Nye's Digital Lab is a weekly scribble on creativity at the intersection of AI & Distributed Systems.
This week I'm playing all the positions, and thinking maybe we all might be doing the same pretty soon.
Every night, my kids and I watch the 10 minute recaps of the LA Dodgers on YouTube.
While my kids love the obvious superstars like Shohei Ohtani’s inhuman talent or Freddie Freeman’s grand slams, my favorite player is one with an odd sort of talent.
You may not have heard of Kiké Hernández.
Hernández has played every position except catcher in the majors. On the Dodgers, in 2024 alone, he appeared at seven different positions, even pitching 4⅓ innings in blowouts. His .229 batting average won’t win batting titles, but what Hernández delivers consistently is something far more valuable: the ability to show up wherever manager Dave Roberts needs him, whenever the team needs him.
His adaptability shines brightest in October, when Hernández went from serviceable utility player into postseason hero. Despite regular season slumps, he hit .294 with an .808 OPS in the 2024 postseason, including critical elimination-game home runs. Hernández represents the ultimate utility player:
someone who may never win individual awards but becomes indispensable because of his range.
This concept isn’t new to baseball.
The Oakland Athletics under Billy Beane famously demonstrated the power of assembling utility players over superstars. You may have seen the book (or the Brad Pitt adaption) called “Moneyball.”
Amazon.com: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game: 0352749455567: Lewis, Michael: Books
Rather than chasing expensive free agents like Jason Giambi, Beane used data analytics to find undervalued players who could get on base consistently. With a $44 million budget, the 2002 Athletics competed with teams like the Yankees, whose payroll exceeded $125 million.
The A’s succeeded not by finding hidden superstars, but by creating a team of complementary utility players. It was a system built on adaptability and the understanding that consistent competence across multiple areas often outperforms excellence in one.
The Greek poet Archilochus wrote:
“ The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Philosopher Isaiah Berlin later used this idea to divide thinkers into hedgehogs, who relate everything to a single central vision, and foxes, who draw on wide-ranging experiences.
David Epstein explores this idea in in his book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.” The part that stayed with me was that molecular biology labs with diverse professional backgrounds “were the ones where more and more varied analogies were offered, and where breakthroughs were more reliably produced when the unexpected arose.”
Amazon.com: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (Audible Audio Edition): David Epstein, Will Damron, Penguin Audio: Audible Books & Originals
Essentially, “fox-like” scientists consistently outperformed hedgehogs because when confronted with puzzling information, they drew on their range to make connections.
This range effect is especially valuable in rapidly changing environments, what Epstein calls “wicked domains” where rules are unclear and feedback is delayed. This is where fox’s adaptability becomes invaluable.
The key insight isn’t that breadth always beats depth, but that in uncertain environments, the ability to adapt and apply knowledge across domains becomes a meta-skill that enables survival and success. Range isn’t about knowing many things, it’s about having the cognitive flexibility to connect seemingly unrelated concepts when things become unpredictable.
So here we go again… let’s talk about our favorite disruptive technology and it’s integration into virtually every aspect of work. According to IBM research, up to 30% of hours worked across the US economy could be automated by 2030. The World Economic Forum found that skills necessary to do work are expected to change 70% over the next five years.
AI's integration into the workplace represents one of the most significant technological shifts in generations. This transformation is reshaping not just how we work, but what it means to work in the 21st century-and ushering in an era of human-machine partnership that will define the modern workplace.
While routine tasks like data entry and basic analysis are increasingly automated, uniquely human capabilities become more valuable: creative problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and especially the ability to pick up new skills quickly. Professionals are likely to hold twice as many jobs throughout their careers compared to their predecessors: 20 jobs now versus 11 in 2010!
The most effective organizations are designing workflows that maximize human time on high-value creative activities. AI helps identify future skill needs and enables organizational agility. In this environment, the "Kiké Hernández approach," becomes critically essential.
This creates a fundamental shift in how we think about careers. Instead of asking ...
“What do you want to be?”
we should ask “what do you want to do to help out?”
The baseball team of the future will be populated by utility players who change positions not just between seasons, but potentially (I think) between innings. In creative organizations, we’re already seeing professionals cover multiple roles within single projects.
The future belongs not to superstars who dominate one position, but to utility players who can show up wherever the team needs them, ready to learn, adapt, and contribute. And as a Dodgers fan, on the eve of the post season, I can’t wait to see what Kike does next!
That's it for this time. I do this every week. If you vibe to the ideas I express, consider subscribing or sharing with friends. Thanks for reading!
Nye Warburton is a creative technologist and baseball fan from Savannah, GA. This essay was improvised with Otter.ai, and then refined and edited with Claude Sonnet 4.0.
For more information visit https://nyewarburton.com
The Art of Noise: Information Theory and Chaos in Art, August 16, 2025
Yes, start a company: Advice for the new wave of graduation panic, May 18, 2025
Rethinking Talent for Generative Game Pipelines, December 3, 2023
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Great Article! I have not been immersed in the workforce for quite sometime, and what has emerged is creativity. We need to remember that creative expression is truly what connects us, we are the only species that has this capability. The alarming factor isn’t necessarily that A.I. is capable of taking over so many “jobs”, it is that society has no fallback on how to live without a paycheck. As the Founder of c3 DAO (playing all positions) with the help of A.I. I have been able to create the foundations to support a community without paychecks. Now it’s time to fill the positions.
Thanks for reading. I agree community is critical to support all of us to what's coming. See you on the field!