Daily Archives: October 13, 2004

Cards down Stros in NLCS Game 1

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The Cardinals took advantage of the Stros’ shaky middle relief to overcome yaks by Beltran, JK, Berkman, and Lamb in beating the Stros 10-7 in the first game of the 2004 National League Championship Series at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Wednesday night.
The Stros had a couple of leads in this one after Beltran’s yak in the first and JK’s in the fourth, but neither lead lasted long. Brandon Backe pitched reasonably well for 4 2/3rd’s innings, but the roof fell in on Chad Qualls — who was dinked to death in the Cards’ 6 run sixth — and then on Chad Harville, who gave up the Edmonds‘ three run double that put the game away for the Redbirds.
One thing I did not understand about this game is why Manager Garner pitched Backe on three days rest when he could have started Pete Munro tonight and allowed Backe to pitch on his regular rest cycle in Thursday’s Game 2. As noted above, Backe pitched reasonably well, but ran out of gas quickly in the fourth. My sense is that the Stros would have gotten more out of him in the Thursday game.
Oh well. Game 2 is Thursday night as the Stros try to steal one from the Cards in St. Louis. And steal it that will have to do given that Munro is the unlikely starter in this one. Hope that the Stros’ bats keep crankin’ because it is almost certain that the Cardinals’ bats will.

Reviewing the track record of an urban boondoggle

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Earlier posts here and here explored the economic absurdity of urban rail systems in modern American cities, which is a hot topic in Houston these days given the recent launch of Metro’s Light Rail System earlier this year.
Now, the long-range empirical data refuting the economic basis of such systems is emerging. In this article, Wendell Cox analyzes the $10 billion cost relating to creation and maintenance of the Washington, D.C. “Metro” rail system over the past 30 years. His findings are insightful:

No US urban area has built more new high-quality urban rail than Washington, DC, which spent $10 billion, most of it from national taxpayers, on a more than 100 mile system. Of course, it would be unfair to have expected Washington?s ?Metro? subway to have made a difference in area-wide traffic, since, as noted above, transit is about downtown. Predictably, at the
metropolitan area level, Metro?s impact has been virtually absent. In 1970, before the first section of the system opened, the Census Bureau reported that 15.3 percent of area workers used transit to get to work. By 2000, transit?s work trip market share number had dropped 29 percent, to 10.9 percent. Perhaps even more astounding is the fact that Census data indicated a five
percent reduction in actual work trip usage from 1990 to 2000, a period during which the system was expanded more than 25 percent.
Over the past 20 years, traffic in the Washington area has become the fourth worst in the nation, following only Los Angeles (which has opened a metro, light rail and commuter rail), San Francisco (where BART has made no difference) and Chicago (with the nation?s second most extensive rail system). The problem in Washington is that so many planned freeways were cancelled. In Houston, where capacity has been built to keep up with demand, traffic is better than in 1986, and the area has improved to 10th worst traffic in the nation from having been the worst in 1985.

Read the entire article. As we ponder why these public boondoggles continue to proliferate despite the increasingly clear evidence of their enormous cost relative to their relatively small public benefit, I pass along an astute commentator’s observation regarding the politics of such systems from one of my earlier posts:

Concentrated benefits and dispersed costs are one economic reason for the existence of inefficient public projects. The many who stand to lose will lose only a little, whereas the few who stand to gain will gain a lot. Of course, if other public projects exist where overall costs outweigh benefits, then $6 a year per project could add up to quite a hefty boondoggler?s bill.

Wingwomen?

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I continue to be amazed at the entreprenurial spirit of some young folks. This NY Times article reports on a new business that brokers attractive young women to accompany young men to social gatherings for the purpose of making the young men appear more attractive to other women at the gathering. Amazing.
Hat tip to Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen for the link to the article, and Tyler’s point that women judging a man by the quality of his girlfriend or wife is known in economic circles as a “sufficient statistic.”

Stros 2004 Review: NLCS Series Preview

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The Stros and the Cards tee it up tonight in Game 1 of the NLCS in St. Louis, and it you go by the statistics from the season to date, the Cards should win in a cakewalk.
However, statistics are merely indicators of probable performance, and the season-to-date statistics fail to take into consideration two key factors. First, although they lagged earlier in the season, the Stros’ statistics over the past two months have been every bit as good as the Cardinals’ statistics during that period. Second, the Stros have been playing “on edge” for the past two months in their unlikely drive for the playoffs while the Cards, who put away the NL Central title for all practical purposes shortly after the All-Star break, have been on cruise control. Some teams find it difficult to regain that competitive edge in a playoff series after a long stint of relatively meaningless games.
So, I look for this series to be closer than most pundits believe, although the gaudy Cardinals runs created against average statistics (“RCAA,” explained here, courtesy of Lee Sinins) this season certainly reflect the fact that the club had the best regular season record in the Major Leagues:
Albert Pujols 75
Jim Edmonds 73
Scott Rolen 57
Larry Walker 12
John Mabry 7
Reggie Sanders 4
Tony Womack 3
Ray Lankford -1
Colin Porter -1
Bo Hart -2
So Taguchi -4
Roger Cedeno -5
Yadier Molina -5
Hector Luna -6
Cody McKay -6
Edgar Renteria -12
Marlon Anderson -14
Mike Matheny -23
To compare, here are the Stros players’ final regular season RCAA:
Lance Berkman 69
Carlos Beltran 46 (28 with the Stros, 18 with the Royals)
Jeff Bagwell 17
Jeff Kent 12
Mike Lamb 11
Craig Biggio 8
Jason Lane 3
Eric Bruntlett 2
Willy Taveras 0
Chris Tremie 0
Jason Alfaro -2
Chris Burke -3
Orlando Palmeiro -4
Richard Hidalgo -9
Adam Everett -11
Morgan Ensberg -12
Jose Vizcaino -14
Raul Chavez -19
Brad Ausmus -26
The Cardinals’ 152 RCAA was the highest in Major League Baseball this season by over 40 runs, and over 100 runs better than the Stros’ team performance. The Cards’ top three hitters — Pujols, Edmonds, and Rolen — were among the top ten hitters in the National League this season, and no other team came close to matching that kind of top hitting performance.
However, that performance is in the past and what’s important is right now, and there appear to be a few kinks in the Cardinals’ machine. Rolen has a gimpy knee that did not respond to rest over the last month of the season, and he is coming off an 0-12 performance in the Cardinals’ divisional series victory over the Dodgers. Accordingly, if Rolen is unable to perform in the NLCS at his performance level for most of the season, the Stros’ hitting lineup actually matches up quite well with that of the Cards — i.e., two top hitters who are slightly better than the Stros’ top hitters (Pujols and Edmonds versus Berkman and Beltran), but the Stros have more above-average hitters than the Cards (Bags, Kent, Bidg and Lamb versus Walker, Mabry and maybe Sanders).
The pitching matchup is similar. Again, the Cardinals’ pitching staff overall had an extraordinary season, garnering a 68 runs saved against average score (“RSAA,” explained here), which is over 20 runs better than the Stros pitching staff’s solid performance. Here are the Cardinals pitchers’ RSAA through the end of the regular season:
Chris Carpenter 14
Steve Kline 13
Julian Tavarez 13
Jason Isringhausen 11
Ray King 11
Jason Marquis 10
Kiko Calero 7
Al Reyes 5
Cal Eldred 3
Randy Flores 3
Cody McKay 1
Josh Pearce 0
Jeff Suppan 0
Woody Williams 0
Rick Ankiel -1
Danny Haren -2
Mike Lincoln -2
Jason Simontacchi -2
Carmen Cali -4
Matt Morris -12
And, for comparison purposes, here are the Stros pitchers’ RSAA:
Roger Clemens 32
Brad Lidge 26
Roy Oswalt 22
Wade Miller 10
Dan Miceli 6
Octavio Dotel 5
Andy Pettitte 4
Chad Qualls 3
Russ Springer 3
Dan Wheeler 3
Darren Oliver 1
Brandon Backe 0
Mike Gallo -2
Chad Harville -2
David Weathers -2
Jeremy Griffiths -3
Ricky Stone -3
Kirk Bullinger -6
Jared Fernandez -6
Pete Munro -9
Carlos Hernandez -10
Brandon Duckworth -11
Tim Redding -15
Again, one can see possible kinks in the Cards’ pitching armor, too. Although they have six pitchers with double digit RSAA’s, the Stros top three pitchers (Clemens, Oswalt and Lidge) have performed signficantly better than the Cards’ top three pitchers, the best of whom (Carpenter) is injured and not pitching. Moreover, the Cards continue to trot out Matt Morris as a starter and he is having a Redding-like horrible season, and even the Cards’ closer Isringhausen has been showing signs of late-season fatigue. Thus, a good case can be made that the Stros’ pitching staff comes into this series in better shape than the Cards’ staff, even with Clemens and Oswalt being relegated to Games 3 and 4. The fact that Lidge comes into the NLCS relatively well-rested is big advantage for the Stros.
So, where does that leave us? Well, the Cards are probably the better team overall, but the Stros are plenty good and playing with boatloads of good karma right now. My sense is that the Cards will prevail in a six or seven game series, but that it would not be shocking if the Stros win the series. Let’s get ready to rumble and hang on for a wild ride!

Checking in again on the Nigerian Barge trial

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The defendants began putting on their cases this week in the Enron-related Nigerian Barge trial in Houston federal court, and already there have been some significant developments.
Attorneys for defendants and former Merrill Lynch executives James Brown and Daniel Bayly rested their cases on Tuesday without putting their clients on the stand. In white collar criminal cases, this is a highly risky move. Juries in such trials generally expect to hear the defendant’s story. Even though they are not supposed to hold the defendant’s decision not to testify against the defendant, juries nevertheless often do so.
In recent high profile white collar cases, neither Martha Stewart nor Jamie Olis testified, and their juries both voted for conviction. On the other hand, Frank Quattrone did testify during his trial and his jury voted to convict, anyway. So, electing to testify certainly does not ensure an acquittal in white collar cases, but my experience is that electing not to testify in such cases ratchets up the risk of conviction significantly. Meanwhile, William Fuhs, one of the Merrill Lynch defendants in the Nigerian Barge case, did elect to testify yesterday. He will be subjected to the prosecution’s cross-examination today.
Left unstated in the mainstream media’s accounts of the trial is the continued dubious nature of the government’s case in this trial. The government spent three weeks putting on its case in chief, which consisted almost entirely of testimony from former Enron executives who admitted that they were liars and cheats. Each of these witnesses stated that they had lied about the Nigerian Barge transaction to prosecutors initially, but now allege — after copping plea bargains with the government — that they are telling the truth in supporting the government’s theory that the Nigerian Barge transaction was a sham.
The government’s theory of the case is that Enron orally promised Merrill Lynch through its main liar — Andrew Fastow — that Enron would either buy the barges back or broker a deal for the barges in six months at an agreed rate of return for Merrill Lynch. Therefore, reasons the government, Merrill Lynch was not truly at risk with regard to the transaction and, thus, Enron’s booking of the deal as a sale was fraudulent.
However, it is undisputed at the trial that the deal documents — entered into after Fastow’s oral inducements to Merrill — did not include any such Enron agreement to repurchase or broker the barges. Likewise, it is undisputed that the written agreement between the parties includes the standard provision that Merrill could rely only on Enron’s written representations in the deal documents and could not rely on any prior oral representations (such as Fastow’s oral promises) in electing to enter into the deal. Consequently, it is undipusted that Merrill Lynch could not have enforced Fastow’s oral promise against Enron in civil court had Fastow not arranged to have one of his off balance sheet partnerships buy the barges from Merrill.
So, where does all that leave us? The government’s case relies on the theory that the unenforceable oral promise of someone who the government says is a liar and cheat — i.e., Fastow — rendered Merrill’s risk in buying the barges non-existent. Or, stated another way, the moral obligation of a liar and cheat to do something that he is not legally required to do is such a sure thing that Merrill was not at risk in entering into the transaction.
Quare: Inasmuch as it is undisputed that Fastow is a liar and a cheat, and that the deal documents did not obligate Enron to buy or broker the barges for Merrill’s benefit, how could Merrill not be at significant risk of having to hold the barges for a long term where its only known exit strategy from the deal was a liar and cheat’s unenforceable moral obligation to take Merrill out?
I have said it once, but I am compelled to say it again — this case is an abomination that would not be prosecuted but for the fact that the government believes that they can obtain a conviction against anyone who associated with the disgraced Enron. That is a dangerously poor reason for the government to exercise its awesome power to take away the freedom of citizens.