I think, at least in baseball, the culture has come around to the importance of statistics and numbers in the game. The fact that Silver has a decent track reco

I think, at least in baseball, the culture has come around to the importance of statistics and numbers in the game. The fact that Silver has a decent track record in his analysis and that sabermetrics has been showing some positive results probably make him a welcome voice in ESPN's baseball programming. Numbers are a fun thing to show a viewer and to make comparisons with and I think ESPN is coming around to that (they developed their own QB Rating for football a few years ago). That said, it also makes him an interesting counter to some sports pundits when there are invariably differences between the numbers and perception of players and teams. This will make for some good television. Heck, ESPN just started a show called "By the Numbers" a few months/years ago, so I think there really is a move to numbers-based analysis in sports. The key is just making digestible to the general public, which Silver has been very good at on 538.