ESSAI Volume 12 Article 34 Spring 2014 Changing Baseball Forever Jake Sumeraj College of DuPage Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai Recommended Citation Sumeraj, Jake (2014) "Changing Baseball Forever," ESSAI: Vol. 12, Article 34. Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol12/iss1/34 This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in ESSAI by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Sumeraj: Changing Baseball Forever Changing Baseball Forever by Jake Sumeraj (Honors English 1102) idden in the back rooms of any modern major league baseball franchise are a select few individuals that are drastically changing the way teams operate. Using numbers and Hborderline obsessive tracking of each player’s every move, they see things that elude the everyday baseball fan. These are the baseball analysts. Although they do the research that can potentially decide which player becomes the face of the team, these analysts can likely walk the city streets without a single diehard fan knowing who they are. Baseball analysts get almost zero publicity. However, their work is clearly visible at any baseball game. A catcher’s decision to call for a 2-0 curveball to a power hitter, the manager’s choice to continuously play a hitter that’s only batting 0.238, and a defensive shift to the left that leaves the entire right side of the infield open are all moves that are the result of research done by analysts.