Front Page: Calculating Clubhouse Chemistry

[Matthew Trueblood]

Five and a half years ago, in previewing the 2014 MLB season, ESPN: The Magazine tried to do the impossible. Leaning on a formula cooked up in conjunction with a couple of university professors, they proposed to quantify and assign value to clubhouse chemistry.It was a good time for that particular project. The quirky and uniquely assembled Boston Red Sox had won the World Series the previous fall, and they weren’t the only notable team in that regard in 2013. The Dodgers were the most expensive team in baseball history, but were rife with cliques and egos. The Athletics repeated as AL West champions, thanks to a bunch of players of similar ages and skill sets, with similarly non-elite pre-Majors pedigrees. Notions that teams were inevitably either more or less than the sums of their parts were thick in the air.

 

While underpinned by ostensibly sound science, the formula didn’t perform especially well in predicting the effects of clubhouse dynamics, and neither the magazine nor any other entity within ESPN publicly revisited the project for 2015. It’s likely that any such systematic effort to pin down interaction effects on player performance will fail, because there’s so much danger of overfitting and generalizations that don’t actually apply.

 

However, the fundamentals of the concept are appealing to anyone who has experienced a long MLB season. There are so many important relationships within every clubhouse, so many ways in which the vagaries of the eight-month campaign can throw things out of balance, that the value of good chemistry is undeniable. The problem is that good chemistry is very hard to reliably reproduce.

 

Nonetheless, it’s worth walking back through the principles of that years-old formula, because as the Twins embark on a tight-rope walk of an offseason, one challenge they face is to retain the propitious balance they crafted off the field. The 2019 Twins, irrefutably, were one of those teams that were better than the sum of their parts. To repeat as AL Central champions in 2020, they’ll need to stay that way.

 

There were three pillars to the system devised by those professors and number-crunchers in 2014: clubhouse demographics, trait isolation, and stratification of performance to pay. The first metric focused on diversity of nationality, race, age, tenure with team, and position (this last, since clubhouses famously divide a bit between pitchers and position players). By and large, more of this kind of diversity was considered better, as long as the groups formed by dissecting the room that way overlapped in sufficient measure.

 

The second was an expression of whether, perhaps because of too much of that diversity, there were players within the room who were left isolated. Were they either shut out of subgroups or unable to identify closely enough with those subgroups to which they did belong?

 

The final factor was about ego. Teams scored best if they fit into the middle range: enough star power to provide clear leadership, but not so much as to have everyone big-timing one another.

 

The 2019 Twins, seen through this prism, were nearly perfect. We can’t replicate the scores the magazine assigned to teams, because the formulas themselves were not published, but we can sketch out a number of ways in which the team was perfectly constructed.

 

Ehire Adrianza, Luis Arráez, Willians Astudillo, and Marwin González are a good place to start. All four of them are Venezuelan. All four bloomed relatively late, though they aren’t close in actual age. All four play multiple positions. They quickly formed a loose but easy and valuable bond. Their lockers, in the Target Field clubhouse, were all in a row, save Arráez’s. On their own, the four formed a valuable subgroup in support of one another, but they’re all personable people, and they each fit smoothly into other groups, as well.

 

González, like Nelson Cruz, Jonathan Schoop, and C.J. Cron, came to the Twins in 2019, and brought with him experience in playoff races and competitive clubhouses. Those four formed their own group. Schoop, who is from Curacao, speaks multiple languages, and has always been known as a good team guy. The second baseman formed easy connections with Jorge Polanco and Miguel Sanó, the Dominican left side of the infield. Fellow Dominican Cruz was a good fit alongside them, thanks to his own love of talking hitting. González was a former teammate of Jason Castro in Houston.

 

Polanco, Sanó, Eddie Rosario, Byron Buxton, and Max Kepler formed a natural subgroup, because of their similar arcs through the Twins system and shared maturation with the parent club. Mitch Garver came along later than any of them, but is a similar age, and has been with the Twins ever since being drafted in 2013.

 

Cron is even closer in age to Garver than is most of the tenured Twins core, is a fellow right-handed hitter, and is also from the Southwest. In fact, most of the roster fell between the ages of 25 and 29, which both limited age-related performance downside and made it easier for the majority of the team to gel.

 

Rosario is from Puerto Rico, as is José Berríos, and the two lockered next to one another. Berríos was chosen in the same draft as Buxton, and has been slotted into the same hierarchy of the organization’s young prizes as the five hitters in the team’s core ever since.

 

Kyle Gibson, though older and on the verge of free agency, has a long-standing connection with Berríos and the rest of that crew. He, Jake Odorizzi, Martín Pérez, and Michael Pineda are all of similar ages, and are at similar stages in their careers—having established themselves, but not cemented their long-term places anywhere.

 

Trevor May fits in with that group to some extent, though he fully immersed himself in relief work in 2019, and he also fit like a glove into the quartet of the team’s most important relievers during the first half. Taylor Rogers, Tyler Duffey, and Ryne Harper are all within two years of each other in age, and all were college draftees who took a long time to find their way to the big leagues.

 

The overlapping groups formed by this assemblage kept anyone from being truly left out. Nor were there any superstars making huge money, or guys who felt they should have been but had been denied that kind of payday. Leaders emerged, but there wasn’t inordinate competition for those roles. The coaching staff, itself a conscientious concoction, fostered all the most advantageous relationships possible within the group, and made their own connections directly to key individuals.

 

Now, Odorizzi, Pineda, Pérez, Gibson, Sergio Romo, Schoop, and Castro are free agents. A few more players are likely to depart via trade or non-tender of arbitration, and the team will try to shore up certain aspects of on-field performance via both trade and free agency. Rearranging those pieces and improving the roster, from a sheer talent perspective, is tantalizingly possible, and even exciting. However, the team will have to undertake it all cautiously, because there’s a real risk that they’ll lose something along the way that made this year’s team great.

 

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[diehardtwinsfan]

I definitely think there's something to chemistry... but winning also cures what ails in some way too... That kind of adversity will bring out the gaps in that armor... 

[Kelly Vance]

jut win baby

 

[Mike Sixel]

Chemistry is almost always a post hoc argument. Do people really think every bad team has bad chemistry, and every good team good? No chance.

[old nurse]

Baseball teams do not stay together. Players move on, players get old.

[old nurse]

 

 

  On 10/29/2019 at 4:40 AM, Mike Sixel said:

Chemistry is almost always a post hoc argument. Do people really think every bad team has bad chemistry, and every good team good? No chance.

I do not think that anyone made that argument

[Craig Arko]

Maybe robotic clubhouse staff is the answer.

[insagt1]

Probably more fun coming to the park when everyone is 'happy' or gets along. That doesn't always translate to success...as some of us can remember those 'battling A's of the 70's. Nobody liked anybody in that clubhouse and they all hated Charlie Finley, the eccentric owner. They won 3 world series.

OTOH, the Orioles of a couple years ago had great clubhouse chemisty. Then that disastrous play-in game loss to Toronto where Buck had his unfortunate brain-cramp. The next season, the O's fell apart and several players commented openly that the atmosphere right in spring training was toxic.Ever since, the O's are now merely a beer league team.

I think Twins had great chemistry this past season. They looked like a happy bunch. They won 101 games.

[Dantes929]

I believe in chemistry but it has nothing to do with race, age, position or experience.   It has to do with individual and collective attitude.    I was on a team once with 2 players I knew to be generally negative people but the rest of the team had positive, upbeat and supportive people and the two negative players bought into it and we had a great season.   The next year we lost a couple of the upbeat players and added a couple of talented but negative players and with the two negative players we already had the balance shifted from upbeat and supportive to sulking, criticizing and finger pointing.  We lost in the first round but who cares?   Its not a team I enjoyed playing with even when we won.   Now a team full of Nick Punto's is not going to beat a team full of Delmon Young's over the long haul but given equal talent the upbeat supportive team will probably beat the sulking fingerpointers.     Does it matter if you fail and you have teammates that say "nice try, you'll get em next time" vs  a negative or no comment at all?   I think it does.   Has nothing to do with diversity of demographics.  It just has to do with are you a good teammate or not.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

  On 10/29/2019 at 4:40 AM, Mike Sixel said:

Chemistry is almost always a post hoc argument. Do people really think every bad team has bad chemistry, and every good team good? No chance.

 

No, I doubt anyone thinks that... but let's not pretend that good/bad chemistry can affect wins and losses either. I'm not sure it can really be quantified in any way, but it's definitely something that can reasonably have an affect.

[Mike Sixel]

It can have an effect for sure, but it's it a necessary ingredient? Can you predict it, until players actually spend time together? Would you get rid of the best player on your team if three guys didn't get along with him?

 

I think it's a big part of the managers job, but adjusting players on the team should be about talent, imo.

[Jham]

This is my biggest issue with the hardest core sabermetrics. There's this snobbish notion that baseball is different. There are many many studies and articles indicating that work place productivity is benefited from collaborative positive work environment, and suffers from toxic negative environments. In a game involving lots of travel and time away from family, where mistakes are televised and reposted on forums and in social media, with few days off and frequent nagging injuries, burn out and fatigue is one of the biggest battles players face. Look at the greenie epidemic rampant in clubhouses before red bull and adderall were things.

 

There is lots of empirical data to pull from. Baseball players are people, last I checked. To ignore science because it's not industry specific is dumb. "But we make widgets, not gadgets." There's literally an entire branch of psychology studying these types of issues, industrial psych.

 

Willfully ignoring human nature in a team sport is ridiculous. And it's frequently led by sabermetricians who say it can't be measured, despite the fact that actual scientists have measured and reproduced results. Go ahead and celebrate team- friendly deals, and ignore player satisfaction. Talk about adding an ace at the deadline, get everyone's hopes up, and come back with 2 relievers no better than the 2 you cut. Every single employer out there knows job satisfaction matters.

[Mike Sixel]

  On 10/29/2019 at 3:53 PM, Jham said:

This is my biggest issue with the hardest core sabermetrics. There's this snobbish notion that baseball is different. There are many many studies and articles indicating that work place productivity is benefited from collaborative positive work environment, and suffers from toxic negative environments. In a game involving lots of travel and time away from family, where mistakes are televised and reposted on forums and in social media, with few days off and frequent nagging injuries, burn out and fatigue is one of the biggest battles players face. Look at the greenie epidemic rampant in clubhouses before red bull and adderall were things.

 

There is lots of empirical data to pull from. Baseball players are people, last I checked. To ignore science because it's not industry specific is dumb. "But we make widgets, not gadgets." There's literally an entire branch of psychology studying these types of issues, industrial psych.

 

Willfully ignoring human nature in a team sport is ridiculous. And it's frequently led by sabermetricians who say it can't be measured, despite the fact that actual scientists have measured and reproduced results. Go ahead and celebrate team- friendly deals, and ignore player satisfaction. Talk about adding an ace at the deadline, get everyone's hopes up, and come back with 2 relievers no better than the 2 you cut. Every single employer out there knows job satisfaction matters.

Do you think people running teams ignore culture? I'd guess winning creates a happy work place more than the people, unless the people are over the top negative, like an outlier.

[Vanimal46]

 

  On 10/29/2019 at 2:06 PM, Dantes929 said:

I believe in chemistry but it has nothing to do with race, age, position or experience.   It has to do with individual and collective attitude.    I was on a team once with 2 players I knew to be generally negative people but the rest of the team had positive, upbeat and supportive people and the two negative players bought into it and we had a great season.   The next year we lost a couple of the upbeat players and added a couple of talented but negative players and with the two negative players we already had the balance shifted from upbeat and supportive to sulking, criticizing and finger pointing.  We lost in the first round but who cares?   Its not a team I enjoyed playing with even when we won.   Now a team full of Nick Punto's is not going to beat a team full of Delmon Young's over the long haul but given equal talent the upbeat supportive team will probably beat the sulking fingerpointers.     Does it matter if you fail and you have teammates that say "nice try, you'll get em next time" vs  a negative or no comment at all?   I think it does.   Has nothing to do with diversity of demographics.  It just has to do with are you a good teammate or not.

 

 

Great post. I had a similar experience on my high school hockey team over the years. There was a player who was very talented, but a horrible influence on the rest of the team. Sure, he could score 1-2 goals a game, but he never passed the puck, never helped out the younger players on the team, and felt entitled to do whatever he wanted. Halfway through the year he got in trouble for underage drinking, and we took a team vote whether to keep him on the team or let him go. We voted to let him go even though he was a top line forward who brought offensive firepower to the team. 

 

That decision unified the team, and while we lost some games that the player could have helped us win, it was a good life lesson to remove negative influences from your life. Ironically the player tried transferring to the cross town rival, but that team also voted not to bring him on board. 

[Harrison Greeley III]

 

  On 10/29/2019 at 3:46 PM, Mike Sixel said:

It can have an effect for sure, but it's it a necessary ingredient? Can you predict it, until players actually spend time together? Would you get rid of the best player on your team if three guys didn't get along with him?

I think it's a big part of the managers job, but adjusting players on the team should be about talent, imo.

 

I used to see it this way. I don't anymore. 

The main thing that threw me off about this whole conversation was reading about how the Astros have proprietary models to evaluate the influence players have on each other. For example, even though Carlos Beltran was a replacement level player productionwise, they credit him for a total of 7 wins in 2017 due to the influence he had on the team and his ability to find pitchers that were tipping. This is talked about in Ben Reiter's 'Astroball' though they were vague on how the evaluations worked. The Twins are trying to replicate whatever it is they do. It's part of what influenced them to get Marwin Gonzalez. There's a reason why the Astros were the primary competition the Twins had for Nelson Cruz. The Twins felt they blew it in 2018 having an aloof clubhouse with too many players in walk years. They made an adjustment and it clearly worked. 

I think the public is most likely to get the weakest, pseudo-science punditry on this topic. The useful stuff that teams are implementing on this topic is probably going to stay private till it's obsolete. 

[mikelink45]

I love the chemistry, but I remember the Oakland A's dynasty and how dysfunctional they were - fighting each other, fighting their own, and beating everyone else. https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/athletics/swingin-highlights-dynasty-all-its-glorious-dysfunction

 

You might also enjoy this book excerpt - https://books.google.com/books?id=2ktODAAAQBAJ&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=baseball+teams+with+dysfunctional+clubhouses&source=bl&ots=Z8KfZT_guc&sig=ACfU3U2lw6wlGvDIgSS869urYT8ibWYIvA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjY3pntgsLlAhUD26wKHYyVBy04ChDoATADegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=baseball%20teams%20with%20dysfunctional%20clubhouses&f=false

 

In the end good clubs win on the field no matter how bad the clubhouse is.  But a good clubhouse on a good team is a great thing.

[Jham]

  On 10/29/2019 at 3:56 PM, Mike Sixel said:

Do you think people running teams ignore culture? I'd guess winning creates a happy work place more than the people, unless the people are over the top negative, like an outlier.

Winning probably correlates with job satisfaction for ball players. But it is almost certainly a 2 way street based, again, on actual studies of workplace satisfaction. Not to mention you don't have control over whether you win or lose. You control your roster, you hope for performance, you factor in luck and hope it translates into wins. The roster is the one thing you control. Clubhouse dynamics have to influence performance because it does in every other industry I know of.

 

Do I think organizations ignore this? Probably not. Do I think some statisticians do? Yes. I just find that part ridiculous because there is lots of data across industries to pull from. Now if you want to say that it's hard to predict chemistry based off our current set of stats, I'd agree. But it absolutely does not mean it isn't important and shouldn't be a major consideration. The analysis just may not be all numbers driven. Smart teams will probably start surveying players and studying team dynamics and personalities. Sounds like some teams already are. But I don't need a stat to tell me that Nelson Cruz and Terry Francona are great leaders likely to bring the average team a few more wins.

[USAFChief]

Not everything that can be counted matters.

 

And not everything that matters can be counted.

[Longdistancetwins]

 

  On 10/29/2019 at 3:53 PM, Jham said:

This is my biggest issue with the hardest core sabermetrics. There's this snobbish notion that baseball is different. There are many many studies and articles indicating that work place productivity is benefited from collaborative positive work environment, and suffers from toxic negative environments. In a game involving lots of travel and time away from family, where mistakes are televised and reposted on forums and in social media, with few days off and frequent nagging injuries, burn out and fatigue is one of the biggest battles players face. Look at the greenie epidemic rampant in clubhouses before red bull and adderall were things.

 

I remember seeing the movie "Moneyball" (I never read the book).  They way they depicted it, those Oakland A's starting winning when the chemistry, confidence (to play a new position), and leadership kicked in.. I was amused how Hollywood negated the book's argument.

[bird]

 

  On 10/29/2019 at 4:42 PM, Harrison Greeley III said:

I used to see it this way. I don't anymore. 

The main thing that threw me off about this whole conversation was reading about how the Astros have proprietary models to evaluate the influence players have on each other. For example, even though Carlos Beltran was a replacement level player productionwise, they credit him for a total of 7 wins in 2017 due to the influence he had on the team and his ability to find pitchers that were tipping. This is talked about in Ben Reiter's 'Astroball' though they were vague on how the evaluations worked. The Twins are trying to replicate whatever it is they do. It's part of what influenced them to get Marwin Gonzalez. There's a reason why the Astros were the primary competition the Twins had for Nelson Cruz. The Twins felt they blew it in 2018 having an aloof clubhouse with too many players in walk years. They made an adjustment and it clearly worked. 

I think the public is most likely to get the weakest, pseudo-science punditry on this topic. The useful stuff that teams are implementing on this topic is probably going to stay private till it's obsolete. 

 

Terrific, insightful post.

 

I think FO's have made qualitative judgments about "character', "leadership" and how they envision a guy affects "chemistry" forever. I mean, how many times can we think back to comments a guy like Terry Ryan made to highlight a player's "makeup"?

 

The new FO has surely articulated and incorporated this qualitative assessment as part of a more highly disciplined process.

 

But as much as teams want to find a way to put a number of this stuff, it's still a qualitative analysis, albeit infused with more science. But hey, not only is there nothing wrong with valuing more than quantitative measurements, it's hard to imagine a well-run organization that doesn't value qualitative judgments.

 

Looking strictly at the sabermetric data to definitively conclude the value of a player is myopic. And since we aren't privy to how much unmeasurable (visible to us anyway) value is assigned to, say, Cruz, or Mauer, all we can rely on is quotes from players and staff telling us if the player did anything to make the players around them better. And even then, beware the open-ended question: "Miguel, how much has Nelson Cruz's incredible leadership and constant mentoring of you meant to you?" 

[insagt1]

maybe they started winning 'again'. In the 70's they were one of the best teams in MLB and they didn't like each other. I lived in the Bay Area for 2 of their 3 WS wins. It was a circus. And their mascot, a mule was named Charlie....absolutely because they hated their owner.

[ewen21]

What is chemistry?  Is it how much they have fun and how happy they are?

 

I don't understand.

 

There seems to be tons of emphasis on "having fun" now and that confuses me.  What about being a professional?  I don't think it is a good thing when you have a manager who talks about how excited he is and how we all play for a chance to get in the World Series as soon as they clinch.  Who celebrates and sprays champage and wants to take in the highs, but pushes off the lows and feels the need to tell everyone he "isn't frustrated at all" when his team goes down like bowling pins when Earl Anthony hits the pocket.

 

It doesn't work for me.  As a player I don't want to hear that, and moreover, I don't want myself and others to be directed by someone who refuses to come to terms with what happened.  So if having fun is what it is all about then I say chemistry means nothing.  If it meant the team being professional and playing for the ultimate goal then you got my attention.

 

I could care less about how much fun these guys have.  This is their career.  Does anyone really care if the plumber had fun getting that hot water heater hooked up?  Does anyone care if the firefighter enjoyed saving that girl trapped in the building?  Does anyone care if the cop had fun getting a dangerous criminal off the street?  What is important when you do a job?  Having fun?

 

Honestly?

[Jham]

  On 10/30/2019 at 10:26 AM, ewen21 said:

What is chemistry? Is it how much they have fun and how happy they are?

 

I don't understand.

 

There seems to be tons of emphasis on "having fun" now and that confuses me. What about being a professional? I don't think it is a good thing when you have a manager who talks about how excited he is and how we all play for a chance to get in the World Series as soon as they clinch. Who celebrates and sprays champage and wants to take in the highs, but pushes off the lows and feels the need to tell everyone he "isn't frustrated at all" when his team goes down like bowling pins when Earl Anthony hits the pocket.

 

It doesn't work for me. As a player I don't want to hear that, and moreover, I don't want myself and others to be directed by someone who refuses to come to terms with what happened. So if having fun is what it is all about then I say chemistry means nothing. If it meant the team being professional and playing for the ultimate goal then you got my attention.

 

I could care less about how much fun these guys have. This is their career. Does anyone really care if the plumber had fun getting that hot water heater hooked up? Does anyone care if the firefighter enjoyed saving that girl trapped in the building? Does anyone care if the cop had fun getting a dangerous criminal off the street? What is important when you do a job? Having fun?

 

Honestly?

Different things motivate different people. But generally speaking, satisfied employees do better work across all industries.

 

It's not just happiness. It's feeling like you belong, that your work is important, that your work makes a difference, that you're good at waist you do, that you are paid fairly, etc. Again, there are tons of studies on this. Companies spend millions to make sure employees enjoy coming to work because it returns even more millions.

[ewen21]

  On 10/30/2019 at 2:35 PM, Jham said:

Different things motivate different people. But generally speaking, satisfied employees do better work across all industries.

 

It's not just happiness. It's feeling like you belong, that your work is important, that your work makes a difference, that you're good at waist you do, that you are paid fairly, etc. Again, there are tons of studies on this. Companies spend millions to make sure employees enjoy coming to work because it returns even more millions.

I was talking about this need for having fun as if is supposed to be compulsory on the job. The cop, teacher, construction worker, mechanic, corrections officer, carpenter, plumber, etc...are required to meet standards and do a job. No one cares about how much fun they are having or what their comfort level is if they don't do professional work.

 

I don't feel "having fun" is the ingredient for success. No study reflects that. Happiness comes from achievement. You watch the team who wins the WS. They're going to have fun and the other team isn't. That's how life works.

[ewen21]

Know your role, be a professional and be accountable. There is plenty of time to party when the job is done.

[Bomba2026]

It's just like your job...if you like your co-workers and boss, you enjoy going in to work. I think the 87 and 91 Twins had the same chemistry.

[ashbury]

  On 10/30/2019 at 10:26 AM, ewen21 said:

What is chemistry? Is it how much they have fun and how happy they are?

No.

 

  Quote

I don't understand. There seems to be tons of emphasis on "having fun" now and that confuses me.

I don't know where you found tons of emphasis on fun. It certainly wasn't mentioned in the article, and the word shows up once in passing within a reply post. 

 

The article went into some detail to describe what I'll summarize as players "being on the same page" about things, by focusing on common ground.

 

Which, to bring in someone else's comment about the Charlie Finley A's, could explain that their chemistry might have been better, or at least more productive, than some folks realized. Uniting around a common enemy, Finley himself in their case, was widely understood as giving them shared motivation.

[wabene]

Absolutely having a positive, upbeat work environment is a boon to productivity especially over the long haul. The baseball season is a huge grind making this dynamic more important. Talent wins no doubt, but I would say no to a player like Puig every time. Winning is the goal and along the way you need to represent yourself properly.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

  On 10/30/2019 at 10:26 AM, ewen21 said:

What is chemistry?  Is it how much they have fun and how happy they are?

 

I don't understand.

 

There seems to be tons of emphasis on "having fun" now and that confuses me.  What about being a professional?  I don't think it is a good thing when you have a manager who talks about how excited he is and how we all play for a chance to get in the World Series as soon as they clinch.  Who celebrates and sprays champage and wants to take in the highs, but pushes off the lows and feels the need to tell everyone he "isn't frustrated at all" when his team goes down like bowling pins when Earl Anthony hits the pocket.

 

It doesn't work for me.  As a player I don't want to hear that, and moreover, I don't want myself and others to be directed by someone who refuses to come to terms with what happened.  So if having fun is what it is all about then I say chemistry means nothing.  If it meant the team being professional and playing for the ultimate goal then you got my attention.

 

I could care less about how much fun these guys have.  This is their career.  Does anyone really care if the plumber had fun getting that hot water heater hooked up?  Does anyone care if the firefighter enjoyed saving that girl trapped in the building?  Does anyone care if the cop had fun getting a dangerous criminal off the street?  What is important when you do a job?  Having fun?

 

Honestly?

Chemistry is not a synonym for happiness.

 

The question I'd ask is if you've ever worked in a toxic environment. I certainly have. I know what it's like to absolutely dread Monday morning. Perhaps you're lucky in that you haven't, but I don't think baseball is different in that capacity, and I don't think winning is a simple cure for all of it either. Winning helps sure.. but a good environment also helps winning...

 

Using your examples, do you think a plumber that hates his/her job makes more or less mistakes? Do you think that firefighter who hates his job might lose a bit of that will to save the trapped girl? Do you think that cop might get frustrated and take it out on the perp potentially giving the perp undeserved freedom or a nice payday later on?

 

A good work environment will affect production. The question is how much.

[ewen21]

A good work environment can be one that is serious and businesslike. Dancing in the clubhouse might promote "chemistry" but I don't feel there needs too be too much else beside respect and professionalism.