Discretion Is Advised
Why don't we keep secrets anymore?
The New York Yankees began the MLB season tying the MLB record with 15 home runs in the first three games. They scored 36 runs in those games, a usual output for a baseball team, but their secrets were soon exposed. Several of the Yankees players use torpedo bats. A torpedo bat brings more wood and mass to the spot where contact is made most for a particular hitter. It takes your typical bat and makes it resemble a bowling pin.
Until this season, the Yankees had an MIT physicist on their payroll, Aaron Leanhardt, who crafted the bat. He worked with hitters on their on-field performance and preparation using quantitative information. They had an aha moment when players realized they weren’t hitting the ball with the fattest part of the bat. It began a science experiment. Leanhardt crafts a design, players demo it and provide feedback, and he incorporates the input into the next iteration. It was a multi-year project culminating in their first three games this year.
It is safe to say the experiment has worked thus far. The Yankees became the first team to homer on each of a game’s first three pitches. Three batters, three pitches, and three home runs. They lead the league in runs scored per game by over a run and average almost eight a game.
Many question the legality of the bats insinuating the bats are allowed because the Yankees use them. People could argue for days about the legality, but how did the secret get out? Wouldn’t the Yankees want to keep this competitive advantage under wraps?
The advantage became public when Michael Kay, the Yankees play-by-play announcer, noticed the unusual shape. A man, whose salary is paid by the broadcast network the New York Yankees own, let the world know. It began a rush of franchises trying to get torpedo bats for their players. Two days later, Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds had a career performance with two home runs and seven RBIs on his first night using it. The influence of the bats remains to be seen, but why would the Yankees even murmur a peep about it? Imagine the competitive advantage they could maintain for a team that hasn’t won the World Series in 15 years.
The age of hyper-access makes everyone want to shout, “Look what I did!” and tell the world how they were the first to discover something at the expense of profits or secrecy. You aren’t left wondering about a person or an idea because if you want to understand something, the secrets are spilled everywhere for you to see. Discretion is no longer advised. It is discouraged.
Day in the Life blogs epitomize the performative nature of life everything is required to be exposed. It used to be sacred. The people you looked up to showed you how they lived, but only a peep. They peeled back the curtain unveiling a sliver of what hid behind before shutting you out, leaving you hankering for more. Now, they show you walking to their car, kissing their wife, and every other minute detail. You feel as if you spent the whole day with someone but only watched a 60-second video of them through a screen. Personal lives became an oxymoron when the norm became to cast our lives for strangers on the internet to see.
The irony might be that it comes from me, the person who writes once a week and shares many personal anecdotes. However, there's always an option and levels to it. The world doesn’t need to know about our relationship issues, hear our opinion on everything, know all our baggage, and our idea for the next millionaire business–build it and take that money to the bank. It is not to say you can’t share the advantage, but it is better to share the leverage after the competitive advantage is locked in.
It is fine to stay quiet and let the mystery build. Some squander the riches by not doing this, not being able to shut up. Society has tried to convince us that it is better to broadcast it to the world than profit in mystery, but I can’t see how that pays off in the long run. Everyone once kept all competitive advantages under wraps. The rich and wealthy used to be elusive and mysterious.
You don’t hear about people like Daniel Ludwig anymore, a billionaire who was one of the wealthiest tycoons of his day. He let the people wander about him with his reclusive lifestyle. He avoided the press at all costs and once charged a photographer on the streets of New York when he tried to take a picture of him. The photographer got away before Ludwig could wrestle the camera from him. He desired to keep a low profile. The appeal lay in the unknown. You got small crumbs like the one interview he gave in his lifetime to Fortune magazine, and it only left you wanting more.
It’s a thrill when you get just enough satisfaction that leaves you craving more or discover something new and peel back the layers. Think about when we were kids and the movie said, “viewer discretion is advised.” The intrigue ballooned. If anything, now you have to see the movie, even if your parents say no. Secrecy breeds mystery. Mystery produces intrigue.
It remains to be seen what happens with The Yankees and their bats. Imagine if they were eliminated from the playoffs on the back of an opposing player's performance with his torpedo bat. Oh, the irony. Building in public became the norm the last few years, but it has shifted. Secrets must be guarded. The world is only getting more competitive, discretion is advised.
-Scantron
I appreciate you being here.
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