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It's September 21, 2011. The 49-96 Houston Astros are in Cincinnati, Ohio to play the 76-80 Reds. Both teams below the .500 mark, the game has no meaning whatsoever -- not for the Astros, not for the Reds, not for any other team in the division (NL Central).
As bad as the Astros were that season, they did have what could be deemed an A-lineup, a lineup consisting of their best players at each position. That was not the lineup they used on this Wednesday afternoon.
A typical full-time Major League hitter accrues in excess of 600 plate appearances in a single season. Here is a look at the lineup the Astros used along with each player's PA total:
Jordan Schafer, CF (118 PA)
J.B. Shuck, RF (92 PA)
J.D. Martinez, LF (226 PA)
Carlos Lee, 1B (653 PA)
Matt Downs, 2B (222 PA)
Chris Johnson, 3B (405 PA)
Clint Barmes, SS (495 PA)
J.R. Towles, C (165 PA)
Pitcher (pitchers get significantly fewer PA than position players, so this is irrelevant)
The average hitter in the lineup had about 300 PA, or half that of a full-time player. Needless to say, the Astros were intentionally putting out a sub-par lineup.
To prove that, let's look at their offensive production using a statistic called weighted on-base average (wOBA). The league average is between .310-.320.
Schafer, .298
Shuck, .312
Martinez, .319
Lee, .339
Downs, .373
Johnson, .289
Barmes, .308
Towles, .245
Only two Astros made it above the .320 threshold. It is safe to say that the Astros were, uh, not trying their hardest to win that afternoon's game.
I bring this up because a controversy arose earlier after both Naniwa and Nestea went 0-3 in their group in the Blizzard Cup. With eight of ten matches already completed, the fates of both players were sealed, making their match-up in Game #9 meaningless. Naniwa chose, instead of playing out an irrelevant game, to rush with his six starting workers across the map of Antiga Shipyard towards Nestea's base. Needless to say, the probe rush did not succeed; Naniwa dropped to 0-4 while Nestea erased the goose egg in his wins column.
Quickly after the game, TL and Reddit were on fire with complaints from community members, claiming that Naniwa's behavior was immature and disrespectful. Some called for punishment to be levied from GOM; others angrily sent emails to Naniwa's new team, Quantic Gaming.
I seem to be in the minority thinking that Naniwa did nothing wrong, just as the Astros above did nothing wrong by putting out their "B-lineup" several months ago in the final weeks of the baseball season.
First of all, the blame should lie with GOM for going with a tournament structure in which players were given the unsavory choice of forfeiting a match (whether officially or by worker-rushing) or playing out an irrelevant game. Being a pro-gamer is difficult, just ask HuK, who has traveled across the globe to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. I sympathize with players who do not want to waste time and energy playing out a meaningless game, especially after going 0-3 in front of hundreds of thousands of people.
Secondly, the ire directed at Naniwa assumes a worker rush is not a valid strategy. No, a worker rush is not a high-percentage strategy, but it is non-zero, which makes it valid nonetheless. If we are to harangue Naniwa for probe-rushing, then what is to stop us from doing the same with other similarly-fateful strategies?
We need to have lines here, and they cannot be drawn arbitrarily. More importantly, they should be drawn officially. I don't see anywhere on the GOM website where they have official rules for their tournaments, but something like that should be addressed in written word. Such ruling does not exist in most (if not all) professional sports; teams are allowed to tank on purpose. This is especially prevalent in the NBA, when teams will intentionally lose to increase the probability that they get a good draft pick in the lottery. It happens in the NFL as well. In fact, the phrase "suck for Luck" refers to teams taking a dive every week so they are better suited to draft college quarterback Andrew Luck, currently at Stanford University.
A common refrain I've read is that Naniwa owes it to GOM, the sponsors, his team, the fans, etc. to play out the meaningless game. And that is just flat-out wrong. Naniwa's job is to win games -- that is, win games that matter. Winning that game against Nestea would not have done anything for Naniwa except earn a couple brownie points (in other words, nothing). And if it's not against official rules and the terms of his contract with Quantic Gaming, then again, he did nothing wrong. Likewise, fans who showed up to that Astros-Reds game on September 21 were not owed their money back. The sponsors were not refunded ad revenue, either (as some have suggested be done with GOM). That is the risk you take as a fan when you purchase tickets, and that is the risk you take as a business when you choose to advertise. Ultimately, if the fans and/or the sponsors do have a legitimate gripe about what happened, that is to be taken up with GOM, not Naniwa.
As a fan, you can hate Naniwa for whatever reasons you want, legitimate or not. When we're dealing with a player's livelihood, however, we need to have rational, adult conversations, and I'm just not seeing any of that in the community. When you calm down, take a step back and examine the situation, you should see that Naniwa is taking entirely too much grief for what was ultimately a decision made in his best interest.
About the author:I am a sportswriter for ESPN (http://crashburnalley.com/), an author (http://amzn.com/1600786782), and a sports radio host. You can follow me on Twitter, @CrashburnAlley.
References: The baseball statistics cited above were taken from Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.
EDIT: Forgot to add FanGraphs to the references.
 
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So let's say a team goes 0-X or just has a bad record. They're gonna play the last game of the season with 0 chance to make it in the playoffs. What do they do? They shit on everyone around them by fucking around. Let's say it was football. The other team's running back gets through and no one chases after him, no one does anything to even try to save a bit of their dignity and give fans who payed and stayed loyal a show or at least some sign of trying. Who would defend that as a fan?
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maybe put up a spoiler warning ? just saying 
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I agree, nothing was on the line. The game shouldn't be played and this situation wouldn't have happened.
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Comparing an individual sport to a team sport.
This isn't gstl, you're playing for your own benefits. The coach put the players out as well, coach had no say in Naniwa's case. It just happened.
First of all, the blame should lie with GOM for going with a tournament structure in which players were given the unsavory choice of forfeiting a match (whether officially or by worker-rushing) or playing out an irrelevant game. Being a pro-gamer is difficult, just ask HuK, who has traveled across the globe to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. I sympathize with players who do not want to waste time and energy playing out a meaningless game, especially after going 0-3 in front of hundreds of thousands of people.
I guess consolation rounds in every individual tournament are just shameful then. Or finishing a race when you know you haven't won. Even if you prepared for years. Do we know for a fact that Naniwa requested a forfeit? Or is this an assumption?
Secondly, the ire directed at Naniwa assumes a worker rush is not a valid strategy. No, a worker rush is not a high-percentage strategy, but it is non-zero, which makes it valid nonetheless. If we are to harangue Naniwa for probe-rushing, then what is to stop us from doing the same with other similarly-fateful strategies?
It's the fastest way to get out of the game. Not necessarily lowest percentage. The 0% chance would be to kill your probes then attack, or kill your nexus. Both take longer than rushing cross map into nestea's base and losing all your probes.
You didn't mention his image. He really just hurt himself by doing this, gaining lots of anti-fans apparently. Though obviously there's no penalty for that. I'd have to say reprimanding is necessary but not a fine or a ban. It's BM, definitely, and maybe if GOM were actually KESPA we wouldn't see Naniwa in Korea again, but it's not. And Mr Chae loves foreigners.
I like your rational approach to the thing as a whole though, much better than "let's lynch naniwa bandwagon"
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Well, there's certainly been plenty of precedence for a hopeless team/player to go either way (all out, or give up), it's only up to the players' selves. Naniwa probably lost some fans doing that, but it was his choice to make, and that's who he is.
Just let him be.
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I agree, the fact is the person he has damaged is himself, and i hope he can apologise, but in the end it is GOM we need to complain to.
Even if they had made it so that the 4th placed player won £100 then maybe it would have been worth playing.
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lol Crashburn, I could have saved myself the trouble and just written a blog with a link to yours T.T
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In soccer last year Wolves fielded a weakened team on purpose vs Manchester United so that they could rest their players for a later game. Caused a shit storm, ticket refunds, fines.
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On December 13 2011 22:24 Ktk wrote:Show nested quote +First of all, the blame should lie with GOM for going with a tournament structure in which players were given the unsavory choice of forfeiting a match (whether officially or by worker-rushing) or playing out an irrelevant game. Being a pro-gamer is difficult, just ask HuK, who has traveled across the globe to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. I sympathize with players who do not want to waste time and energy playing out a meaningless game, especially after going 0-3 in front of hundreds of thousands of people. I guess consolation rounds in every individual tournament are just shameful then. Or finishing a race when you know you haven't won. Even if you prepared for years. Do we know for a fact that Naniwa requested a forfeit? Or is this an assumption?
To be fair, players routinely forfeited final placement matches at MLG. Those are never televised, so the NaNiwa situation is a bit different, but players forfeiting and not wanting to play pointless matches is not new. The manner in which it was performed here was new, though.
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There are more factors in real sports than Starcraft. When an unimportant game is coming up you use that game to field inexperienced player, to test them and let the gain some match experience. You don't use all your best players to rest them and to not risk injury for nothing. While the internet certainly is flipping its shit over nothing, these are not comparable situations.
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Thanks! Really good points and my thoughts exactly!
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So do you think it's ok if Houston would have thrown a fly ball and not bat at all?
As I've said in other threads, I would have been happy if he at least done a 2 gate cheese of some sort (sending out his B team) but I think naniwa sent his double A team here.
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An interesting addendum I just thought of: In baseball, weather can sometimes interfere with a game, causing it to be rescheduled. Sometimes, the game will just be pushed to the end of the season. If the game actually means anything with regard to the playoff race, then the two teams will make up the game; if not, the game is discarded. This happened to the Phillies in 2002. A typical regular season spans 162 games, but the Phillies went 80-81 for a total of 161.
The Phillies owe their season ticket holders their money back! (jk :-P)
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United States33587 Posts
On December 13 2011 22:28 Crais wrote:
In soccer last year Wolves fielded a weakened team on purpose vs Manchester United so that they could rest their players for a later game. Caused a shit storm, ticket refunds, fines.
EPL actually has a rule that says you must field a full strength side or something tho, unlike american sports
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TL status:
Not told: []
Told as fuck: [x]
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On December 13 2011 22:31 leo23 wrote:
So do you think it's ok if Houston would have thrown a fly ball and not bat at all?
As I've said in other threads, I would have been happy if he at least done a 2 gate cheese of some sort (sending out his B team) but I think naniwa sent his double A team here.
So you deside which cheese is good enough? Yeah cause that make sense...
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Sweden876 Posts
Thanks for doing a nice write-up on this. I agree with you 100%
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I really don't see any validity to the comparison you chose at all. Naniwa punted a game in an invitational tournament that was supposed to showcase the top talent of SC2 from the year. It was cowardly and childish at best.
It's even borderline hypocritical to see someone who constantly says they care about nothing other than winning to purposely lose a game like that.
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On December 13 2011 22:33 aderum wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2011 22:31 leo23 wrote:
So do you think it's ok if Houston would have thrown a fly ball and not bat at all?
As I've said in other threads, I would have been happy if he at least done a 2 gate cheese of some sort (sending out his B team) but I think naniwa sent his double A team here. So you deside which cheese is good enough? Yeah cause that make sense...
Right, that's the arbitrary line I was talking about. If we declare worker rushes a disrespectful tactic, what precedent is there to stop us from doing the same with cannon rushes, or bunker pushes, or 6 pool + spine rushes?
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EPT
