New School, Old School, LOL…There’s No Such Thing

There is no such thing as “new school versus old school” debates in baseball. Discussions masquerading as such today are only different because we have more information available to us, we can quantify that information, and we all have access to it (and can bloviate about it to the world.) How that information is deployed is usually the only debate at hand.

There are countless examples of this throughout baseball history, but I just very recently learned this tidbit, so let’s start here:

Branch Rickey, right around the time of WW I (yes, WW “one”) referred to some players as “anesthetic” players, meaning that they were good enough to reach the AL/NL, but not good enough to do anything that would actually help the team win.

As an on-field manager, then eventually a GM, Rickey felt these players could/should be used in trades to other teams who (mistakenly) believed these players had any value, and in return, you might get a player who could contribute to winning a few games over the course of a full season.

For those of you who haven’t yet figured out where I’m going with this, here we go:

Rickey’s description of that type of player is exactly what we are referring to today when we say “replacement” player – “replacement” being the “R” in Wins Above Replacement. Rickey just used different terminology.

Again, many of the discussions we have today that are labeled new school/old school are not that at all – this is one of many that have been going on for over 100 years. The only difference is now we can measure it*, and put a number on it – over 162 games, how many wins is a particular player better than a player who just takes up space on the roster? The answer is his WAR.

(*Not an exact measurement of course, but a pretty reasonable facsimile.)

And yes, if you’re wondering, this is an offshoot of my post yesterday about Andrew Friedman, who has inserted himself into the discussion (along with Theo Epstein) of best front office executive since Rickey. Friedman, who’s background is in financial analysis, not baseball, has dominated the sport the past ten years by a) knowing what information is valuable and what is not, and b) having the people skills, for lack of a better term, to convey to the manager and players how it can help win games.

There’s no need to have “new school versus old school” debates. There’s no need to bash “analytics”, or to bash input from the on-field personnel who have information that can’t be measured, either.

It’s all just information. The smart teams know what data to use and what to disregard.

Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments, or yell at me on the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook.

Recommended reading: “Opening Day” by Jonanthan Eig. Not entirely about Rickey or Jackie, but there’s a whole lotta interesting stuff about the 1947, and what led up to it.

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