It’s a strange thing growing old. Yesterday was my birthday, and like all birthdays after 40 it came and went with little to no ceremony. Some of that was on me, a lot of that was on me. Last week I spent $100 and $150 in gift cards from Amex on a grind and brew coffee maker, when I got it home my wife told me congratulations you got your own birthday gift.
This was in the wake of having bought two new computers for the business, a new desk chair, and then over the weekend buying new shoes. We have also been eating out more both as a family and as a couple. I am getting a little tired of spending money, so I can’t say I am too upset at not having any more money spent on me for my birthday. Though I did spend $50 for gourmet Chinese takeout last night and that was just for me to eat. I ordered a meal I could have made for $5 but I didn’t have to do any cooking.
I am feeling like today might be a good one for a lunchtime fast. Either way none of this is what was one my mind when I sat down to write this morning. I was actually thinking about baseball, but I am getting both older, less interesting, and more grouchy. The form that took this morning was looking at baseball discussions heading into the start of the season.
The sad reality is my favorite team, the Washington Nationals, are not going to be good this year. They have a young and unproven pitching staff and the offense has several position players out of position and question marks all over the field.
This is where the idea of diminishing returns finally comes into play. Long about 20 years ago there was a revolution in the sport of baseball. It was the rise of analytics and stats driven roster construction. It became a massive advantage for small market teams, but soon the big market teams caught on and were able to do it as well. That took all of about three years, but still the playing field was somewhat even until teams like the Dodgers and Astros really went all in on both spending lots of money and having analytics driven front offices. Now the playing field is back to how it was in the late 90s.
With the release of stat cast data we were supposed to get a second wave revolution, but that never materialized. No team has used that data in the way the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays used the first wave of analytics. Instead the sport of baseball has proven that once again it is a simple game, you throw the ball, you catch the ball, and you hit the ball, and if you can’t do that then get off the field.
Sometimes more information is simply more information. It stops being signal and becomes the drone of useless noise. At the end of the day either a player can throw the ball, catch the ball, and hit the ball or they can’t, and no amount of data is going to change it. People, mostly fans, are still looking for meaning in the noise, but they won’t find it. It is noise. As illuminating as stats like FIP and wOBA were, things like spin rate and launch angle are turning out to be a fart in the wind, because the reality of sports is there are just some people that have it and some that don’t, and while information is very good at sorting the haves and the have nots it won’t turn one group into another, and for the 2026 baseball season the Washington Nationals are a roster full of have nots.
David Huzzard Writes 