ESPN used to have a simulcast for its Sunday Night Baseball that was full of data, and not your grandad’s batting average, ERA, or even OBP. These were the new generation of stats: launch angle, bat speed, pitch revolution, et al ad nauseam. All the numbers you could possibly want, but was it too much of a “good” thing?
Yes, according to Joel Bradley, author of Death by Data: How Analytics and Technology Are Killing Baseball.
His treatise is broken down into two major parts: now, and then. Now, being the use of all this data and numbers, primarily by teams, to put together the players they need to provide for the fans. Included in this analysis is the decision by MLB to lop off a good chunk of the minor league affiliates, which would seem to run counter to idea of building a fan base. By eliminating more than 40 ball clubs, Bradley asserts, you are losing the connection between smaller towns and the national pastime. Of course, the main reason teams want to do this — at the expense of losing those fans — is to save money; it costs a lot to staff a team with players and all the adjacent personnel that are needed to put it all together.
Add to the dissatisfaction are the recent rule changes meant to speed things up and theoretically keep the fans — especially the younger ones who have developed shorter attention spans thanks to other distractions like the smart phone — more engaged.
After Bradley brings the reader up to speed on all the machinations in the front office, he offers a brief history on the way things used to be. Go back to the pre-World War II era; there were hundreds of bush league teams back then. Of course, the scene where Billy Beane confronts his scouting staff in Moneyball is the perfect differentiation between the way things were and the way they were going to be moving forward. No more “bird dogs,” scouts who would “beat the bushes” all over the country in search of potential stars, like Barney Wile (Frank Morgan) who discovered Jimmy Stewart’s character in The Stratton Story. Gone was the romance, for lack of a better word, in uncovering a rare gem. But nostalgia doesn’t mean much when you’re counting dollars. (Fun fact: Sam Wood, who directed The Stratton Story, also served in that role in The Pride of the Yankees.)
Death by Data concludes with Bradley’s idea to improve the game by getting rid of two positions. He claims that “7-player baseball” would be more exciting and offer more action by eliminating one outfielder and one infielder, forcing the remaining players to cover more territory. Bradley also published a book on the topic.
He also sprinkles into the mix brief profiles “baseball immortals” of seemingly unrelated players such as Lefty O’Doul, Joe Garagiola, Curt Flood, Mike Marshall, and “Chief” Bender.
To be honest, even though Bradley makes some very good points, I had to force myself to finish this one. For some reason — perhaps to flesh out the book — he includes illustrations which seem to be generated by AI and do little to enhance the narrative. He also has the habit of what I can only describe as second-person quotes, that is having one source citing another rather than him doing it himself.
is available on Amazon.com,
