This analytics crap annoys me like hell. I'm all for having more data and information and all that, but in the end this is still a game played by humans. So please, ease back on the computer stuff and look at what's actually happening on the field.
Baseball has showed us so many times it's impredictability. It's one of the beauties of the game! A game that has been played for almost 150 years and we still see situations that have never happened before. It's amazing in that way. A manager has to have some balls to decide when to go with the data and when to follow his gut. We're animals after all, use your instincts. How many times have we seen in this past decade, games that were lost due to the 'follow the data' line? Have more games been won than lost? That would be an interesting study.
While the game has changed, it's still basically the same in many regards. So, just don't try to reinvent the wheel.
Your catcher and shortstop need to be good defensively before anything else. Case in point, when Jeter and Posada's defense deteriorated, the Yankees stopped winning WS. That's not an opinion, it's a statement of facts.
Your best hitters do not need to have an absurd number of HR for your team to do well. They just need to not be streaky and go from scorching hot to ice cold in two games. Again, look at the '98 Yankees.
Then, you don't need 5 Aces on the mound. You need 2-3 very good guys and the rest of the rotation just not suck and eat as many innings as they can so that the bullpen isn't constantly overworked or trying to fix the starter's screwups.
And in the end you need a couple of lucky breaks here and there. For example, you need a guy who hits .200 to come up with a key hit in the postseason that nobody saw coming. And you need a couple of reliable bullpen arms (Let's face it, they only made one Mariano Rivera).
There, I fixed it.