Scouts vs Stats

[Luke-OH]

I wanted to share an excellent article on the current state of the MLB in terms of decision making process. This is a must read for anyone wondering how decisions are made in a Front Office and how teams are run.

These are insights you’ll never hear from a beat reporter. They come from a guy, who was the assistant director of baseball operations for the Braves last year, so he knows what he’s talking about.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-status-of-the-scouts-vs-stats-debate/

[ChipTait]

He speaks about "paralysis by over-analysis."  (Jim Palmer uses this term often.)

I thought the same thing about his article.  I didn't see where he made much of an argument toward any particular scouting/drafting  philosophy.

[mdbdotcom]

Maybe one day he'll write an article about his time working with the Orioles.

He seems to be saying that stats are much better in certain areas but leave gaps that only scouts can fill in (player makeup, for example). If that's the case, why not limit the role of scouts to provide  complementary information about players and leave the statistical part to the technology? What's the point of having scouts duplicate the work of the technology when there are other aspects of the player on which they could concentrate? Maybe scouts would provide a more valuable service if they were able to focus on the things that matter.

[weams]

5 hours ago, phillyOs119 said:

I wanted to share an excellent article on the current state of the MLB in terms of decision making process. This is a must read for anyone wondering how decisions are made in a Front Office and how teams are run.

These are insights you’ll never hear from a beat reporter. They come from a guy, who was the assistant director of baseball operations for the Braves last year, so he knows what he’s talking about.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-status-of-the-scouts-vs-stats-debate/

Great Thanks for sharing.

[weams]

"You can imagine how some clubs see this landscape and decide to treat scouting like an assembly line: young, cheap, enthusiastic workers who can handle computer-admin work and a video camera are primarily tasked with sending in tool grades so the office can use them in a comprehensive analysis for the most accurate valuations.

[weams]

“There is a big population [of scouts] working in this game who are lucky to have jobs. They don’t know anything. They’re professional BS artists,”

[weams]

"Maybe they’ll [scouts] bad-mouth you enough on the way out that you have to overpay to get experienced scouts on staff in the future."

[weams]

"There’s another progressive club that would shock you with how their draft decisions are made, essentially letting their draft model make the picks so that no one decision-maker is tied too strongly to a certain pick. You can spot clubs that operate this way because, regardless of outcome, their upper-level executives never get fired."

[weams]

"...club turning down an attractive deal for one clearly superior prospect, instead choosing multiple lesser prospects, an example that would’ve shocked readers at the time and still would today. When I asked a member of that front office to explain the thought process, he said that they saw minor leaguers as gambles. Getting only one player for a premium asset means that the one prospect could bust and give them nothing (read: bad PR on a high profile trade), so they opted to diversify with multiple assets."

[Nite]

16 minutes ago, weams said:

"...club turning down an attractive deal for one clearly superior prospect, instead choosing multiple lesser prospects, an example that would’ve shocked readers at the time and still would today. When I asked a member of that front office to explain the thought process, he said that they saw minor leaguers as gambles. Getting only one player for a premium asset means that the one prospect could bust and give them nothing (read: bad PR on a high profile trade), so they opted to diversify with multiple assets."

So rather than playing Craps, Poker, Roulette, ect ect where you can kinda make a slightly educated guess to better your odds, they choose a stack of scratch off tickets... That's genius.... 

[Luke-OH]

3 hours ago, Nite said:

So rather than playing Craps, Poker, Roulette, ect ect where you can kinda make a slightly educated guess to better your odds, they choose a stack of scratch off tickets... That's genius.... 

It’s CYA at the MLB level.  Pretty shocking, but I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a person’s top priority is protecting their job.

[interloper]

4 hours ago, weams said:

“There is a big population [of scouts] working in this game who are lucky to have jobs. They don’t know anything. They’re professional BS artists,”

I do happen to agree with this. 

[interloper]

Just now, interloper said:

I do happen to agree with this. 

But that's not to say there aren't many, many excellent and knowledgeable scouts.

[Luke-OH]

8 hours ago, ChipTait said:

He speaks about "paralysis by over-analysis."  (Jim Palmer uses this term often.)

I thought the same thing about his article.  I didn't see where he made much of an argument toward any particular scouting/drafting  philosophy.

I think he made the point that the technology/analytics performs better than any one scout in the long run, but an aggregate of quality scouts provides important data. Also he mentioned that as all teams get fully up to speed on data science and analytics (most are already there), then good scouting being a separator once all teams have a equally good mathematical model for player acquisition.

[El Gordo]

What do you do when you don't have enough statistical data to get an accurate evaluation? You have to rely on scouts. You really need both. I would be wary of relying on the ccrporate bean counter mind set soley.