Baseball started it, but then Daryl Morey and the basketball world quickly took the baton and beat the living hell out of a dead horse. There’s a famous boxing quote that says “styles make fights”. Well, the NBA used to have a bunch of different stylistic ways to play the game and everyone leaned into the specific strengths of their roster. But... See more

Cultural Moneyballism, in this light, sacrifices exuberance for the sake of formulaic symmetry. It sacrifices diversity for the sake of familiarity. It solves finite games at the expense of infinite games. Its genius dulls the rough edges of entertainment.

Baseball people believed they knew the answers to those questions, and all the others. But those assumptions hadn’t been tested in decades, if ever, so it shouldn’t be surprising that many of them turned out to be wrong. From that gap between the assumed and the actual, Beane and his assistants were able to use their limited budget to construct

... See more