Making intangibles tangible

One of the things that drew me to baseball was the easy tracking of statistics. More than any other sport, baseball has cut and dried numbers that are easily deciphered and rarely conceal anything that can’t be determined by looking at more numbers. Of course, traditionally, baseball has a rich tradition outside of the numbers, with curses, epic at bats, and lore. Lots of lore.
Over the past several years, we’ve seen a swing from the mystique of the game towards a more numbers heavy analysis. Traditionalists still clamor for players like Derek Jeter or David Eckstein, who generally don’t put up numbers you would like to see, but are lauded for their grit, their intangibles. This drives numbers people insane. But is there something to the intangibles? Can we make those intangibles tangible? I have three things that could probably be labeled as “intangible” but are very real, and truly beneficial to a teams productivity. Let me know if you can think of more in the comments.

1. Work ethic: Often times, a hard working player, which should be all players, but often isn’t, will spend extra time working out, taking batting practice or fielding grounders. While this won’t necessarily make a player elite (look at Eckstein, for example) it puts a message in the heads of young people. Just because you have the raw talent to play in the majors it doesn’t necessarily mean you can coast like you did to get to the major leagues doesn’t mean you can anymore. It would do a world of good for someone like Elijah Dukes to get taught this lesson.

2. Affability: It isn’t actually part of the player’s job description to be an easy interview, or to even enjoy being interviewed. They’re job is to be really good at baseball. Luckily for Twins stars Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, they live in Minneapolis, which isn’t as media frenzied as other markets, as they still seem overwhelmed by most of the publicity the receive. Even better for them has been having Torii Hunter, Johan Santana and Mike Redmond on the roster, three outgoing guys who are most frequently seen taking questions after games. The same is the case in New York, where Derek Jeter gets hounded by the press, deflecting some of it away from the timid Alex Rodriguez. This was among Eckstein’s roles in his two World Series runs. Psychologically, getting interviewed and being the center of attention can get inside some guys’ heads. Think of it as stage fright. The added attention is added stress, which can mess with a players fundamentals. Better to let someone who can excel at the off-field stuff handle that than those who aren’t.

3. Likablity: The perfect example of this is Lew “No Talent” Ford. He’s inexplicably been on the Twins roster for years now, and it isn’t because of his quality stats. Part of it has to be because of the Twins’ limited farm system, but still more has to do with the fact that he makes the Twins money, both through merchandising and getting his personal fans to come to the games. He’s just a nice guy. You can’t discount the value a likable player adds to a franchise. Sure, he may not contribute to the game itself, but he can contribute to the bankroll.

I’m sure there are more things out there that you can make tangible, but this is just scratching the surface. I’m more of a numbers guy myself, but I understand that there are times that numbers don’t tell the whole story.