Baseball analytics have gone too far

Call me old fashioned, I don’t care. I’m tired of analytics ruining baseball.

On Monday, April 1, the Baltimore Orioles won a game and improved to a very unexpected 3-1 record, and I’m still upset.

Orioles pitcher David Hess was pulled during a no-hitter through 6.1 innings. Terrible.

Forget that the team won, even forget that they almost lost because the bullpen gave up five runs in three innings, I lost an opportunity to see an Orioles pitcher throw a no-hitter.

I’m upset for Hess as well, a pitcher who was having the best outing of his career and may never have the opportunity to achieve the accomplishment of pitching a no-hitter ever again either. But I’m angry that a computer is what tells the manager that Hess threw too many pitches and he had to come out of the game.

And before you say that as a fan of my local team I should just blindly and unconditionally support every decision they make and should be thrilled with the team getting a win, I also want to be entertained. After all, sports at its core is a form of entertainment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be treated that way anymore.

Maybe Hess, who in his career has seen his ERA skyrocket to 9.30 when facing batters a third time, would have gotten battered if he stayed in any longer, but why not give him a chance and fans a chance at the no-hitter? The Orioles had a 6-0 lead and no one was on base. If he gave up a home run on his next pitch, they still would have had a 6-1 lead and time to rally to secure the win.

But analytics said Hess had to come out, which does not make sense when he was put in to start the inning anyway.

If a manager is going to just listen to a computer and pull a pitcher when he throws a certain number of pitches, forget ever attracting a top quality pitcher to Baltimore as a free agent. I can’t imagine many Aces want to be told they have to leave during a no-hitter because the numbers say he has to.

I get that the Orioles were stuck so far behind the times that they went through a miserable 47-win season last year and now after modernizing they are already having more success than ever imagined. But come on, this was just a step too far and ruined the enjoyment of that game that day.

No, I was not entertained.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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