Filter posts by...
MLB_Management
Saturday, May 26, 2012
In the NHL, you start by being part of the old-boys network, according to this current NHL executive, who wrote a book by talking to every living Stanley Cup Finals GM.
The lifetime these men spend building their networks and interacting with peers in various roles also gives them access to insight that helps guide their decision-making.
“At the core, the GM’s are in the information business,” Farris says. “If they can access information from all over the world ahead of other teams, they can gain an advantage. If they’re bringing a player in, they want to have a good read on the situation that the player is coming from and how he might impact the locker room, in addition to his on-ice abilities.”
And long-time, and successful GM, of the Devils, is my kind of guy when he says:
Controlling the flow of information and using it to drive internal decision-making is critical to success, but no optimal method exists that automatically translates to Stanley Cups.
New Jersey’s Lou Lamoriello, currently the NHL’s longest-tenured GM, takes a very different approach than Bowman. Instead of encouraging cooperation and teamwork amongst his staff, he creates information silos to eliminate the groupthink mentality.
“Lou purposely keeps certain people away from each other on the scouting and hockey operations staff,” Farris says. “He’ll say ‘look, the most important thing for you to do is X, go do it’ and he won’t tell anyone else what that guy might be doing because he wants to protect the integrity of the information.”
And this is what happens when you have a cap system:
Toronto has also built their organization around the power of ‘Big Blue’. As a GM in a constrained salary capped system, it’s important to create capacity for yourself. Maple Leafs ownership has given Burke the green light to outspend almost every team in the NHL when it comes to off-ice luxuries.
“Toronto has the best practice facility, a dedicated goalie coach, a player development staff, a scouting staff of 35 when most teams might have 20,” Farris says. “You’re limited in what you can spend in player salaries, but they’re outspending everyone off the ice to try and create a competitive advantage.”
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
While I am sure I am biased, I’ll include hiring Dan Fox in the mix.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Nothing available yet, but you can get a leg up by applying now. Tell ‘em you heard it from Tango, as it’ll help. And, if you are Canadian, that probably helps too.
Friday, May 18, 2012
A stream of consciousness post from the usually jocular Brandon McCarthy.
The reality is that the umpire, like everyone else, INFERS what he sees. Things happen fast, there’s obstacles, the glove gets in the way, the grass is a certain height, you have a certain angle. You then infer based on past experience what you see, and then you have to claim “I saw this”, when the reality is he should say “Bayesian inference would suggest that I saw this”.
And I think if an umpire actually said that to McCarthy, Brandon would have no choice but to accept it.
Cory Schwartz is our counterpart over at MLBAM, and I’ve dealt with him alot, in an official or unofficial capacity over the years. Wonderful guy. Anyway, a reader sent me a link (which I can’t hear at the moment), along with his comments:
He’s the VP of Stats for MLBAM. Nothing too earth-shattering, though the discussions of [an MLB insider] disdain for Pitch f/x and Field f/x being public was interesting. Schwartz basically defended the idea of keeping that info private, unfortunately.
Schwartz nicely responds to those [basic statistical] types of comments. And Schwartz had a couple of great points about pitcher wins, saves, and LI near the end.
Overall, some good, broad overviews of what’s going on with data, the people behind it, and teams using it. His segment runs from about the 6-minute mark to the 34-minute mark.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Kinda of a weird system that any time you don’t like a decision, you can fire an arbitrator. Murray Chass gives great historical perspective, as any well-trained blogger would do. Good job on him.
I’m surprised by the low number of games suspended. Lawrie was a pure hot head, he had, basically, a weapon in his hand. He threw it in the vicinity of the umpire. The laws of physics decided to apply here, and so the helmet bounced back up and hit the umpire. The worst part is that Lawrie continued to go after the umpire.
Even if Lawrie could argue he was right up until the point he took off his helmet, the blame completely shifted to Lawrie once that helmet struck the umpire. Umpires need far better protection than the four games Lawrie got.
In hockey, they gave a player 20 games for intentionally tripping an official (25% of the season). I don’t know how much reckless unintentional actions should receive, but 10% of the season would seem to be in order. I’d have given Lawrie 16 games.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Incredible, but because Mattingly did not attest to the correct final score, MLB reversed the game and awarded the win to the Diamondbacks. This happened even though everyone in the stadium was able to see the score.
Oh, sorry, I meant that this happened in a state tournament in golf. Because everyone’s been conditioned to know this rule, been taught this rule, having absorbed this rule, everyone accepts this rule. In fact, I believe this rule was the impetus for George Orwell writing 1984. It’s true. Look it up.
Anyway, the MLB rules committee has proposed this rule, and it’s starting at Little League, so that everyone can be taught the rule, absorb the rule, and accept the rule. Once the conditioning is set, then that’s it, there’s no controversy. All of the hockey fans that will mock the baseball fan for having this rule will face the scorn of the baseball fan because the hockey fan doesn’t understand baseball.
It’s bound to happen. It’ll start with the NHL, then the NBA, the NFL, and finally MLB. But, it might not hit all the MLB teams right away. The Yankees for example won’t corporate-name their stadium. That’s because the Yankees IS a corporate-name.
Eventually, teams will realize that just like they can sell their stadium names (and get a money stream unavailable to the Yankees), they will do the same with jersey rights. I think the Pirates and Marlins and A’s would dearly love to sell rights on their jerseys. Eventually, the other teams will follow. But, the Yankees? It’s possible they won’t.
And, how would it work? Will it be a team-by-team negotiation, or will all teams split the money equally (but only if they participate)? Or, will MLB actually force the Yankees to participate, thereby depleting (to a small extent) their corporate-value name of Yankees?
***
Grantland has an article about the Goldman Sachs Yankees. I haven’t seen it, because their RSS feed is blocked at the office, except for the headline. Feel free to post clips of that article below.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
NOTE: Thread originally posted Nov 17, 2008, but it’s always relevant.
I get asked every now and then “if you know some guy...” who wants to work for some major league team (baseball or otherwise). I figure I should create a rolodex, so that when the time comes, I can be a good matchmaker. So, send me an email (tom~tangotiger~net), type at least the word Rolodex in the subject line, and with numbered answers, to the following questions:
1. your preferred sport(s)
2. where you live
3. where you’d consider relocation (or answer “no")
4. general skillset
Friday, May 11, 2012
Craig points out that Cashman sides on Clemens’ character over McNamee.
In Montreal, Tim Wallach was a frequent golfer, as was his playing partner and best buddy Terry Francona. Didn’t Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz play golf all the time?
Well, Big Brother is not putting it up with it any longer. I wonder if Josh Beckett playing Wii Golf is going to be a question of his team commitment, too.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
I don’t like anything about the balk rule, and now I have another reason.
And please, before someone says “but, you need it because...”, just play devil’s advocate, pretend MLB has paid you 500$ to come up with a solution, and propose your best one. Give me your best effort.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
This is an opportunity to work with friends-of-The-Book-Blog, Mike, Jeff, Sig, and the rest of the gang there. Tell ‘em you heard it from Tango, and it won’t hurt.
Monday, May 07, 2012
Wait… what? Hamels hit Harper because… what? If Harper is too close, you give him a brushback. Pedro used to revel in brushing hitters back. So, going directly after him was bad enough.
But, Hamels admitting to intentionally hitting Harper? He did that because… what? Because that’s what a pitcher is supposed to do to… what? A great young hitter?
I though Cole Hamels was a really smart guy who is often misunderstood.
Now, Zimm intentionally throws at Hamels (we presume). Zimm won’t admit it, because the unwritten rule is you hit the guy without admitting to it. It’s a question of liability with the commissioner. As long as everyone pretends it could have been an accident, then everyone looks the other way.
Hamels however is like the magician who told everyone how the magic trick worked. Selig will either have no choice but to suspend him, or somehow suggest that the punishment was taken care of on the field (Harper scored the run, and Hamels got plunked).
Hamels makes about 100,000$ per team game. Look for a half-million dollars in lost pay. Hamels seems more Tim Robbins than Kevin Costner in this episode, and Harper is the one who ends up looking like Crash Davis.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
In this corner, are quotes from the non-lawyers who are not Craig:
And this is Craig:
Wow.
Glove-slap: Dave.
I know plenty of you kids want to get into MLB, and one of the really good ways is by interning. Tell ‘em you heard it from Tango, as it’ll help.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
As told to Murray Chass.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
I’m shocked the MLBPA had allowed these deals for as long as they did. Gretzky signed his personal services contract in the WHA in the late 1970s. A few years after he got to the NHL, the owner-friendly union (Eagleson, later incarcerated) made them change the deal so that there would be no personal-services provision. That somehow a Miller-Fehr led-union would be asleep at the switch here is rather shocking, and it’s great that Weiner stepped in finally. I think there’s something more to this.
from Amazon
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date