Question: You might choose some plausible criteria such as players' lifetime batting averages and salaries, the coaches' years of professional experience, and so on.
A player's lifetime batting average is not considered a plausible criteria for anyone.

Answer: no

Question: "You ask him."Nye sat down on a bunk, flipped his hat away, and lay back.
Nye lay back after sitting down and flipping his hat away.

Answer: yes

Question: There could be many influences on what is happening and these influences could interact in nonlinear ways such that a unit of change in the input can be associated with quite different changes in the output, sometimes increasing it, sometimes decreasing it, and sometimes having no discernible effect.
Because of this, it is almost impossible to know what is happening.

Answer:
it is not possible to tell