Complexity Lessons from Outside the Game

Complexity Lessons from Outside the Game

Scouting and development don’t follow recipes. There’s no step-by-step guide. Too many variables. Too many moving parts. One player grows into his frame. Another breaks down. One adjusts to failure. Another folds. Same inputs, different outputs.

That’s complexity. And it isn’t unique to baseball.

In business, complex systems show up everywhere. Supply chains. Markets. Organizations. Leaders who expect straight-line results usually get blindsided. The best know they’re managing probabilities, not certainties.

Engineering is the same. Build a bridge, the math looks clean. But materials flex, weather shifts, people use it in ways no model predicted. The system adapts, or it fails.

Player evaluation fits right in that category. Projection isn’t an equation—it’s a judgment. Data provides still frames. Scouting adds the story. Development lives in the gray space where both intersect.

The takeaway? Stop looking for formulas. Winning organizations don’t reduce complexity; they respect it. They build processes that bend, not break. They value evaluators who can weigh information, not just collect it.

In the end, the question isn’t whether complexity exists. It’s whether your organization is built to work inside it.