“The first great renaissance, (Joe Maddon of the Tampa Bay Rays) says, arrived with Branch Rickey in the 1920s, '30s and '40s, back when Rickey was pioneering the use of (gasp) farm systems and (shudder) statistics.
And the second great renaissance? That's been taking place, almost imperceptibly, over the last decade -- but to a greater degree, just over the last year or two or three. Looking back, it's not hard to figure out why. Every once in a while in life, a bunch of powerful forces in the universe seem to converge on us at once. And all they do is change just about everything. Well, this is now, officially, one of those times. Think about it:
• All of a sudden, you can watch every one of the 3 billion baseball games played this season -- in your living room, on your laptop, even on your phone.
• All of a sudden, while you were busy doing your laundry or drafting your fantasy team or something, the world was quietly being invaded by an army of sabermetric wizards, capable of computing Justin Verlander's road FIP against sub-.500 teams in games in which he throws more than 20 percent curveballs -- and actually understanding the significance of that.
• All of a sudden, thanks to those creative geniuses at Apple, the average big league clubhouse seems to house more iPads than batting gloves.
• All of a sudden, those clubhouses are being occupied by a new generation of technologically aware baseball citizens who are willing to use that stuff. All of it. Every second of every day.”
Thanks to Brady Cullimore for sending me the article
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