Let me start out here, in a newsletter not about me taking a victory lap, by bringing up the possibility that I am going to take a victory lap.
It was just a week ago when I argued that, while it wasn’t exactly what you wanted, it was still a good idea to send down Luis Matos in favor of Austin Slater. Sure, that analysis was almost entirely Matos-based instead of Slater-centric, but it was at least somewhat vindicated by Slater winning Monday’s game with a 10th inning shot off the wall, and then going 3-for-5 last night, bringing his OPS on the season up to .561, much better than his pre-IL mark of .441, if still a bit lacking.
But! The move worked. Slater has hit well, especially in clutch situations, since returning from injury, and Maros has gone to AAA and hit well in Reno. In his 4 games in Sacramento, Matos hit .188/.222/.188, then got to 4,400 feet above sea level and in his first two games there, walloped the hell out of the ball, with two homers and two doubles in those two games. Keep it up, Luis!
The larger point here, though, is that Giants fans (at least online), were furious about putting Slater back on the roster over Matos. Slater had been so bad! And Matos, when he was good, was so good! Matos is the Future and Slater is the Past.
And then Slater was the offensive star in the two games the Giants won against the Astros, and hey, maybe not?
I don’t want to overstate things here, so I’ll point out that Slater does not yet have an extra-base hit this season (though that game-winning hit on Monday would have been a double if it hadn’t won the game before Slater could get to second base), and that most of the reactions after yesterday’s game were some variation of “I like it when Austin Slater is good.”
But, of course, there will always be people who have the opposite take, who have already decided someone is bad and will stick with that in every situation:
The point here isn’t the specific people or their specific bad opinions, but that there are people who cannot enjoy good things if they are not the exact good things they want. They have an Answer, and if anyone else has a different answer, then that person is wrong and bad and should be called out.
(It is, by the way, entirely possible that Slater skeptics are right and that sure, he had a good couple of games, but he won’t be good for the rest of the year. I think it’s more likely that they’re wrong, considering Slater’s track record and that xwOBA suggests he’s been pretty unlucky so far this year, but I don’t want to act like people are hating on, like, Ellis Burks.)
People are fickle. You can change the minds of a good percentage of them, but never all of them. There will always be some number of fans who will just never be on board with what you do. The best you can hope for is that that number never reaches a critical mass, that you never get a ton of attention for the decision you make, that you can just let things play out and let the results speak for themselves.
But that doesn’t always happen! Which brings us to Caitlin Clark.
While she was in college, Clark broke every women’s basketball record within arm’s reach. In the WNBA, she’s struggling. I don’t think this means that much for her future — there was always going to be an adjustment period and she barely got a break after a long college season, so fatigue is probably a major factor here — but it certainly is what’s happening now. Her shots aren’t falling like they were in Iowa, and she’s turning the ball over way too much. Rookie stuff. It happens.
And people are pissed that she’s not on the Olympic team.
It is pretty apparent that right now, facing the best players in the world for the first time in her life after what was already a long season, Caitlin Clark is not immediately one of the 12 best players in the league. This isn’t to say she’s not one of the most talented, or one of the most promising, or doesn’t have the brightest future, or anything like that, but right now, today, she’s not at that level. On the merits, she should not be on the Olympic team.
But she’s famous. Men — and I’m sure there are some women who are doing this too, but when it comes to big Sports Personalities it’s mostly men — have heard of her, and have heard that she’s great, and therefore think that she should be doing everything immediately. This is an opportunity to have A Take. “Why is this famously good basketball player not on the team for famously good basketball players? This is BULLSHIT!”
So people respond with stats, and logic, and a regular way of evaluating athletes. So what happens? The goalposts suddenly find themselves moving. Who’s doing this? It’s impossible to say! Suddenly it’s not that she’s the best player, but that she’s famous and her being in the Olympics will grow the game. It’ll grow the game! Don’t you want women’s basketball to seize the moment and grow the game? The game needs to grow! It’s been not growing, and now if it does grow, then it’ll grow! Isn’t that what you want?
Again, we could engage that argument on the merits — putting her on the court in the Olympics would make the team worse, which would increase the likelihood that they lose, which wouldn’t really grow the game — but it doesn’t matter. We are hearing this argument because the people who make it need an argument. If you thoroughly and logically debunk it, they will come up with another one, and then one after that, and yet another one after that.
Once you’ve decided you know the right thing to do, you will bend every bit of evidence to fit that view. Instead of taking your opinion where the facts lead, you’re taking the facts where your opinion leads. Caitlin Clark probably shouldn’t be on the Olympic team this year. Austin Slater probably should be on the Giants this year. But if you dig in your heels too much, you’ll decide otherwise, and nothing will ever convince you. It’s probably too late for a lot of the Clark discourse, but a couple more 3-hit games from Slater might save Giants fans from hearing about it for a while.
"Instead of taking your opinion where the facts lead, you’re taking the facts where your opinion leads."
Man this sums up SO MANY people's stupid choices
Good comparison Doug!