I May Sound Old But..

In today's sports landscape there are two types of managers, the old school "use my intuition/go by the book" manager and the new school "go by the numbers" type of manager. The Houston Astros just won the World Series in an unconventional way, they relied on piggy backing starters. Which means that instead of having a traditional reliever come in and work an inning or two the Astros used another starter who can go longer than your traditional reliever. The Kansas City Royals on the other hand relied on their relief corp to help carry them to a World title in 2015. Neither team is an old school type. To really find an old school type of team to have won a title was maybe the Red Sox who relied on timely power hitting and a strong starting staff to win them a title in 2013. Baseball is an ever evolving sport and with the introduction of advanced analytics it is growing and growing fast. Ways to win championships have evolved from the time tested "pitching and defense" method that I've been hearing about since I first put on my first catcher's mask.

Gone are the days of Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa, Jim Leyland, and Jack McKeon. These are legendary managers who lead their teams to the promise land using old school tactics that in today's game is getting harder and harder to quantify. These guys have been replaced by the AJ Hinch (manager of the Astros), Dave Roberts (manager of the Dodgers), Mike Matheny (manager of the Cardinals), and others who now have to run their lineups by the front office suit wearing types to make sure that the analytics of the hitters they're using line up in favor against the particular pitcher the team is facing that night. There's no way in hell that Jim Leyland would allow a pencil pusher tell him where to bat Miguel Cabrera against a tough rightie or whether it was time to pull a starting pitcher. The game has evolved to the point where pitchers aren't seeing a lineup for a third time and a leftie hitter is most likely not going to face a tough lefty even though the hitter has a hitting streak going. There are too many chefs in the kitchen nowadays with too many ingredients trying to cook up a plate that for a very long time relied on one guy throwing a ball at another guy who's trying to hit the ball to the moon.