Mike Damergis, Cannes World Award-Winner

Mike Piazza says baseball has become so obsessed with analytics and data that people have stopped actually watching the game “Well, and I think you would attest to this, right? For me, when I was managing and guys would come in after a pitcher was being taken out or changed, and they would come in and look and say, ‘Well, what’s he throw?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, just watch him.’ You know, watch the guy throw.” “When I was in Dodger Stadium, I would come out before I warmed up, I would sit on the bench, and the visiting bullpen was right out in right field. Whoever was pitching, I would just sit there for five minutes, watch the slider, watch the changeup. And I could see, and you learn a lot by watching. And I think we’ve computed the game so much into data that nobody watches the game.” “And as a catcher, you know this, right? If a guy’s hot, if he’s not, if he’s chasing, all these things you have to have right here. I mean, I would watch if a guy’s crowding the plate, I know he likes the ball in. If he’s away, I know he likes the ball away.” “It’s just certain little tells as a catcher that you watch. I was watching the game the other day, a guy had a good fastball, he blows two by the guy, the guy fouls one off, he’s tardy. What does he do? He throws a slider, off-speed, and the guy gets a base hit.” “I’m like, the guy is telling you that he can’t catch up to the fastball. Now, I’m not saying you can’t throw off-speed, but you can’t throw it in the zone where the guy can get the bat on it. And then you go back and try to blow him away. So yeah, this organic sort of evolution of the game, the spontaneity is gone.” “Everything is just super, super data-computerized. And it’s a little sterile to me, it’s a little austere. But who am I? It’s just my opinion.”

Joe Torre says the Yankees almost traded Mariano Rivera for a short stop because the front office didn’t think Derek Jeter was ready to play “They told me he was going to be my shortstop, so that’s the way I approached it. He was going to be my shortstop. And he didn’t have a very good spring. Some of the powers that be in the front office were talking about, ‘He may not be ready. He may not be ready.’” “And then they were talking about trading for another shortstop, and the piece they were going to use to trade to get maybe Felix Fermin from the Seattle Mariners was a guy named Mariano Rivera.” “Oh yeah. I wouldn’t be sitting here today, I mean, if we made that deal. Trust me. But at the end of spring training I said, ‘No, no, it’s too late with Jeter. I mean, let’s, you know, start the season. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but let’s start the season.’ They relented, and basically we started the season with Derek at shortstop.” “I think he was batting eighth or ninth, and all he did Opening Day was hit a home run and make a back-to-the-infield catch, and all of a sudden his career was off and running. Special kid.”