Nate Silver: evaluation

Transcript context

…Let’s move past the esoterica and give the people what they really want to hear. Let’s go back to 1968, in the World Series, the manager of the Detroit Tigers, Mayo Smith, he took Mickey Stanley, pulled him out of center field and put him in at shortstop so that Jim Northrup could play center and the recovering Al Kaline, who was the better hitter, future Hall of Famer, could play in right field. No one had ever done this before. You’re advising at that time. How do you start thinking about that problem? You know what I’m talking about, right? You’re from Michigan, of course you do. I do know what you’re talking about. We know a lot more now about the value of defense than we did in the late ’60s or even than we did 10 years ago. If anything, defense turns out to be quite a bit more important than people would have thought. It was an ironic way when some of the conventional scout wisdom was confirmed, as data got more advanced and more sophisticated. If you want to get really complicated, you say the Tigers had Denny McLain, Mickey Lolich. They had a strikeout-heavy pitching staff. Maybe worry about defense a little bit less. Tiger Stadium is a park conducive to low batting averages to begin with, a little high home run totals. It’s not obvious to me that it was the best move, but it is interesting that, all of a sudden, baseball teams and football teams become, in general, more strategically correct when they have more on the line. In the World Series, closer usage is a lot better, when you bring your best guy in in the eighth inning or the seventh inning. You see in the NFL teams will go for two more often in the playoffs, go for it on fourth down more often in the playoffs. Which is a hint that when the stakes are low, culture tends to prevail. When the stakes are high and the outcome of the game is all that matters, then things are different. Given your view on Mickey Stanley and the Detroit Tigers, who is the underrated candidate in the Republican race this year? [laughter] Just to impose a kind of consistency on you. [laughter]…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.