Hmmm, why do we think the “stuff like that†might be the best part? But whatever. By revealing this vital information, d’Arnaud had just blown Albies’ cover.
So when we asked the Braves’ second-base energizer this weekend if he was aware of those MLB Network top 10 shows, his initial reply was: “No.†But when he was asked, seconds later, where he guessed he’d finished on the second-base list, he smiled. The jig was up.
“I didn’t even make the list,†he fessed up. “I heard that.â€
What he wasn’t really certain about was who had ranked this list. We helpfully informed him that a computer — aka, The Shredder — had done that ranking. He didn’t seem that impressed by this innovative use of technology, for some reason.
“It’s a computer,†Albies retorted, not sounding like a huge fan of, say, Steve Jobs, Statcast or “The Matrix†movies. “So I don’t think the computer knows how to play a baseball game.â€
In The Shredder’s defense, we should acknowledge that the computer knows lots of stuff about baseball. It’s just that the only stuff it knows is what it was programmed to know.
So what was The Shredder programmed to weigh when it was spitting out top 10 lists for each position? We posed that question to MLB Network’s Research Department. We’ll give you the answer in a moment. But first …
