The Answer is, Unfortunately, Blowing in the Wind

I’ve long said that the only true meritocracies in this country are sports and standup comedy, and this article about hopeful new metrics in baseball have my spidey senses tingling that it may not be that way much longer with sports:

If WAM can measure this for homers, perhaps they can measure it for outfield fly balls, as well. Being able to say a fly ball had been pushed however many feet from its natural trajectory is at least theoretically within grasp. Eventually, Outs Above Average, the Statcast defensive metric for outfielders, might be able to have wind factors in it. But it is a tricky thing to consider. Tom Tango, chief data architect for Major League Baseball, pointed out in an exchange on X with former MLB outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. that the wind changes throughout the play, so there is often no prevailing wind that can be controlled for in the numbers. As for the lights, dome ceilings, catwalks and the oddities of different outfield walls? Those are meaningful, but hard to capture specifically. Tango has shown awareness of how something like the sun can affect a player’s defensive stats in the past. 

I'll see how it goes but it reeks a little bit of year-end corporate meetings wherein they just move whatever numbers around to hit whatever goalposts they’re also moving around so they can rationalize to you that they kicked ass all year.