decades of experiences, dugout coaches observe things and aspects which
normal fans cannot, and sometimes the choice contradicts the statistical
records. All teams are provided with the same statistics and the managers
look at it. But there must have been some strong belief to coaches, which
was more acceptable than just numbers, and the decision was successful.
There must have been something the Ranger’s coaches saw of him that
day. As mentioned before, mathematics are just one of the tools to make
a better baseball game; it does not explain everything.
Baseball is a game of probability; teams tend to make choices to increase
those probabilities. Continuous efforts in analyzing statistics to improve,
from boxscores to statcast, has been done to produce best results in
game. But, no matter how accurate and precise the analytic techniques
develop, there are unexpected variables every season, and there is going to
be.If baseball is a sport determined fully by statistics, who will be
interested in an obvious game? Baseball will remain somewhere between
numbers and coincidence, and people who love this aspect will continue
to watch a game of baseball today.