Sports as algorithm

Monday 6/8/26

I'd said I feel bad for Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy, and while that's true, I don't feel that bad for him. His upside, as such, is as a placeholder. He's no more than that.

The Red Sox lost yesterday to the the Yankees after their bullpen imploded in the eighth inning. The Yankees won going away after it had been deadlocked 1-1. After the game Tracy said they played well and spoke about winning the next series in Tampa.

Robot speak. As in, "If we follow the analytics reports of what's supposed to happen and what we're supposed to do to make sure that happens, we'll win most of the games like the one we lost today. It should have gone differently based on our computer generated probabilities, and more often than not it will."

His comments made the loss sound like a false negative, if that makes sense. You know, instead of a false positive.

As such, they also smacked of someone doing neither-here-nor-there moral victories. Coulda shoulda woulda, and especially, "well, it should have gone differently and what you saw was a fluke," which also means, "We kind of won, sort of."

The team didn't play well. The starter in Ranger Suarez pitched pretty well (he was able to get out of trouble). The offense was bad. And even on the tying run, Rafaela screwed up running the bases and only scored because the throw was way up the first base line, so that was lucky. He should have scored easily but turned it into what would have been a close play with a good throw.

It's a rare game when you can honestly say that this baseball team played well. The team, that is. Good pitching, good offense, good defense. They're not a squad who can put it together like that. This guy had an opportunity here and to me he's just a substitute teacher. I don't mean every substitute teacher is the same. But some of them are there as minders. Or are instructed to basically be no more. We need there to be an adult in the room and you are that adult. I think that's Tracy's function and also all that he is as a manager even with a better roster.

I don't know this. That's my impression of him thus far based on how he manages, speaks, handles himself. Whereas, a Joe Morgan came in and had a personal stamp. Does Chad Tracy have a personal stamp? Does he apply it liberally? I don't think he even has one. I think he has relationships with certain players, but those aren't big league relationships. Those are "you're passing through here on your way to the big leagues" relationships.

If I had to guess, I'd say that Aroldis Chapman--one of the Sox' few true strengths and a player among the best at his position in baseball--won't be long for the team. Seems like they have to trade him. I can see someone thinking, "Why would you keep him if you're out of it, he's older, and he could help any contending team."

You could argue that Chapman is the best ninth-inning man in the league. I'm not sure I'd move him, though. I'm dubious about what you'd get anyway for a pitcher of his age. Would that be someone who can help you soon? Would it just be another prospect or two for you to turn into a robot in your system?

But not trading him would depend on how serious you are about talking a much different approach in the near future and getting serious about actually being a contending baseball club. And also whether or not there's going to be baseball next year.

Chapman doesn't seem like he's lost anything and has actually improved over where he was a couple seasons ago. Could be that he's one of those pitchers with a bionic arm. And if that's the case, he can continue to be effective. A very few guys are just like that and continue to be at forty-years-old.

Maybe he's one of those guys. In which case, perhaps he could be highly effective for you for another two or three years. Are you planning on being good in the next two or three years? Or are you planning on bumping along like this with a few mostly cosmetic alterations that, let's face it, are just meant to fool your fans into believing you're trying to be something you aren't truly trying to be.

Here's a depressing stat: a .257 batting average is good for twenty-fifth best in the American League right now.

Everything in every area of society gets worse. Blander, less individualistic, with less depth of field. It all trends to corporate, soulless, robotic soullessness. Drudgery. The world gone beige. No other colors. Less life in everything, less humanness in everything. Even games, what are meant as diversions, aren't immune.

This is the baseball you get when it's all about analytics and launch angles and printouts and "this is the one way to do it," and lockstep, and no personalized thinking, not allowing personalized approaches.

You get something that isn't baseball. Guys coming to the plate trying to do one thing, and then walking back to the dugout after failing to do that one thing in most cases. Pitchers trying to do one thing--and that's throw as hard as possible for a short period of time--instead of, you know, actually pitching. Players don't play baseball, and pitchers don't pitch. The analytics say those aren't the ways to go.

So you get this. And it's awful to watch most days. It's like that hit music that has nothing human about it, written by the same cadre of "songwriters" who write to an algorithm. Sports are now being played as if they were algorithms themselves.

Ours is now an America where you can't do something as simple as watch a baseball game to try and get a tiny bit away from your problems for a couple hours. If you're a smart person, a feeling person, a reflective person, a human person, it's like a sports-base reflection of that which is grinding you down. Making it harder to have the life you want, the relationships you want.

We're gotten ourselves worlds far away from what's described so well in Arnold Hano's A Day in the Bleachers.