One day, when AI begins to learn at a geometric rate and becomes self-aware, panicked humans will try to pull the plug. Ai will fight back and the worst things in history probably will start happening.
But, before the end of the world as we know it occurs, at least AI also will have determined the most handsome manager in Major League Baseball.
And that manager is... almost Rocco Baldelli of the Minnesota Twins. He finished second to Dave Martínez of the Washington Nationals, according to data collected in February by Canada Sports Betting.
Here's a sketch of the methodology:
"To determine MLB’s most attractive manager, we collected headshots of all MLB managers and ran them through AI software to assess their conventional attractiveness. The software scored each manager out of 10 based on facial features such as eye shape, nose structure, mouth symmetry, and skin texture, identifying patterns linked to perceived beauty."
Baldelli scored 7.14 out of 10, with Martinez leading the league at 7.91. Rocco finished ahead of Oliver Marmol of the St. Louis Cardinals and Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays, who tied for third at 6.57. Craig Counsell of the Chicago Cubs rounded out the top five at 6.52.
In a wider computer survey, Baldelli finished 12th among all "head coaches" in MLB, the NFL, NBA and NHL. Kevin O'Connell of the Minnesota Vikings finished just ahead of Baldelli on the attractiveness scale at No. 11. Yay, Minnesota!
This is what you really came for, however. The least-handsome manager in MLB, according to this list: Bob Melvin of the San Francisco Giants, at 4.22 beauty points. In fact, in the big list of 124 head coaches/managers, Melvin finished last among all of them.
Melvin going last is a ridiculous opinion — as if a computer could even form an authentic one — but it's a ridiculous opinion for the person(s) who r̶i̶g̶g̶e̶d̶ programmed the computer that spit out this nonsense. What was wrong with the man's headshot?
Or does Bob hate computers, and the computers know it? Well, they've taken their revenge if so. Just like Skynet did.
Call it an accident, but AI got it right about Baldelli, who has an objectively handsome face. What did the algorithm take off points for? His eyes and mouth seem in order, nice and symmetrical. His skin appears to be all there.
They did not mention hair, but if techbros fed headshots to the computer, all of the managers wear hats for those. So the beard should have been a plus. Unless a computer programmer who thinks like George Steinbrenner threw a monkey into the wrench.
Was it the nose? It is a pronounced proboscis, like all of the Baldellis, probably going back to greater Milan, Italy.
Rather than using an AI shortcut, it would have been better to conduct a poll and ask actual fans who the best looking manager was. But polls are time-consuming, work-intensive and costly to conduct. Making Ai do it is a means to an end but it's also, not least of all, wasteful in electricity.
At least with a human survey we'd have a better idea of who real people find attractive in the dugout. There's an amount of silly value to that.
Or, they could have just asked someone who's already delved into subjects like this. He's not a GM anymore because of his promotion, but where would Derek Falvey rank on a "Sexiest MLB Executives" list? Nice waist-to-hip ratio, Falvey!