Hey, data data: MLB teams face challenge delivering info to players
New Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman is a notorious late-night emailer, and catcher A.J. Ellis will sometimes awake to a series of messages in his inbox from the boss with detailed scouting reports.
!["I look at a lot. How much I actually apply, I donât know,â says Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer of data passed on by the front office.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.usatoday.com/gcdn/-mm-/4218bc4efd3edbdd96cccbde7dc70a0501516a1f/c=0-0-1242-1656/local/-/media/2015/08/26/USATODAY/USATODAY/635761941169637698-USP-MLB-Cleveland-Indians-at-Pittsburgh-Pirates.jpg?width=300&height=400&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
Ellis said heâs appreciative of the insights, which range from how opposing hitters are reacting to Los Angelesâ staff to different pitch sequences he and starting catcher Yasmani Grandal could consider.
âThe information is always available to us,â Ellis said. âItâs not pushed upon us as âyou have to do this,â but itâs presented to us and itâs up to us to really implement it into our game plan and into our game calling.â
Earlier this month, Yankees third baseman Chase Headley received a scouting report on rookie Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna that indicated he threw sliders to left-handed hitters only 1% of the time.
With two outs in the ninth inning of a game Toronto led 2-0, Headley had fouled off a pair of two-strike offerings from Osuna, whose sixth pitch of the at bat was a slider that froze Headley for strike three to end the game. It was just the sixth slider Osuna had thrown to lefties in 385 pitches.
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âHe basically doesnât throw a slider to lefties, you know?â Headley said. âLast pitch of the game, backdoor slider. He hadnât thrown one in three weeks.â
He added, âThatâs not anybodyâs fault. Thatâs not the scouting reportâs fault. Obviously the numbers say what the numbers say.â
While Headley says he is generally appreciative for such advanced information, he worries that it can go too far; he prefers to prepare for opponents with his own video work.
âI like to do my own because then if itâs wrong, itâs on me, you know what I mean?â he said. âItâs frustrating when you trust something and it doesnât stack up that way.â
There is more advanced information than ever before, but how much actually trickles down to the players? While the âscouts vs. statsâ debate - brewing since the 2003 publication of Moneyball - is growing more harmonious, this remains a contentious topic on some clubs, particularly as quantitative theories challenge long held beliefs of the old guard of uniformed personnel.
Such a divide reportedly was a key reason Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto abruptly resigned earlier this summer.
Every team has some degree of sabermetric data in the form of heat maps (strike-zone illustrations of where a hitter is most and least proficient), spray charts (dotted field maps showing recent batted-ball locations to help guide defensive positioning and shifting) and numeric tendencies (results against certain velocities or percentages a pitcher throws a particular pitch).
The sophistication and utilization of that information is what separates franchises.
'Like youâre speaking a foreign language'
A leading supplier of advanced and intricate information is TrackMan, whose radars are installed in all 30 major league parks and more than 70 minor league, college and international stadiums. TrackMan, a Danish company, was originally founded to record data points of golf swings before expanding into other sports.
John Olshan, general manager of TrackMan Baseball, said that he received early advice to translate jargon terms into baseball language: a sliderâs spin axis became its tilt; a pitcherâs release distance became his extension; a curveâs movement on a 360-degree scale was transformed into a clock face.
TrackMan introduced its technology to coaches, pitching coordinators and other front-office associates at the Arizona Fall League a few years ago.
âYouâd be sitting there in a surreal meeting with people in baseball uniforms around a conference table,â Olshan recalled. âYouâve got a PowerPoint and they're looking at you like youâre speaking a foreign language.â
The second stage of the demonstration occurred behind home plate as the radars began tracking pitches, giving the baseball men a chance to see the practical use.
âAfter a few innings, they could tell me more about the numbers than Iâll never know just because theyâve been watching it every day their whole life,â Olshan said, explaining, âA lot of it is how the change is introduced and managed. As long as a coach starts to get comfortable that what weâre measuring lines up with what he sees with his eyes, then those barriers start to drop.â
The Pirates have the most visible integration of its analytics department within the uniformed staff. Two of their quants, Dan Fox and Mike Fitzgerald, are embedded in the clubhouse and attend meetings with a goal, Pittsburgh general manager Neal Huntington said, of opening channels of communication to make the information âmanageable and applicable.â
âEssentially, Dan and Mike are members of our coaching staff because of the environment created by Clint Hurdle, because of the environment created by our coaches,â said Huntington, who later added, âWhen those two groups come together and combine into one, you have a very powerful group of people, and weâre fortunate that our guys have checked their egos at the door and their goal is to help each other, which means that their goal is ultimately to help this team be as good as it can be.â
The most common conduit of advanced data is the coaching staff, whose job descriptions have expanded to include âsabermetric interpreter.â They provide information to the coaches, who choose how and how much to relay to players.
âYou have to filter it a little bit,â Twins manager Paul Molitor said.
âItâs our job to get know the player and figure out what he wants, what he needs and what he can handle,â Yankees bench coach Rob Thomson said. âThen itâs about sifting through and figuring out whatâs usable, whatâs not, depending on the player and the situation.â
âOnly so much information we can retainâ
Indians starter Trevor Bauer is as intellectually curious as any pitcher â he installed a TrackMan at his house for experimentation â and he acknowledged that stats give him a starting point, so he knows which part of his pitching âecosystemâ to use.
âI look at a lot. How much I actually apply, I donât know,â Bauer said. âIt gives me an idea going in, and then everything I do in the game is based on how the gameâs going and how the hitters are reacting, what I feel good with.â
Several players said they still mostly rely on video and only take a cursory look at some of the wonkier data. Thatâs true even of Yankees closer Andrew Miller, another of the gameâs more cerebral thinkers, who said he doesnât receive much information that would qualify as sabermetrics.
âMost of our scouting stuff, they might try to rework to a way that it doesnât sound like that to us,â Miller said. âI donât think people would be very receptive to, I know when you go to FanGraphs, you get Z-Swing Percentageâ â referring to the siteâs tabulation of how often a hitter swings at pitches in the strike zone â âI donât think anybody that Iâm aware of in this clubhouse would react favorably to that information being given to them.â
Thomson confirmed that thereâs a bit of translation involved, saying, âYou try to make a story out of it instead of having them look at the raw data.â
According to FanGraphsâ Pitch F/X data, for instance, Millerâs Z-Swing Percentage is currently tied for his career-low at 55.2%, so his paraphrased scouting report might note that hitters have been patient and recommend that he should aggressively attack the zone.
âThereâs only so much information we can retain out there,ïżœïżœ Miller said. âThe way that my brain works, I would rather draw from a visual memory rather than knowing that this guy is whatever-some-terminology-I-donât-even-know.â
Indians manager Terry Francona said he worries about giving a player âparalysis by analysis.â
âI donât know that they need to have that (data),â he said. Theyâre supposed to see the ball and hit the ball. I think itâs maybe for us, helping us make decisions in the winter on acquiring players, how to defend the players, match upâthings like that.â
Francona added that some players do want that information, so the staff needs to present it helpfully.
Under their new leadership, Dodgers players all receive heat maps with green and red boxes signaling good and bad zones â itâs become so ubiquitous that, when a player overheard a conversation about the reports, he chanted a zen-like mantra, âGreen and red, green and red,â as he continued to walk by.
Dodgers reliever J.P. Howell said he trusts the heat maps more since the new front office took over, because the visual representation is more based on numbers than scouting opinion.
âTheyâve always done it, but they use a lot more numbers,â he said. âWhen they put red and when they put green, thereâs more of a reason.â
Some still choose to do their trend-spotting homework themselves. In addition to video and heat maps, Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki said he delves into the raw data while scouting opposing hitters.
âYou look at exit speed velocity,â he said. âYou look at tendencies in certain counts and certain pitches and quadrants of the zone. Velocity comes into play.
âYou try to match it up with your pitcher that you have that day.â
Like Headley learned against Osuna, those tendencies are not ironclad, of course. Suzuki said itâs not uncommon to study a pitcher who only threw his changeup with in two-strike counts â only to roll over on a 1-0 changeup and mutter to himself, âYouâre not supposed to throw that.â
Bauer noted that separating one plate appearance from the aggregate is of the utmost importance.
âOver the course of the season, the numbers might play out in my favor or his favor,â he said, âbut in that given at bat, thereâs no telling.â
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