The annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is in its second and final day on Saturday in Boston. The first session is a Baseball Analytics Panel that includes Rob Neyer, Joe Bohringer, Greg Moore, Jonah Keri, Tom Tippett and Sloan graduate and former St. Louis Cardinals Assistant General Manager John Abbamondi.
A number of individuals in attendance at the sold-out conference have been tweeting some of the talking points being made. One that caught my eye was from a past acquaintance, Andy Andres, a sabermetrics instructor at Tufts University.
“Rob Neyer suggests Cardinals are worried about Pujols’ age in negotiations…,” reported Andres.
I would have loved to been able to study Abbamondi’s reaction when Neyer said that. While Abbamondi moved on to an executive position with the San Diego Padres in December, he was certainly in the inner circle of planning for the last few years as the Cardinals developed their Pujols contract strategy.
Update: I double-checked with Andres to ensure I did not misinterpret his tweet. I did not, as he reaffirmed the speaker was definitely questioning Pujols’ reported date of birth. In fact, Neyer polled the panel members on their individual views of the first baseman’s current age.
Neyer has highlighted concern about Pujols’ age multiple times in recent years, back to at least April 2008. The following was his comment to a reader following an ESPN insider article about Miguel Tejada’s age falsification case.
“I’ve been wondering about Pujols for a long time. I’m not alone. But for whatever reasons, nobody’s been able to confirm anything one way or the other.”
What makes Saturday’s statement more notable is a further refinement of the identity of the concerned party.
In late January, during an ESPN chat, Neyer mentioned unidentified people as the ones harboring the suspicions.
“Look, I’m going to say this now and maybe never again in this space, but … There are still some reasonably intelligent people with reasonable doubts about Pujols’ age. Just for the sake of argument, if he’s actually 33 or 34 would you give him eight years? Nine years? Ten?”
Now, he is apparently saying it is the Cardinals themselves with concerns.
Of course, that could still be from a secondary source, a third party relating what the Cardinals are supposedly thinking. Even so, if true, this could put a different spin on the team’s behavior in the currently-suspended contract negotiations with their superstar.
Neyer has a long-established national reputation and one would think he would not be making these repeated comments without foundation. Only he knows his source and would not be expected to divulge it.
Yet over the last decade, which included 9/11-driven changes that caught several players with falsified ages as well as Pujols completing the process to secure his US citizenship, no one has publicly surfaced any proof of irregularities with his age.
I offered more background in a January post entitled, “Why do Pujols’ age questions persist?”
What do you think?
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Rob Neyer hasn’t shed the ESPN taint. Those guys report more BS than any sports media on the planet. Ken Rosenthal recently reported that a Cardinals source told him that Raul Valdes was the leading candidate for the 5th rotation spot. If he truly had a Cardinals source my guess is it was a janitor at RDS.
Now, be careful… One of our notable posters here once asked about a trade rumor that he heard from a member of a team’s ground crew.
Rumor reporting is tough business. I have taken some lumps there myself…
ESPN is a worldwide sports organization. They should be more circumpect about what they report. No excuses. And BTW Rosenthal reported his information as if it were fact, not rumor.
I am not condemining all ESPN reporters. Rosenthal is definitely the worst imo. But I never immediately give credence to what ESPN guys, past or present, say without some other corroborating evidence.
Just to clarify, Rosenthal works for FOX, not ESPN. Since the above-referenced January chat, Neyer has left ESPN.
My bad. I thought Rosenthal was one of the ESPN guys. With what he reports they should hire him.
I know Neyer left ESPN. That is why I said he has not yet shed the ESPN taint.
Not a big fan of the Eastcoast Sports Promotion Network either. When it comes to baseball they are far too parochial… showing their roots, from home base in Connecticut… too much focus on Yanks-Sawks, Mets, etc. Other teams are treated as afterthoughts…
Not a big fan of Rosenthal either… he seems to like to stir the pot and also has a heavy coastal bias, IMO.
What’s the world coming to, crdswmn? We AGREE on something!
I love Pujols for his work ethic. I figure Mr. Pujols could be one or two years older than reported. MLB has been digging after birth certificates in the Dominican, since 9/11, because demanded by the US State Department. Its possible MLB has researched the birth date of baby Albert. All the research and private investigators may not just focus on 16 year old amateurs looking for $1MM, but could also research ML players looking for $200MM.
I’ve heard a lot of talk about this over the years but the only “evidence” I ever heard was from a friend of my dad’s who said Whitey Herzog told him at a fantasy camp “the Cardinals know Albert is two years older.” I wouldn’t doubt it, but that’s not probably not enough evidence for Deadspin, much less anyone else.
If Albert is two years older, going more than 7-8 years is pretty difficult. Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised that is part of the real negotiations but I’m fairly certain it’s something we’ll never know. I don’t mind writers writing hypotheticals and rumors but the line between opinion and reporting has become so blurred it’s tough for anyone to have credibility.
As a journalist myself, I’ve always taken everything I read with a grain of salt. We don’t report facts. We report what people tell us.
Good points, jon. Ref. your last paragraph, you have a healthy skepticism, but as you know, many do not have such a filter. That can lead to all kinds of crazy reaction and overreaction.
Much of the blogging phenomenon is based on repeating what others say. Some folks originate news, but since so few have direct access, that is far rarer than echoing others. One of the reasons I have this blog rather than posting everything on the main The Cardinal Nation site is to do more opinion pieces and have greater reader interaction. Even so, credibility is important to me as I am not an anonymous blogger.
Fine start today by McClellan.
Then Augenstyn threw 2 scoreless innings. The Birds have a bunch of RHPs without big fastballs: Augenstyn; Walters; McGregor. Dickson and Lynn have a little more velocity, but do not seem overpowering. We could also gain Broderick back from the Nats. Its nice to have developed a successful formula of developing pitchers up to AA and AAA.
The age question is not simply about Albert. It would hold with every player from many nations within Latin America. There has long been a tension between players and teams, about the ages (and even names) of young players. Young men have incentive to under-state age, to make themselves more impressive for scouts. Though Albert went for a few years to a high school and juco near KC, does anyone know precisely how old he was when he moved to KC?
Kids on a bus……having fun………playing ball………scoring runs……..
The black hole takes the field and we win on an error…… from AAA hopefuls………. but AP hit 500 today……….so hey………. Brewers are going to kick our asses………. Tony must, for his own survival, mix it up……has too.
I haven’t looked into this game…….but I would guess, with wind and weak pitching, we had a lot of pop ups……… speculators………..
[...] For at least the seventh time in the last 14 months, an article from The Cardinal Nation Blog has been highlighted on FOXSports.com’s Major League Baseball page, achieved through this site’s association with Yardbarker. What brought the recognition this time was the post, “Cardinals concerned about Albert Pujols’ age?” [...]
Yeah, the poll response ended up quite high on this one, for sure!
What I have noticed is that early on, when the voters were the usual visitors – presumably more Cardinals-oriented – the voting was soundly in favor of Pujols telling the truth.
Now that the national votes are coming in, the results have shifted to more people suspecting a problem. Makes one wonder if fan sentiment in other cities would be more against their local team offering a ten-year deal than in StL? Then again, the men with the money better not be making their hundreds of millions of dollar business decisions based on fan polling results!