Jayson Werth is no longer involved in professional baseball, but that hasn’t stopped him from telling whoever is willing to listen that statistics are diluting the sport to the point where it’s “killing the game.”
The former Toronto Blue Jay, Los Angeles Dodger, Philadelphia Phillie Washington National, who said he was “done” from professional baseball back in June, recently spoke out on the Howard Eskin Podcast on Philadelphia radio station 94 WIP on how he feels the sabermetrics movement has created a negative impact with contemporary strategies like the shift.
"They've got all these super nerds in the front office that know nothing about baseball but they like to project numbers and project players. ... I think it's killing the game. It's to the point where just put computers out there. Just put laptops and what have you, just put them out there and let them play. We don't even need to go out there anymore. It's a joke."
Werth believes there’s a correlation between teams beefing up their analytics departments and the regression in traditional “small ball” tactics that include executing a well-placed bunt to advance baserunners.
"When they come down, these kids from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, wherever they're from, they've never played baseball in their life," he told Eskin. "When they come down to talk about stuff like [shifts], should I just bunt it over there? They're like, 'No, don't do that. We don't want you to do that. We want you to hit a homer.'
"It's just not baseball to me. We're creating something that's not fun to watch. It's boring. You're turning players into robots. You've taken the human element out of the game."
You can listen to the full interview below.
Coming into the 2018 season, the Seattle Mariners signed the 39-year-old to a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training. He started the season with Triple-A Tacoma where he batted .206 with four home runs and 19 RBIs before shutting it down due to a hamstring injury.
Werth wrapped up his seven-year, $126 million contract with the Washington Nationals last season with a .226/.322/.393 slash line in 70 games with 10 homers and 29 RBIs.
Known as a “character guy” in the clubhouse, multiple Nationals played have publically acknowledged Werth’s value around the team during his time in Washington, despite his WAR (wins above replacement) being in the negative in two of his final three seasons.
Wherever you lie on the analytics versus traditional argument, there’s no denying the impact of sabermetrics has made both on and off the field. Home runs, fly balls and strikeouts are up, which allows teams to strategize by bringing in a certain type of pitcher or instructing a group of fielders to line up in a specific way to counteract the approach.
That can make for boring baseball, as the “go big or go home” approach can make for a lot of standing around and dull playing with multiple minutes passing by before balls are hit into the field of play. According to the Wall Street Journal, the MLB set a record last season with an average time of 3 minutes and 48 seconds on average between balls in play. Pitching changes, the duration between pitches and the duration of games where also at an all-time high.
Werth, meanwhile, was spotted crushing dingers in a senior men’s league in Washington.
