Einstein Supposedly Said It - Baseball Proves It

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I'm bradley and it's my job to keep you from being the sucker at the table. 

The quote is simple - "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and  expecting different results"

Research proves that, while attributed to Einstein, this quote was found in the 1980's literature of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous. Either way, the point is - insanity, thy name is analytics.

I'm neither a fan or a hater when it comes to Bill James and the analytical approach to baseball. After all, I was part of the generation that played Strat-O-Matic, a game based on instinct and simple analytics. Truth be told, I was a bigger fan of "Challenge the Yankees', which had nothing to do with analytics and was all just the luck of the dice and which players card was up. But that's about as important as Hillary Clinton's bra size, so let's move forward. 

What analytics has done to the game of baseball, is insane - and basically made managers obsolete. I mean, how hard is it to read the numbers and manage by them. What numbers don't reveal, is the fact that the game is played by human beings, not machines.

So let's take the latest analytic theory, which has been around for a few years and in fact, whose genesis back in the 90's and early 2000's with the rise of Mariano Rivera as the Yankee closer.

Baseball managers have always had a soft spot for madmen with 98 plus mile per hour fastballs, who could come into a game in the ninth inning, make three or four batters looks foolish, and seal the game for their teams. Rivera was a master - but what was important was what happened before he reached the mound in the ninth. The Yankees (and others) began using what was called a 'set-up' man. He's the guy who came in at the start of the EIGHTH inning, got three outs and set the close up for Rivera, or his counterpart on another team. So the idea was, your starter went seven, then handed the ball over to the set-up and closer. And, to a certain extent, it worked - especially for Rivera. That strategy sent him straight to the Hall of Fame with only 82 wins.

But the biggest insanity was, the numbers showed by the time a starter was ready to go through a team's batting order for the third time, batting averages increased significantly. Result? Managers felt starters could no longer go through the order three times. That meant they now threw 5 to 6 innings before being replaced by the merry-go-round of Double and Triple "A' rejects who were handed the responsibility of pitching one inning, and maintaining the lead.

Needless to say, that doesn't always work well. In fact, according to Mister Google, drawing its information from the whole of the web, roughly 40% of the games relievers inherit, end up in losses. 40%. If you do the math, it means over the course of a 162 game season, 65 games are at risk thanks to turning to inferior pitchers. 65 games - that's more losses than a drunken sailor at a poker table.

Baseball bought the scam - and now, it's hard to find any team that doesn't play the game this way. A complete game from a starter is as rare as an honest politician. And don't think for a minute the owners care, those guardians of the integrity of the game. The players may be invested in winning, and managers may be as well, because their jobs depend on it - but owners don't give a damn. Whatever keeps them competitive until September, or gets them a wild card berth, is fine with them. They look at the bottom line first, last and always, and just smile - (yes, I'm talking to YOU, Colorado Rockies).

It's a new game, a new approach and one that the good folk of the major leagues will follow like sheep - at least until the newer theory comes along and is successful ONCE. Then THAT will be what everyone follows, in the hopes it's the new magic analytic.

Are you listening Mister Google? Sounds to me like it's time to rev up Baseball AI - or as we call it -  insanity.

I'm bradley and it's my job to keep you from being the sucker at the table.