The Rays have decided that the best way to use their limited resources is to ditch their usual advanced scout and replace him with digital information. While some traditionalists may balk at their decision, in a world where a team doesn’t have an unlimited supply of money, this seems like a great choice. The money quote:
“When an advance scout goes in there, he’s seeing it for three, four days,” he said. “The data we’re going to accumulate goes over a longer period of time, which would indicate it’s more correct and not as much one man’s subjective opinion. We feel as though this may be the next level of advance scouting.”
The Rays managed to break out the cellar while the Pirates, Reds, Royals, and other teams have failed to do so despite playing in easier divisions. This should clearly demonstrate why: they are playing Moneyball. People think that Michael Lewis’ book is about statistics and hating scouts – its not. Its about using resources in the most cost-effective way.
(Tip of my hat to Squawking Baseball)
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8 Responses to Rays Drop Advanced Scout
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TIQ IQ
… and hating scouts :).
All U need to know about “scouts” is this:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/02/16/aleast.spring/1.html#NewYork
Scout’s take: “I’m sorry, I just don’t see it: This is not a championship team. CC’s performance in big games has to be a concern; I don’t have much confidence in him in the big spot. You know Burnett’s going to make a couple trips to the DL. The defense behind the pitching is still a horror show. With all this stuff going on with A-Rod, getting Teixeira was even bigger for them, because a lot of their problems last year were actually with scoring runs. [Jorge] Posada is such an important part of what they do, they need him to somehow stay in the lineup. They’re going to struggle to get into the playoffs.”
Moshe already summed it up on Friday.
All you need to know about “stat guys” is this:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/02/26/leap.year0303/
The best part is how all the “scouts” now LOVE the Rays and rave about how much young talent they have and how they’re gonna be contenders for years to come. Oh, hello! I’m not saying that’s not true. All i’m saying is, where were all these so-called experts last year?!
I didn’t hear a single “scout” have the balls to predict that the Rays would have such a great season in ’08. Y? Because scouts ain’t worth shit. Right now they’re all on the Tampa Buswagon. U know Y? Because they were great last year… So all the “scout” has to do is say they’re going to be great this year as well. I mean, they were good last season, so a huge drop-off isn’t very likely.
All the wri-tards and “scouts” who make fun of the so-called “over-reliance” on statistical analysis and the Moneyball approach, are the first ones to scream into our ears “THA YANKEES WON’T MAKE THA PLAYOFFS (because they didn’t make it last year. So relying on last year isn’t that big of a stretch.). THA RAYS HAVE SO MUCH YOUNG TALENT!!! WATCH OUT FOR DAVID PRICE!!! HE’S THA REAL DEAL!!!”
Yet, the first person to actually go out on a limb and have the balls to predict big things for a perennial cellar-dweller was… um… a stats guy… a guy by the name of Nate Silver, the inventor of PECOTA, one of those “crazy sabermetric” stats (Murray Chass, i’m lookin at yo sorry ass). In February of ’08, Silver, in the above piece for SI, predicted a 22 win improvement for the Rays. But right now all the “scouts” R telling us non-stop how good the Rays R.
Shut up U idiots. The “stat guys” knew it waaaaaaaaaaaaay before you.
Basically was going to say the same thing as Garry G said above. Now next time a veteran NY sportswriter wants to act like an ass and rip on the “staheads that live in their parents basement” maybe they should stop and remind themselves that now successful MLB clubs are using that same type of analysis.
The stat heads aren’t living in the fantasy world anymore, no the veteran writers have just seen the game pass them by. Perahps they’ll find a way to blame this on steroids as well….
veteran writers have seen the game pass them by
I think that’s a pretty understated point. These sportswriters are used to a world where what they say goes and anything they say is understood as fact. Nowadays with about 2 clicks of a mouse you can look at detailed statistics of a guys whole career. No longer can a writer say how some guy is an on base machine when you can go to b-ref and see the guy has a .320 obp over the last 5 seasons. The whole baseclogger argument is another thing. Writers will stick to these hokey ideas and completely ignore the facts that having a guy on base significantly raises your chances of scoring, no matter how fast the player can run.
Probably the most important thing in baseball is the ability to adjust. Opposing pitchers and coaches will find a hole in your swing and try and exploit it. They find out you can’t turn on a 2-1 inside fastball thats all you’re gonna see until you prove you can hit it. Thats what can turn a good player into a great player or a good player into a grocery bagger. Most baseball writers thus far have shown a remarkable inability to adjust to new challenges.
True Casanova, well said. Some of the older writers choose to mock Moneyball and sabermetrics because quite simply they just didn’t understand it. And they didn’t want to take the time to bother learning how it works either. So what do people do when they feel threatened? They try to discredit it by mocking it, which is exactly what they did with jokes about living in basements and “never watching the game”.
Now with high profile teams embracing sabermetrics, and moneyball type concepts, it validates what a lot of us here have already known…RBI’s and batting average are becoming a thing of the past, and OBP, OPS+, etc are better tools for measuring a players value.
That’s really what bothers me. This is their profession, and the teams that they cover are slowly embracing these new measures. How can they justify not taking out the time to learn about these metrics?
Hey, Moshe. I wrote about the revolution of sabermetrics, and how the old-school media is fighting it, for my college research paper. After I did lots of research, my paper turned into more than just how sabermetrics R taking over the game, rather, I had to shift the focus to how the disagreement between old-school wri-tards and scouts and “stat guys,” is not only about that, but the broader displeasure with the wri-tards that anybody can just run his own site, or god forbid, blog, and discredit them with plain “stats.”
BTW, i’m really proud of my research paper, I worked on it throughout the whole summer (I got a freakin’ A+!) and if U want, I can e-mail it to U. Not that you’re gonna learn anything from it – it was written in a format where a below-average fan should be able to understand it – but i’m curious as to what your opinion of it will be…
I would love to see it. That would be really, cool, it sounds fascinating. If I find something excerptable in it, would you mind if I did a post on it- I’d cite my source, of course.