By Elliott Brack, special to Statehouse Report | What if qualifying to run for president of the United States was as tough as becoming a major league baseball player? That’s the feeling we got when reading about the way baseball executives select their future players these days.
Where once all that was required to become a professional baseball player was just a good hitting average, or be able to slug home runs, or having a superb pitching record, these days that is old hat to the people who guide the major league baseball clubs.
It all started years ago out of Oakland, Calif., when a former major leaguer devised his own system for selecting players, not relying upon so much good statistics, but looking deeper at what the player could contribute in an overall manner to the club. The guy who began all this was Billy Beane, still the general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He called it a “sabermetric” approach, using statistics newly available working through the computer. Beane “demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the A’s became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.” (from Wikipedia).
All this was thoroughly explained in a book published in 2003 by Michael Lewis, entitled Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which was later made into a movie. Many of you may have read or seen it. He describes Beane’s methods which made him a genius among baseball execs.
Pretty soon other baseball executives adopted this tactic. One of the most successful is Theo Epstein, who employed the base idea of Moneyball and brought two World Series championships to the Boston Red Sox. Then he left the Red Sox to become the top executive at the Chicago Cubs! What! Left the successful Red Sox program to take on a sad-sack baseball team that hasn’t even been in the World Series since 1945! And a club that has not won the event since 1908, the most of any team!
Yep, Epstein left for Boston realizing this,. And his tactics are working, since this year the Chicago Cubs have so far the best record in baseball (103-58, a .640 percentage), though their many years-long suffering fans must still question if they can even make it to the World Series this year. Last year though they won the pennant under Epstein’s oversight, they were eliminated in the first round of playoffs by the New York Mets.
Cubs fans can hope. At least they have Epstein on their side this year.
In selecting players, Epstein looks even past the Moneyball technique. For he seeks to sign players to his team who are not only good statistical players, but is “Scouting the person more than the player.” By this he wants to know how any potential player handles adversity, not just on the diamond, but in everyday life. He wants to know “What are their backgrounds, their psyches, their habits and what makes them tick.” He wants his baseball scouts to give him three examples of how the player faced adversity off the field.
So though routine statistics matter, Epstein wants to know much more.
So we wonder: what if we citizens knew more about how our presidential candidates handled adversity off the political spectrum. Perhaps that’s what we find out in the long campaigns, as certain matters come to the surface.
As it is, we are finding out that it takes no prior real qualifications (other than age 35 and older) to run for the presidency. Just offer, and hope that the people will accept your line of operation.
The candidate’s “psyches, habits and what makes them tick?” That’s could be a real insight into who we should be voting for in this or any political campaign.
Longtime, award-winning Georgia journalist Elliott Brack offers twice-weekly opinion and news for Gwinnett County, Ga., at GwinnettForum. Have a comment? Send it to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
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