Many apologies in advance, slow and wet day: Tbf not only was he once considered a nerd and geek of this sport but that crowd sucks. If you found out the majority (interacting with Maddon) were inherited wealth from the Ivys who never struggled like we might imagine (being loooowly nerds and geeks and all) plus don’t care about baseball or winning so much? That their favorite aspect of working in the sport is all the biological, social, and financial data on all these different demographics or something similarly weird intended to gain leverage/control? Who really even besides their bosses has benefitted from this silent shift to where even the Maddons and Epsteins in baseball aren’t nerd enough for FOs? Like those guys *love* winning baseball games, understand the Value of data, so what’s the real agenda pushing them out? These nerds and geeks are just people/employees, very fallible Edit: Oh yay a fresh page I never understand what your point is, so I don't know if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you. My opinion is that the entire focus should be on winning baseball games. I think there is something to be said about that in relation to maximizing roster efficiency (i.e., cost), versus finding the right combination of guys to win the most games. I'm not sold on the cost/benefit stuff, like translating WAR into hypothetical dollars, and maybe not even on the concept of WAR in general in the sense that a hypothetical SS is inherently more valuable than a hypothetical LF, for example. Although a hypothetical LF is less scarce than a hypothetical SS. However, the use of data is fundamental to winning baseball games. It's been done since forever. The data is just different now. I get what Madden is saying, he comes off as sour grapy though. I don't know that I would not like it if I was given a job and then not allowed to do it as I saw fit by my bosses.