No longer working in baseball, former Cubs GM Ed Lynch decries analytics: 'I'm not bitter ... just confused'

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — They are gathering for the first week of Major League Baseball spring training camps in Arizona and Florida, with players unpacking their bags, executives setting up their computers and coaching staffs making their schedules.

Meanwhile, Ed Lynch is driving his Jeep across the Phoenix metropolitan area looking for houses.

Few executives in the game today have the experience or expertise of Lynch, 63. His résumé checks off every box imaginable.

And, somehow, there’s no job in the entire industry for him?

Baseball has been Lynch’s life for the past 40 years, but if the game no longer wants you, you can’t force anyone to hire you.

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So he stopped sending out resumes, contacting friends in the business, put away his radar gun, tossed aside his scouting reports, and pursued a new occupation.

He is now a realtor, employed by Keller Williams Arizona Realty, and working for Rich Barker, the same guy Lynch released in 1999 with the Cubs.

“Let me tell you something,’’ Lynch says, “you think baseball is analytical? These people. It’s unbelievable man. All of my stuff is all analytics, IT stuff."

Lynch, taking a bite of pizza after another 10-hour day, laughs, realizing that he's gone from one analytical-obsessed industry to another.

He can’t get away.

But while Lynch grew frustrated waiting for someone in baseball to hire him, he refuses to speak ill of the game that gave him everything.

“I’m not bitter,’’ Lynch tells USA TODAY Sports, “not at all. I’m just confused.’’

Lynch’s mind drifts back to 1994 when he came the Cubs’ general manager, replacing Larry Himes. He thought he had all of the answers, too.

“When you get the reigns, you want to do it your way,’’ Lynch said, “and I did it my way. I had a vision of what I wanted to do. Certain people were very capable and productive in their positions, but didn’t fit in with the vision I had. So I fired some people that didn’t deserve to be fired.

“So, I totally respect these young guys who have a chance to do it. But you have to look in the mirror and say, 'Okay, where’s my experience? Where are my weaknesses?' ... You hire people that address those weaknesses.

“The game now is getting so heavily loaded with research and development. You got to remember you have to have boots on the ground, and I think maybe they overlook that. When you’re dealing with human beings man, you can’t go 100% science. You can’t. They’re human beings. They’re unpredictable. You can’t extrapolate their behavior and turn it into numbers. You just can’t do it.

“Numbers don’t measure what's in a guy’s soul.’’

Lynch, who last was a full-time scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, wonders what happened to the game he knew. He remembers being in the starting rotation on that awful 1983 New York Mets team, led by Tom Seaver. He remembers a 42nd-round draft pick, Keith Hernandez, being the best he ever played with.

Now, he hardly recognizes the game.

“Analytically, I don’t know where Keith Hernandez would measure now,’’ Lynch says. “Did he have launch angle? How was his exit velocity? But I’ll tell you what, that man played the game with style, and he played it to win. I don’t believe any defensive metrics because they don’t tell me about range. It takes eyeballs to measure defensive prowess, and Keith had it in spades. ...

“The focus should be on winning the game, not winning statistical events. Strikeouts per nine innings. Velocity. Spin rate. It’s all ancillary. The bottom line is winning the game. I don’t care if you’re throwing just knuckleballs, just win the game.

“When I was pitching, we would rest our arms until it came game-time, and then we would abuse our arms. We did everything we could to get ready to just brutalize ourselves when the game started. If I had to throw 150 freakin’ pitches, I was going to throw 150 freakin’ pitches. The only thing that mattered to us was winning the game.

“These days, it’s all backwards.’’

Lynch, who resigned as Long Island’s pitching coach after two months last summer with back problems, insists there is absolutely no resentment.

He made it to the big leagues as a 22nd-round draft pick who signed for $2,000 as a senior in college. He pitched alongside Hall of Famer Tom Seaver and Mets greats Dwight Gooden, Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez. He became general manager of one of the most iconic franchises in the game with the Cubs. He made history by hiring Don Baylor as the organization's first African-American manager.

He may have never won a World Series ring, and the Cubs earned a playoff berth just once in his six-year stint, but he never cheated, either.

There were no investigations. No suspensions. Nscandals. He walks away from the with his dignity fully intact.

“I’m not saying you have to have played the game to have respect for the game, and I wasn’t perfect,’’ Lynch says, “but you ought to know there are certain lines you don’t cross. There’s an integrity surrounding what is one of America’s greatest institutions. And that’s the game of baseball.

“The game meant everything to me.

“It always will.’’