That's my job, that's what I do every day. I am an analytics professional, mind you not in the field of sports, unfortunately . So believe me, I know the value of analytics, so you could say I am more than a little biased towards stats and analytics .disclaimer: I do not believe that the conclusions based off of MLB data are necessarily applicable to softball.
I don't think you are giving the mathematicians enough credit. Those guys (and gals) live this. They spend all day every day doing detailed regression analysis of thousands to millions of outcomes in every scenario that can possibly be tracked.
I'd bet that they have a very good understanding of pitch count, long AB's and the resulting outcomes after a 2 out homer vs the 2 out seeing eye 72mph grounder.
Same thing with bunting late in the game. They very well know how often people score from 2nd with 1 out vs scoring from 1st with no outs. And I am pretty sure they take into account how often 1 run scores vs multiple runs and how often 1 run is enough to win vs needing more than 1.
I am totally on board with hating the Homer / K / W mentality of the current game. I also believe as someone mentioned above, that playoff baseball is different than the regular season. As a Yankee fan, I've seen more than enough of the Playoff Post Strike out conga line back to the dugout. But you have to get to the play-off first to have that be a problem.
However there are intangibles like what I mentioned above. Somethings cannot be quantified. Pitchers mental and physical impact, fielders standing cold in the field for a long inning full of walks and foul balls, the effects on a series of wearing down the starting pitcher and getting into the bullpen early.