In this year’s Baseball Prospectus Annual, among the player comments for the St. Louis Cardinals chapter, we discussed public comments made by team president John Mozeliak. In retrospect, we believe an apology is due to him for how our analysis of the situation was presented. On page 443 we published the following words about Dexter Fowler:
The 187 words that follow his stat line are an analysis of his past and future performance, including what the author believed to be the cause of that performance. In that way, it is no different than any other of the 2,000 captions that fill the book, some of them laudatory, some dismissive.
In another way, it is unique, because Fowler’s season was uniquely disappointing. For an analyst to go through the wreckage of Fowler’s 2018, and come to the conclusion that it was the outlier in an otherwise exemplary career, is not remarkable. For them to find that the root of the problem lay with the organization and how it handled Fowler is perhaps controversial, but hardly shocking. But the final two sentences of the comment conclude with the involvement of Cardinals president John Mozeliak, and therein lies the problem.
First, the facts: While Fowler was on paternity leave, Mozeliak went on a weekly broadcast of Fox Sports Midwest and made the following comments:
“It’s been a frustrating year for everybody involved. Here’s a guy who wants to go out and play well. I think he would tell you it’s hard to do that when you’re not playing on a consistent basis. But I’ve also had a lot of people come up to me and question his effort and his energy level. You know, those are things that I can’t defend.
“What I can defend is trying to create opportunities for him, but not if it’s at the expense of someone who’s out there hustling and playing hard. And really I think everyone just needs to take a hard look in the mirror, and decide what they want that next chapter to look like.“And in Dexter’s case, maybe taking a brief time out, trying to reassess himself, and then give him a chance for a strong second half is probably what’s best for everybody. I’m hopeful to touch base with him in the near future and decide what makes the most sense, but clearly he’s not playing at the level we had hoped.”
He later amended his statement, saying in an MLB.com interview that he “has a different approach with how he deals with stuff…I know Dex is working.” His full clarification is below:
“Really, what I was trying to say was I hear what our fan base is saying, and I hope our players understand what’s going on. There’s still time to win. There’s still time to change. I wasn’t trying to single out Dex in any way.
“When I’m out, people have no problem telling me what to do. It’s come up. In general, wherever I may be sometimes, I get feedback. What I was trying to say was, ‘I hear it. And I just hope our players are hearing the same thing and that they adjust to it.’
“Dex is frustrated. And, really, I was just trying to defend his frustration of the inconsistencies.”
Afterward, Fowler responded to the comments about his effort level:
“Everybody is entitled to their opinions. He told me it wasn’t directed towards me, but obviously my name was in it. If your name is in it, it’s kinda towards you, whether it’s rescinded or not. I want to win more than anybody. I want to get the chance to help win.”
By all accounts, Fowler and Mozeliak have repaired any damage to their relationship, and the outfielder, in the third year of a five-year deal, is optimistic heading into Spring Training. But the book, though appearing in readers’ hands in February, when this issue had long been laid to rest, was written in the fall when Fowler’s comments were still fresh. The author (and the editor in question) felt that despite the amendment, the original comments about energy level and effort bore a striking resemblance to the coded language, so common in baseball, attached to minorities, particularly well-paid ones, who do not demonstrate the similarly-coded “grit” of largely undersized, largely caucasian athletes. Because of this similarity, we did not edit out the phrase, strong and opinionated as it clearly is.
However, there are other factors involved in this story, both at the time and in the following days, that could not be elaborated on fully because of the constrictions of the 150-200 word player comment format. The phrase “implicitly racist remarks” was meant to center not on the racism of the man making those remarks, which he clearly did not mean, but the remarks themselves, so pervasive in baseball culture. The comment failed to provide the proper clarity and nuance that the analysis demanded, because of the restrictions of the format, and because of this, the characterization as published was unfair.
There is an irony here: that Mozeliak felt compelled to amend and explain his statement proves, to some degree, that it wasn’t a good statement. The same is true of our analysis of it. That it requires 700 words here to explain the 200 proves that it was irresponsible to say it in 200 in the first place. There’s a maxim we sometimes repeat at BP: write what needs to be written. If something asks for 400 words, don’t write 1,400; if it asks for 1,400, don’t write 400. The former is often the problem that many sportswriters run into; this is a clear example of the latter.
We at Baseball Prospectus take our responsibility as analysts seriously, and our reputation in the industry has been hard-earned by hundreds of excellent writers and editors over two decades. In this case, we did a poor job of editing, and apologize to Mr. Mozeliak and the St. Louis Cardinals for the results of that error.