Britton on the use of analytics in New York vs. Baltimore

[Just Regular]

It's totally academic, but most of my life over the course of a season I've held to the old notion each year there's 54 you win, 54 you lose and the rest decide the year.  I'm not sure that's true anymore.  There's no reason this year's Astros would try their hardest against this year's Orioles 162 times, but if they did, would we get 30 wins?  20?

Fangraphs occasionally posts want ads from teams, and it caught my eye that one valued machine learning as a targeted skill.  The batter pitcher matchup has always been a game of chess, and actual chess is no contest anymore.  Players will always be their own strategists to some degree, but I do believe the disparity in insight between clubs is at least rivaling if not outright surpassing the disparity in innate baseball talent between players.

It's added to my enjoyment of October the last couple years.  Because only now do we really get to see what the best teams think are the best competitive practices, and the Astros I think have opened enough of a gap they can hide some of what they really know during the year (e.g., Mike Fiers led 2017 team in innings, Correa/Altuve miss months with injuries Buck's guys would ""post up" and "grind" through).  

Lance McCullers won't throw 30 straight curveballs in the summer, but he might tonight.

[Mendoza Line]

On 10/15/2018 at 12:56 PM, baltfan said:

This is so true.  Moreover, Machado was awful in the first month.  I wonder if you took the first month out how different then numbers vs. his Dodgers' numbers would be.  Finally, all of this is SSS.  Defensive numbers are notoriously unreliable with SSS.  

Orioles need to work on their analytics, but Machado's "improvement" doesn't prove anything.  

It could have also been lack of motivation, playing for a team that went into an immediate tailspin.  Heck, Manny has already been accused of doggin' it in the postseason! He even admitted in an interview that hustle "isn't my cup of tea".

Imagine what a player he could be if he  put in more effort. I'm actually glad we aren't going to be the ones to give him an absurd contract.

[Rojo13]

 

 

1. The Orioles obviously should have used analytics more. As I watch this post-season, particularly the Brewers use of pitchers, I thought to myself, "Would Buck ever do something like that?" HIs use of Ubaldo over Britton in Toronto was one of the biggest gaffes in MLB history.

Analytics could also have been used to project Chris Davis regression which will hamstring this team for 4 years.

2. That being said, people are piling on.  The fact of the matter is we had a great run and for years, under Buck, the Orioles defied the analytical projections. However, humans like to have something to blame and right now it looks like it's Buck. People need to remember the following. From a Rosenthal article:

Quote

Dickerson noted that few complained about the Orioles’ positioning when the team set a major-league record in 2013 by making only 53 errors (the Orioles also fared well in the advanced metrics that season). From 2012 to ‘16, the team led the American League in wins and reached the postseason three times. Britton enjoyed great personal success in ‘16, converting all 47 of his save opportunities and producing the lowest single-season ERA (0.54) with at least 50 innings pitched in major-league history.

People are too quick to say one said is definitely right.

-Rojo

PS.I've always wondered why our pitchers get much better after they leave here but we tried multiple pitching coaches.

[hoosiers]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 12:26 PM, Tony-OH said:

Buck is a guy who commands a room. He never struck me as a guy who wanted to sit down and be told something by some young guy/gal about baseball. I'm sure Buck thinks he was open to some analytics, but it;'s clear from players, to front office people, to agents of players that they would disagree about his openness to receiving and using this information.

Lost in all of this was that Duquette wanted to apparently fire McDowell after last season but Buck being Buck, apparently said no. 

I personally think Buck is one of the last old school managers who likes to surround himself with old school coaches. They like hunches, trust their eyes, and like their guys, even to the point of being detrimental to the on field product.

This whole battles also shows that Duqette never had full control over baseball operations. If he couldn't get his on field coaching staff to accept the information he wanted them to, he should have replaced them. I don't think he ever had the power to do so and was hamstrung.

He was also hamstrung by the amount of money he could put into scouting and analytics as Ownership would blow $3 million of a Chris Tillman or Colby Rasmus vs putting that into those important areas.

Hopefully the Angelos brothers will hire a good baseball person to run baseball operations and give him the budget to make this organization first rate once again.

So, Britton says the NYY analytics provided to him was better than what the Os provided.  Manny is positioned differently than the first rate LAD analytics department.  Anyone need more examples?  Either our analytics department was not a good one or Buck ignored the data of the analytics group or both.  

I have to believe DD that Buck did not employ the data available to him very well and IMO that does not reflect well on Buck - it makes Buck out to be a dinosaur because there are probably 10-20+ teams who knew Buck was making subpar moves based on the data.  

At the same time, it is very interesting to see some acknowledgement that multiple pitchers who left the organization were appreciably better immediately after their trade.  I find it odd that DD may blame Buck for this because it is DD who dealt away the asset for less than market value.k 

[spiritof66]

17 hours ago, hoosiers said:

So, Britton says the NYY analytics provided to him was better than what the Os provided.  Manny is positioned differently than the first rate LAD analytics department.  Anyone need more examples?  Either our analytics department was not a good one or Buck ignored the data of the analytics group or both.  

I have to believe DD that Buck did not employ the data available to him very well and IMO that does not reflect well on Buck - it makes Buck out to be a dinosaur because there are probably 10-20+ teams who knew Buck was making subpar moves based on the data.  

At the same time, it is very interesting to see some acknowledgement that multiple pitchers who left the organization were appreciably better immediately after their trade.  I find it odd that DD may blame Buck for this because it is DD who dealt away the asset for less than market value.k 

I don't have any doubt that Buck and his staff didn't make use of the data. It's also clear that the Orioles analytics department (or whatever it's called) under-resourced, in terms of the number of employees and perhaps in other ways as well.

What I have no clue about is whether the current analytics people, and there appear to be three of them, https://www.mlb.com/orioles/team/front-office , are capable professionals who can be the core of a build-out, or have not performed well and should be replaced and a new department built from the ground up. Anybody?

In either case, but especially the latter one, this is another important task for the yet-to-be-hired "GM" and another reason why that hiring decision should be made as soon as possible.

 

[Chromehill]

On ‎10‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 11:42 AM, Rojo13 said:

 

 

1. The Orioles obviously should have used analytics more. As I watch this post-season, particularly the Brewers use of pitchers, I thought to myself, "Would Buck ever do something like that?" HIs use of Ubaldo over Britton in Toronto was one of the biggest gaffes in MLB history.

Analytics could also have been used to project Chris Davis regression which will hamstring this team for 4 years.

2. That being said, people are piling on.  The fact of the matter is we had a great run and for years, under Buck, the Orioles defied the analytical projections. However, humans like to have something to blame and right now it looks like it's Buck. People need to remember the following. From a Rosenthal article:

People are too quick to say one said is definitely right.

-Rojo

PS.I've always wondered why our pitchers get much better after they leave here but we tried multiple pitching coaches.

Analytics would not have deterred the Orioles from resigning Davis to that monster contract.  Peter did the deal himself, no stopping that.  Maybe analytics helps if they convince Buck and Brady it is a bad idea and they influence Peter.  Boras called Peter and the rest is history.

[ThomasTomasz]

On 10/17/2018 at 11:42 AM, Rojo13 said:

 

 

1. The Orioles obviously should have used analytics more. As I watch this post-season, particularly the Brewers use of pitchers, I thought to myself, "Would Buck ever do something like that?" HIs use of Ubaldo over Britton in Toronto was one of the biggest gaffes in MLB history.

Analytics could also have been used to project Chris Davis regression which will hamstring this team for 4 years.

2. That being said, people are piling on.  The fact of the matter is we had a great run and for years, under Buck, the Orioles defied the analytical projections. However, humans like to have something to blame and right now it looks like it's Buck. People need to remember the following. From a Rosenthal article:

People are too quick to say one said is definitely right.

-Rojo

PS.I've always wondered why our pitchers get much better after they leave here but we tried multiple pitching coaches.

The rumor I believe is that Buck had his pitching philosophy permeating the entire minor league system.  The minimalist windup (where the pitcher is almost starting in the stretch) and the frequent use of the slidestep, all to get to home plate quicker to avoid stolen bases.......despite stolen bases going down around the league.  

Once these players leave Baltimore and other teams slow them down, whether that be from the windup, stretch or both, they usually figure out the problems and improve.  

[foxfield]

This spin and blame game has been going on since the trade deadline. Frankly I think it makes both Dan and Buck look smaller. And makes be happier that they are gone. I appreciate what they did here, and will never forget it. 

But that is behind us. 

[Tony-OH]

I heard something interesting about this situation. I was told that Buck had his own analytics guy and that he did not want information from Dan's people (Geller). Not saying one was better than the other because I don't know the answer to that one, but just something I thought I'd share.

[Redskins Rick]

8 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I heard something interesting about this situation. I was told that Buck had his own analytics guy and that he did not want information from Dan's people (Geller). Not saying one was better than the other because I don't know the answer to that one, but just something I thought I'd share.

Could be something as simple as he worked with the guy before and trusted his information and was on the same wavelength with the guy.

Then, maybe its why the team went into a flunk for the past two years. I wonder how long he had been using this guy.

 

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Redskins Rick said:

Could be something as simple as he worked with the guy before and trusted his information and was on the same wavelength with the guy.

Then, maybe its why the team went into a flunk for the past two years. I wonder how long he had been using this guy.

 

I really don't have any opinion on the analytics guys one way or the other since I have no way of evaluating them outside of what players are saying.

[Redskins Rick]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

I really don't have any opinion on the analytics guys one way or the other since I have no way of evaluating them outside of what players are saying.

I understand, but its an interesting tidbit, and could be nothing, or just continue to point at how screwed up they was.

We will never know.

[spiritof66]

On 10/21/2018 at 12:04 PM, Roy Firestone said:

Analytics  is are important. Talent is more important.We didn't have either last year. And it will be a while before we  do.

The two are related. Investment in, and proper use of, analytics is an important element in improving a team's talent.

The purpose of analytics is to learn more about what attributes will increase (and what won't increase) a team's chances of winning ballgames now and in the future, and how to obtain those attributes most economically. It's one of the tools that a team should use in deciding what talent to acquire, retain and let loose, how much to offer to pay talent that is available for trade or purchase, and how to use the talent that is on the roster and in the system. It appears that virtually every successful team invests heavily in analytics and uses it in  making decisions about talent.

The Orioles' apparent failure to invest in and use analytics as much as those teams would appear to be one factor that contributed to the team's lack of talent. 

[Frobby]

On 10/8/2018 at 11:38 AM, Tony-OH said:

You guys are missing a name here, Sarah Gelles. Gelles has been in charge of analytics under Duquette since December 2011 when she was promoted from a baseball operations intern.

I don't know her at all, but everything I've ever heard about her by other people in the organization has been negative . Whoever they hire to be the VP of Baseball Operations needs to clean house and bring in actual successful Analytics people. It's embarrassing to hear how much better other organizations are with data and analytics.

Actually Gelles is one of Duquette's failures as GM.

From a Fangraphs chat today with Meg Rowley, talking about whether the O’s would be open to hiring Kim Ng as President or GM:

They do have Sarah Gelles, who is their Director of Analytics and Major League Contracts, in house already and she is wonderful and very sharp.

https://www.jotcast.com/chat/meg-rowley-fangraphs-chat-10-30-18-3991.html