There’s a Good Chance I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

You may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?” – Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

This piggybacks off Mr. Baumann’s post, I suppose, since I never met I good idea I didn’t want to steal.

Most every baseball fan thinks they can run a team better than a given group of current general managers. Article commenters and radio show callers pull no punches when exalting their genius ideas for turning a team around through free agent acquisitions and trades. Save for the ridicule of other commenters and hosts of said radio shows, there are no ramifications for these plans. No trade is too outrageous, no signing too extravagant.

We, the statistically inclined (I refuse to use the term sabermetric community), are no different. We take a dissimilar approach, no doubt, but the result is the same. We create plans and strategies for turning hypothetical teams into hypothetical winners. We write articles about how a GM made a poor decision based on a set of historical data, or praise another for his forward-thinking approach to crafting a team.

Though the ideas of traditional and statistically-minded fans may differ, they do have something in common; they have absolutely zero experience running a professional baseball team. I am not breaking any new ground here. I doubt anyone needs to be reminded that they’ve never had a particular job in the past. But if I’m writing about a trade, or reading an article breaking down free agent signings, I sometimes have to remind myself of just how difficult it would be to be a below-average MLB GM, let alone a renowned and respected one. Do I still think I could do it, though? Of course. Don’t we all?

Recently, I had the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. Or, perhaps I was invited to put up or shut up, I forget. Regardless, I have started down a path that I should have sojourned years ago, but never did. I am now playing simulation baseball. I realize, at my age, I am late to this party. In fact, the party has probably ended by now. I’m knocking on the front door holding a bottle of wine to find the host brushing her teeth in preparation for bed as every reveler has left hours ago. This is partly my fault. When I got the itch to play sim-league baseball years ago, I didn’t have any friends who were interested. In fairness, you could probably delete the “who were interested” section off that last sentence and it would still be accurate. I suppose I had a few friends, but none would have been interested in folly so trivial as simulation baseball. Furthermore, my lifelong bout with social anxiety never allowed me to meet new people who would be interested in such things. But fear not, fair NotGraphs readers, as this story has a happy ending. Thanks to new acquaintances gained through the recent SABR convention, and my exposure on this glorious site, I have now been invited to play Diamond Mind baseball with some very smart and savvy people. (Side note: why does savvy have to v’s? What a weird letter to double up).

I have inherited a fairly good team.

The draft has begun.

I haven’t felt this stupid in a long time.

The other league members, and especially the commissioner, have been more than warm and welcoming and helpful. My intellectual burden is strictly my own doing. I feel as if I’ve talked my way into a graduate-level course, and now I have to prove like I belong there. The learning curve will lessen, and I’m sure I will be given some leniency in the beginning, but I still feel a tremendous amount of pressure, though I’m not sure why. There is no money changing hands, and I don’t expect to be cyber-bullied by the other GMs if I fail to crack last place. But this is my moment to show that I have at least a small idea of what the hell I’m talking about. If I fail, it will force me to reconsider opinions of myself edified long ago, but never tested.

I felt this same feeling when I started writing for NotGraphs, and still do I suppose. I’d been trying for some time to break into the baseball-writing world, and this site was my first real opportunity, one for which I am very grateful. However, when my account was created and it actually became time to post things, I felt a great deal of pressure. I’d had such confidence in my writing, viewpoints, and ideas, yet when it came time to implement them I struggled to come up with material, and when I finally did it often felt soft and uninteresting. This still occurs every week. It’s happening right now. If not for deadlines, I would have rewritten half of this post already. Perhaps I should not have divulged that. Nevertheless.

I am encouraged by this weight, however. If I struggle to produce compelling content, it shows I care about my content being compelling. That’s good, right? I’m not even sure any more. It’s getting hard to breathe. I smell burnt toast.

True to form, I’m struggling to come up with a proper conclusion to this article. I surmise that I’m trying to say there is a gap between believing you can do something, and actually showing it. This gap is large and dark and scary. It is also a self-imposed one. This gap is fordable, but taking the wheels of your ego wagon takes time and patience. What the hell does that even mean? I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. Have a good weekend, all.