I think the bigger issue connects what you’re talking about. The way Quin coaches leads me to believe his inflexibility is a result of attempting to more fully and consistently implement moneyball, approximating expected results over longer durations of time, so there’s no sense to develop any other strategies to make yourself more dynamic and able to respond on the fly because you need to cast your line in the water (execute moneyball) and let that line sit to maximize exposure. Even our defensive structure says moneyball and the numbers look good as a composite. But they can be exploited in any given moment. We’re good marathon runners. But that doesn’t help us when deciding who advances boils down to a few sprints. We’re not prepared at all for the sprints because we’re focused so much on the marathon and we pride ourselves on the amount of work and dedication that goes into being in the head of the pack for the marathon (it is undoubtedly impressive). When it’s you and four other people with a quarter mile left, sticking to your pace strategy becomes irrelevant. For Quin doing Ana amazing job getting himself into a position to win it, he mind-bogglingly falls back on his idea that keeping his rigid pace is what got him into contention through 25.95 miles and that there’s no sense in altering that approach, and ends up not being dynamic enough to respond to the specific situation in front of him.
