One Obvious Move Completed - Analytics Overhauled

[almagest]

7 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Perhaps the White Sox for once should try to "break" the trend. It may lead to getting very valuable talent and lead to on-field advantages. 

It could be a huge competitive advantage if they paid normal industry rates. I wonder if there's collusion amongst teams on this, though.

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

Others who have jobs in baseball can comment, but entry level jobs in baseball are TONS of work, horrible hours and somewhere between low and no pay.

For example, the pay was $500 and an apartment to work for the Red Sox back nearly thirty years ago...as an intern out of grad school from a competitive sports management graduate program.

Turning that down to work for a minor league team with a better title and the ability to generate more salary through sales of tickets, event sponsorships, and billboard and program ads was the wrong choice now looking back.

Edited Monday at 05:42 PM by caulfield12

[nrockway]

10 hours ago, almagest said:

It could be a huge competitive advantage if they paid normal industry rates. I wonder if there's collusion amongst teams on this, though.

Interesting idea re: collusion. My thinking is that we overexaggerate the importance of "analytics" and it doesn't impact winning as much as we think. I'm pretty sure the main "projection" Fangraphs and ESPN use was developed by some high school students. Why isn't there an army of PhD students and post-docs producing baseball advanced stats for free? My thinking is that there isn't much there. Which is to say, I sort of doubt that if teams hired a team of PhD statisticians, they would be able to develop any useful and novel metrics. I think a team of scouts with GEDs are probably better equipped at the job.

There is definitely use in visualizing data for easy digestion by players and staff, ie developing hot/cold zone charts for hitters or showing the trajectory of various pitch types...but that isn't highly-paid work. I don't know what the industry standard is, but I assume it's low.

Then again, there is relatively new data to look at...the Statcast cameras...that could probably tell you a lot. That's probably the competitive advantage, making that data into something useful. I assume the product that Statcast sells already does that though. And does it tell you anything that a hitting coach couldn't? What's the salary of the guy who interprets Statcast data? I can't imagine it's super high.

I think biomechanics...physics generally... and kinesiology are probably more useful fields to apply to baseball than statistics TBH. I also like the Tom House approach of having an illustrious baseball career then doing a PhD and applying it to coaching. An 'analytics' guy like that probably commands a high salary.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

12 minutes ago, nrockway said:

Interesting idea re: collusion. My thinking is that we overexaggerate the importance of "analytics" and it doesn't impact winning as much as we think. I'm pretty sure the main "projection" Fangraphs and ESPN use was developed by some high school students. Why isn't there an army of PhD students and post-docs producing baseball advanced stats for free? My thinking is that there isn't much there. Which is to say, I sort of doubt that if teams hired a team of PhD statisticians, they would be able to develop any useful and novel metrics. I think a team of scouts with GEDs are probably better equipped at the job.

There is definitely use in visualizing data for easy digestion by players and staff, ie developing hot/cold zone charts for hitters or showing the trajectory of various pitch types...but that isn't highly-paid work. I don't know what the industry standard is, but I assume it's low.

Then again, there is relatively new data to look at...the Statcast cameras...that could probably tell you a lot. That's probably the competitive advantage, making that data into something useful. I assume the product that Statcast sells already does that though. And does it tell you anything that a hitting coach couldn't? What's the salary of the guy who interprets Statcast data? I can't imagine it's super high.

I think biomechanics...physics generally... and kinesiology are probably more useful fields to apply to baseball than statistics TBH. I also like the Tom House approach of having an illustrious baseball career then doing a PhD and applying it to coaching. An 'analytics' guy like that probably commands a high salary.

Amazing what you think analyst's do. 

[nrockway]

11 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Amazing what you think analyst's do. 

what do I think they do? 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

13 hours ago, nrockway said:

what do I think they do? 

You cited things at the end of your paragraph that are more valuable than analytics/data when those things themselves are valuable because of the analytical outputs they derive.

[kitekrazy]

15 hours ago, nrockway said:

what do I think they do? 

Live and die by them.  Sometimes gut instinct and watching a player sometimes works better than a stat sheet.

[kitekrazy]

We somehow think this is the holy grail but even the bad teams do the "right" things.

You still need gifted people in decision making and development.  Getz is not one of them.  His only skill might be the JR listens to him. He is the Grifol of GMs.  Only the White Sox promote a person who failed in their previous role.

[Dominikk85]

More important than having a top notch analytics group is having structures that implement the findings.

 

There are 1000s of great baseball analysts out there who can do great work. There are still differences in quality of analytics but the key point is how it is implemented in scouting and coaching.

What makes the really good orgs good is not that they are super cutting edge but that they are very good in communicating and implementing it across the whole Organisation.

I read some posts by drivelines Kyle boddy a couple years ago where he claimed in some orgs reports by the analytics department are put into the bin without being read. Or slightly better but still bad others where the reports are being read and then guy reading it says "cool, that's interesting, now what should I do with it?"

 

What will make or break the sox is not hiring a couple smart guys but having leadership implementing structures that forces everyone to actually implement the stuff.

The sox did hire some smart guys in the past like for example Ryan Johansen who is a biomechanics expert but it clearly wasn't implemented as many of the sox hitters had a groundball, opposite field focused approach with a lot of chase.

When the sox want to do it better this time they need to create better implementation structures and remove structures where old school coaches are laughing off analytics and just continue their way

Edited 10 hours ago by Dominikk85