Eric Gagne's heyday, Gary analyzed how his actual hearing might have gone down in the piece reprinted below, which was originally published as a "6-4-3" column on February 28, 2004.
 

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While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

In the wake of the latest revelations about baseball players and PED use, it's worth revisiting the piece reprinted below, which was originally published as a "6-4-3" column on December 6, 2004.

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While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

Giving teams the ability to trade draft picks remains a much-discussed measure, so let's revisit Gary's take, which originally ran as a "6-4-3" column on March 14, 2003.

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While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

At the request of reader Jim, we revisit Gary's list of books that every GM should read—in addition to all the BP books published subsequently, of course—which originally ran as a "6-4-3" column on September 5th, 2003.

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While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.

It's only appropriate that we kick off this series with a nod to BP's founder nearly ten years after it ran as a "Daily Prospectus" column on February 21, 2001. As we enter another year clouded by an expiring CBA, it's clear that much about baseball remains the same a decade down the line.

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About ten years ago, I did some really cool and fun research for one of the large casino resorts on the Las Vegas strip. It was a rather long engagement that lasted over a year total, and involved both qualitative and quantitative research. It was good work, too, because it was interesting, and the client was serious about doing what was necessary to act on the results.

In the first of several 6-4-3 conversations, BP's Gary Huckabay sat down with one of baseball's leading agents for a conversation about Manny Ramirez and his observations about the impact of the economic downturn on the industry.

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So, it's time to check back in to see how the story ends, and my thanks to those of you who have stuck around for the full ride. In case you missed it, you can check out part one of the series here, and part two right here. In short, there's kind of a Dilbertesque house of cards that I've built as an illustrative abstraction, with a consultant, some middle management, budgetary constraints, and uneven communication, all taking place in the front office of a club that wants to find a way to be competitive and outperform reasonable expectations. I realize this is a little bit like asking new viewer to start watching Lost for the first time about 50 episodes in (and insisting that they do so while sucking down an unholy blend on Jagermeister and Oxycontin), but bear with me for a bit. If you can, please take a couple of moments to go back and read at least one of the previous two parts to the series, and hopefully, things will become a bit more understandable and interesting.

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Time for a quick "Previously, on Adventures in Consulting…" (read using your best Don LaFontaine voice…)

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I think it was Einstein who said, "Answers to questions should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." Almost every job I've ever had involved finding answers to operational questions. One of the the most interesting projects I ever worked on was for a major league organization that didn't just want an answer--they wanted the question, too. The engagement was pretty simple; I can't identify the client, nor can I use specific data, but I think this is still an interesting case study. I hope you'll find it worth your time to read; if not, you might as well skip the next 6-4-3, too, since it's going to be Part Two. So let's dive in…

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There's a process to writing these pieces. I can't generally do things as quickly as most of the other writers here at BP; I used to be able to, but that's not a skill I managed to retain over time. However, one of the benefits of having a longer process in place is that I get a lot more feedback before the piece is published than I did previously; it's nice to have a few people who serve as crap detectors in the loop. If I'm overinflating something--as I'm wont to do to make a point--I find that out before it gets wide exposure. Similarly, if I'm making my most common error, which is failing to explain how I got from Point A to Point B, I hear that as well. But it's kind of like asking engineering to vet marketing copy. You might ask them just to review the technical specs to make sure everything's kosher, but they inevitably comment on other stuff, like the ad creative, or the overall communication strategy. In my experience, the worlds of these two groups don't mesh well together. Most technical people aren't really certain about what marketing people actually do, and most marketing people would prefer the technical folks stick to the technical stuff, and leave the marketing to those who know how to do it.

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The term "jump the shark" has become common parlance for an entire generation that wasn't even forced to watch Happy Days. Not that I'm that old, but a whole bunch of crap that would be relegated to the low 300s on DirecTV used to be on network television, and people watched it, primarily because there were only about five TV offerings available, even in big markets. But since we're condemned, as a species, to always view the past through sepia-toned or rose-colored lens, we tend to think that the dreck we used to consume is somehow more virtuous and wonderful than it really was.

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