I’d love to play against a team that frequently pitched out on 2-1. You’re right – as the opposing team I’d be surprised!

Pleasantly surprised, especially if my guy on first stole at a 75% success rate and I had a hitter in a 3-1 count with a man in scoring position.

I’m going to apologize in advance, but I have a feeling I’m going to pull out the following line fairly often between now and the end of time:

“But there’s data and there’s data – the mass of data, however carefully collected, is generally an unreliable indicator of outcome.”

“Wee Willie” Keeler, chosen for this example simply because his name is great, had 8500 at bats in his career. He got 2900+ hits. Using those rounded numbers – and then rounding the result – I can say that he got a hit about 34% of the time he tallied an at bat.

Those are big numbers. I’d even call 8500 “a lot” of at bats. And I’d also say that the data was a generally reliable indicator that Wee Willie would hit safely once out of three at bats.

Ha! Rigorous, relevant, hands-on, project-based learning!

Anyhow…

If you manage in baseball ‘by the book’, using evidence and statistics to inform your decisions, then you re giving the opposition a way to anticipate your moves, and plan accordingly. That’s why, with a 2-1 count with a guy on first, you so often see a pitch-out.

In education, of course, you don’t have an opposing team trying to anticipate your moves and respond accordingly – but it’s a human endeavour, and in human endeavours in general, being unpredictable is generally an asset.

That’s not to assert that either managers or educators should ignore the data.

But there’s data and there’s data – the mass of data, however carefully collected, is generally an unreliable indicator of outcome. The numbers, even if reliable (and in the field of education they often aren’t) take us only part of the way.

That’s why we play the games, rather than just run the numbers.