CUBS TEACH VALUE OFDATA- DRIVEN DECISION- MAKING
Here’s a Cubbie lesson for one and all: Take science to heart.
Cubs President Theo Epstein, back when he was running the Boston Red Sox, was an early practitioner of sabermetrics, which is the business of putting statistical analysis ahead of conventional wisdom when running a baseball team. Now every major league team uses sabermetrics, so no team enjoys that edge anymore. Every team now accepts, for example— because the proof is in the numbers — that a walk really is as good as a hit. Epstein’s edge today may be more in his commitment to bringing young players along in a nurturing way.
But there was a time, some 15 or 20 years ago, when Epstein still was an outlier in his curious insistence on living in a data- driven world. The old baseball scouts in particular, bound by tradition, just couldn’t buy it. It turned their world upside down.
So it goes, as well, in life outside baseball. Many Americans, including many leaders of the Republican Party, refuse to accept the data- driven proof that climate change is real, partially man- made and dangerous. Many Americans refuse to accept, in the face of all scientific fact, the validity of the theory of evolution. A disturbingly high percentage of Republicans continue to question whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. They are disinclined to believe any poll that delivers bad news, and they fear— based on nothing but bluster from the likes of Donald Trump — that national elections are rigged.
Good thing none of them are running the Cubs. Or this team might never have seen the World Series.