Two weeks ago, the Boston Red Sox, who had eked into the playoffs after a mid-summer 32-5 run ended and they forgot how to hit in September, opened the Wild Card series in the Bronx. Rookie Payton Tolle, arguably the best young pitcher in the American League (definitely the most fun), held the Yankees to one run into the fifth inning. Two outs, 1-0 game, manager Chad Tracy walked out to the mound and pulled him out of the game. The Yankees won 9-0.
The next night it was Sonny Gray’s turn. Gray won 18 games this season, leading the American League in wins and winning percentage. He’s no rookie, he’ll be 37 next month, and he has won 143 games in his 14-year career. Two outs in the fifth, down 1-0 but pitching great . . . until Tracy popped out of the dugout as if on cue and pulled him. The Yankees won 9-2. Series over.
“Because This Is Baseball”
The clubhouse didn’t take it quietly. First baseman Willson Contreras said that talent, data, and computers telling you what to do aren’t enough, “because this is baseball.” Gray, who may not be back next year, said he “would have liked to have been trusted in that moment.” Tolle, being a rookie, smiled, but most viewers thought it was knowingly – he was clearly unhappy.
Monday the front office pushed back. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow insisted the role of the scout hasn’t been diminished in Boston. Tracy said no one has ever scripted a game for him: “Those decisions, they’re mine.”
Kicking a Hall of Famer Out of the Batting Cage
Yeah, no. Quick but true story: back in spring training a couple of Red Sox players pulled broadcaster Jim Rice aside in a batting cage to talk hitting. His previous job was as the Red Sox left fielder for 16 years, a career that ended with his induction in the Hall of Fame. He was, for a stretch, the most feared hitter in baseball. A couple of the team’s analytics consultants saw the conversation and told Rice to leave. He would only mess up what they were doing.
That’s the culture. The Red Sox have been all in on analytics for years, to the point of purging the human scouts who used to sit behind home plate with a radar gun, a notebook, and forty years of knowing what makes a great baseball player and, more importantly, what doesn’t.
The Teams Still Playing All Employ Human Scouts
Going into this week there were four teams left in the MLB playoffs: the Dodgers, Brewers, Guardians, and Rays. They all have analytics departments – exceptionally good, obviously, analytics departments. They are all in on algorithms and AI and all that. They can kick out obscure stats with the best of them. They all also share something else – they heavily employ scouts. Human scouts. They scout for new players, they scout opposing teams with the goal of finding an edge. Their scouts are out there watching, talking, involved. They establish relationships that carry over the years and through every level of the organization.
Nine Outs From Aaron Ashby
Then there’s Milwaukee. Last night in Los Angeles the Brewers finished a four-game sweep of the Dodgers, the same Dodgers who swept them out of the NLCS a year ago, something Pat Murphy made sure none of his players forgot. Game 4 was a bullpen game from the start; rookie Shane Drohan opened and Murphy went to his relievers as soon as the Dodgers threatened.
Then he did what Chad Tracy would never do: he handed the ball to Aaron Ashby in the seventh and left it with him, through a runner on third with less than two outs in the seventh, another runner on third with less than two outs in the eighth, and on through the ninth. Three scoreless innings, a nine-out save. Ashby had already gotten a five-out save in Game 2, and Trevor Megill got four outs to close Game 3. If you’re counting at home, Murphy asked a reliever for nine outs in a pennant clincher against the defending champions; Tracy wouldn’t let either of his starters get to fifteen in an elimination game.
None of that came off a printout. Murphy knows the guys on his team and went with it.
The Problem With Managing From a Script
Managing a major league baseball game from a script prepared by AI agents weaving algorithms into game conditions is just another form of cookie-cutter management. Worse, it strips the human element out of, well, everything. It might work, it might even work 90% of the time . . . but, man, that 10% can get really ugly, really fast.
Litigation Has Its Own Front Offices
Litigation has its own front offices. Research platforms, e-discovery software that sorts a million emails before lunch, AI that drafts a motion, programs that claim to predict how a particular judge will rule or what a jury will award – all that is fine, efficiency helps everyone. It’s cost-effective, there’s no denying it. That’s all back office stuff and that’s precisely where it should stay. Litigation is and always will be about people.
Computers and AI and apps and programs can do research, manage documents, make sure you never miss a deadline and much more. What they can’t do, and never will, is listen. They’ll never know that the partner you started the business with hasn’t returned a call in three weeks and you don’t know why; or that the customer threatening to sue you is also the one keeping the lights on; or that your best witness is terrific in a conference room and falls apart the minute opposing counsel stands up; or a hundred other ‘little things’ that decide whether a case should be fought, settled, or never filed in the first place. A lawsuit doesn’t follow the script any more than a ballgame does.
Trusted in the Moment
Sonny Gray wanted to be trusted in that moment. He had earned it, over his career, over a great season in which he never didn’t show up. Aaron Ashby got trusted, and the Brewers are going to the World Series.
You’ve earned it as well. Hopkins Centrich doesn’t do cookie-cutter. We use the tools, every firm has them, but we’re out there watching, talking, involved. If something in your business is headed toward a courtroom, call us before the script gets written for you – time is not your ally. And we’d never kick a Hall of Famer out of the batting cage.