John Henry says Red Sox will rely less on analytics
- Thread starter The Gray Eagle
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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.
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 don't have the book in front of me to verify this, but I'm pretty sure it was Tom Werner.
That's my recollection, as well.
As I recall, that specific quote was given as a reason for consternation about Werner possibly taking over Lucchino's oversight role for baseball ops, before Dombrowski was hired.
and, here' a Farrell quote with more on the subject:
Manager John Farrell doesn't expect the tweaking Henry spoke of to have much of an impact on the way he runs the game night to night.
"I don't think it will change the way we look for certain matchups to take advantage of, whether that's providing rest on a given day with a starter that we're facing," said Farrell. "We may take a different look with rotating some guys in off our bench. You're always going to prepare for certain matchups leading into a series and a game when from that sixth inning on you're looking for the right matchup you can go to in a bullpen.
"That's all using hard, fast data for your decision-making. I don't see it changing at field level. If anything it may continue to grow."
http://m.redsox.mlb.com/news/article/165331062/john-henry-red-sox-were-too-reliant-on-stats
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.
Lots of overreaction above to the point I was trying to make. Maybe I just wasn't clear enough. Of course Henry didn't reveal a state secret. That phrase in this context is itself laughable. And in reality, I doubt Henry's comment has any meaning at all in that the Sox approach will remain, as always, a combination of analytics, traditional scouting, gut, make-up focused and several other factors.
My narrow point is that I don't see how revealing anything about their approach benefits them other than, perhaps, in trying to mollify fans who are frustrated by the last place finishes. I think most fans care infinitely more about their actions that their words, but maybe they figure that some take some solace in the words.
I can't point to a specific example. My preference is that other teams and agents not have any leg up, even a small one, into how the Sox are thinking. But the reality probably is that these particular comments mean nothing, for the reasons noted.
My narrow point is that I don't see how revealing anything about their approach benefits them other than, perhaps, in trying to mollify fans who are frustrated by the last place finishes. I think most fans care infinitely more about their actions that their words, but maybe they figure that some take some solace in the words.
I can't point to a specific example. My preference is that other teams and agents not have any leg up, even a small one, into how the Sox are thinking. But the reality probably is that these particular comments mean nothing, for the reasons noted.
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).
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.
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?
By no means am I trying to re-start the "what were the alternatives" quagmire regarding the 3B market last winter, but in some ways, they resolved the "who will play 3B" question in the same manner as they addressed the "we need an ace" and "we need bullpen help" issues this winter: by signing the highest priced guy on the market. A strategy that is supposed to have represented a sea change in the way they do business on Yawkey Way.
Holistic......whatever that means.
Why doesn't he just say that the Sox won't go after players named after fat animals ?
Why doesn't he just say that the Sox won't go after players named after fat animals ?
As I recall Theo always emphasized the importance of both scouting and analytics in the Red Sox analysis. That may have changed after his departure. After Theo left I believe it was Henry who said they had gone away from analytics and should listen more to Bill James, which may have been the trigger to de-emphasize scouting .
Interesting that James was never a fan of GB pitchers like Porcello yet they acquire him and give him a huge extension after a contract year. Of course, not all the analytic guys agree with James on that.
There is also a medical component for player analysis and projections. Hanley was always a guy who was injured in recent years hitting 500+ AB just once in the previous 4 years (now 5), Pablo was always a fat guy who did not take conditioning seriously and expected to decline faster north of 30, and Craig has never been the same player since his achilles problems. They seem to be lacking here.
Also, whats with them signing FA LF'ers like Crawford and Hanley and seeing them report to ST bulked up with 25 lbs of muscle they didn't have the year before. Are players being encouraged to do this or are they doing it on their own? Perhaps justified by LF being a less physically demanding position at Fenway but that added weight did neither player any good.
Interesting that James was never a fan of GB pitchers like Porcello yet they acquire him and give him a huge extension after a contract year. Of course, not all the analytic guys agree with James on that.
There is also a medical component for player analysis and projections. Hanley was always a guy who was injured in recent years hitting 500+ AB just once in the previous 4 years (now 5), Pablo was always a fat guy who did not take conditioning seriously and expected to decline faster north of 30, and Craig has never been the same player since his achilles problems. They seem to be lacking here.
Also, whats with them signing FA LF'ers like Crawford and Hanley and seeing them report to ST bulked up with 25 lbs of muscle they didn't have the year before. Are players being encouraged to do this or are they doing it on their own? Perhaps justified by LF being a less physically demanding position at Fenway but that added weight did neither player any good.
Nitpick: Hanley was doing just fine offensively with that added muscle until he hurt his shoulder.
I think the narrative about him is entirely different without that injury. 10 HRs in April, 19 total for the year. Hopefully he won't be running into any walls at 1B. He's slimmed down again for the INF, so I expect his HRs to go down but his doubles to go absolutely crazy.
I think the narrative about him is entirely different without that injury. 10 HRs in April, 19 total for the year. Hopefully he won't be running into any walls at 1B. He's slimmed down again for the INF, so I expect his HRs to go down but his doubles to go absolutely crazy.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Another factor in the numbers of doubles is that it is likely that outfield defense has improved considerably since that time.
Especially where it's influenced by positioning. I think the advent of spray charts has probably depressed offense as much as the infield shifts.
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.
According to Baseball-Reference, Ramirez and Sandoval signed on the same day.
Is there any particular reason to think this changed in the mid thirties?
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.
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.
Meanwhile, Lackey earned the Cardinals 5.4 WAR in his time there. Kelly has given us 1.4 which means all he has to do is pitch like Wade Miley did in 2015 for two seasons to surpass what Lackey gave the Cards.
That incredible asset pitched 43 games for the Cards and there's precisely zero reason to think he'd have pitched more for the Sox.
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 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.