THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Seems like he has potential, but you need a hard-core sabermetrician in the organization that a manager can work with.  I don’t know that the Nats have one.  I’ve seen nothing in the way that he manages or the way that the Nats conduct business in the FO that suggests that they know what they are doing, sabermetric-wise.

As long as managers think that this is “using statistics or sabermetrics” to their advantage, they have a LONG way to go:

We try to be on top of individual matchups that show a real significant edge to one side, especially for late in games.

Manny manages as if he stopped reading with Baseball Prospectus ‘99.  When the Nats invite Rich Becker to camp, we’ll know for sure.

If you want to track something really funky, look at the way he used intentional walks in ‘07 (hardly ever) with how he used them in the first half of this past year (allllll the time).  I wonder what he saw to make him change his mind and turn into Bobby Cox?

The Nationals had a guy at the PITCHf/x Summit in May, so it doesn’t surprise me that their manager is aware of it.  Aware of it and using it to anything close to its full capabilities is another thing, of course.  I don’t think any team is doing anywhere close to that yet, not even the ones with stat-head reputations.

One of the reasons that teams are probably not yet using pitch f/x to anywhere near the level of value it could provide is that it takes a lot of time and a lot of people.  Teams, even the sabermetric ones, are still operating as if having a “stathead” or two is a necessary evil.  If I were in charge of a team, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have a team of at least 6 sabermetricians, statisticians, and programmers.

I think it needs to presented to them in less of a stathead way.

Team have been charting pitches, on paper, for a hundred years. Pitch f/x does it electronically. Present it that way. Generate reports that look like what’s been done with pitch charts, then work in the more advanced stuff.

Brian, for that to work, someone would have to figure out how to classify pitches in an automated fashion with high accuracy.  Nobody has done that yet.  The MLB system gets about 85% right, and it’s the best public system.  My unpublished system-in-progress gets about 95% right.  That isn’t good enough for teams to replace charting pitches on paper.  I can provide better information than the paper charts by looking over the data manually, but that goes back to what MGL said about clubs needing a team of sabermetricians (just like they have a team of scouts).

Mike, I meant that’s what the saber guy in the front office needs to do before giving it to the manager or GM - to make it less intimidating

Ah, that makes sense.  But I think the saber guy in the front office is way overworked to be able to handle all of the different avenues that fall under “stats” and probably doesn’t have time to dive into PITCHf/x data to the depth he needs to.

There needs to be a team of around 3 persons just for pitch f/x alone.

Approximately how many people per organization would be considered “front office,” in general?

15 to 25. 

Exec Level:

VP, GM

Director Level:

Asst. GM (often x2 or x3), Amateur Scouting Director, Pro Scouting Director, International Scouting Director (not everyone has this), Director of Player Development, Director of Minor League Operations

Those 10 director/VP types will have another 10-15 subordinates who work in the main office at the ballpark.  This doesn’t count the numerous amount of scouts who work remotely.

Boy, if we ever get HITfx they are really going to be behind.

In a way, it boggles my mind that a team can pay millions of dollars to a mediocre pitcher, but is too cheap to invest in the manpower for cutting edge analysis.

Matt

One stat director at $100k and four assistants at $65k would still be less than minimum salary for one player