The Next Generation of Great MLB Teams will Equally Value Baseball Wisdom and Analytics
The pandemic helped expedite a slow movement that began happening several years ago across MLB Organizations. Traditional baseball coaches, scouts, and managers were shown the door as the infusion and shift toward analytics in baseball, especially the longer-tenured staff who made too much money and didn't necessarily attempt to understand the implementation of analytics. Some MLB Teams have gone to valuing performance models and data-driven decision-making over relying upon their managers' instincts and coaches' knowledge and experience of baseball. In exchange, the advent of many new analytic-based roles and departments have been created and have replaced traditional ones. As a result, the front office leadership has drastically shifted in structure and philosophy.
But rightfully so, everything in life evolves, and analytics provides processes and decisions that rely upon objectivity and less subjectivity of a traditional baseball staff member that can't quantify their value, wisdom, and knowledge. Unfortunately, this reliance upon analytic expertise vs. baseball wisdom is the underlying dilemma many MLB Organizations find themselves in 2022. In a perfect world, both sides work in harmony towards a common goal of winning, striking a balance of allowing the analytics to help the baseball staff make better decisions. However, a large gap exists in baseball, it’s not found in the outfield, it’s the gap created from the acceleration towards centralized analytics and the deceleration of traditional baseball wisdom.
I still love the information. I utilize the information. Information is good. It’s the imposition. I mean, it’s to the point now where actually, our general manager had an analytical guy dressing in the coaches’ room. I mean, that shouldn’t occur. That’s an imposition.
-Joe Maddon, Former MLB Manager
Analytics are built off past performances to predict future performance to achieve a competitive advantage in decision-making. However, they can't quantify the value a HUMAN can impact a player or team, especially in the crux of a game. This human LEADERSHIP, combined with baseball wisdom and knowledge of what strategies and players are most successful throughout the game's history while valuing analytics, can propel the next generation of great MLB Teams to achieve success.
The foundation involved for a MLB Team to win, and consistently win include managerial leadership, team chemistry, and a front office philosophy that all help decision-making. In life, many things can be improved, expanded, and changed, but when it comes to producing a winning baseball team at the MLB Level, there are fundamental core components that will always help facilitate success in comparison to others. You can’t quantify all of them, but you can rely upon your leaders that understand baseball, especially the baseball game that has players running around with heartbeats.
The baseball manager used to be one of most coveted positions in all of sports. He was in control and made a majority of the decisions as it pertains to the MLB Team. Now, a manager occupies the same role but with different expectations from the front offices. He serves to execute in-game decisions that are based off probabilities, match-ups, and predictive models all built to help secure a win. Sometimes, the best securement of a win happens from a simple conversation from the manager to a player. A conversation that eases tension, motivates, or instills confident in key at bat or inning. If a manager becomes reliant upon the analytics to make the decisions for him, he will lose his players, and his value of wisdom to make decisions. And remember, the analytics provided are only as useful as the players who can execute them.
There's a place in the game for analytics. They just shouldn't be the game. I know the world evolves. Baseball in 2022 shouldn't look like it did from 1967-85, when I was playing, or even from 1992-2001, when I was coaching. But we need to make sure that this version of different is also better. Because I don't think it is. And many of the 50-something Hall of Famers in that room with the commissioner agree with me.
- Rod Carew, HOF Class of 1991
Analytics in baseball is here to stay and will only increase in scope and importance. But, like Hall of Fame Rod Carew recently said, There's a place in the game for analytics, they just shouldn't be the game." The fifty Hall of Famers Carew referenced in the quote above are all blessed with baseball wisdom and an understanding of the game's nuances and want to see the beauty of baseball preserved moving forward.
So how can we begin understanding how analytics and traditional baseball wisdom can be treated equally? It starts with understanding how a person's wisdom in any subject is derived and can facilitate future decision-making. Whether changing the lineup, bringing in a new pitcher, scouting a player, developing a player, or maintaining a clubhouse, our actions are a product of an ongoing cycle from data to information to knowledge to wisdom.
The Knowledge Pyramid
To explain a rather complex issue and to illuminate how the analytics gap can be balanced, I used a simple illustration of the DIKW (Knowledge) Pyramid as it relates to baseball. The knowledge pyramid can help illustrate a deep understanding of a subject, in this case baseball, flows through four qualitative stages. The four stages are as follows.
Four stages of Knowledge Pyramid progressing bottom to top. Each stage is increasingly more valuable.
Using the illustration above, the four stages of the pyramid are as follows.
Data
Meaningless abundance of raw values and measurements
Objective in nature
Example Data: 8, 1, 15, 17, 25, 0
Information
Data with the addition of context and interpretation.
Supplemental data that provides meaning to the data. For example, who, what, and when?
Objective in nature
Example Data: 8 wins, 1 loss, 15 games started, 17 DVS Score, 25 years old, 0 major arm injuries
Knowlege
Information with the addition of experience
Experiences can be gathered from second hand (studying a subject) or first-hand (life or work)
Subjective in nature as a person’s difference experiences will help formulate their knowledge and understanding of a subject
Interpretation of information using knowledge: Information suggests a pitcher currently has 8 wins, 1 loss, 15 current games started, a 17 DVS Score, is 25 years old, 0 major arm injuries, and at the end of the year, the player is eligible for salary arbitration. General manager’s knowledge of the current market suggest this pitcher has high current and future value to the current MLB Team and is a top twenty starting pitcher in MLB.
Wisdom
Knowledge plus the addition of action
Determines what we decide to do or not do
Subjective in nature as it’s dependent upon our interpretation of prior knowledge
Wisdom understanding knowledge about sample player: With the understanding about the knowledge of the sample player, the wisdom of the general manager may be inclined to offer a long-term contract to the sample starting pitcher with the understanding of the current knowledge of the sample pitcher and how it will benefit the MLB Team’s future performance and value.
Thousands of examples can be detailed and outlined using the four-step process above. The critical takeaway is wisdom drives future decision-making. Knowledge and experience serve as a roadmap and blueprint to aid in future decision-making. Where the knowledge and experience are manifested and what the motivation of the gathering of knowledge and experiences plays heavily into future wisdom.
The wisdom of any person or combination of persons will ultimately decide the MLB Team’s fate in both the short term and long term. Therefore, wisdom that has been built with knowledge and first-hand experiences about the history of successful players, teams, and processes across MLB should and will drive future decision-making. Further, if that same wisdom, is armed with the knowledge of how analytics can further guide their wisdom to aid in more efficient decision-making, the outcome should result in the continual growth of the MLB Team.
What has worked and what hasn’t worked from over a century of players and teams, should provide a clear goal for leadership to work towards. The biggest question as it pertains to this article is, who or what is driving the decision making of a MLB Team? How has the lineage of wisdom been manifested? Heavy on traditional baseball experience, light on analytics? Vice versa? What’s the wisdom and knowledge of the front-office? What’s the track record of success?
It's no secret that baseball traditionalists are not happy with the direction of MLB. Many agree MLB is losing its identity from fans, journalists, coaches, and staff. Rod Carew also mentioned, "MLB Teams seem to be building robots designed to hit balls far and throw it hard." He’s right. MLB is just the stage for these robots. We are seeing a snowball over the last decade of players growing up with new tools such as advanced analytics, technology, social media, and private trainers fueling individual performance metrics for advancement and success. And why not? We are now witnessing an MLB product that is filled with players driven to throw the ball and hit the ball hard, front offices who value and model those performance metrics, and the slow exit of traditional baseball staff who can't quantify the value of their baseball wisdom into modern-day front offices.
MLB has prided itself on diversity and inclusion over the last decade. However, many front offices are a far cry from being balanced between traditional baseball wisdom and new aged analytics. When a MLB Team fails, are the models produced by the analytic departments held accountable? It seems the traditional baseball manager / coach continue to be the fall guys when a MLB Team doesn’t win. Where’s the accountability in the front office?
Baseball remains simple. Throw the ball, hit the ball, and catch the ball as the movie Bull Durham suggest. Picking a winning team, developing a winning team, managing a winning team, and ultimately becoming a winning team aren’t all objective. A common thread in success amongst sport and business is great leadership. Hard to quantify the respect and motivation a great manager may have on the overall effectiveness of the philosophy / analytics the front office wants to instill. But, if the leaders on the field are stripped of power, and not valued, the players know, and ultimately the product on the field suffers.
I have built my entire business off of using analytics to help guide better decisions related to pitchers' current and future injury risks. Yet, all the while, I have known that the Injury Risk Model developed by myself and DVS Baseball is a tool to help make better decisions. The actual value of our tool is to help a pitcher on the field decrease risk, extend longevity and add value to his team both for the short term and the long term. The confidence to help and when to help a pitcher to make subtle, sometimes drastic changes in his pitching delivery comes from the wisdom of having applied the knowledge into a practical setting and the eventual results.
Overall, I vote to not discredit, devalue, or dismiss the veteran staff member whose knowledge and wisdom is built off first-hand experience from the field. It’s not their fault they can’t quantify all their knowledge into an analytical tool. Their background didn’t provide that pathway. Most of the time, the analytics just provide a new terms to quantify knowledge they already know. The pendulum is shifting back towards finding the right balance between baseball wisdom and the successful integration of advanced analytics. They do not have to be mutually exclusive. The MLB Teams that get it right will all have two things in common. A great leader on the field and a great leader in the front-office who are motivated to build and sustain a winning franchise.
