The Atlantic: Chasing the 'Holy Grail' of Baseball Performance

[Ben Noble]

"Inside the wide-ranging search—led by economists and psychologists—for the elixir that turns good squads into great ones."

 

Interesting article from a non-baseball publication on attempts to quantify team chemistry (veteranness?) in baseball.

[Han Joelo]

Good article--one of my takeaways: good chemistry my not make you better, but bad chemistry can exacerbate bad stretches.

[ashbury]

I usually like the Atlantic, but this article seems to be an amalgam of anecdotes, questionable statistical analysis, and propter hoc arguments. Everyone recognizes chemistry, but only after the championship is won. There doesn't yet seem to be much predictive power. I may have glanced through too quickly, but I didn't spot something I could take to a team and have them act upon.

[nicksaviking]

 

I usually like the Atlantic, but this article seems to be an amalgam of anecdotes, questionable statistical analysis, and propter hoc arguments. Everyone recognizes chemistry, but only after the championship is won. There doesn't yet seem to be much predictive power. I may have glanced through too quickly, but I didn't spot something I could take to a team and have them act upon.

 

My take away wasn't that anyone claimed to have any answers, yet.

 

But they had top men working on it right now. Top....men.

[ashbury]

My take away wasn't that anyone claimed to have any answers, yet.

 

But they had top men working on it right now. Top....men.

The article mentioned Hooria Jazaieri at Berkeley and Katerina Bezrukova at University of Buffalo. So the blame is shared equally between the genders.

[nicksaviking]

 

The article mentioned Hooria Jazaieri at Berkeley and Katerina Bezrukova at University of Buffalo. So the blame is shared equally between the genders.

 

Yeah, all the fun goes out of classic movie quotes when you inspect their inherent misogyny.