This column comes to you with the assistance of a reader, Bob Russell. Without his contribution, it might not exist.

“Were you on vacation when Red Sox owner John Henry spoke out about the team’s past over reliance on sabermetrics?” Russell wrote in an e-mail a couple of weeks ago. “He did that last week … I have been waiting for you to jump on that and run with it. Check it out.”

I was not on vacation, I replied, but I must have been asleep because I missed that development, a most intriguing one in the analytics field. I assured my alert reader I would look into it and I have, finding more than I expected.

What I found most interesting was the acknowledgment of some baseball people that while they believe analytics have created important information, their practitioners forget that human beings play the game and offer intangibles that are also important, can’t be ignored and can’t be quantified with a fancy formula.

My problem with the monsters of metrics is that baseball must be viewed their way or no way, that theirs is the only way and whoever doesn’t accept their way doesn’t know baseball.

The analytics debate has consumed Major League Baseball. It has led to the firing and hiring of general managers, meaning even owners have become involved in the debate.

One example: In October 2007 Bill DeWitt Jr., one of the best club owners in the business, ended Walt Jocketty’s 13-year run as the St. Louis Cardinal’s general manager because they disagreed over DeWitt’s desire to enhance the team’s use of analytics.

Jocketty’s end came even though under his guidance the Cardinals won six division titles, including three in his last four years; tied for first a seventh season, gaining a wild-card spot in the playoffs, and won the 2006 World Series. In eight seasons since Jocketty’s departure, in the analytics-embellished era, the Cardinals have won four division titles, two wild-card berths and the 2011 World Series. They lost the 2013 World Series.

Take your pick, but the Cardinals just seem to have a winning organization, no matter what system they use.

When I spoke with DeWitt Friday and mentioned the debate over analytics, he said, “There’s not quite the debate there had been.” The debate existed in the early 2000s when the Cardinals were drawn to metrics, DeWitt said, but now all 30 teams are engaged, some more than others.

“We had a pretty traditional system,” DeWitt said, “and we valued the scouts. But we were able to add information. Analytics, I thought, were helpful in doing the best job we could do in the draft. You can’t do a good job without scouts, but adding analytics on player information is important.”

If World Series championships determine the success of analytics, results are mixed. The Boston Red Sox, whose owners hired Bill James, the analytics guru, the first year they owned the team (2002), won three World Series in a 10-year period after winning none in 86 years. But the San Francisco Giants, a scout-oriented team, won three in five years.

The Red Sox, though, have finished in last place in the American League East three of the last four years, and those failures didn’t sit well with John Henry, the team’s principal owner. A month ago he disclosed that the Red Sox would rely less on analytics than they had in the past.

“Perhaps there was too much reliance on past performance and trying to project future performance,” Henry said. “That obviously hasn’t worked in three of the last four years.” Asked how he came to this conclusion, Henry said, “Results.”

He added, “I spent at least two months sort of looking under the hood, and came to the conclusion that we needed to make changes. One of the things that we’ve done — and I’m fully accountable for this — is we have perhaps overly relied on numbers, and there were a whole host of things.”

In addition Henry cited his hiring of Dave Dombrowski as president of baseball operations. Dombrowski, who was Henry’s general manager when he owned the Florida Marlins, promoted Mike Hazen to the post of Red Sox general manager.

“We have a very hands-on president of baseball operations and a general manager who worked extremely well together. We have made significant changes. The biggest thing is players on the field have to perform.”

Dombrowski undoubtedly influenced Henry’s thinking. He has never been among the most enthusiastic users of analytics, and it makes sense that he would have a major say in how the Red Sox operated since Henry hired him only two weeks after Detroit’s owner Mike Ilitch foolishly fired him last August.

Professional scouts rejoiced upon hearing Henry’s announcement. With the rise of analytics, they have seen their work belittled. With the publication of Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball” and the subsequent film adaptation, scouts have been ridiculed, more for their nonathletic appearance than their evaluation ability.

“Finally,” a scout told the Boston Globe, “someone who realizes that human beings play the game, not numbers, data.” Joe Maddon, the Chicago Cubs’ manager, didn’t take sides on the scouting vs. analytics issue, but he made some points about his first baseman, Anthony Rizzo, that showed the importance of knowing the person and not just his WAR ranking.

“He is a great teammate,” Maddon said of the 26-year-old Rizzo. “This guy gives his time to everybody. This guy is positive to everybody he comes in contact with. He’s absolutely about team. He’s willing to carry the message of the organization and the group.”

The metric hasn’t been concocted that measures the sorts of things Maddon was talking about, but they help a team win games and scouts can spot those non-quantifiable attributes.

George Brett, the Hall of Fame third baseman and Kansas City vice president of baseball operation, recently commented on the poor pre-season projections assigned the Royals. Why, he was asked, are the Royals to outperform the projections by a lot. Last year they were projected to have one of the worst won-lost records in the majors, and they won the World Series.

“It’s the intangibles,” Brett said, speaking of players’ abilities that can’t be quantified. “They know how to play the game of baseball. They’re very aggressive on the bases. There are so many stats in baseball; I don’t even know what half of them mean. But you know what stats don’t do? It doesn’t measure brain and it doesn’t measure heart. That’s what this team is. We play smart and we have a big heart. As a result, we’ve been successful the last two years.”

Now there’s an idea for the metrics monsters to work on – coming up, say, with BAR – brains above replacement.

MLB SI, YANQUIS NO

Playing an exhibition game in Havana in 1999, the Baltimore Orioles were the only Major League Baseball team to play in Cuba for decades before Tampa Bay played there last week in a game that was attended by President Barack Obama.

However, if not for then Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the New York Yankees would have been the first team to play there in 1977.

Fidel Castro had invited the Yankees to play in Cuba, and the Yankees were ready to go. But Kuhn wouldn’t let them go. He said a major league team could play in Cuba, but it would have to be an all-star team.

George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner, declined to comment on Kuhn’s action, marking one of the few opportunities Steinbrenner passed up to criticize Kuhn. However, Gabe Paul, the team president, said, “I do not agree with the commissioner’s position.”

And Manager Billy Martin said, “The commissioner might get us in a war.”

No war ensued, and no game was played in Cuba for 22 more years.