Why Analytics and AI Still Can’t Replace Being in the Game
Bye-Bye, Boston. Tampa Reminded Us Why Judgment Still Matters
Hi everyone,
How’s your week going?
Baseball has always been a game of numbers and statistics. So it was probably inevitable that analytics would become part of how teams make decisions.
I’ve been a Yankees fan for more than 50 years, so I relished those two wins over Boston. I wanted the Yankees to beat the Red Sox so thoroughly they’d be looking for the exit before the final out. That may sound a little harsh. Then again, if you’re a Yankees fan, you know exactly what I mean.
The Yankees beat Boston 9–0 and 9–2. And they did it with some smart matchup decisions. Against Boston’s left-handed starter, they loaded the lineup with right-handed hitters. When Boston brought in a right-handed reliever, the Yankees had left-handed hitters ready for that matchup, too. This time, the numbers and the decisions worked beautifully.
The Yankees used analytics to make smart decisions against Boston, and this time they worked. The series was with Tampa Bay. The Rays won the first game, 1–0, because their pitcher was that good. So good, that neither analytics or AI could have taken that into consideration.The numbers may have helped the Yankees prepare, but they couldn’t tell the whole story once the game began.
That’s the trouble with relying on analytics or AI to make decisions for us. They can show us patterns and probabilities. They can’t always tell us what a particular person will do, what has changed in a situation, or what matters now. When the numbers stop matching what’s happening, somebody has to notice, think, and make a call. You can prepare from the sidelines, but judgment is formed in the game, in the situation, in life.
And there will be millions of fans watching from home who know exactly what he should do.
Here’s the point
By now, you may be wondering why I’m telling you about two Yankees wins and one heartbreaking loss. This was never going to be a baseball newsletter. I was trying to make a point, and here it is.
The analytics helped the Yankees see possible advantages against Boston. But the manager still had to decide how to use that information in the game he was watching.
Experts have a similar challenge with the material they create over a career.
They have ideas and experience everywhere: a presentation from a conference, posts on LinkedIn, interviews, videos, articles, workshop materials, a course, maybe a book. There may be valuable thinking in all of it. But the pieces often live in different places, built at different times, for different audiences, and on platforms the expert doesn’t own.
A lot of good work is sitting in the dugout, so to speak, waiting for someone to figure out when to bring it into the game.
A collection isn’t the same as a body of work
It’s easy to mistake having a lot of content for having a body of work.
A folder full of presentations is a collection. A LinkedIn profile with years of posts is a record of activity. A YouTube channel with 40 videos is a channel with 40 videos.
But do those pieces add up to a clear picture of what you know, how you think, and why someone should trust you?
That’s a different question.
Most experts don’t have a shortage of material. They have material scattered across assets and resources, some owned and some rented. LinkedIn, YouTube, podcast platforms, course platforms, email services: useful places to reach people, but someone else controls the rules. The platform can change its algorithm, limit your reach, alter its features, or decide that your audience should see something else today.
Which is a little like playing a game where the other team gets to move the foul lines whenever it wants.
The answer isn’t to abandon every platform. They can help people discover your work. The question is whether the thinking itself has a home and a structure you can build on.
Data can show what happened. It can’t decide what matters.
Analytics can tell an expert which post attracted attention, which video people watched, or which email got opened. That information can be useful. It can also be misleading if we treat attention as the same thing as value.
The most viewed post may not represent your best thinking. The most popular subject may not be the one you want to be known for. A presentation that got a laugh or a lot of applause may contain the starting point for something far more substantial than a presentation.
Someone has to look across the work and ask better questions:
What ideas keep coming back?
What problems have you spent years helping people solve?
Which stories, examples, and frameworks show how you think?
What is still useful, and what needs to be updated?
What belongs together? What should stand on its own?
And what could this material become if it were organized around the people you want to reach?
A dashboard can help point to a pattern. It can’t tell you what that pattern means to your career, your clients, or the reputation you’re trying to build.
That takes judgment.
The manager still has to make the call
This is the part I find interesting about baseball analytics. The information matters. It can improve the decision. But the game still has a manager, and the manager has to decide what to do with the information in the circumstances right in front of him.
The same is true with an expert’s content.
You don’t need to turn every old post into a book, every workshop into a course, or every scrap of material into a grand content strategy. Please don’t. The world has enough content already. It may even have enough courses.
The first job is to see what you actually have. Then decide what deserves more attention.
Maybe a group of presentations reveals the outline of a book. Maybe years of client questions point to a course. Maybe articles, interviews, and posts already express a point of view that hasn’t been brought together in one place. Or maybe some of the material has had a very good run and should be allowed to retire with dignity.
The point is not to produce more for the sake of producing more. It is to make your best thinking easier to understand, easier to find, and more useful to the people who need it.
That often means creating a stronger anchor: a book, a course, a connected content system, or another signature piece that gives the rest of your work somewhere to lead.
Pull the pieces together before making more pieces
My advice is simple: before you start creating something new, take inventory.
Gather the presentations, posts, articles, videos, interviews, course material, and client resources you already have. Look for the ideas that recur, the questions people keep asking, and the examples that only you can provide. Notice which assets are entirely dependent on platforms you rent, and which ones you can preserve and develop in forms you control.
Then decide what the collection is trying to say.
That last part matters. A pile of content doesn’t become an authority asset because we give it a new cover or upload it to another platform. It becomes valuable when the pieces reinforce one another and make your expertise clearer.
This is not always a quick process. It may reveal that some materials are outdated, that two pieces contradict each other, or that the strongest idea is buried in a presentation you forgot you had. That’s useful to know. Sometimes the real opportunity isn’t hiding in your next post. It’s hiding in the work you’ve already done.
The scoreboard isn’t the whole story
The Yankees beat Boston 9–0 and 9–2. I’m happy with the scoreboard. I also know those wins don’t tell us exactly what will happen against Tampa Bay.
The next series needs fresh decisions for a different opponent. The information will help, but it won’t eliminate the need to pay attention.
Your content deserves the same care. Don’t let the platforms decide what your work means. Don’t let a view count decide which experience matters. And don’t assume that because your ideas are spread around the internet, the right people can see how they fit together.
Start by looking at the whole body of work. Find the through line. Decide what should be preserved, what should be developed, and what can help people understand why your experience matters.
You may not need to create more.
You may need to see what you’ve already created, and make a better decision about what it can become.
I’ll be watching the Rays series. I’ll also be watching Aaron Boone’s decisions, along with every fan who becomes a baseball genius the instant a move doesn’t work.
That’s part of being a Yankees fan. We have opinions, memories, and occasionally evidence.
What do you have scattered across platforms, presentations, and files that might add up to something more if you brought it together?
More soon.
Warmly,
Jan
-30-
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