Jump to content

Rates and Barrels podcast


btdart20

Recommended Posts

The Kyle Boddy one had some Drew French stories - Boddy characterized him as one of the weirdos the Astros brought in back in the day as Luhnow and Sig were intentional about pulling in folks with different ideas.      Boddy also shared the detail French has been fired from FIU during a conversation about how some baseball organizations are challenged to sustain interest in the modern cutting edge.

@emmett16might know more as he's mentioned doing some of their training, but AI in baseball Boddy described how they are trying to harvest their several years of coaches conversations with players to study the best ways to articulate concepts, and to use that database as a no-risk training tool for interns as Driveline figures out if they are worth letting talk to Mookie Betts.      Emmett may or may not have already given AI Adley Rutschman some performance notes.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to check out those podcasts.  I haven't listened yet but reading the comments by @Just Regular a couple things came to mind with the AI stuff. I've been doing Driveline Certs (and my son has been training with their online academy) for a couple years now.  Until this winter, I hadn't seen a lot of turn-over.  Very recently, it seems like there has been a lot of transitioning and coaches/trainers are taking jobs elsewhere.  Maybe that's very typical and I just hadn't seen it, but the AI thing makes me wonder if some folks might be getting replaced (I could be very off-base here but that's what came to mind). 

The other thing that stuck out to me was the individuality of the training.  Historically all the players were taught the same exact thing.  Even driveline had very 'one way' to do it.  What has been the biggest change in the last few years has been the sculpting of training/workouts to the players.  Each players have different body types and do certain things well so a one size fits all approach isn't optimal.  This is also overlapping into how they communicate with players (which you mentioned), and into other phases nutrition intake based on body composition.  

I can imagine how AI could be super helpful when you are trying to create a unique workout, diet, motivation/drive component, and rest/recovery program for 40 players (in D1) or 120+ players ? (MLB org).  Every players body is different and every players mind is different.  Trying to optimize each player to their fullest potential is a monumental task.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@btdart20 that was a fascinating listen.  They touched on the hardest thing to do when teaching or coaching.  And that's explaining what you want the student/player to do in a way they understand.  You can say the same exact thing to 10 people and they will hear it and understand it differently.  I've noticed while coaching, this same concept happens with players.  It's crazy how saying something slightly different can have a different impact on the player.  I had so many moments when I see a light bulb go off and in my head I say to myself "I've been telling you this for months now".  Instead of just repeating the same cues all the time, I've made an intentional focus to try and say it differently or describe a movement differently every time.   Changing up drills that that do the same thing is helpful as well, as some drills that 'fix' a problem for certain players are completely worthless to others.  It's pretty cool that after figuring out to optimize a player, they are now focusing on how to optimize the players ability to download that information in an efficient manner.  Game changer.  

Re-thinking my comment about AI replacing people was probably silly in hindsight now.  When I  think about it, all those guys were hired by teams.  With their expansion to AZ (and they are also planning new facilities in a lot of new places as well) and the talent that they are building,their guys are getting poached on the regular.  

Edited by emmett16
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The comment about Mookie Betts and giving guys like him big contracts was awesome.  They highlighted the fact that the players make-up, work ethic, drive, & mental attributes are just as important, if not more so than a talented player.  The org knows that that type of player is going to give 110% and continue to do any and everything to make themselves better (Mookie had his best power output last year) at age 30).  Paying that type of player makes them a figure head for the organization and paying out that big money isn't a waste, as they don't expect as much of a fall off at the end of their career because of their drive.  Making sure that all the players in the org have the same mind-set and rewarding the players that have that mind-set, the talent, and the results keeps the entire organization in alignment.  

And this is what the Orioles have done, so you can see why they are hesitant to give up 'their' guys for other players, regardless of the talent.  

Edited by emmett16
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Frobby I think one of the most relevant nuggets that came out of that is something that has been discussed a lot recently on this board.  The 'hoarding of talent' (OH negative view on our abundance of talent).  They discuss how important it is to put all your resources into every player in the organization, not just the top guys at the highest level.  They attribute the Dodgers success to their development of players and the ability to replace a player with a high caliber performer when an MLB guy (inevitably) goes down.   This happened last year with the Dodgers as their MLB team was decimated with injuries but the team didn't miss a beat.  Well worth a listen. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Replacement level ordinarily refers to league-wide, but I do believe these data-driven days there is perhaps more variation in a Club's own replacement level than there has been at other times in baseball history.     

There's a lot of meat on the bone for MLB and the MLBPA to haggle over.     Maybe Framber Valdez and Corbin Burnes are only good because they fell into the opportunity for the best training.     Maybe Kyle Bradish too.

Its possible Dylan Cease hasn't had that caliber of organizational support yet ever in his baseball life.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boddy's a numbers savant.  He said he was banned from casinos for card counting and playing the numbers.  That type of trend analysis and tech advances is the niche he (and many others) are exploring with analytics.  Add in a healthy measure of curiosity, ambition, and a personal connection to complete the Driveline origin story.

If leadership skills is Management 101, then "If you don't measure, you don't know" is Management 201.  That's the passion behind player development these days.  Before Fangraphs, it was the old school baseball card stats.  Now we're seeing sprint speed, pop time, LA, spin rates, range factors... and that's just what's public.  Teams value this type of data even more than what is publicly available.  They have to have more advanced or more tailored data that they are tracking.  And Elias and Sig are at the forefront of this great thought experiment!

21 hours ago, Frobby said:

Can you give a brief synopsis of what was covered?  

Honestly, the last two full podcasts covered a ton of topics.  From coaching (like @emmett16 pointed out), player development, trends (from sweepers to AI), jobs in the industry, tools they are using, player selection, computer program languages (a team of experts/specialists), the ability to fail...  I think I could listen to the last two podcasts multiple times, marinate in it, and get something different out of them each time...  Basically, just nerding out over player development.

6 hours ago, emmett16 said:

They discuss how important it is to put all your resources into every player in the organization, not just the top guys at the highest level.  They attribute the Dodgers success to their development of players and the ability to replace a player with a high caliber performer when an MLB guy (inevitably) goes down.   This happened last year with the Dodgers as their MLB team was decimated with injuries but the team didn't miss a beat.  Well worth a listen. 

Driveline did a poll of their followers asking "Do Non-Prospects Matter?"

Professional Player Development: Crowd-Sourced Edition! (drivelinebaseball.com)

 

 

  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, btdart20 said:

Boddy's a numbers savant.  He said he was banned from casinos for card counting and playing the numbers.  That type of trend analysis and tech advances is the niche he (and many others) are exploring with analytics.  Add in a healthy measure of curiosity, ambition, and a personal connection to complete the Driveline origin story.

If leadership skills is Management 101, then "If you don't measure, you don't know" is Management 201.  That's the passion behind player development these days.  Before Fangraphs, it was the old school baseball card stats.  Now we're seeing sprint speed, pop time, LA, spin rates, range factors... and that's just what's public.  Teams value this type of data even more than what is publicly available.  They have to have more advanced or more tailored data that they are tracking.  And Elias and Sig are at the forefront of this great thought experiment!

Honestly, the last two full podcasts covered a ton of topics.  From coaching (like @emmett16 pointed out), player development, trends (from sweepers to AI), jobs in the industry, tools they are using, player selection, computer program languages (a team of experts/specialists), the ability to fail...  I think I could listen to the last two podcasts multiple times, marinate in it, and get something different out of them each time...  Basically, just nerding out over player development.

Driveline did a poll of their followers asking "Do Non-Prospects Matter?"

Professional Player Development: Crowd-Sourced Edition! (drivelinebaseball.com)

 

 

I saw that poll and didn't know a good place to post on here.  Glad you started this thread.  Interesting stuff for sure.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, btdart20 said:

He said he was banned from casinos for card counting and playing the numbers. 

I think he said he was part of the MIT blackjack team, which eventually got a movie treatment.      The years it all happened, I do wonder if dealer Sig Mejdal ever had to consult with his pit boss over Kyle Boddy or a teammate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

The podcast last week introduced Trevor May as a regular Friday guest for player input to the kind of stuff Eno/DVR have been serving fantasy players for years.

Eno mentioned beating 14 other competitors for Grayson Rodriguez playing 2024 baseball-flavored math games with fellow fans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trevor May this week had an anecdote from his Minnesota time with Jeremy Hefner and Josh Kalk that he was the source as a Twin researching and bringing to them modern pitching content here and there, and that later when he followed Hefner to the Mets it became more the stuff of their day to day life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Tidbits from last couple days:

-Co-host/Brewers fan Derek Van Riper reporting DL Hall may start Game 2 following Freddy Peralta.

-Guest Mike Petriello shared Kevin Brown will anchor various national Nerd Cast broadcasts (not sure if they are ESPN or MLB network) with him and Trevor May on the Statcast color commentary type stuff.      Congrats KB with a first step nationally on baseball.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/23/2024 at 4:21 PM, Just Regular said:

Trevor May

The last couple of times he was on they went into depth on pitch shape and various FB topics.  

A recent show had Pitcherlist's Nick Pollack nerding out too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



  • Posts

    • dWAR is just the run value for defense added with the defensive adjustment.  Corner OF spots have a -7.5 run adjustment, while CF has a +2.5 adjustment over 150 games.    Since Cowser played both CF and the corners they pro-rate his time at each to calculate his defensive adjustment. 
    • Just to be clear, though, fWAR also includes a substantial adjustment for position, including a negative one for Cowser.  For a clearer example on that front, as the chart posted higher on this page indicates, Carlos Santana had a +14 OAA — which is the source data that fWAR’s defensive component is based on. That 14 outs above average equates to 11-12 (they use different values on this for some reason) runs better than the average 1B.  So does Santana have a 12.0 defensive value, per fWAR? He does not. That’s because they adjust his defensive value downward to reflect that he’s playing a less difficult/valuable position. In this case, that adjustment comes out to -11.0 runs, as you can see here:   So despite apparently having a bona fide Gold Glove season, Santana’s Fielding Runs value (FanGraphs’ equivalent to dWAR) is barely above average, at 1.1 runs.    Any good WAR calculation is going to adjust for position. Being a good 1B just isn’t worth as much as being an average SS or catcher. Just as being a good LF isn’t worth as much as being an average CF. Every outfielder can play LF — only the best outfielders can play CF.  Where the nuance/context shows up here is with Cowser’s unique situation. Playing LF in OPACY, with all that ground to cover, is not the same as playing LF at Fenway or Yankee Stadium. Treating Cowser’s “position” as equivalent to Tyler O’Neill’s, for example, is not fair. The degree of difficulty is much, much higher at OPACY’s LF, and so the adjustment seems out of whack for him. That’s the one place where I’d say the bWAR value is “unfair” to Cowser.
    • Wait a second here, the reason he's -0.1 in bb-ref dwar is because they're using drs to track his defensive run value.  He's worth 6.6 runs in defense according to fangraphs, which includes adjustments for position, which would give him a fangraphs defensive war of +0.7.
    • A little funny to have provided descriptions of the hits (“weak” single; “500 foot” HR). FIP doesn’t care about any of that either, so it’s kind of an odd thing to add in an effort to make ERA look bad.  Come in, strike out the first hitter, then give up three 108 MPH rocket doubles off the wall. FIP thinks you were absolutely outstanding, and it’s a shame your pathetic defense and/or sheer bad luck let you down. Next time you’ll (probably) get the outcomes you deserve. They’re both flawed. So is xFIP. So is SIERA. So is RA/9. So is WPA. So is xERA. None of them are perfect measures of how a pitcher’s actual performance was, because there’s way too much context and too many variables for any one metric to really encompass.  But when I’m thinking about awards, for me at least, it ends up having to be about the actual outcomes. I don’t really care what a hitter’s xWOBA is when I’m thinking about MVP, and the same is true for pitchers. Did you get the outs? Did the runs score? That’s the “value” that translates to the scoreboard and, ultimately, to the standings. So I think the B-R side of it is more sensible for awards.  I definitely take into account the types of factors that you (and other pitching fWAR advocates) reference as flaws. So if a guy plays in front of a particular bad defense or had a particularly high percentage of inherited runners score, I’d absolutely adjust my take to incorporate that info. And I also 100% go to Fangraphs first when I’m trying to figure out which pitchers we should acquire (i.e., for forward looking purposes).  But I just can’t bring myself say that my Cy Young is just whichever guy had the best ratio of Ks to BBs to HRs over a threshold number of innings. As @Frobby said, it just distills out too much of what actually happened.
    • We were all a lot younger in 2005.  No one wanted to believe Canseco cause he’s a smarmy guy. Like I said, he was the only one telling the truth. It wasn’t a leap of faith to see McGwire up there and Sosa up there and think “yeah, those guys were juicing” but then suddenly look at Raffy and think he was completely innocent.  It’s a sad story. The guy should be in Hall of Fame yet 500 homers and 3,000 hits are gone like a fart in the wind cause his legacy is wagging his finger and thinking he couldn’t get caught.  Don’t fly too close to the sun.  
    • I think if we get the fun sprinkler loving Gunnar that was in the dugout yesterday, I don’t think we have to worry about him pressing. He seemed loose and feeling good with the other guys he was with, like Kremer.
    • I was a lot younger back then, but that betrayal hit really hard because he had been painting himself as literally holier than thou, and shook his finger to a congressional committee and then barely 2 weeks later failed the test.
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...