Casey at the Analytics Department

  

Baseball used to be a pastoral game played in cities. Fans, or “fantastical mental patients” like you, once listened in one ear on a transistor radio while still keeping a glazed eye on the field. You dug deep into a box of crackerjacks, only lightly licking your fingers beforehand. You’d eat cold dogs and hot pretzels, enjoy a beer or two, as long as the lines weren’t too long. You didn’t want to risk missing a single pitch. So you held it. Your bladder doing the important superstitious work of not disrupting the action. 

But that was a different game. A game that could be understood and watched by everyone, even the casual observer. There was a little joy in this Mudville. However, joy isn’t enough. We need data, statistics, and analytics. We crave more ways to remove the humanity from the game so it becomes akin to a video game simulation. Obviously, the goal is for robot umpires, robot players, and robot fans (the managers and broadcasters are already there), but we’re still far from total robotic domination. Actually, the cardboard cutouts are stand-ins for the humanoids of the future, mindlessly staring at the diamond never raising an objection. The piped in sound is a positive change, too. Booing, while protected under the First Amendment, is mean and poor play should be ignored or excused, not called out. 

Baseball was once played by tobacco-chewing, profanity-spewing sages. Lifers who understood the smell of the dirt, sound of the bat and a bunch of other weirdly sensorially intriguing associations. If only some of these geniuses could’ve been there at Waterloo. But that’s another matter entirely. Contradictions are part of the beauty. Valorize icons like Bob Gibson for pitching inside, but condemn anyone today for throwing up and in. Make sense? It shouldn't. That's the point.

What the mavens of the sport today realize is that the game is not for the players or fans, it’s for the research department. They are the real heroes of a revolutionized contest. You must outsmart your opponent – showing them you know why launch angle and matchups are important. You can’t simply play ball anymore. The things you thought mattered don’t matter. Batting average. RBIs. Rally caps. The players you thought were good aren’t good. And the players you thought were bad aren’t bad. What you see doesn’t matter. Your eyes lie. You need a higher degree to understand baseball now. You must realize that nothing is simple, especially not this game. 

 

Today’s game is about overthinking the obvious, belaboring the self-evident, trumpeting the absurd. Players play – for now. When will I know that Major League Baseball has succeeded in transforming the game for the better? When I’m not watching, having been replaced by an eerily similar robot version of myself (yes, with the same amount of hair) and when my favorite players are emotionless holograms. 

Infielders aren’t the only ones feeling the shift.