Fangraphs: Mike Matheny: Saber-friendly Cardinal

Basic Gut Instinct: Flush seduces. Sabermetrics kills.

On his ability to effectively utilize advanced metrics: “I know Bill James. I’ve done my share of research and realize that there is an advantage to it. Now, I believe it’s also a sifting process, and I’ve made it very clear to those guys — overwhelm me at first, bring me what you think is pertinent and I will be able to sift through it and tell you that a lot of this doesn’t matter to me, but this is what makes sense. I want them to have a voice to say that this is what I believe is important, and this is why. If I can filter that through, maybe it can be something that’s passed on to certain guys. But once again, to blanket that over the entire team, I think you’d be setting some guys up for failure.”

On making data-driven decisions and thinking outside the box: “I’m willing to do anything if it gives us a better chance to win. I’ll take whatever information I get. That’s really the long and short of it; it’s really no more complex than that. If something becomes available to me that gives us a competitive edge, I’ll be all over it, and it wouldn’t matter what the repercussions are from the powers that be. I’m going to do whatever I think is right and what gives us the best chance to win.

“For me, first and foremost is gut instinct. Second is understanding the players. There are things that statistical analysis can’t help with, and the state of the individual players is going to rate really high with me. But is statistical data going to play into every decision? I would say yes. I want to make an educated decision with everything I do.”