As all of us unknowingly make artificial intelligence a bit more intelligent every single second, we crave for some Yale-educated PhD expert to tell us it’s all going to be OK.
That we are not living in The Matrix, or some sad version of a Philip K. Dick, or George Orwell, novel.
That the 1984 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “The Terminator” is not a documentary; that the machines will not become “self aware” and right after taking all of our jobs they still a global war.
Our expert is a 68-year-old native of France who is an alum of Brevard Community College. Texas Rangers manager is not here to save us all from AI, but rather his existence and his success is irrefutable proof that no amount of data or technology can do what the human provides.
Analytics and all of this technology is here to stay, both in society and in baseball, but so are people. Relationships matter.
The Texas Rangers are the biggest surprise in baseball; they are in the American League Championship Series because of talent, their ownership group, and their general manager. They are not in this series against the Houston Astros without Bochy.
In the last 15 years, more teams shifted away from the Bochy types in favor of the younger manager who isn’t too far removed from their playing career. They’re cheaper, and more apt to do as instructed by the GM, or the “analytics team.”
The Rangers tried that route with , who was never really given a team talented enough to compete. He was fired last August, days before the man who hired him, Jon Daniels, was let go.
It is not a coincidence that the Astros and Rangers are managed by two of the more personable people in the sport; the Astros’ Dusty Baker, 74, is justifiably celebrated as one of the true good guys in baseball.
These are both bright, traditional baseball people who have adapted to the evolution in the game while retaining what makes them good at what they do, and in demand.
“He’s evolved. I can’t give specific examples. I thought he was a great manager in 2006 when I played for him. But the game has changed immensely since then,” Rangers general manager Chris Young said. “To see Boch’ keeping up with that and absorbing information and, you know, the staffs are bigger, the front offices are bigger, the influence of R&D is significant.
“To see him just step right in and be able to handle this. Rules have changed since then. There’s a lot that’s changed in that time period. But he’s a great manager because he’s continued to grow and evolve and be open-minded.
“I think when we hired him, a lot of people asked about an old-school manager. I feel the exact opposite.”
Born in Landes de Bussac, which is in the south central region of France near Bordeaux, where his father, Sgt. Major Gus Bochy, was stationed, Bochy took a 68-win team in 2022 to the American League Championship Series in one season.
Because the Rangers spent heavily in the previous two offseasons, Bochy’s performance this season will never be regarded as one of the better managing jobs in recent history but it should not be overlooked.
When Young was looking for a manager to replace interim Tony Beasley after the 2022 season, he simply called the “retired” Bochy. Young pitched for Bochy in 2006, when they were with the San Diego Padres.
Bochy had been out of baseball after he retired in 2019, but Young figured the worst develop was a “No thanks.” The two met in Nashville at MLB’s annual winter meetings, and Young gave the manager he wanted his best sales pitch.
“This was CY’s vision,” Bochy said after the Rangers defeated the Orioles in the ALDS. “He wanted to get this turned around. He wasn’t talking about two or three years from now. I knew this was a really good ball club. I mean, very talented club. …
“So even though you talk about it, to be here, you realize how fortunate, at least personally, I am to be sitting here and be part of this and be part of that team.”
It bears repeating that there is no way Bochy comes out of retirement, regardless of how bored he was, to work for the “cutting,” micro-managing front office. He had to be allowed to manage the way he wanted to manage a team, and a game.
He has now won 13 of his last 14 postseason series, and he is the seventh manager to reach the league championship series with three different franchises. If the Rangers advance to the World Series, Bochy will become the first manager in MLB history to win a league championship with three different clubs.
As advanced as baseball has become using technology and data to improve performance, this is still a game played by talented people who can be surprisingly scared with giant egos, and are often quite fragile.
AI can handle a lot, but there is no algorithm to handle that. You still need a human being, and Bruce Bochy has once again proven himself to be able to do what the computer cannot.
