What Comes After Moneyball

In keeping with the 24/7 psychometrics and physiological monitoring, here’s a piece about how moneyball is “over” since everyone is now playing it. The field is level again. So the next set of data is more about how the players are actually feeling (well..physiologically…which should include the brain too). Ideally, why not monitor them and start identifying the right psychological or physiological patterns for optimal chances at winning? Sure…and then I think about how Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter tripping on acid…or the ’86 Mets — all of them.

I also recently saw a KFC somewhere in Asia that scans your face and recommends “the best order” for you. But sports — and life — is about the unexpected. I look back on the interesting things that have happened in my life and not one of them was due to me blindly following a Yelp review or being told what is “optimal” for my experience and chasing that. I suppose you’re paying ball players, and if you want to monitor them and shuffle your tactics around that, then great. But we do it to ourselves all the time (and let the Siren Servers do it for us) and I don’t know how good that all is. Without spontaneity and chances and risks then what good is it?

That being said, life is short and I don’t want to spend a lot of it dicking around, so if rotten tomatoes shows me less than 40% ratings, then I’m not watching that movie. But what if that movie is actually “for me?” I’ll never know, will I? In the end, it’s really about safety. Play by the numbers and in the long run you won’t have any screw-ups and you’ll be ok. And that is just plain boring.