The world we live in seems to revolve around data, statistics, algorithms etc. But what happened to experience, and just a good ol' fashioned gut feeling. It seems like that is not a tangible thing so it gets kicked to the corner into the unquantifiable category.
When the movie "Moneyball" came out about a baseball general manager named Billie Beane using statistics and probabilities to make front office decisions, it was the new shiny toy. Sure it has its upsides as a philosophy. Use math and statistics to predict the future performance of an athlete. Sounds great. And to teams that can't afford to just throw money around in the hope it works out (like the New York Yankees among others), it makes sense to use it. But don't forget about using your gut. That unquantifiable feeling you have about something. Quality GMs and decision makers in successful organizations use both.
Recently on SportsCage we interviewed Keith Willoughby, The Dean of the Edwards School of Business and The University of Saskatchewan. He is a sports fan, and a fan of analytics. He too believes a combination of both need to be used to have the best chance at making decisions involving predictions on future outcomes involving athletes.
A hybrid philosophy if you will. A combination of Billie Beane and the ol' cliche scouts that were always featured in sports movies that just had a hunch about an athlete, just on their gut.
Next time you have a chance to take a closer look at the GMs, scouts and front office personnel (and there seems to be more and more of them in an organization these days), of a championship team know this, they probably use new technology to narrow things down a little, but then after that, its the good ol' gut that makes the final call.
