Branch Rickey

I don't think there can ever be enough links to this page. There was a flurry of baseball sites linking to it in the winter of 03-04 just after Paul Depodesta took over as GM of the Dodgers. It contains excerpts from an article that Branch Rickey, one of the game's great thinkers, wrote for Life magazine in 1954. A must-read for anyone interested in baseball history, and especially in fundamental truths about the statistics that should drive roster decisions.

Baseball people generally are allergic to new ideas. We are slow to change. For 51 years I have judged baseball by personal observation, by considered opinion, and by accepted statistical methods. But recently I have come upon a device for measuring baseball which has compelled me to put different values on some of my oldest and most cherished theories. It reveals some new and startling truths about the nature of the game. It is a means of gauging with a high degree of accuracy important factors which contribute to winning and losing baseball games. It is the most disconcerting and at the same time the most constructive thing to come into baseball in my memory.