http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2016/02/25/count-this-red-sox-are-not-abandoning-analytics/BZDvOeMrbiJSuVPosBEMJK/story.htmlThe Red Sox aren’t retreating from analytics. To the contrary, the team is expanding its commitment to that aspect of its front office.
One day after Red Sox principal owner (and Globe owner) John Henry suggested that his team had “perhaps overly relied on numbers” amidst the stumble to three last-place finishes in four years, it quickly became apparent that his statement was not meant to imply a diminished belief in the value of being at the forefront of statistical analysis.
Based on their actions, the Red Sox remain as committed to the pursuit of competitive advantages through statistical analysis as they’ve been since Henry’s group gained control of the team in 2002. There has been no drawback in the resources committed by the team to quantitative analysis.
Indeed, according to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, the team has expanded the budget of its analytics department and plans to add staff to that department of its front office. Its belief in the ability of analysis to create an edge remains very much intact.
In Dombrowski the team has a decision-maker who might assign a different weight to analytics in his decisions than predecessor Ben Cherington, but who is anything but dismissive of them.
There are arguments against each of those alternate scenarios, including Bogaert's performance after shifting to 3rd (and not adapting well defensively), combined with huge upside as a SS, Brock Holt's second half numbers (dismal), and Hanley seemingly wanting to remain at SS until all of a sudden he wanted back into Boston so much he'd play wherever. It's an amusing what-if to think of how better off the team might be if Hanley called offering to move to 3rd before Sandoval signed. We might have only one albatross contract to complain about. But for whatever reason, most likely thinking he could get a better contract somewhere as a SS until he realized he couldn't, that didn't happen.I took JWH's comments as pretty devoid of real substance, but vague enough that it gives some fans more hope. Hope is a powerful emotion. And, after a miserable season you need to give fans hope to keep them interested.
Remember the discussion on this board of how awesome Sandoval & HanRam's spray charts would look at Fenway? The common sense / eye test guys ended up being right and the guys who relied on the spray charts were wrong.
Also, we had a lot of options to fill 3B. We could have slid Bogaerts to 3B & found a Free Agent SS. We could have had HanRam move to 3B after he'd just played all year at SS (in this scenario he wouldn't have bulked up like he did). We could have had Brock Holt be our full time 3B.
And from my understanding, that "sexy player/win in dramatic fashion" quote was not from anyone in the organization, but an outside consultant Tito sat in a meeting with. If you've never heard an outside consultant say something completely stupid that no one in the room agreed with, you're a lucky man. The Panda selling t-shirts thing seems to fall in the same bucket for me. It keeps getting repeated ad nauseam as proof the front office is making decisions for the wrong reasons with absolutely zero support except that it "feels true."I have this same question. Think back a couple of years back to something Tito wrote in his book about (and I'm paraphrasing here) the organization's need to bring in sexier players to boost ratings. Not sure what the definition of "sexy" was here, but coming off a shit year following a World Championship the Sox made a big splash in the FA market by signing Sandoval and Ramirez. I really question how much of that was Ben. Oh and by the way, a year later both Ben and Larry (the guy that Theo could no longer work under) are both gone.
I don't have the book in front of me to verify this, but I'm pretty sure it was Tom Werner.And from my understanding, that "sexy player/win in dramatic fashion" quote was not from anyone in the organization, but an outside consultant Tito sat in a meeting with.
That's my recollection, as well.I don't have the book in front of me to verify this, but I'm pretty sure it was Tom Werner.
and, here' a Farrell quote with more on the subject:
And from my understanding, that "sexy player/win in dramatic fashion" quote was not from anyone in the organization, but an outside consultant Tito sat in a meeting with.
I don't have the book in front of me to verify this, but I'm pretty sure it was Tom Werner.
I'm looking at the book right now. Here's what I think is the passage being discussed (chapter 14 entitled "2011 'I feel like I let you down'")That's my recollection, as well.
That indicates that the "sexy" was about NESN ratings, and we all assume that Werner, the TV mogul, is the guy who drives the NESN boat. But nothing in the passage is a quote or even hinted to be a quote from Werner.On Tuesday, November 2, just over a month after the Sox season ended, a group gathered at Fenway to review results of that $100,000 marketing research project the Sox had commissioned back in July. With Werner participating on speakerphone, Lucchino met with the bosses of NESN. Epstein, who’d been reluctant to participate in the study, attended the meeting.
The document distributed to all participants stated that the “research objectives” were “(1) to access factors contributing to lower interest in the Red Sox in the 2010 season” and “(2) to understand factors contributing to less viewing of Red Sox telecasts in the 2010 season.”
Listed among the reasons for “lower interest” in the 2010 Red Sox:
On page 28, a section dealing with male-female demographics, the report stated: “The women are definitely more drawn to the ‘soap opera’ and ‘reality-TV’ aspects of the game. . . . They are interested in good-looking stars and sex symbols (Pedroia).”
- Disappointing news and moves in the off-season; not spending the money to get big players
- The team’s positioning of itself as “pitching and defense” after not making “big” trades and acquisitions, and the characterization of 2010 as a “bridge year”
- Not delivering on pitching and defense in April
- Suffering injuries and playing with a “no-name” lineup going into and beyond the All-Star break
The team-sponsored survey concluded that fans were watching less because “the games are too long with disappointing outcomes.” At the top of the list of “key take-aways” was the recommendation: “Big moves, trades, and messaging in the off-season are important.”
There was little nuance in the survey. No ambiguity. NESN’s in-house memo was telling Epstein and his baseball operations staff what was needed to reverse the costly downward trend in Red Sox television ratings: star power.
Epstein was insulted, amused (Pedroia sexy?), and angry as he sat through the session.
“They told us we didn’t have any marketable players, the team’s not exciting enough,” he recalled. “We need some sizzle. We need some sexy guys. I was laughing to myself. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. This is like an absurdist comedy. We’d become too big. It was the farthest thing removed from what we set out to be.
“That type of shit contributed to the decision in the winter to go for more of a quick fix. Signing Crawford and trading for Adrian [Gonzalez] was in direct response to that in a lot of ways. Shame on me for giving in to it, but at some point the landscape is what it is. I didn’t handle it well, but that kind of explains the arc of what we were doing.”
“Theo never talked to me about any of that, and I appreciated it,” said Francona. “I didn’t want to know, and it’s good that I didn’t know.”
Thank you. I did not have the book to reference directly.I'm looking at the book right now. Here's what I think is the passage being discussed (chapter 14 entitled "2011 'I feel like I let you down'")
That indicates that the "sexy" was about NESN ratings, and we all assume that Werner, the TV mogul, is the guy who drives the NESN boat. But nothing in the passage is a quote or even hinted to be a quote from Werner.
Instead of Hanley being viewed as an albatross, it's perhaps more likely that there would be a 45-page thread on the main board with heated arguments debating whether his bat was worth the subpar play at third (since he wouldn't have run into the left field wall and wrecked his shoulder 25 games into the season).It's an amusing what-if to think of how better off the team might be if Hanley called offering to move to 3rd before Sandoval signed. We might have only one albatross contract to complain about.
There are some that might argue that while Sandoval's look, nickname and rep as a "winner" in SF might not be a driving factor, it very well could have been a tipping point for a team wanting to impact headlines as much as on-field production. Particularly if the alternative was perhaps signing a lesser "name" for less money that could have given them similar or perhaps better production without the "sexy". Like, say, Chase Headley?The marketing factor seems like something that's easy to overstate. Even having read that excerpt from Francona's book, I have a hard time believing that's the biggest reason the team went after anyone. Winning is marketable. The players they've acquired were determined to be helpful to a winning team. That Sandoval has a distinctive look and a fun nickname was maybe an added bonus, but I doubt it was the driving factor in his acquisition.
Every time I see something like this, I am forced to remember that the Red Sox record for doubles in a season is 67 and it has stood since 1936.I expect his HRs to go down but his doubles to go absolutely crazy.
That's not the passage I thought we were talking about. Here's an excerpt from an ESPN story on the book that references what I'm remembering. Not a quote from the book itself, but it's the best I can do until I can dig up my copy:I'm looking at the book right now. Here's what I think is the passage being discussed (chapter 14 entitled "2011 'I feel like I let you down'")
Francona described how he nearly walked out of a meeting he had in 2010 with majority owner John W. Henry, chairman Tom Werner and CEO Larry Lucchino after Werner complained about declining TV ratings on NESN, the team-owned regional network, and said, "We need to start winning in more exciting fashion."
Francona said he began to rise from his chair, but general manager Theo Epstein, also present at the meeting, grabbed his knee.
Some reasons that come to mind:Every time I see something like this, I am forced to remember that the Red Sox record for doubles in a season is 67 and it has stood since 1936.
In fact, if you look at the top of the doubles list, almost all of the top eleven spots are in the 20s and 30s and now I want to know why.
All good examples. I was also wondering if it was in some ways a reaction to Babe Ruth and a shift both among players altering their batting style and in clubs looking for players with a different batting style. Ruth starts playing the outfield in 1918, plays it pretty much full time in 1920 and in the next fifteen years the doubles leaderboard is completely rewritten and next thing you know the ballparks are built that turn those doubles into homers and it's more than half a century before anyone even sniffs the top ten.Some reasons that come to mind:
• The old time players choked up on the bat more, looking to put the ball into play and avoid strikeouts at just about all cost. Today's players swing from the, you know, and don't care so much about strikeouts. The mantra "singles hitters drive Chevrolets and home run hitters drive Cadillacs", I believe, was coined in the fifties. Walk to strikeout ratios were ridiculously low back then.
• The old timey ballparks were more cavernous, and clubs started to reconstruct in the timeframe, pulling walls in, or, when new ones were built, making the walls closer. Fenway, for example, set up "Williamsburg" in RF by putting in the bullpens.
• There was a migration to lighter bats at some point in the timeframe that hitters could whip faster through the zone with the main purpose to hit more home runs. Ted Williams, again, was in the middle of this.
Just some things that come to mind.
HeraldDombrowski, who had a much smaller analytics department when he was the GM of the Detroit Tigers, has been in awe of the Sox’ analytics department since he arrived.
He said the Sox heavily relied on an in-depth statistical evaluation before they signed David Price to a seven-year, $217 million contract.
“I wouldn’t say that I would not have wanted to sign him, but without that supporting evidence, [it would have been harder to decide] how we think he would age from a statistical perspective,” Dombrowski said. “Let’s say the difference is in the pitch mix at this point. So David has already shown you, which you wouldn’t necessarily rely on just your eyes, but from a statistical perspective all of the sudden he’s 97 mph and that velocity but now you can see he’s also mixed in the cutter and a certain percentage, he’s mixed in the changeup, his curve ball is improved. So you’re in a spot where you’re mixing the aging process, which from your eye perspective you can’t really dictate, that’s where I think the statistical aspect of it is very helpful.”
Especially where it's influenced by positioning. I think the advent of spray charts has probably depressed offense as much as the infield shifts.Another factor in the numbers of doubles is that it is likely that outfield defense has improved considerably since that time.
Good point; one should not leave out the Lackey trade in evaluating the past 4 years. They had an incredible asset there, and they turned it into a $30 million albatross and a question mark. Whatever role the analytics played in acquiring Craig, it was insufficiently negative.There's a couple of items I am curious about when it comes to Cherington's moves:
Was it Cherington looking for the quick fix in the Panda/Ramirez signings after injuries and aging turned the 2013 team into a last place team? Or was it Lucchino? Werner? Henry?
Was it Panda/Ramirez that resulted in Cherington being unpromoted? Or was it the rather questionable return from the Lester/Lackey/Cespedes trades, among others? I'll assume that it was a combination of all the above for both questions, but it would be interesting to hear the inside stories on these questions.
According to Baseball-Reference, Ramirez and Sandoval signed on the same day.It's an amusing what-if to think of how better off the team might be if Hanley called offering to move to 3rd before Sandoval signed.
Another factor in the numbers of doubles is that it is likely that outfield defense has improved considerably since that time.
Is there any particular reason to think this changed in the mid thirties?Especially where it's influenced by positioning. I think the advent of spray charts has probably depressed offense as much as the infield shifts.
I'm not seeing your point. Unless of course you think they didn't agree to terms previous to that day and never even spoke to either before they officially signed their deals and had a press conference.According to Baseball-Reference, Ramirez and Sandoval signed on the same day.
Since Craig's salary is off the 40 man and doesn't count towards the luxury tax, it's irrelevant. The argument you have previously made that somewhere there is a budget and Craig's contract is sucking funds from something else is perfectly reasonable but unsupported by any actual facts in evidence. It is just as likely that Henry is willing to write that off because he accepted that risk when they made the trade because they wanted to get a good young pitcher who isn't even eligible for free agency until 2019. The luxury tax threshold is $189M and the Red Sox payroll is going to be higher than that (BBREF estimates it at $198.3 after all the arb cases are finalized) so Craig's salary is not impacting the major league payroll.Good point; one should not leave out the Lackey trade in evaluating the past 4 years. They had an incredible asset there, and they turned it into a $30 million albatross and a question mark. Whatever role the analytics played in acquiring Craig, it was insufficiently negative.
I completely agree that Dombrowski's hiring and their subsequent actions speak volumes. That said, I like Belichick's apparent philosophy of telling the media, agents and other teams very little about his approach. And while it's true that Henry in this case probably didn't give away anything that will actually hurt the Sox, my preference would be that they simply talk less and err on the side of caution. And that said, DD and Henry seem to be pretty open kimono and of course not everyone runs their organization like our hooded friend in Foxboro. But if I could wave a magic wand, my teams would all operate that way, as that method just makes more sense to me.I don't think it tells anyone anything they didn't already know. He hired Dave Dombrowski and handed a 30 year old pitcher $217 million a year after the team wouldn't meet Lester's price tag because the numbers show that older pitchers aren't worth the risk.
I think I was referring to the more recent suppression of offense. I don't think they were using spray charts in 1938. As mentioned upthread one has to assume that ballparks with closer fences plus swings designed to hit the ball over the closer fences was the primary cause.Is there any particular reason to think this changed in the mid thirties?