Appeals to Authority

In a blog entry entitled "Washington Nationals: Skipper Jim Riggleman On XM With Rob Dibble" on the web site "Federal Baseball", which is part of the SB Nation network of sports-related websites, the author, Mr. Ed Chigliak, a pseudonym, unless the author really is the character from the former hit television series "Northern Exposure", which aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System, transcribes an interview conducted on XM, a satellite radio service, by host and Nats/MASN color commentator Mr. Rob Dibble and his "Baseball This Morning" cohost Mr. Steve Davis and the manager of the Washington Nationals, which is the franchise that plays professional baseball within the National League in the District of Columbia, which is not one of the 50 states that comprise the nation which is known as the "United States of America," Mr. Jim Riggleman.

Where was I?

Umm.... well, they asked Riggles about Pudge and whether his role is going to be as a mentor for the catchers or pitchers. His answer:

Well, he'll do both. I think he's taken on that a little bit in the last couple years on clubs that he's been on, whereas in the past that wasn't part of his game, but I think he will mentor some other players. I think he'll give us an air of confidence with our pitchers when they look in and see who's back there, but, you know, he's still a good player, he's not just a senior citizen on the club. This guy can block balls, throws the ball very well, he's an athlete back there and he kind of puts in the mind to the other ballclub that you just can't get on and go. We've got a chance to stop your running game. If our pitcher gives him any chance at all, he can throw people out and he's a good hitter. I only saw Pudge in games that we played against him, but the last couple years that I saw him, I actually commented to him a couple times through the last couple years that he really was swinging into some bad luck? He was hitting a lot of balls right on the barrel, right at people, and that's just the way it goes sometimes. All you can do is try to hit the ball hard in our game and his numbers are not bad, offensively he's still a productive hitter, but he can't continue to hit into that kind of bad luck, cause this guy hit a lot of "at'em" balls..."

Let's parse that a bit.

"I think he's taken on that a little bit in the last couple years on clubs that he's been on, whereas in the past that wasn't part of his game." This finally acknowledges what everyone who's followed Pudge's career has said: he's a self-involved Ahole. Dude has a life-size statue of himself in his yard. Dude has yards of empty books in his library.

So maybe he's now a mentor, but he certainly doesn't have a track record; the only people who praise his mentorship are the ones who haven't yet played with him. I don't really recall too many statements from other teammates.

Then there's the offense. Riggles blames Pudge's decline not on the heavy workload he's had through his career, his age, or any other of about 100 plausible excuses. It's his luck. It's all those at 'em balls. Sure.

An at 'em ball is pretty much, by definition, a line drive. Scroll down for his line-drive rate. Not seein' it, Riggles.

This is just a manager spinning for a player; it's nothing to get worked up over. But it's also something the Nats seem to be doing a lot over these last few years. Whether it's Pudge's mentorship, Nyjer's hockey mentality, Hudson's Gold Gloves, etc, the Nats spin a narrative about a player and hammer it in all the various media. They reduce their players to one-note caricatures that frequently tout their 'intangibles'. Yawn.