How the Pirates are Different......

[Mike Sixel]

This is the kind of organization that wins, with limited money (yes, having Mccutchen helps.....). This is the kind of forward thinking anyone should admire, imo. 

 

I wish we'd read about this in MN, in any sport.

 

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/pittsburgh-pirates-mike-fitzgerald-mit-sabermetric-road-show/

 

[Kwak]

This is the kind of organization that wins, with limited money (yes, having Mccutchen helps.....). This is the kind of forward thinking anyone should admire, imo. 

 

I wish we'd read about this in MN, in any sport.

 

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/pittsburgh-pirates-mike-fitzgerald-mit-sabermetric-road-show/

The key isn't a "Fitzgerald" in the organization--it's having a "Clint Hurdle".

[Platoon]

Stole this paragraph, which I found interesting..... It's a long way of saying you can lead a horse to water.............

 

Incentivized by baseball’s growing revenues, almost every team has installed an analytics department and a GM who’s open to recent research. The factor differentiating front offices, then, isn’t necessarily the quality of their number crunching, but the quality of their communication, a subject that Astros GM Jeff Luhnow expounded upon earlier this summer, shortly before firing manager Bo Porter. To make the most of their R&D dollars, teams are increasingly focusing on figuring out Step 3: minimizing baseball’s upstairs-downstairs drama by ensuring that front offices and field staffs are on the same page (or at least in the same book).

 

In the interest of fairness, no names of local managers will be named to protect the obtuse!

[The Wise One]

The effects of the SABR guy for Pittsburg

Defensive positionnig is something that Molitor has worked on. Where do you supose he gets the information from other than the statistcs department.

HBP as evidence of pitching inside. When the Twins miss inside, rather than hitting the batter it goes over the plate.

I do not know how the Twins FO operates. Who talks to who about what.  When it works some people talk. Others hold their cards closer.  Someone in Pittsburg felt the need to brag, hence the article.

[Mike Sixel]

Really, you think it was about bragging? Super cynical statement.

 

I found the article interesting, I am glad it was written. 

[gunnarthor]

Two winning seasons after 20 losing years and you want to use them as the role model?  In a couple years, we're going to be reading articles about how smart the Twins were for building through the minors and not panicking, etc, etc.  Hell, Dayton Moore is starting to get good press.

[drjim]

Two winning seasons after 20 losing years and you want to use them as the role model?  In a couple years, we're going to be reading articles about how smart the Twins were for building through the minors and not panicking, etc, etc.  Hell, Dayton Moore is starting to get good press.

 

Exactly.

 

The Pirates are good because they drafted McCutheon, were patient with the rest of the system, gave it time to come together, and made some savvy moves to supplement. They'll have a nice run of 3-5 years then cycle back down and hope they can do it again.

[Mike Sixel]

Businesses evolve and change process all the time. I found the article interesting about one way the Pirates have tired to change and improve. I don't get the cynicism at all.

[gunnarthor]

Businesses evolve and change process all the time. I found the article interesting about one way the Pirates have tired to change and improve. I don't get the cynicism at all.

Because you have no way of knowing if the reasons for their success are because of what the article presents or for different reasons.  History shows that most teams will go through cycles, the GMs that know their stuff are the ones that can extend these cycles by turning over the right players and building around others.  Something the Pirates haven't shown an ability to do.

 

Look at the Rays.  They started winning and they were the smartest FO ever.  Now they are back in a down cycle with not a lot going right for them.  And you want to complain about drafts?  Look at their 2011 draft.  They had 11 picks in the top 75 of what was at the time consider one of the great draft classes (that may have turned out to be untrue.  Top heavy but maybe not a lot of depth).  Today none of those 11 has made the majors, none are in any top 100 (in fact, the Rays have one of the worst farm systems in baseball with no guys in mlb.com's top 100) and the Rays are in that ugly "not quite good, not quite bad" phase while trading off guys like Price.

[Mike Sixel]

Like I said, I don't get the cynicism. Of course we can't prove this has an affect on the team (you can't prove a positive). So what? A team should not change how it thinks about how it makes decisions? It should not change its tactics and strategy? It should not look to improve how it runs all its processes?

 

It should only draft better?

 

We'll never agree on that. Ever.

[jokin]

Like I said, I don't get the cynicism. Of course we can't prove this has an affect on the team (you can't prove a positive). So what? A team should not change how it thinks about how it makes decisions? It should not change its tactics and strategy? It should not look to improve how it runs all its processes?

 

It should only draft better?

 

We'll never agree on that. Ever.

 

And it's hard to ignore the glaringly obvious fact the "processes" involved in producing quality returns on 2/5ths of their playoff-team SP rotation from guys who were run out of town here from the worst SP staff in baseball.