Fun with acronyms

Well first off, I'd just like to say that I'm happy Scott Baker is apparently a fan of the blog.  Frankly there's no explanation for his resurgence since I ripped into him viciously on the 20th of July, other than the sheer embarrassment of my lost faith.  Since the disastrous start against Cleveland that precipitated that rant, Baker is 2-0 with 5 ER over 20 1/3 IP.  Last night's gem against a loaded Tampa Bay club ended in a no-decision, but should've been win #3, given the stellar 8 innings of shutout ball that was delivered.  Keep up the good work Scott, perhaps you can make it off my ****list by season's end.

The ebb and flow of a sports team is a funny thing, guys go from hot to not, and vice versa, in the blink of an eye.  Nothing really seems to change much when you're watching them, still the same guy doing the same things, but small, imperceptible differences in performance often yield a gigantic impact on results.  Oddly enough, the rise of one team member often seems to be offset by the decline of another.  I suppose this should be somewhat expected in games like hockey and football, where the defense functions as a unit and devoting extra resources to contain one player can free up another.  But it still doesn't explain how a player who consistently screws up big spots (dropping interceptions, whiffing on open nets) can all of the sudden catch lightning in a bottle to consistently deliver in those same situations.

This transformation makes even less sense in baseball, where each pitcher or hitter functions pretty much independently of the others.  That's not to say that teammates don't help each other out, defense can make all the difference in the world to a pitcher; but there's no defense in the world that was going to stop Moonshot Scott from serving up taters, then all of the sudden he's the second coming of Cy Young, this intrigues me.

The examples are everywhere, from Michael Cuddyer stepping up to carry the Twins last year in Justin Morneau's absence, to Delmon Young's recent cooling trend being offset by the increased production of Jason Repko and...Drew Butera of all people.  Now we've seen a few occasions where every member of a team got blistering hot at the same time, most memorably the Colorado Rockies 21-1 rampage to the World Series three years ago.  But usually it seems that a fixed pool of positive results available to any team, so when one player goes up, another must come down.  While I'm sure that some fancy statistical analysis could be offered to explain this phenomenon, I prefer to take things more metaphysically.  To that end, I offer my hypothesis, in the form of the Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Theory, or F*CK for short.

Since F*CK is a measure influenced by the sum of a teams component parts, it stands to reason that different teams have different levels of inherent F*CK.  If you have more skilled players, you've got higher baseline F*CK; less skill means less F*CK, the logic of this should be obvious.  Now this doesn't mean that a team or player with high F*CK couldn't experience a drought, in fact it's possible for anyone to contribute zero F*CK at a given time, regardless of the strength of their game.  But for the most part, as with any trend, performance will regress to the norm and the F*CK of each entity will fall where it is expected to.  As any player can tell you, a ridiculous amount of F*CK in the short term can often have negative long-term consequences, just as prolonged slumps can often end in extended bouts of suprisingly high F*CK.  Of course the caveat to these expectation is that your game was reasonably strong in the first place; if you were always a worthless F*CK, you never would've been playing at a high level to begin with.

The phenomenon of a player positively deviating from their recent historical level of F*CK, known as Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Increasing Normalized Growth (F*CKING), can manifest itself in several ways.  Often times the absence of a player opens the door for another to step in and pick up the slack.  The replacement, known as the Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Emerging Regular (F*CKER) may have been limited by his role and expectations.  But with the big star, or Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Exiting Element (F*CKEE) out of the picture, the F*CKER backing him up might seize the opportunity to shine. 

It usually doesn't work out that way, as the F*CKER that was sitting on the bench won't have the talent to match the F*CK he's replacing.  It's common to be at a game and hear a fellow fan sya with disdain "Great, now this F*CKER's in."  Typically expectations are low.  But you never know when the feeling of needing to do more to pick up the team could spur some F*CKER to new F*CKING heights no one every dreamed possible.  Nothing motivates a man like potential F*CKING.

Other times, there is no real trigger, it just kind of happens for no discernable reason.  Expanding the vernacular of F*CK theory, the term Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Upside Performer (F*CKUP) is used to describe someone executing above their typical level.  While Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Extreme Downsider (F*CKED) is the term for those below.  The odd thing is, these two roles can reverse themselves, seemingly at the drop of a hat.  Karl Pavano has been a F*CKUP for most of the the season, while Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey have been the definition of F*CKED.  So what heppened this week?  All of the sudden the two underperformers become a pair of F*CKUPs and the guy who's been throwing like an ace is totally F*CKED.  I tell you it's a funny game.

How do players avoid getting F*CKED?  Well if I could figure that out, I'd be selling all this F*CKING information to the highest bidder.  I mean how can Joe Mauer be the biggest F*CKUP in the American league last season, then find himself F*CKED to the tune of a below .300 average halfway through this one?  Frankly it's a F*CKING mystery that not even the most successful F*CKERS in the league can truly explain.

The only thing that is for certain, as noted earlier, is we all want the players on our teams to be synonymous with the term F*CK.  The Yankees are a good example of this, no team in sports has more F*CKERs up and down it's roster.  In fact there are so many players who fit this description, you'll often hear them described as the F*CKING Yankees.  While a team full of F*CKERs is not necessarily a guarantee of F*CKING success, the higher mean level of F*CK would indicate much better F*CKING performance than other teams.

An interesting side note to this F*CKING discussion is the potential for acquisitions through trades and free agency available to higher payroll teams.  Adding a player in this fashion can often spur a phenomenon know as Finite Unit Cumulative Karma Alternate Location Leverage (F*CKALL), caused by a change of scenery or move to easier league/conference.  Unfortunately the discussion of that topic will have to be postponed, as most people who know me can tell you, I don't really know F*CKALL.

So that's it, everything I know about F*CK, F*CKING and F*CKERs.  Hopefully this discussion has been enlightening and given you a new angle through which to view the dynamics of a team; always remember, it takes a unit to F*CK.  The next time you're at the game, and the fan next to you yells "This guy in F*CKING useless, get some other F*CKER in there", you will now have a deeper appreciation for what this wise and learned student of the game is really saying.