All professional athletes are insanely talented, otherwise they wouldn't be pros.  I seriously think that a lot of what separates them is mindset and attitude.  Call me crazy, but I think when you get a bunch of guys believing in themselves, their teammates, and their coaches, a shift in attitude also occurs.  The whole thing takes on a new meaning for the players.  This is a tricky thing to describe, but I think this new meaning shifts the attitude of the players, and allows them to focus and think differently especially in high pressure situations.  There is a very real qualitative change in the way they approach the game, which even if seemingly tiny, could have an enormous impact in high pressure situations, and be the difference in a game.

There is a reason that teams go from good to great, and it directly relates to the ability to create what we call chemistry.  Maybe it isn't that the guys like each other, but it is about making a team out of players, and pointing them in the right direction.  It's not quantified by stats and numbers, but it is the exact reason that I was happy when Ozzie got here, and I was happy with the moves they made last year.  Kenny put together the team Ozzie could manage.  Bringing in Manny or Sheffield would be a terrible move for this team.  Losing Konerko and Podsednik would also be equally terrible in my opinion because they are key components to what Ozzie does.

To this I would add bringing in JI
JIM THOME was a great move because of who he is and how he plays (especially if he statys healthy), but it still hurt to lose Aaron because of things like this.

Bottom line is that relationships matter.  They play a large role in how we see ourselves and ultimately how we see the world.  Whether we like it or not, humans are social beings, and to think that relationships on a baseball team don't affect how that team performs is a laughable idea.

For the most part, "chemistry" is an extremely fluid dynamic system that is literally impossible to quantifiy because there are so many variables involved and they are constantly changing.  For this reason I'm not surprised that the stat-heads don't llike the notion of chemistry.  They tend to focus on mostly static quantifiable data and project meaning onto the numbers because they get to feel all serious and superior because they are being objective and scientific. The truth is that with Quantum Theory, String Theory, Chaos Theory, and Relativity; "science" has realized we can never be completely objective, and that it's meaningless, disengenuous, and possibly even dangerous to do so.

With that being said, I have no problem with the stats and the sabers.  I think they're interesting, and the more I learn about them, I think they can be useful in terms of understanding baseball from a quantitative perspective, but I also think they're only part of the puzzle.  In the end, to me it seems ludicrous to decry qualitative variables and there effects, one of which is "chemistry".

There's a lot more I could say about this, but I think it's enough for now.  Sorry this is so long.