Damning article in the Washington Post re: Pressly / Analytics

[TheLeviathan]

 

I would hope there are more to come, since they traded one away already.

 

The 2013 Astros.  Go look at them.  They went 51-111.

 

That team actually cut JD Martinez shortly after, BTW.  The things that truly matter are not Kyle Gibson.  It's Royce Lewis.  It's the development of Kiriloff.  It's the trade acquisitions.  Only time will tell.

 

I know patience isn't something we as fans are very good at, but it sure paid off in Houston.  And Boston.  And Chicago.  

[Vanimal46]

I don't know what the 2013 Astros has to do with anything in this thread. They had zero talent and traded away any talent they had. The 2018 Twins had talent and failed to improve their talent through analytics, coaching, or voodoo magic.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I don't know what the 2013 Astros has to do with anything in this thread. They had zero talent and traded away any talent they had. The 2018 Twins had talent and failed to improve their talent through analytics, coaching, or voodoo magic.

 

That the best organization in baseball wasn't exactly showing any signs of progress two years in either.  Vanimal, 2014 Houston Astros Version, makes the same post about them.  Likewise, they warranted such comments as this back in 2014:

 

Texas Oiler • 4 years ago
I wouldn't be surprised if more and more Astros fans become Rangers fan. This organization is complete trash and Houston's probably never going to have another champion.

 

 

Maybe, the bar you're holding them too, isn't worth anything because you (and me and all of us) have virtually no clue how much progress is or isn't being made.  We see, at best, the surface.  What's underneath matters a helluva lot more.

[Vanimal46]

My bar is already low, I don't think it can go any lower... 2 years into this thing I want:

 

The analytical systems needed to get the information required to develop players implemented.

 

The people who will manage these systems hired, trained, and translating raw data into action items

 

2+ examples of players in the majors or minors fundamentally changing their game for the better each year. And for those players to sustain the change.

 

But unless I'm mistaken, some feel that 2 years is too aggressive of a timeline to see this kind of progress. 2 years is a long time...

[LaBombo]

 

The best in baseball - Houston - took the better part of what?  5-7 years?  Sounds like your timeline.  At least if you're being realistic.  The evidence indicates it takes about that long to get things right.  This FO isn't even close to the half-way point right now.  You might say "I'm not saying a day or a year", but the tone of your posts indicates the exact opposite of that.

 

Three years. That's what it took in Houston.

 

2012 was Luhnow's first season running the Astros. After one more awful season followed by a better but still bad one, he put together an 86 game winner with a 93 win Pythag in 2015, after just three years of rebuilding.

 

Nobody is expecting Falvine to build Rome in a day, but it also shouldn't take over half a decade to do better than a yurt.

[TheLeviathan]

They turned the corner In the fourth season.  That have them four offseasons and three drafts. (Even then they were an 84 and 86 win team.  The true rise was the sixth season after 6 offseasons and 5 drafts)

 

If you feel Houston is the best organization in baseball (you should), then your timelines/criticisms/judgments of our FO should be comparable to their timeline.  Otherwise...why think them valid?

 

[KGB]

 

Well it certainly would be nice for our local journalists to write up a piece on the organizational flow chart.

 

Though for some reason our local reporters can't even figure out when this team is having managerial interviews so I'm not holding out a ton of hope for something more detailed.

http://www.startribune.com/twins-front-office-brings-in-the-brainpower/468892363/

 

I think Reusse did this in January, I don't think the problem is lack of resources.

 

"The Twins have added 40-plus positions to the baseball department since Falvey took over and “several million dollars’’ to the staff payroll. They will be adding more jobs over the course of 2018."

 

There are 10 employees involved in different areas of analytical research.

[old nurse]

 

My bar is already low, I don't think it can go any lower... 2 years into this thing I want:

The analytical systems needed to get the information required to develop players implemented.

The people who will manage these systems hired, trained, and translating raw data into action items

2+ examples of players in the majors or minors fundamentally changing their game for the better each year. And for those players to sustain the change.

But unless I'm mistaken, some feel that 2 years is too aggressive of a timeline to see this kind of progress. 2 years is a long time...

2 years into Luhnow's project Houston they were 51-111. They were using pitchers like Phil Humber

[old nurse]

Osuna forgot to read today's report

[old nurse]

https://www.metro.us/sports/boston/metro-exclusive-astros-may-have-been-cheating-game-1-against-red-sox-0

 

Of course there is also more to the Houston way

[Mike Sixel]

2 years into Luhnow's project Houston they were 51-111. They were using pitchers like Phil Humber

Did they start with a Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Polanco, and Berrios in the minors? Plus Garver. Two top ten prospects? Plus three more in the top 100?

[David HK]

 

 

I thought this would be the FIRST thing FalVine would fix.

It's a series of steps, tho--

 

At least they did dump all those musty boxes of paper scouting reports and put in a load of those new Commodore 64's, so....

[Pius Jefferson]

 

https://www.metro.us/sports/boston/metro-exclusive-astros-may-have-been-cheating-game-1-against-red-sox-0

 

Of course there is also more to the Houston way

 

Cleveland warned Boston before the series about Houston. Oakland complained to MLB about Houston back in August and Los Angeles last World Series thought Houston was illegally stealing signs.

 

I

[h2oface]

 

Cleveland warned Boston before the series about Houston. Oakland complained to MLB about Houston back in August and Los Angeles last World Series thought Houston was illegally stealing signs.

 

While it may be cheating to use things like apple watches, as the 2001 directive addressed, signs are meant to be stolen. It always has been, and always will be. Boston loves the idea. Just keep the electronic devices and binoculars out of the dugout. If you expected the other team not to steal your somewhat comical coded signs, then you wouldn’t need signs in the first place, and you certainly wouldn’t need elaborate fake signs and countersigns to misdirect and try to fool the other team.

http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/82491/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sign-stealing

 

"It is not illegal to steal signs. There is no rule against it, and certain players and coaches excel at the art. There is, however, a directive dating to 2001 that prohibits the use of electronic devices in the dugout or the use of binoculars. The use of the Apple Watch would clearly violate this directive."

 

And with pitchers and batters all too often missing their own signs, it is a real cluster **** out there. Best to train your players to achieve telepathy if you don't want your signs intercepted.

 

 

 

[ND-Fan]

This front office record on acquiring players and evaluating talent has not been stellar yet. Case in point the best acquisitions by this front office to date has been Castro at Catcher, Cave, and Duke. Even these players are what you not consider game changing players but at least have given good value to the Twins. There other players they have obtained are in two classes first you have Ordorizzi, Reed, and Rodney where they have performed but not to expectations but still performed to level where they still were keeping except for Rodney in that they got prospect for money they spent on him. Then we come to bottom of the group of players Morrisson, Lynn, and slew of relief pitchers to many to name led by Belisle especially the second time around acquiring him. This latter group of players especially the first two were real mistakes both came at high enough costs for the production received and second what it did to the club house. This is was not only error on analytics but also on judging the people involved here and letting this go on to long .

The funny thing about everyone criticizing the previous front offices moves is some of moves this front office that  are most criticized on were extremely criticized by fans for previous front office. Ecsobar was trade the Ryan got for Liriano  which was extremely criticized for not getting enough in trade. Pressely was rule 5 draft pick from Boston and everyone was wondering why they were using up roster space for him. The previous front office especially if Ryan had been involved in looking at the talent was good at judging future talent. I do remember reading by local press Ryan's front office wanted to beef up the scouting department but that never got completed. This Front Office is going to be successful needs now how use their information and same time get people skills where they can work with players, coaches, and front office people working as team together and people have trust through out the organization. What I can tell reading and comments by people around the organization they are having hard time with this and people are scared for their jobs and little trust through out the organization not good environment to build a winner. I do think this next year is make or break for this Front Office if things don't show improvement through out whole organization from top to bottom changes may be made.  

[old nurse]

 

Did they start with a Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Polanco, and Berrios in the minors? Plus Garver. Two top ten prospects? Plus three more in the top 100?

Castro, Altuve, JD Martinez, Marwin Gonzales, Mark Melancon and Dallas Kuechel were all on the major league roster.  5 of the 6 have been all stars Bud Norris was  well thought of. Carlos Lee was in the twilight of his career.

George Springer, Jared Cosart, Mike Foltynewicz (SIC< I am not double checking spelling), Domingo Santana were all in the minors at the time.  There are 2 more all star players. Plus spring 2012 number 76 prospect Robbie Grossman  The cupboard was not bare for Luhnow

 

The one top ten draft pick was drafted by the current regime.  That be Lewis.

[mikelink45]

 

I think now you probably get why Molitor got fired.

 

As others have mentioned, the Twins saw his spin rate with his curveball and wanted him to use it more and he didn't. In some fashion, that means that the coaching staff couldn't get this stuff through to him. Then, of course, he goes to Houston and voila, starts throwing his curveball more with devastating effect.

Poor Molitor will get blamed for everything - he did not trade Pressly, he was not the pitching coach, he was not the bullpen coach...

[mikelink45]

 

While it may be cheating to use things like apple watches, as the 2001 directive addressed, signs are meant to be stolen. It always has been, and always will be. Boston loves the idea. Just keep the electronic devices and binoculars out of the dugout. If you expected the other team not to steal your somewhat comical coded signs, then you wouldn’t need signs in the first place, and you certainly wouldn’t need elaborate fake signs and countersigns to misdirect and try to fool the other team.

http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/82491/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sign-stealing

 

"It is not illegal to steal signs. There is no rule against it, and certain players and coaches excel at the art. There is, however, a directive dating to 2001 that prohibits the use of electronic devices in the dugout or the use of binoculars. The use of the Apple Watch would clearly violate this directive."

 

And with pitchers and batters all too often missing their own signs, it is a real cluster **** out there. Best to train your players to achieve telepathy if you don't want your signs intercepted.

 

sting nose touch.gif

Football uses helmet microphones - catcher and pitcher could do something similar.  Even an old school guy like me would be fine with ending the pitchers concentration on the catchers crotch.

[laloesch]

 

How many articles will it take to actually criticize the team, when a player says his new team is better at this stuff? He literally said that.

Two years in, they aren't good enough at this yet. We are constantly told they can't spend with the big boys. We also seem to not be able to coach like the other good teams. Not a good combination.

 

It's the kiss of death or more appropriately, permanent noncompetitiveness. You have / had a bad manager, you have / had bad coaches, you have a subpar scouting department and you have inferior player talent.  

 

This is not a problem that started last year this has been in the works since Terry Ryans last tenure. He drafted inferior talent, made bad coaching decisions, created a scouting department that was literally stuck in the dark ages, all of that combines together into a situation that is almost insurmountable.

 

Its going to take a TON of work and elbow grease by Falvey and Levine to turn this ship around and plug all the holes so that this franchise starts to rise instead of steadily taking on water and falling behind the rest of mlb.  I don't envy the job ahead of them and it's going to take YEARS to accomplish. 

[Nine of twelve]

 

It's the kiss of death or more appropriately, permanent noncompetitiveness. You have / had a bad manager, you have / had bad coaches, you have a subpar scouting department and you have inferior player talent.  

 

This is not a problem that started last year this has been in the works since Terry Ryans last tenure. He drafted inferior talent, made bad coaching decisions, created a scouting department that was literally stuck in the dark ages, all of that combines together into a situation that is almost insurmountable.

 

Its going to take a TON of work and elbow grease by Falvey and Levine to turn this ship around and plug all the holes so that this franchise starts to rise instead of steadily taking on water and falling behind the rest of mlb.  I don't envy the job ahead of them and it's going to take YEARS to accomplish. 

This is it. I've said before that the goal of a Major League Baseball organization is to field a team that is in a position to contend for the postseason every year. Every. Year. And by far the most necessary areas to accomplish this are scouting and player development. This is true for all 30 organizations but it is especially true for teams with tighter budget constraints. And there's no way around the fact that it takes time, probably 5+ years, to put the system in place, employ the people who can do the job, and cultivate a steady stream of major-league-ready players.

Of course, it's also necessary to have a major league on-field staff that can achieve optimal success with the roster they are given, and I don't think our latest manager and coaches did that. I fervently hope that Falvey and Levine are people who can direct this transformation

[Number3]

I refuse to believe that sitting in a room and staring at computers is the way to fix a baseball team. The key to athletic performance is execution; not reliance on a spreadsheet formula.

The Astro's pitching success can be summarized in 2 words: Justin Verlander. He is an example of what happens when a player goes from a franchise with a losing attitude (recent Tigers) and one with a winning attitude (Astros). Name one great player who was discovered as a result of analytics. I am waiting.

 

Kevin Millar went on a tirade the other day and basically said that analytics is ruining baseball and managers are trying to plug parts into every conceivable situation instead of just playing ball. Of course, the MLB dependent hosts tried to refute that and went on to another topic.

 

Outfielders have cards in their back pockets like golfers and refer to them every time a new batter goes to the plate. shifts are used on practically every player and then pitchers get upset when a routine ground ball is hit and no one is there to field it. I totally agree with Millar.

 

Get the geeks out of baseball. They are ruining it and many probaly don;t know the difference between a wild pitch and a suicide squeeze.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Name one great player who was discovered as a result of analytics. I am waiting.

Without even thinking about it for more than two seconds, Kevin Youkilis, the guy who was literally mentioned about 500 times in Moneyball.

 

That was easy.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Get the geeks out of baseball. They are ruining it and many probaly don;t know the difference between a wild pitch and a suicide squeeze.

Indeed. Theo Epstein knows nothing about baseball, nor do most of the World Series championship front offices of the past five years, most of which are heavy into analytics.

 

Huh?

[ashbury]

I refuse to believe that sitting in a room and staring at computers is the way to fix a baseball team.

Concur.

 

Next straw-man argument?

[mlhouse]

I think that this is giving too much credit to the analytics.  A 29 year old pitcher doesn't suddenly cut his ERA to 1/5th of his career ERA, his WHIP in half, and his walks to to 1/3 the level he was pitching in MInnesota (his K rate actually was lower in HOuston) just because they showed him a couple of charts.

 

I am not saying that analytics didnt help though but instead I speculate it is a variety of causes including better defense, change in usage patterns,  umpire bias, and small sample size.  I think the last two are the most important.  I personally do not think "catcher framing" is that important because I think the most important factor in calling a ball a strike and a strike a ball is the bias of the umpire.  The Houston Astros pitchers are going to get the call their way, the Minnesota Twins pitchers the other.  

 

And, of course, the smaller sample size is also relevant.  We have seen Ryan Pressley have seasons were his ERA ranged from 2.86 to 4.70, with that high happening over 57 appearances just last season.  A 27 game streak like he had in HOuston is something that happens from time to time.

 

So, addressing the trade fact, I think it was correct to trade Pressley.  For the Twins he was a decent relief pitcher.  We got a realistic return for a 29 year old relief pitcher.  If for the Astros he is a relief pitcher with a WHIP of 0.600 and 12 K/9, virtually unhittable (which he was in the playoffs), good for them.   But he wasn't going to be anything like that wtih the Twins.

 

 

[nicksaviking]

 

I refuse to believe that sitting in a room and staring at computers is the way to fix a baseball team. The key to athletic performance is execution; not reliance on a spreadsheet formula.

The Astro's pitching success can be summarized in 2 words: Justin Verlander. He is an example of what happens when a player goes from a franchise with a losing attitude (recent Tigers) and one with a winning attitude (Astros). Name one great player who was discovered as a result of analytics. I am waiting.

 

I somehow doubt Jusin Verlander's winning attitude increased the pitching staff's strikeout percentage by 25%. If you want an example of analytics making players great, why look any further than the entire Astros staff? Verlander was nearly written off as done, Cole was a perpetual under-performer and everyone else was a complete no-name/washout/has-been prior to the Astros getting their hands on them. Or was Charlie Morton's transformation from Nick Blackburn to Roger Clemens at the age of 33 just a coincidence?

[KGB]

 

 

 

Indeed. Theo Epstein knows nothing about baseball, nor do most of the World Series championship front offices of the past five years, most of which are heavy into analytics.

 

Huh?

Here's the league stats since 1961.  All the fielding shifting hasn't changed the leagues average of BABIP (actually higher this year than the overall average).  All the going deep into the count has not changed the BB%.  The only thing that is increasing is K's which is driving down the batting averages.

 

I guess they have been successful in increasing the time it take to play a game.  Seems like a lot of mental masturbation, without a lot of change in the results.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=1961&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

[Major League Ready]

 

Indeed. Theo Epstein knows nothing about baseball, nor do most of the World Series championship front offices of the past five years, most of which are heavy into analytics.

 

Huh?

 

He knows enough to gain a competitive advantage. If someone is beating you at a game you supposedly know more about, perhaps it's time to reassess how much you really know.

[Seth Stohs]

 

How many articles will it take to actually criticize the team, when a player says his new team is better at this stuff? He literally said that.

Two years in, they aren't good enough at this yet. We are constantly told they can't spend with the big boys. We also seem to not be able to coach like the other good teams. Not a good combination.

 

I'm not going to pretend the Twins analytics is as good as Houston's. Houston's group has been together for like 7-9 years. The Twins have tried to build it up over the last two years, and slowly. I think we need some patience as they are continuing to add.

 

I would also venture a guess that people with the Twins were fully aware of his spin rate and the quality of his curveball and slider. We heard them say that often. 

 

So, in my mind, the question becomes why didn't Pressly throw more CB? Were the coaches/manager not encouraging him to do so? (I don't know, but maybe) Were the Twins scouting reports different than other teams? (Maybe, but I doubt it) Was the catcher just not willing to call more curves/sliders? (very likely) Were the catchers not calling as many sliders because he was very inconsistent with it, or maybe there were often runners on 3B? (possible, maybe likely) Was Pressly letting the information go in one ear and out the other? (Possible) Did he have the same confidence in throwing that pitch over and over and over that he has now? (Certainly)

 

I mean, the article, in my opinion, is kind of an over-simplification of what might be a multi-layered question that doesn't fall solely on the front office, the coaching staff, or the player?

[Mr. Brooks]

I refuse to believe that sitting in a room and staring at computers is the way to fix a baseball team. The key to athletic performance is execution; not reliance on a spreadsheet formula.

The Astro's pitching success can be summarized in 2 words: Justin Verlander. He is an example of what happens when a player goes from a franchise with a losing attitude (recent Tigers) and one with a winning attitude (Astros). Name one great player who was discovered as a result of analytics. I am waiting.

 

Kevin Millar went on a tirade the other day and basically said that analytics is ruining baseball and managers are trying to plug parts into every conceivable situation instead of just playing ball. Of course, the MLB dependent hosts tried to refute that and went on to another topic.

 

Outfielders have cards in their back pockets like golfers and refer to them every time a new batter goes to the plate. shifts are used on practically every player and then pitchers get upset when a routine ground ball is hit and no one is there to field it. I totally agree with Millar.

 

Get the geeks out of baseball. They are ruining it and many probaly don;t know the difference between a wild pitch and a suicide squeeze.

Then why are the most successful teams over the last 5 or 6 years the ones most dependent on heavy use of analytics?