Battle between analytics advocates and traditionalists rages on

ATLANTA — Not long after the cameras caught A.J. Minter warming in the Atlanta bullpen Friday night in Game 3 of the World Series — with Ian Anderson finishing up his fifth inning of no-hit ball — the respective "sides" predictably retreated to their corners.

With Atlanta manager Brian Snitker’s decision clearly already made that Anderson, a 23-year-old rookie, would not get a chance to throw the only World Series no-hitter since Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 Series, an argument that has been raging inside and outside the sport for the better part of the last 20 years was rejoined in full.

The let-him-pitch crowd cloaked themselves in the warmth of yesteryear when starting pitchers, in their eyes, never came out early and threw 175 pitches a game.

The smarter-than-the-dinosaurs-who-don’t-appreciate-our brilliance crowd, meanwhile, basked in the glory of Atlanta’s strategy working to a T. The bullpen failed to finish off the no-hitter but did finish off the game, a 2-0 victory that gave Atlanta a two-games-to-one series lead.

It was rinse, repeat of arguments that long ago became exhausting yet continue to percolate and will continue to do so unabated as an imaginary battle for the "soul" of the game plods along.

"The me of old, probably a couple years ago, would be [saying], ‘How the hell am I doing this,’ quite honestly," Snitker, 66, a lifer in the Atlanta organization, said of pulling his starter after 76 pitches, not wanting him to face a dangerous Astros lineup a third time through.

Snitker, as pretty much all big-league managers have, necessarily made himself fluent — or at the very least conversant in — the metrics that influence the decisions every organization makes, both in-game and leading up to games.

They are here to stay and, frankly, should be. Any big-league team not taking advantage of collecting as much information as possible is simply committing organizational malpractice.

But the real battle is striking a balance between what some would call new-age thinking — which is not a particularly adequate description — and old-school thinking, which is just as inadequate.

Billy Eppler, a former assistant general manager of the Yankees who served as the Angels’ GM from 2015-20, covered that perfectly in March 2016 at a SABR analytics conference in Phoenix.

"The analytics vs. scouting thing, it’s so tired," Eppler told the Los Angeles Times then. "Uncle. Uncle, you know what I mean? It’s almost like you have to be Republican or Democrat. Are you East Coast rap or West Coast? Are you for stats or are you for scouting? I don’t know. Can I really be in between? Because I am. It’s only black and white. Nobody wants gray, but gray’s the best. That’s what makes this game great. There is no absolute."

When it comes to the organizations currently considered to be the best-run, there is no absolute. Those are the ones who have decided there can be — while not always a happy marriage between the numbers and, say, traditional scouting — at least a content and productive relationship.

There is an understanding that while most of the game can be quantified, 100% of it cannot be. The inability to quantify something isn’t proof of its non-existence.

It should surprise no one that among the teams most mentioned by scouts, coaches and executives — from both sides of the aisle, it must be pointed out — as having best struck that balance are the Dodgers, Red Sox, Astros, Rays and Atlanta (four of those clubs, not coincidentally, made MLB’s final four).

Then there are clubs like the Yankees, who have gone all-in on all things analytics and sports science in recent years, gradually jettisoning those in the organization who dare push back on that approach in the background, with third base coach Phil Nevin being the latest example.

An "us vs. them" dynamic, as one organizational insider put it in July to Newsday, that has been years in the making between many in the analytics department and those in pro scouting very much bubbled to the surface behind the scenes during the up-and-down Yankees season that ended in a wild-card game loss to Boston.

As one NL executive, who comes from the analytics side of things, put it:

"Welcome to the battle of scouts versus analysts that’s been happening since Moneyball. Scouts were often able to see their mistakes and grow, while the analysts hid behind computers and poked fun while they left no paper trail so they could always deflect blame."

And on it goes.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.