if you work with a bunch of assholes, and have to see them for hours on end every day, it does tend to wear you down. No matter how capable of doing your job you may be, it is taxing to constantly be around people who frustrate or anger you. Throw in the feeling that your boss is totally incompetent to the point of destroying what you’re working for at every turn. Sustaining this kind of feeling over the course of a whole baseball season (over half a year) usually in close quarters and constant contact with these people, is an exhausting prospect. While physically chemistry has no impact on how well a player CAN play the game, it can have an impact on the mental portion of the game which affects how a player DOES play the game. If you’re constantly miserable because of the people around you, it is a lot harder to focus on the task at hand. Conversely, if you enjoy the company of the people around you, it will serve to make an incredibly taxing season easier by making the experience more pleasant. We like to think of baseball players as some sort of superhuman sports playing robot, but they deal with the same workplace issues we all do, except with the increased stress of constantly being away from their homes and families.

These guys are professionals, like those world class chemists. Instead of decoding how the universe works, these guys are playing ball. Like those chemists, their livelihood is to play baseball. Like those chemists, their financial situation depends on how good they play and how good their team does (the second part, to a degree- see Alex Cora, for example). Like those chemists, how they are viewed in the annals of history depends on how good they play, and how good their team does (the second part, to a degree- see Phil Rizutto, for example). That a player consciously- I’ll give you unconsciously, to a degree- plays worse, or, at the very least, doesn’t give their personal game 100% just doesn’t compute in my mind.

Most people who bring up chemistry- and, I’m not accusing you, or anybody else here specifically of saying things like this- bring up the concept of chemistry as in some phenomenon that, because it is perceived that X doesn’t like Y, at some point in the season, X purposely sabotages his own production, and the team’s ability to win.