Notice: Trying to get property 'display_name' of non-object in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/src/generators/schema/article.php on line 52
keyboard_arrow_uptop

Ben and Sam discuss whether the Astros' analytical approach has become (or could become) a PR problem.

Link to Houston Chronicle article

Download Here (33 MB; 35:52)
RSS Feed
iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
Facebook Group
Email Us podcast@baseballprospectus.com
Sponsor Us

Thank you for reading

This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.

Subscribe now
You need to be logged in to comment. Login or Subscribe
mattkelly
5/27
Re: “It’s hard to play for a GM who just sees you as a number instead of a person.”

At the risk of dredging up the tired nerd-basement-spreadsheet cliché, saber-friendly analysts and fans do frequently lapse into the language of things to characterize (human) players. As in, they are “assets” from which value is “extracted”. In general this is a problem of descriptive deficiency, not soullessness, but it’s not so hard to imagine how that deficiency, in the context of management-employee power relations, might be alienating.
NightmareRec0n
5/27
This is how virtually all companies few their employees. Why should baseball be any different?

But if they "get fired" because they are not "being productive", they are still set for life.
mattkelly
5/27
I don’t expect baseball to be different. And I doubt the Astros are any more or less callous than most other teams. Bearing matters, though, don’t you think? In my experience, even cynics prefer employers who have manners enough to keep the fundamental just-a-number-ness of it all tucked away under a layer or three of niceties.
warpigs
5/28
http://www.prosportsdaily.com/Headlines/ExternalArticle?articleId=306253

The full article should be accessible from the link above.