Even in baseball's earliest days, the goal of the game was the same as it is now. Hitters try to hit the ball as hard as they can, and pitchers try to prevent hitters from hitting the ball hard. It is a simple theorem that spans eras and is familiar to anyone who has swung and felt the immense satisfaction of a ball meeting a bat's sweet spot. In that moment, all is well with the world.
It is understandable that some fans of baseball are turned off by analytics -- by the complicating deluge of numbers, the brand names assigned to things that just were, the quantifying of things like that perfect swing.