Sunday, October 13, 2024
They’re ruining baseball with analytics and numbers, removing judgment and experience. Sandy Koufax, who I think is the greatest pitcher in history, would pitch over 20 complete games annually, 27 being his record two years in a row. (That means he pitched all nine innings and “completed” the game.) Today, some pitchers don’t complete 27 games
in their entire careers. Managers remove pitchers who have no-hitters midway through the game because the numbers show they’ve thrown “too many” pitches. And so you have three other guys come in and pitch an inning or so each. Hell, you don’t need a “manager” for that, just some kid with a laptop propped up in the dugout.
That’s like a golfer having someone else hit irons or putt after the original drive. Or like removing a quarterback after he’s thrown his maximum allocated passes. Or perhaps a hockey player is removed after being knocked down more than three times.
Or maybe a senior executive who’s passed the allocated number of decisions made at that point in the day? (Maybe I could actually support this one.)
I have to stop here or I’ll exceed my daily word count. Then the relief blogger would have to come in.