Consolidated thought.

[Satyr3206]

Since the advent of the young, Ivy League educated GM's what has been the constant? Some say analytics, some say moving the game into a new era.

Reality is slightly different.

Almost as a rule it has been about money. Think about it.

Free Agents staying on the market longer and not getting paid by Baseball's historical norm.

Putting the value on younger players. Six years of Team control.

Contracting Minor League Teams. A terrible long term decision.

Managers salaries sinking at a alarming rate. Along with guys getting hired that should not be in a dugout.

Expanding Analytic Departments while getting rid of a lot of Scouts and Development people. Watching Video or workouts is not a good substitute.

The constant here is all of these things lower spending. Not hard to convince most Owners to try it.

What say you?

[bird watcher]

42 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

Since the advent of the young, Ivy League educated GM's what has been the constant? Some say analytics, some say moving the game into a new era.

Reality is slightly different.

Almost as a rule it have been about money. Think about it.

Free Agents staying on the market longer and not getting paid by Baseball's historical norm.

Putting the value on younger players.

Contracting Minor League Teams.

Managers salaries sinking at a alarming rate. Along with guys getting hired that should not be in a dugout.

Expanding Analytic Departments while getting rid of a lot of Scouts and Development people.

The constant here is all of these things lower spending. Not hard to convince most Owners to try it.

What say you?

I’d say the constant is a pursuit of efficiency; a byproduct of which is not spending until that spending can give the most bang for the buck. The Astros aren’t not spending.  They spent when the time was right. 
Analytics is about efficiency too. How do we get the most out of practice?  What type of practice will give the greatest reward for time put in; old normal routines be damned. 
 

It is all a whittling away at chaff.

1. No wasted movement in a swing or pitch.

2. No wasted movement in getting a fielder to where he is most likely to need to be when that batter hits.

3. No wasted time scouting without the most exact measures.

4. No wasted/extra $ on seasoned managers when a manager’s decisions can be boiled down to a formula No wasted spending on players giving less than premium runs/$.

5. No spending when those premium runs/$ won’t matter because the rest of the team isn’t ready.

6. No wasted service time when you can wait and bring all the prospects up at the same time and get more runs/$ together at the same time. 

I am sure there are many more efficiencies being explored.  This is the age of The computer algorithm coming to roost in sports. 

[Satyr3206]

1 minute ago, bird watcher said:

I’d say the constant is a pursuit of efficiency; a byproduct of which is not spending until that spending can give the most bang for the buck. The Astros aren’t not spending.  They spent when the time was right. 
Analytics is about efficiency too. How do we get the most out of practice?  What type of practice will give the greatest reward for time put in; old normal routines be damned. 
 

It is all a whittling away at chaff.

1. No wasted movement in a swing or pitch.

2. No wasted movement in getting a fielder to where he is most likely to need to be when that batter hits.

3. No wasted time scouting without the most exact measures.

4. No wasted/extra $ on seasoned managers when a manager’s decisions can be boiled down to a formula No wasted spending on players giving less than premium runs/$.

5. No spending when those premium runs/$ won’t matter because the rest of the team isn’t ready.

6. No wasted service time when you can wait and bring all the prospects up at the same time and get more runs/$ together at the same time. 

I am sure there are many more efficiencies being explored.  This is the age of The computer algorithm coming to roost in sports. 

While in a computer driven stats world that might work, the fact is your dealing with humans. And playing the game is far different from watching.

I am not advocating spending for no good reason. It just seems the pendulum has gone too far to one side.

[Satyr3206]

By the way, you have to move different ways in baseball to hit, pitch, and field.

[bird watcher]

1 minute ago, Satyr3206 said:

While in a computer driven stats world that might work, the fact is your dealing with humans. And playing the game is far different from watching.

I am not advocating spending for no good reason. It just seems the pendulum has gone too far to one side.

That bolded part is a quote that any employee of a large company undergoing sea changes has uttered or heard uttered.
 

We as humans love normalcy and routine. We crave it and abhor change because its an unknown and creates fear.  
 

7. No more human emotions getting in the way of making the right decisions. 

Ironically the most idolized manager we’ve ever had was famous for not giving a damn how people felt about what he knew was the right decision.  Bill Belichick is Pretty famous for it too. 
 

[Satyr3206]

2 minutes ago, bird watcher said:

That bolded part is a quote that any employee of a large company undergoing sea changes has uttered or heard uttered.
 

We as humans love normalcy and routine. We crave it and abhor change because its an unknown and creates fear.  
 

7. No more human emotions getting in the way of making the right decisions. 

Ironically the most idolized manager we’ve ever had was famous for not giving a damn how people felt about what he knew was the right decision.  Bill Belichick is Pretty famous for it too. 
 

Merely an observation. I said nothing about emotions. And I really don't like Belichick.

[Satyr3206]

Patiently waiting for rules 8, 9, and 10.

[bird watcher]

4 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

Patiently waiting for rules 8, 9, and 10.

I suspect the majority of discovered efficiencies will remain proprietary and would be non-story/boring to the general consumer much to the dismay of the OH obsessed like you and me. 

[ChosenOne21]

2 hours ago, Satyr3206 said:

Since the advent of the young, Ivy League educated GM's what has been the constant? Some say analytics, some say moving the game into a new era.

Reality is slightly different.

Almost as a rule it has been about money. Think about it.

Free Agents staying on the market longer and not getting paid by Baseball's historical norm.

Putting the value on younger players. Six years of Team control.

Contracting Minor League Teams. A terrible long term decision.

Managers salaries sinking at a alarming rate. Along with guys getting hired that should not be in a dugout.

Expanding Analytic Departments while getting rid of a lot of Scouts and Development people. Watching Video or workouts is not a good substitute.

The constant here is all of these things lower spending. Not hard to convince most Owners to try it.

What say you?

What?

The reason free agents are staying on the market longer is they want more money than they are likely to provide in value. They saw a bunch of players get 8 and 9 figure contracts well into their thirties and figured, "why not me?" The answer is teams have realized that such contracts don't tend to work out well for the team. Are teams supposed to just give away heaping piles of cash because that's what they did in the recent past?

As for baseball's historical norm, I'm pretty sure that's players getting jobs in the offseason like they did for most of the time MLB has been around.

Maybe teams value younger players because they put up better numbers?

Manager salaries sinking--can you provide a source for this? Guys getting hired that shouldn't be in a dugout--like who? Are teams supposed to pay the Buck Showalters and Joe Morgans of the world millions of dollars so they can ignore the team's modus operandi because "back in the dust bowl computers didn't play the game?" If I were a hiring manager, I'd rather hire an inexpensive young guy who buys into the organizational philosophy and plan than an expensive older guy who's going to refuse to buy in.

I might be with you on the expanding analytics departments while cutting scouts and development people if the teams that were doing it weren't succeeding like gangbusters. See also previous paragraph.

This is about way more than money, come on...

[Can_of_corn]

Isn't every corporation and individual interesting in lowering costs? 

[Aristotelian]

The successful young analytic GM types have spent money. Houston got Verlander and Greinke. The difference is that they are getting value for their money as opposed to Chris Davis contracts. They did tear down first until they could get competitive but that was just as much about acquiring talent as cutting cost.

[ChosenOne21]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Isn't every corporation and individual interesting in lowering costs? 

Yes, but the audacity of it all! They should spend more because they spent more in the past. If you don't give players more money than they're worth, you're greedy. However if players demand more than they're worth, they're "just wanting to be paid at historic norms" or something

[weams]

31 minutes ago, ChosenOne21 said:

Yes, but the audacity of it all! They should spend more because they spent more in the past. If you don't give players more money than they're worth, you're greedy. However if players demand more than they're worth, they're "just wanting to be paid at historic norms" or something

I'd be ok if all companies were private companies with no IPO, no boards, No layers of executive compensation, no public shareholders. Then actual work to advance the product and process could occur other than manipulation of the machine to show a profit each quarterly report in line with projects and market growth. 

[ChosenOne21]

I agree that the pressure to show endless profits and growth is often harmful, but selling stock is how a lot of companies raise money to grow the business. If you can't do that there could be problems

[Frobby]

My reaction to the OP is that teams wouldn’t be doing these things if it wasn’t leading to success on the field.