I just talked to a young lady, a freshman at Santa Barbara. She's taking a course, and Moneyball's one of the required readings. This young lady could dream of one day becoming a general manager.
The math works. Over the course of a season, there's some predictability to baseball. When you play 162 games, you eliminate a lot of random outcomes. There's so much data that you can predict: individual players' performances and also the odds that certain strategies will pay off.
I hate this idea that I've somehow become detached. It's like I can't win. I'd been hearing all these years that I was too hands-on: that I was the guy writing out the lineup card. Now, I'm not present enough. How is it possible to be a detached micromanager?
We've got to use every piece of data and piece of information, and hopefully that will help us be accurate with our player evaluation. For us, that's our life blood.
I don't want a lot of guys like me who played the game. Quite frankly, I want blank canvases; I want people to come in with new ideas. I don't want the biases of their own experiences to be a part of their decision-making process.
I may not be as visible as I used to be, and by that I mean being in the clubhouse or on the field. But I'm just as invested as I've always been.
