Baseball fans blaming analytics for anything that goes wrong in a game is a popular theme on X. Most mornings you find posts bad-mouthing the “nerds” who “never played the game” for everything from passed balls to players getting picked off base.

I don’t understand the disdain for gathering more information. If I buy my groceries at a certain store, but then find out I can purchase the same items at a competing store for 25% less, I might decide to alter my shopping experience. Unless I don’t want to pay any attention to the nerds who never ran a grocery store who provided the information on price differentials.

One of the things that has fallen out of favor in this era of analytics is the sacrifice bunt. I was way ahead of the nerds on this one; I never have liked the sacrifice bunt. The numbers bear out that in most cases moving a runner ahead one base isn’t worth sacrificing an out. I feel only slightly better about stolen bases.

I understand the use of these metrics has changed the way the game is played. The nerds have data that show that taking an uppercut swing provides a greater chance of scoring multiple runs than batters with a level swing or who swing down on the ball; therefore, hitting coaches work on launch angle. With that philosophy comes more strikeouts, which I hate. But the bottom line is winning games, and if the numbers show a certain approach leads to more wins, then managers better have a good reason for choosing not to follow the numbers.

Sabermetirics also have affected the way most managers structure their lineups. Simple mathematics tells us that the higher in the order you bat your better hitters, the more likely they are to get an extra at-bat late in the game.

The nerds recently introduced a new stat: bat speed. Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees is the current leader in this new category, swinging his bat at a blazing 80.6 miles per hour. Luis Arráez of the San Diego Padres has the slowest bat speed, a lethargic 62.6 MPH. For what it’s worth, Stanton has 14 home runs, and Arráez has one. But Stanton currently is hitting .231, while Arráez leads MLB with a .340 average and 84 hits. Stanton’s on-base plus slugging percentage is .769 compared to a .785 OPS for Arráez. Stanton has struck out 66 times; Arráez has 15 strikeouts. Perhaps someone should tell Stanton to slow down his swing a bit.

I confess that I get overwhelmed by the constant reporting of things like barrel rates, exit velocity, spin rates, or distances home runs supposedly traveled. After all, a home run that scrapes the wall counts the same as one that touches down in the Allegheny River.

As long as baseball has been keeping stats, teams have used numbers in their decision making. It’s just that they now have a lot more information at their disposal.

The tone of the posts on X makes it sound as if baseball would be better off if we returned to the days when nobody was using metrics to decide how to play the game. That, of course, means we would go back to about 1870.

If they laugh when he jumps 20 feet, they’ll laugh twiced as hard if he jumps 40 feet.

Simple mathematics.

–Clowns using logic in the movie Dumbo

(All statistics are from Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant.)