Last week, my colleague Sam Miller ran a few numbers on the pointless, yet poignant play that is the pitchout (a billion points to whomever catches that reference) and concluded that pitchouts are actually a net loser: they cost the defense/pitching team more in runs than they gain. Sure, individual pitchouts sometimes nab a would-be base stealer (and that's a good thing), but overall, managers guessed wrong so often that the expected payoff wasn't high enough to justify the strategy. Rule number one of strategic thinking is that just because you got lucky on a stupid bet, it doesn't negate the fact that it was a stupid bet.

Last week, I wrote a piece on the social development of young baseball players (and humans in general). In the piece, I suggested that one reason that teams might employ older players who are well past their prime, to the point where they are barely replacement level, is that there might be something to the "clubhouse guy" effect, particularly on young players. Players in their early 20s are going through a seldom recognized and only recently understood period of neurological development, and in addition to being baseball players are also trying to figure out how to be adults. There might be some value to having a guy around who is... well, already an adult. Someone who could take a young player under his wing.

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So... the Hall of Fame vote happened. And no one got in.

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In my most recent chat here at BP, a subscriber asked me about Cubs prospect Albert Almora, whom he called "polished" for an 18-year-old. I know very little about who's who among prospects, so I'll assume that Almora really is "polished" (he did get a taste of low-A ball last year), and as a former Lakeview resident, I should be overly excited about him. History has shown over and over that this will certainly end well for the Cubs.

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It's January. The holidays are over. The Winter Meetings are over. Hall of Fame voting is over. They even solved that fiscal thing. The MVPs and Cy Youngs and Rookies of the Year have been given out. Zack Greinke and Josh Hamilton have signed. And frankly, I can only read so many "Where will Michael Bourn sign?" pieces. Baseball is officially stuck in a rut. Well, when you need to start a conversation going on baseball, there's always the old reliable flint in the matchbox: the designated hitter.

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It's been a frustrating offseason thus far. There haven't been any moves that have been so outrageously silly that I’ve felt the need to skewer the offending team. For the most part, the moves that I've seen this winter have been of the "I get it" variety.

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It must be tough being a closer. Most nights that you pitch, you're going into a tight situation. If you do your job, well... you just did your job. If you mess up, the next day, the papers will talk about what a horrible human being you are. My father told me when I was growing up that a thousand "attaboys" is worth one "uh oh." He was right.

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The Winter Meetings start today in Nashville. It's a time for major-league executives to get together, chat about the game, and maybe play "let's make a deal." It's nice, because in a world starved for baseball for more than a month now, there's actual baseball news being made. Or at least rampant rumor-mongering, which is almost the same thing. There are mystery teams and... OMG, was that Theo Epstein walking by with a cup of coffee?

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Let's talk about Adderall. For those who haven't heard, Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz has been suspended for the first 25 games of the regular season after testing positive for an amphetamine, widely reported to be the prescription drug Adderall. Adderall is commonly prescribed for the treatment of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and, less commonly, narcolepsy. As someone who has treated a number of kids and teens with ADHD, I want to talk a little bit about the medication and why someone might misuse it. 

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Let's get a little silly. The Gold Gloves, Cy Youngs, MVPs, Managers of the Year, Hank Aaron Awards, and the Greg Spira Internet Baseball Awards (may Greg's memory remain eternally) have all been given out. It's time to appreciate the befuddling side of baseball. The awards that should be given out, but aren't.

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Quick, which player had the greatest change in on-base percentage from 2011 to 2012? Did you say Houston Astros pitcher Aneury Rodriguez? In 2011, Rodriguez went 0-for-9 with two sac bunts. In 2012, Rodriguez appeared in only one major-league game, but he came to the plate once and got a hit. Rodriguez went from a seasonal OBP of .000 to 1.000. It doesn't get bigger than that.

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I suppose that we ought to be used to this at this point. Noted author, columnist, sportswriter, and Detroit resident Mitch Albom wrote about the obvious big story involving the city of Detroit and the game of baseball: yesterday's naming of Miguel Cabrera as American League MVP. But his sub-headline proclaimed the award as a victory over "the stat geeks." For the most part it followed the same cliched form that these pieces tend to, complete with the veiled and not-so-veiled insults that somehow keep being peddled as journalism. Albom pulls out two old favorites in his column: that the "stat nerd" crowd never sees the sun and that we are not fans and probably don't actually watch games. 

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