meaning of bogeymen

Definition of 'bogeyman'

bogeyman in American English

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Definition of bogeyman noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• The bogeyman's coming!

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Origin of boogeyman

Words nearby boogeyman.

• boogie board
• boogie-woogie

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use boogeyman in a sentence

The practice, known as microtargeted advertising, is one of the Internet’s biggest boogeymen and has long been criticized as invasive, discriminatory and divisive.

By being looped into this national racial boogeyman , they are fodder for outrage.

He says that posture is a popular boogeyman —the presumed culprit for everything from back pain, to headaches, to the constriction of blood vessels, to fatigue.

For Republican politicians, cancel culture is a boogeyman of dazzling dexterity, capable of inflaming donors’ paranoia and opening their wallets.

For years, Republicans have linked all Democrats to boogeymen like Nancy Pelosi, AOC and Hillary Clinton.

Are you curious, as I am, to know the literal meaning of the word or phrase Griswold translated as “ boogeyman ”?

For many, the events of the last few weeks have only intensified perceptions of Cuba as regional boogeyman .

The news quickly took Washington by storm, earning Cantor the nickname the “ boogeyman .”

So, every story in Night Shift, especially “The boogeyman ” and “I Am the Doorway”—was huge for me.

He was generally considered the number one fighter in the game, going by the nickname of The boogeyman .

Now that we knew Oswalds you know they really think we are boogeyman or something.

bogeyman (n.)

"haunting specter, object of fear," 16c.; see bogey (n.1) + man (n.).

Entries linking to bogeyman

World War II aviator slang for "unidentified aircraft, presumably hostile," probably ultimately from bog / bogge , attested 16c.-17c., a dialectal variant of Middle English bugge "a frightening specter" (see bug (n.)).

If so, bogey shares ancestry with, and might have arisen from, dialect words for "ghost, specter, the devil," such as bogeyman "haunting specter, object of fear" (16c.), boggart "specter that haunts a gloomy spot" (c. 1570, in Westmoreland, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire), and compare bogey (n.2). The earliest modern form appears to be Scottish bogle "ghost," attested from c. 1500 and popularized c. 1800 in English literature by Scott, Burns, etc.

"a featherless plantigrade biped mammal of the genus Homo " [Century Dictionary], Old English man , mann "human being, person (male or female); brave man, hero;" also "servant, vassal, adult male considered as under the control of another person," from Proto-Germanic *mann- (source also of Old Saxon, Swedish, Dutch, Old High German man , Old Frisian mon , German Mann , Old Norse maðr , Danish mand , Gothic manna "man"), from PIE root *man- (1) "man." For the plural, see men .

Sometimes connected to root *men- (1) "to think," which would make the ground sense of man "one who has intelligence," but not all linguists accept this. Liberman, for instance, writes, "Most probably man 'human being' is a secularized divine name" from Mannus [Tacitus, "Germania," chap. 2], "believed to be the progenitor of the human race."

Specific sense of "adult male of the human race" (distinguished from a woman or boy) is by late Old English (c. 1000); Old English used wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear late 13c. and was replaced by man . Universal sense of the word remains in mankind and manslaughter . Similarly, Latin had homo "human being" and vir "adult male human being," but they merged in Vulgar Latin, with homo extended to both senses. A like evolution took place in Slavic languages, and in some of them the word has narrowed to mean "husband." PIE had two other "man" roots: *uiHro "freeman" (source of Sanskrit vira- , Lithuanian vyras , Latin vir , Old Irish fer , Gothic wair ; see *wi-ro- ) and *hner "man," a title more of honor than *uiHro (source of Sanskrit nar- , Armenian ayr , Welsh ner , Greek anēr ; see *ner- (2)).

Man also was in Old English as an indefinite pronoun, "one, people, they." It was used generically for "the human race, mankind" by c. 1200. As a word of familiar address, originally often implying impatience, c.1400; hence probably its use as an interjection of surprise or emphasis, since Middle English but especially popular from early 20c.

As "a woman's lover," by mid-14c. As "adult male possessing manly qualities in an eminent degree," from 14c. Man's man , one whose qualities are appreciated by other men, is by 1873. Colloquial use of the Man for "the boss" is by 1918. To be man or mouse "be brave or be timid" is from 1540s. Meaning "piece with which a game (especially chess) is played" is from c. 1400.

Man-about-town "man of the leisure class who frequents clubs, theaters, and other social resorts" is from 1734. Man of the world is from mid-14c. as "secular man, layman;" by early 15c. as "man experienced in the ways of the world, one able to take things in stride." To do something as one man "unanimously" is from late 14c.

So I am as he that seythe, 'Come hyddr John, my man.' [1473]

MANTRAP, a woman's commodity. [Grose, "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," London, 1785]

At the kinges court, my brother, Ech man for himself. [Chaucer, "Knight's Tale," c. 1386]

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bo•gey•man

Also boogeyman.

• bog pimpernel
• bog rein orchid
• bog rhubarb
• bog rosemary
• bog whortleberry
• Bogan Louise
• Bogart Humphrey DeForest
• Bogazköy
• bogged down
• Bogie engine
• Bognor Regis
• Bogotá
• bog-standard
• bogen structure
• Bogensport-Verband Rheinland-Pfalz
• Bogert-Cook synthesis
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• 1.1 Alternative forms
• 1.2 Etymology
• 1.3 Pronunciation
• 1.4.1 Synonyms
• 1.4.2 Translations
• 1.5 See also
• 1.6 Anagrams

English [ edit ]

Alternative forms [ edit ], etymology [ edit ].

From bogey +‎ -man .

Pronunciation [ edit ]

• ( UK ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈbəʊ.ɡɪˌmæn/ , /ˈbəʊ.ɡiˌmæn/
• ( US ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈboʊ.ɡiˌmæn/ , /ˈbʊɡ.iˌmæn/ , /ˈbu.ɡiˌmæn/
• ( Canada ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈbu.ɡiˌmæn/

Noun [ edit ]

bogeyman ( plural bogeymen )

• A menacing , ghost -like monster in children's stories.
• 2013 , Frances Booth, The Distraction Trap : Before the Internet it was television. And, if not that, it was radio, films, or games. All have taken their turn as the popular bogeyman , blighting the minds of the young.

Synonyms [ edit ]

Translations [ edit ], see also [ edit ], anagrams [ edit ].

• money bag , moneybag

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The morrigan.

Who is the Bogeyman?

The bogeyman is a mythical monster whose impact can be traced around the world. One of the first references to this legendary creature was found in the 1500’s, though it is suspected that the boogeyman has existed much longer than this.

It is thought that the boogeyman was originally a reference for mischievous creatures called hobgoblins. Throughout much of Europe, hobgoblins are actually quite friendly or limited to light-hearted pranks, but there are tales of hobgoblins who were much more vile in nature. These creatures were said to torment humans – sometimes to the point of frightening a person to death.

Regardless of how the bogeyman came to be, he exists as one of the most well known and feared creatures of all time. There are hundreds of names for the bogeyman around the world – each with their own interesting twist. Because the boogeyman has such a large global impact, it is difficult to determine which country told the first tales of this monster. One thing is for certain – the boogeyman loves to lurk in the shadows of the night and its main victims are disobedient children who don’t listen to their parents.

Characteristics

Physical description.

Descriptions of the bogeyman vary from country to country, though there are a few similarities. The majority of boogeymen are some sort of spirit or entity that terrorize naughty children in the night. The boogeyman could strike for any number of reasons – ranging from anger towards children who leave things dirty to hunger for children who stayed up past their bedtime.

Many boogeymen are said to have long nails or claws that they use to scratch against window panes in the middle of the night. There are also tales of bogeymen who have terrifying eyes that haunt children who venture outside after dark. Some boogeymen are said to have horns or look very animal-like, while others are told to be evil humanoids or witches.

In the United Kingdom, it is thought that the boogeyman could have originally been a description of a ‘buggy man’ like creature. The ‘buggy men’ were responsible for picking up the dead – especially when the black plague was devastating Europe. Because of their contact with the dead, they were often very sick themselves and had skeleton-like figures with sunken eyes.

Other boogeymen have no appearance are said to have no figure or the ability to shapeshift. They can appear as the tree limb scratching against your window, or simply present themselves as a terrifying shadow lurking underneath the bed.

Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the boogeyman is its ability to exist in the folklore of hundreds of countries while having very few physical similarities. The bogeyman’s ability to blend and adapt to many cultures leads many to think of the bogeyman as a type of spirit.

Personality

The bogeyman, while mysterious, is best understood through its motivations. The boogeyman is primarily fixated on children, though there are myths in some countries that suggest the boogeyman will seek out anyone who is guilty of wrong-doing. Regardless of what age group a particular boogeyman goes after, it seems to be a common theme that the boogeyman will not attack those who are considered to be ‘good.’

There are many variations on why the bogeyman preys on its victims. Most versions of the boogeyman will come after children if they’ve been naughty and disobeyed their parents in some way. These boogeymen have a wide range of punishments that they choose from. Some boogeymen will only give children terrifying reminders like scratching on their window panes at night, appearing as a shadow that lurks in their bedroom, or chasing them when they’ve wandered away from home in the middle of the night.

Other boogeymen are more sinister, making it even more important for children to mind their parent’s instructions. These bogeymen have a taste for naughty children and will often sneak into their rooms to carry them away into the night. These children are often never found and are said to be eaten by the bogeyman.

There is also a strange category of bogeymen who do not come after children simply for being naughty. These bogeymen often serve as a strange sort of protector even though they tend to have terrifying appearances. There are also boogeymen who don’t discriminate with the age of their target. They simply attack the guilty.

Bogeyman Around the World

Wewe gombel.

In the Semarang area of central Java, there lurks a bogeyman who strikes fear into the hearts of children and parents alike – the Wewe Gombel. This strange boogeyman is said to be a spirit that seeks both vengeance and acceptance. Although the Wewe Gombel spirit is evil in nature, it does not harm children. Instead, she kidnaps children that are being neglected or abused and hides them from their parents until she feels the parents have learned their lesson.

Even though she takes her vengeance out on the parents, she is feared by children as well for her strange habits. It is said that any child unfortunate enough to be kidnapped by the Wewe Gombel is forced to eat feces until they are allowed to return home.

El Coco (also known as the Coco Man) is known to strike fear into the hearts of many Hispanic and Latino children. This strange beast is not known to have a specific appearance, but is instead thought to be a shapeshifter that is ‘terrible to look at.’ In some regions, the Coco Man is thought to have the power to transform into the thing a child fears most.

El Coco climbs onto the roofs of children who disobey their parents and waits until they fall asleep. It is then that El Coco sneaks into the room of the naughty child and kidnaps them for its next meal.

Babaroga is a Croatian boogeyman that has a deep hunger for disobedient children. This boogey is said to be an ugly old woman with horns atop her head. She stalks her prey at night and takes them back to her dark hiding place where she devours them.

Babaroga is thought to carry a bag that she uses to drag children away into her lair (which is often a cave). Sometimes she preys on children who venture out too late at night, while other times she is said to reach down through the cracks in the ceiling to grab her prey.

Tata Duende

Tata Duende comes to us from Latin America and is most prominent in Mayan and Mestizo folklore. This bogeyman has backwards feet and is missing his thumbs, which gives him an odd fixation on the thumbs of humans – especially human children.

It is said that the Tata Duende (which translates roughly to Grandfather Goblin ) is the protector of the jungle. However, he can also be very mischievous at times. If Tata Duende finds a naughty child, he will lure them into the jungle and try to bite off their thumbs.

The Namahage

The Namahage is a Japanese demon who preys on children who are disobedient, lazy, or prone to crying. The Namahage is known to steal crops and disobedient children during the New Year. They are known to roam city streets during the night and calling out, “Are there any cry babies?”

L’uomo Nero

L’uomo Nero is typically portrayed as a man dressed in all black that haunts disobedient children in the Eastern Mediterranean area. The bogeyman is often said to also wear a hood or hat that hides his face. The L’uomo Nero comes to kidnap children who disobey their parents, though unlike other boogeymen he doesn’t eat them. Instead, he takes them to a frightening place to live with him for a year.

Oude Rode Ogen

Oude Rode Ogen (also known as ‘Old Red Eyes’) is thought to be a shapeshifting cannibal who preys on young children. It is thought that the form this beast was most likely to appear in was that of a black dog with red eyes.

The Night Hag

The night hag is an evil spirit thought to cause sleep paralysis and nightmares. This spirit is an old woman who preys on fear and nightmares of her victims. She sits on the chests of her victims while they sleep, causing them to have difficulty sleeping and enter into a disturbing dream state.

The Jumbie is an evil human spirit that comes back to haunt the living in Caribbean folklore. While similar to ghosts, Jumbies differ in that they cast a dark black shadow instead of appearing as a wispy figure. These spirits are malevolent and will target anyone.

Explanation of the Myth

Though there are some that believe the bogeyman myths are inspired by real creatures, the majority of people believe that the bogeyman is nothing more than a tale told by parents who wanted to scare their children into behaving.

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What does bogeymen mean?

Definitions for bogeymen bo·gey·men, this dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word bogeymen ., did you actually mean bogeyman or bayesian , wiktionary rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes.

bogeymen noun

Plural form of bogeyman.

How to pronounce bogeymen?

Alex US English David US English Mark US English Daniel British Libby British Mia British Karen Australian Hayley Australian Natasha Australian Veena Indian Priya Indian Neerja Indian Zira US English Oliver British Wendy British Fred US English Tessa South African

How to say bogeymen in sign language?

Chaldean Numerology

The numerical value of bogeymen in Chaldean Numerology is: 5

Pythagorean Numerology

The numerical value of bogeymen in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of bogeymen in a Sentence

Michael Gove :

The 'In' campaign want us to believe that Britain is beaten and broken ... (It) imagines that the people of this country are mere children, capable of being frightened into obedience by conjuring up new bogeymen every night.

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How Collingwood Magpies and Brisbane Lions can win the AFL grand final

analysis Sport How Collingwood Magpies and Brisbane Lions can win the AFL grand final

The best teams in the AFL have made it to the grand final with the stage set for a thrilling finale.

The minor premier Magpies have been the team to beat for most of the year, but they're up against the one team that has shown an ability to do that with any sort of regularity.

Brisbane has won its past six games against Collingwood, including two this season.

But grand final day, in front of 100,000 fans heavily weighted towards the black and white, is a completely different prospect.

Here's how both teams could win the flag on Saturday.

Walls come tumbling down

There has been no greater focus in the league than on how to beat Collingwood's system in the second half of the year. To win the flag you have to beat the best, and no side is better than the ladder leader.

At its core, Collingwood's system is somewhat simple — based on furious attack from a dominant defensive base, lulling teams into making mistakes and capitalising on them.

Led by captain and All Australian Darcy Moore, the Pies' defence allows the rest of the puzzle to work. They absorb opposition pressure thanks to well-drilled positioning and defensive fundamentals.

For much of the year, Collingwood have deployed a faster, more mobile defensive unit than most sides. It allows the back line to recover quickly to close off "fast break" opportunities, covering space that other defences can only dream of.

That mobility in defence has a second benefit — increasing the ability to attack from the back third of the ground. No team is as efficient or prolific at scoring from defensive intercepts as the Pies are.

The Pies often move the ball slowly out of defensive 50, poking at space, before looking to the corridor to unleash their waves of aggressive handballs.

The Magpies are the most dangerous side at scoring from the corridor and boast one of the most effective attacks when getting the ball inside 50, helped by the speed and space they usually generate with their entries.

The Magpies also aren't concerned if they can't get clean possession of the ball. With plenty of downhill runners attacking loose balls, knock-ons and ground kicks play to the Pies' advantage.

These strengths have allowed the Pies to keep the game close against almost any team, with the potential exception of their grand-final opponent. (More on this later.)

"It's gonna be hard to kick 125 in this competition," Collingwood coach Craig McRae said after their 124-100 loss to the Lions in round 23.

"We're not happy with the way we are defending the ground."

If the Pies are to stand a chance in the grand final they will need their defence to be firing against the dangerous Lions attack.

When the two teams met this year, the Lions were able to dominate from Collingwood's turnovers, particularly when the Pies struggled to get the ball out of their defensive half. What was normally a strength for Collingwood turned into their biggest weakness as the Lions attacked the short field.

After that Lions loss, McRae was confident they could repair their defensive frailties, committing to a "growth mindset" to keep working on their weaknesses.

Against both of their finals opponents to date, Melbourne and GWS, the Collingwood defence has shown dramatic signs of improvement.

They've been able to limit the ability of opposition sides to score from intercepts, locking down the game.

It's come at the cost of their own attack, but has allowed them to get into what they perceive as a strength — their late-game mode.

Close again

There's another potential benefit to the Collingwood brand of footy — their ability to win tight games.

Due to Collingwood's penchant for attacking contests and risky ball movement through the corridor, the side is well-drilled on how to win close games through an amplification of their normal effort.

"We're well-versed in those situations," former captain Scott Pendlebury said in the lead-up to the grand final.

"We're well-versed if it's tight, what we need to do if we're up or down by a few points, what we need to do if we need to get the game back on that situation."

Generally, each team has two modes of play late in games.

Last week against the Giants, holding on to a seven-point lead, the Pies went into "kill the game" mode, trying to induce repeat stoppages and chipping the ball around to open teammates.

Both elements of this play into Collingwood's hands, as these form elements of their ordinary set-up. Against the Giants, they were able to eat up the clock by inducing eight ball-ups or throw-ins in the last two minutes, far more than the usual average of about one stoppage per minute.

Most teams find the other mode a bit harder to pull off.

"Win the Game" involves increased risk-taking with ball movement. You might notice teams more likely to tap it to advantage and move the ball through the corridor. Teams often go long and down the middle from kick-ins and prioritise distance and speed over sheer accuracy of disposal.

It's sort of like how Collingwood ordinarily plays.

This might be why the Pies have another edge over opponents in late-game situations. History suggests this isn't sustainable over a long period of time, but the Pies only need that luck to last one more week.

The elusive 16th

Collingwood is tantalisingly close to joining Essendon and Carlton on 16 premierships, with only their current bogey team in the way.

The Pies will need to work out a way to lock down Brisbane's potent attack and turnover game in order to be triumphant. They'll have to do so while maximising space for their own dangerous forwards, like Jamie Elliott and Brody Mihocek.

One way they might be able to hurt Brisbane is to limit their ability to gain ground from stoppages. When they are firing, they have arguably the best defensive midfield in the competition.

The minor premiers know they can put it together against anyone on their day, but of course, they're up against the one team that has not allowed them to have those days this year.

The bogeymen from Brisbane

For the past two years, Collingwood has confounded most opponents with its attacking and direct brand of footy, but Brisbane might have the clearest blueprint to beat the Pies of any side in the competition.

They currently hold a six-game winning streak against Collingwood, including two convincing victories this year.

The bedrock of Brisbane's game is built on attacking teams on the counter. No team scores more heavily from intercepts than the Lions and it starts up forward.

Brisbane finished in the top four for tackles inside 50, setting the stage for valuable forward-50 stoppages and repeat inside-50 entries.

Extremely capable intercepting defenders — led by Harris Andrews with a support crew of Jack Payne, Keidean Coleman, Brandon Starcevich and Darcy Wilmot — specialise in picking up any loose ball and getting it in the hands of their best ball users.

This ability to attack from intercepts was at the heart of their two wins over the Pies this year. Brisbane racked up 157 points from intercepts against just 63 for the Magpies. Of those 157 points, 89 came from front-half intercepts.

This higher set-up does come at some cost, weakening Brisbane's ability to stop scoring when the other side goes inside 50. The Lions were only the 10th-best team at defending scoring from inside-50 entries, a weakness for an otherwise solid side. If opposition sides can break through the defensive line, or generate quick entries from stoppages, the Lions can occasionally fall into trouble.

But the risk is usually worth the reward.

The Lions are unafraid to use the width of the ground to shift opposition defences, changing the angles of attack. This puts opposition sides off guard when going forward, making it harder to defend forward-50 entries.

Take you apart

Brisbane also has one of the most dangerous and well-balanced attacks in the league.

The Lions have long been one of the most efficient teams going inside 50, finishing 4th for points per inside 50.

The Lions have a defined group of focal tall and small forwards, and they share the load within their group.

Each week the roles that they play vary, between focal points and decoys. Fagan looks less at the individual contributions of each of his forwards, but more at how it contributes to the bigger picture. It makes them hard to plan to beat, and almost impossible to stop.

"When it comes to finals, it's a little easier for teams to pick you off if you're predictable going inside 50," Fagan told the ABC earlier this year.

"So the fact that we've got a good mix of targets is important to us. We've got to keep going with that — we don't want to become reliant on any one player."

Building in the middle

All finals losses hurt, but blowouts sometimes show the signs of bigger issues at play.

In the back half of last season, Brisbane's talented midfield struggled to find the right balance between attack and defence, ball winners and line breakers.

This year, their ability to win clearances and limit opposition damage has improved significantly.

The recruitment of one of the league's better two-way midfielders in Josh Dunkley has helped their flexibility.

Father-son draftees Jaspa Fletcher and Will Ashcroft have helped their burst to the outside. This has allowed their other remaining pieces, like recently minted Brownlow medallist Lachie Neale and Hugh McCluggage, to settle into clearer roles suited to their strengths.

The last challenge

Only the minor premiers stand in the way of Brisbane's fourth flag.

They've done it before against this side. If the Lions can execute their game plan, they know they can beat Collingwood.

Some question the ability of the Lions to win at the MCG, given their recent poor record at the ground .

In reality, the MCG on grand final day is a completely different task than any other day of the year. The last time the Lions played in front of a crowd of more than 90,000 was their 2002 Grand Final win over the Pies.

A new footballing empire might be rising in the north again, and maybe it'll be for good this time.

The ABC of SPORT

Related stories, lachie neale joins an elite club with his second brownlow medal. here's how he did it.

The Lions are facing an MCG hoodoo — but how does that compare to the worst streaks in history?

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MLB playoffs 2023: In baseball’s October blame game, direct your ire toward a person, not the ‘analytics’ bogeyman

Blame the manager. blame the gm. blame the players. but don’t blame the mere existence of information..

The baseball year, like the calendar year, has seasons. There’s projection season, from December to March, when the industry tries to foresee and maximize the future. There’s assessment season, from April to July, when we figure out which teams are contenders and what they need at the trade deadline. There’s credit season — August and September — as teams surge or fade to lock in postseason berths and win totals, as players sew up MVP hardware and black ink and record-book positioning.

Then there’s October. And if we’re being honest, the short spurts and short fuses of playoff baseball tend to wind up dominated by one thing: Blame.

Call it the winter of baseball’s discontent, a holiday from reason and long-term thinking. From the first chill until Macy’s starts prepping for the parade, Mercury is in retrograde over the ballparks of America. Playoff baseball has always heightened the senses. Deciding the fate of a season in bursts of two-to-seven games isn’t scientific or rigorous, but it is highly entertaining. So we zoom in, sit up and scrutinize. It’s a monthlong Super Bowl of strategic second-guessing.

In a sport consumed by data and its applications, trying to grapple with the binary, all or nothing, n=1 moments of postseason baseball can be disorienting, like looking for the meaning of a love story in an individual pixel on your TV screen.

Even as MLB teams have collectively moved into a fairly uniform era of data-informed, human-implemented management — beyond the false dichotomies of stats vs. scouts or jocks vs. nerds — the stakes of pivotal playoff moments sometimes make otherwise reasonable minds revert to howling at the moon. Or, more specifically, at “analytics.”

Let’s get this out of the way: “Analytics” is a catch-all term for “data and information that influence how sports teams operate.” In practice, however, it often connotes “data and information that influence sports in a way I don’t like, for reasons I don’t want to explain.” When the same advancements lead to a young pitcher dramatically improving his slider, a veteran hitter vaulting to stardom or a team soaring to its most successful season ever, you don’t typically see those positive developments attributed to one vague buzzword. You’ll instead see the credit distributed to the people who utilized the available information to make good things happen.

When bad outcomes must be explained, though? There’s a one-word answer. Spreading through MLB managers like Havana Syndrome ravaging spies, the scourge of “analytics” has been deemed responsible for such nefarious deeds as robbing the world of a no-hitter by pulling Atlanta Braves pitcher Ian Anderson, kneecapping the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2020 World Series by removing Blake Snell too soon, and derailing the 2019 Los Angeles Dodgers by leaving Clayton Kershaw in too long .

Most recently, some combination of numbers and the Toronto Blue Jays front office has been accused of forcing manager John Schneider to remove José Berríos after three-plus innings of scoreless ball and turn to starter-turned-playoff-reliever Yusei Kikuchi in Game 2 of the wild-card series against the Minnesota Twins. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal held up that decision — which quickly backfired and contributed to a season-ending Blue Jays loss in which they also, importantly, failed to score — as evidence of some vast rot in the game, the loss of “feel” and “trust” in favor of “bloodless, dispassionate decision-making.”

In trying to explain his disgust, Rosenthal stumbles into revealing the subtext of the misdirected furor often vocalized as “analytics.” He notes that Yankees fans are angry at GM Brian Cashman for “analytically driven decision-making … that sometimes defies common sense,” but acknowledges “Cashman’s approach would be fine if the Yankees were using the numbers as deftly as, say, the Dodgers .” He praises the Milwaukee Brewers and manager Craig Counsell for “striking the right balance between the objective and subjective” and cites Counsell’s decision to ride starting pitcher Freddy Peralta for a conventional number of innings in … a wild-card Game 2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks that ended the Brewers’ season.

I don’t mean to counter Rosenthal’s argument so much as unpack it in hopes of finding more stable footing for discussions amid Blame Season 2023 and the almost inevitable witching hour of Dave Roberts piloting an unsettled Dodgers pitching staff .

The point Rosenthal, a far more experienced and connected observer than me, is making is important to understand because I think he’s honestly reflecting the feelings of a huge swath of fans and perhaps even people inside the game. He says he’s seeking accountability, but that doesn’t seem quite right. Clearly, Toronto’s move was a bad decision. Virtually everyone watching agreed upon that instantly.

And the blame is easy enough to parcel out: Schneider and the Blue Jays' front office for the plan, Schneider for following said plan despite new circumstances, Kikuchi for pitching worse than he’s capable of and the rest of the Blue Jays for failing to score a single run. No, the issue isn’t with the outcome (again, the Brewers also lost) or even with the logic.

It’s an aesthetic objection masquerading as a strategic or even moral one.

"We had a few different plans in place." Toronto Blue Jays Manager John Schneider on the decision to pull José Berríos early in the game. pic.twitter.com/yC8XYB3NWR — Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 5, 2023

Styles, they say, make fights. Tracing a manager’s decision not to his own free will but to the general usage of data alludes to the fear that there is only one style — and, thus, no more fight. That’s how you wind up railing, 1984-style , against a dystopian vision of the present.

The trouble is, it’s not an accurate vision of the present. The bullpen phone is not an automated feed of instructions based on AI-crunched, in-game projections. Someone picks it up and summons a reliever. Catchers are not relaying algorithmic recommendations to the pitchers via PitchCom. They are making decisions — often through the unquantifiable feel for a hitter’s swings — and asking pitchers to trust their judgment.

Whatever decline in the diversity of macro baseball thought you want to pin on the rising tide of data, technology and information, you’re probably correct. Reams of knowledge that became indisputable — mostly that slugging and strikeouts are the most powerful, most valuable forces in the game — led teams to optimize for a style of play that suffered in entertainment value compared to many earlier versions of the sport. Sabermetric leader Theo Epstein has said as much. MLB has acknowledged as much, and with new rules this season, it took action to at least begin the process of course-correcting.

The same criticism does not stick on the micro level. Teams with similar resourcing and leadership regularly steer toward diametrically opposed paths — with wildly varying results. You can try to make the case that the successful ones emphasize the human touch over the numbers, but you’d be speaking nonsense. The best baseball teams are the ones that help players be the best versions of themselves. Most of them do that by studying data and information, and then taking care to guide players in whatever ways work best for them. There is art in effectively leveraging the science, but there’s no glory in ignoring it.

What makes the playoffs so tense, so chaotic, is the way they pepper baseball’s best teams with situations that can’t be reduced to science . There’s no trial and error. There’s only the trial; an error could mean you’re out. And it’s OK to evaluate that error as a human one, giving credence to both the intention and the information behind it.

This is part of what Schneider said after that Game 2 loss when asked about the decision to pull Berríos: “I think that when you're so diligent with your work and you trust the people that you're working with and the people that you're kind of going to battle with, both on the field and off, you just try to make the best decision that you can for the guys that are on the field to win.”

In this month of legacy-forming snap decisions, managers of similar lineage make inconsistent — and interesting — decisions all the time. Hell, managers of different lineages evolve toward making similar decisions. No matter how much one believes modern front offices alter dugout strategies, stripping everyone involved of credit or shame for the resulting triumph or defeat is tantamount to misconstruing the heart-pounding reveals as a sterile simulation.

Yes, there’s a common framework for understanding and analyzing the game now. Yes, there are numbers and metrics that might require some explanation to the uninitiated. But if you provide 10 smart people with access to the same information and ask how they would deploy, say, the Dodgers’ postseason pitching staff in 2023, you’re probably going to get at least eight different answers.

If Roberts and Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and pitching coach Mark Prior and Co. — architects of a 100-win team — come up with one that falls short against the 84-win Diamondbacks this week, we can examine their decisions and reckon with the unknowables of a 95 mph fastball smashing into a wooden bat. We can highlight their mistakes (within the context that this is an entertainment product) while accepting both their rationale and their humanity. We can analyze and criticize the game as we see it without disavowing the whole enterprise for failing to resemble the actual year 1984.

Blame the manager. Blame the GM. Blame the players. Don’t blame the mere existence of information — which is in use only because so many people care so much about the events at hand.

The fact that there are more people (and database queries) involved in the lead-up to those key moments now — and that some of the styles are extensions of a GM sitting in a suite — doesn’t make them any less thrilling as collisions of tactical ingenuity and athletic execution.

There are plenty of fascinating, intellectually earnest fights to have about postseason baseball. Let’s not waste our punches on a ghost.

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create a stink

to make a strong public complaint

A bump in the road: talking about things that prevent progress

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