Orioles hire Ezra Wise (analytics dept?)

[fearthenoodle]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cheers to the great <a href="https://twitter.com/EzDW24">@EzDW24</a> as he heads off to the Orioles, after making my life easier for months expertly & thoughtfully pulling cool data</p>— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) <a href="

">February 23, 2016</a></blockquote>

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Formerly of Baseball Prospectus and MLBAM.

[harp6]

I assume that this is the scouting report or his college ball. We didn't get him to play baseball so who cares about his college ball, what about his brains. There isn't a scouting report available unless someone wants to read and scout all his articles. Hopefully, he knows something.

http://athletics.macalester.edu/roster.aspx?rp_id=6298

[weams]

I believe he was one of the StatCast guys.

[fearthenoodle]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pleased to announce: our (formerly) very own <a href="https://twitter.com/EzDW24">@EzDW24</a> is now Player Development Assistant for <a href="https://twitter.com/Orioles">@Orioles</a>. Great move <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Orioles?src=hash">#Orioles</a>. Congrats Ezra!</p>— Baseball Prospectus (@baseballpro) <a href="

">February 23, 2016</a></blockquote>

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[Chavez Ravine]

He once worked for the International Knuckleball Academy!

http://knuckleball.com/the-academy/about-us/knuckleball-staff-bios/

Baseball Operations and Development Coordinator, Ezra Wise oversees IKA's recruiting, marketing, program development, talent evaluation, online operations and management operations. Ezra played four years of varsity baseball at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and served as the Baseball Program Director at Camp Winaukee in Moultonborough, New Hampshire for each of the past two summers. For the past year he has been locked inside his Minneapolis office developing the IKA operation that exists today, leaving his desk only to eat, sleep, work out and play baseball. With a fervent passion for advanced baseball analytics and cutting-edge trends in the world of baseball training, Wise brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the Academy.

[Machado13]

Is he good at assessing medicals?

[Chavez Ravine]

Here is Ezra's (+ BP staff) 2016 write-up of the Orioles prospects and system:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28075

From the summary at the end:

Winning in Baltimore is difficult given the perpetual competitiveness of the AL East and the complications that come with operating a family-owned club. However, since taking the helm following the 2011 season, Dan Duquette and Co. have averaged 89 wins per season and have made the playoffs twice. The club?s recent performance is particularly impressive when compared to the previous 14 seasons, in which the O?s averaged 71 wins and never exceeded 79.

The current regime didn't execute a full-on teardown and rebuild a la the Astros and Cubs, but rather, supplemented the core of major-league and near-ready talent that they inherited with a collection of strong peripheral pieces. The Orioles aren't a "Scouting Organization" or a "Player Development Organization" or an "Analytics Organization" in the way that some clubs' seemingly broadcast an overly-reductive, overarching philosophical moniker. They are, however a "Creative Organization"?one that shrewdly makes the most of the resources at its disposal by expertly extracting value from otherwise-unwanted assets and tapping unconventional talent pipelines for undervalued talent.

The Orioles don't have a front-line system at the moment, and that's partly by design given their present status as a contender. They've utilized minor-league assets such as Eduardo Rodriguez, Josh Hader, L.J. Hoes (now back with the club), Zach Davies, and Nick Delmonico to acquire contributors during their playoff runs of the past four years, doing so without entirely emptying the cupboard. As opposed to going all-in at some point over the past four seasons, the club has instead opted for an approach geared toward sustaining success over the long haul. This approach to roster construction will be put to the test in 2016, as the probable departures of Chris Davis and Wei-Yin Chen place additional pressure on the farm system to deliver major-league contributors.

[weams]

Here is Ezra's (+ BP staff) 2016 write-up of the Orioles prospects and system:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28075

From the summary at the end:

Instead of just writing “MANNY MACHADO,” then dropping the mic (which would be an entirely defensible approach to this section in my opinion), I want to play a game. The game is very simple. Pull up your catch-all defensive metric leaderboard of choice (ideally a projection, but selecting the past three seasons will suffice), select all shortstops then sort in descending order. Go down the list, player by player, and identify the first guy you believe to be a worse defender at shortstop than Manny Machado. You don’t have to go very far down the list, right?

While J.J. Hardy has been one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball since joining the Orioles in 2011 (third among SS w/ 48 DRS), it’s not unreasonable to believe that at this moment in time, 23-year-old Manny Machado is a better true talent defender at shortstop than the 33-year-old Hardy. Hardy is still a well above average defender but if his 2015 TAv of .209 starts looking more like an indicator of a significant decline in true talent than an unfortunate run-in with the BABIP goblins, don’t be surprised if a “Manny Machado to shortstop” narrative emerges.

Very rarely does a player move up the defensive spectrum after spending multiple years at a given position in the majors. But if there’s a player who’s deserving of the chance to make it work, it’s Machado, and if there’s a club that’d be willing to eschew the conventions that govern positional deployment, it’s the Orioles (see Pearce, Steve at second base and Davis, Chris in right field). Stay tuned!

If you were expecting a Manny Machado fluff piece, you got one, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the other two impact under-25 players on the Orioles’ roster—Kevin Gausman and Jonathan Schoop.

The 24-year-old Gausman, who seems to be “suffering” from an unfortunate case of post-prospect fatigue, put up nice strikeout and walk rates in 2015, but his performance has yet to match up with his stuff. Gausman threw his 7-grade fastball 69.5 percent of the time—the sixth-highest rate among starters with at least 100 innings pitched in 2015. Yes, it’s a great pitch and it should be thrown a lot, but firing missiles can only get a pitcher so far. Increased reliance on his secondaries should do wonders for Gausman going forward—especially his splitter, which is a(nother) legitimate 7-grade pitch. That no. 2 starter upside, with a relatively safe floor as a no. 3 is still there. Sometimes ya’ gotta’ slay some dragons before you get to the princess, though. Not every heavily-hyped pitching prospect can be Noah Syndergaard.

...

The Executives

Executive Vice President, Baseball Operations: Dan Duquette

Director, Scouting: Gary Rajsich

Director, Player Development: Brian Graham

Director, Minor League Operations: Kent Qualls

Winning in Baltimore is difficult given the perpetual competitiveness of the AL East and the complications that come with operating a family-owned club. However, since taking the helm following the 2011 season, Dan Duquette and Co. have averaged 89 wins per season and have made the playoffs twice. The club’s recent performance is particularly impressive when compared to the previous 14 seasons, in which the O’s averaged 71 wins and never exceeded 79.

The current regime didn’t execute a full-on teardown and rebuild a la the Astros and Cubs, but rather, supplemented the core of major-league and near-ready talent that they inherited with a collection of strong peripheral pieces. The Orioles aren’t a “Scouting Organization” or a “Player Development Organization” or an “Analytics Organization” in the way that some clubs' seemingly broadcast an overly-reductive, overarching philosophical moniker. They are, however a “Creative Organization”—one that shrewdly makes the most of the resources at its disposal by expertly extracting value from otherwise-unwanted assets and tapping unconventional talent pipelines for undervalued talent.

The Orioles don’t have a front-line system at the moment, and that’s partly by design given their present status as a contender. They’ve utilized minor-league assets such as Eduardo Rodriguez, Josh Hader, L.J. Hoes (now back with the club), Zach Davies, and Nick Delmonico to acquire contributors during their playoff runs of the past four years, doing so without entirely emptying the cupboard. As opposed to going all-in at some point over the past four seasons, the club has instead opted for an approach geared toward sustaining success over the long haul. This approach to roster construction will be put to the test in 2016, as the probable departures of Chris Davis and Wei-Yin Chen place additional pressure on the farm system to deliver major-league contributors.

Writing up your future bosses.

[Il BuonO]

Writing up your future bosses.

Quite impressively.

[Sir_Loin]

He was a baseball ops intern with the Orioles last year. They like him. Good kid.

[weams]

He's mid 20's I think. Seems very bright.