RLakin
All Star
State-of-the-Art Stats
By Mark Starr, Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.com/m/pt/printthis_main.asp?storyID=885218
Peering down from his office above the third-base stands at the Red Sox spring-training field in Ft. Myers, Fla., general manager Theo Epstein can be forgiven if even he can't tell the players without a scorecard. Since Epstein was named GM in November, he has wheeled and dealed ceaselessly to recast his ball club; as a result, some 40 percent of Boston's roster is new, a turnover rate double that of any other major-league team.
IT ISN'T THE numbers, though, but rather the names--or lack of them--that have Sox fans abuzz. Instead of following the strategy of previous Sox regimes, obtaining diamond studs like Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez, Epstein has corralled a host of no-name journeymen for short-term deals at relatively short money.
Why? Largely because Epstein, just 29 years old, is turning to sophisticated computer analyses of baseball statistics to evaluate players, rather than relying on century-old standards like batting average, home runs and runs batted in.
The working theory is that baseball stats can be analyzed to predict future performance and help identify hidden gems in both the minors and the majors. Teams like the Red Sox are now crunching numbers too obscure for barroom debate. Among the most prized is OPS, which combines two key stats: on-base percentage (reflects hits and walks, i.e., ability to get to first base) plus slugging (reflects extra-base hits, i.e., power).This winter the Red Sox dumped six veteran hitters whose combined salaries approached $20 million and whose average OPS was .714, replacing them at about half the cost with players whose OPS's averaged 100 points higher.The Red Sox even hired Bill James, the godfather of the baseball math called sabermetrics, as a consultant. "The real question is why did it take baseball this long to wake up to it," says James, whose books have been informing rabid fans for decades. "But it's scary being at the table. For years I've expressed opinions and the only consequence of a bad call was that people made fun of me."
REINVENTING THE WHEEL
Some call the new stat mania "the revenge of the nerds." Which may account for why its most outspoken proponent is Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, whose credibility is enhanced by a big-league playing career that spanned six seasons. Oakland pioneered this approach in the '90s--forced by fiscal reality to reinvent the wheel in order to compete with wealthier, big-market clubs. The results have been impressive. Oakland has won 11 more games than the Yankees over the past three seasons with about one third the payroll. While most teams rely on talent assessments by scouts whose instincts have been honed over decades in the game, Beane's staff is populated by young guys who haven't swung a bat since Little League and who, a decade ago, might have pursued careers as investment bankers. "What we're trying to do is produce tangible evidence," he says. "Because all those intangibles that go into a scout's prediction of what an 18-year-old kid will look like in eight years just haven't been good enough."
While this revolution in America's most hidebound sport didn't start in Boston, it is --the Red Sox--with their fervent following, their epic history of futility and their new boy-wonder GM--that have emerged as its most conspicuous face. That reverses many years wasted mimicking the Yankees' free- spending approach, which only New York can truly afford. Now the Red Sox aim to be a rich Oakland rather than a poor New York. "We lose when we give in to temptation just to make a big splash or to go for a quick fix," says Epstein. "Finding real value for every dollar you spend has never been tried by an organization with our resources. So if we can get more bang for the buck, our bang is going to be pretty loud."
Epstein, who began his baseball career interning with the Orioles while still an undergraduate at Yale, says computer analysis can render a finite bottom line, a calculation of each player's value to the Red Sox. Epstein took a barrage of criticism for rookie mistakes after he failed to land any big-name free agents--especially Cuban star pitcher Jose Contreras, who signed with the Yankees. But he insists he wasn't outmaneuvered, simply outbid at a price he refused to pay. "At some acquisition cost, player X is no longer an asset to our team," he says."There is no greater way of hamstringing a franchise for a decade than getting stuck with players who aren't worth their contracts."
HOARDING DRAFT PICKS
In the past, Boston always mortgaged its future, trading draft picks and hot, young prospects for pricey veterans who might provide an immediate shot at ending the 85-year championship drought. Now Epstein is hoarding draft picks. And this winter he refused a swap of pitchers that past Sox GMs would have made in a heartbeat: an unproven kid, Casey Fossum, for ace Bartolo Colon, who won four times as many games as Fossum in 2002, but whose 2003 salary is 24 times higher. If fans were mystified by trades the Red Sox didn't make, they were baffled, too, by ones they did--like the acquisition of Yankee slugger Jason Giambi's younger brother, Jeremy. On paper, Giambi's 2002 stats are uninspiring, a .255 batting average with 20 homers and 45 RBIs. But on the computer, Giambi had an extraordinary on-base percentage of .414 (he walks often) and an OPS of .919, numbers that approach his superstar brother's (.434 and 1.034).
Only a few teams have fully embraced the stats revolution and some remain adamantly opposed. Seattle GM Pat Gillick, who has built powerhouse teams in several cities, insisted, "We're not on OPS yet," adding, "Frankly, I don't know how much more technology we need in our lives." Beane isn't concerned about skeptics. He worries about the growing number of imitators who are neutralizing any edge Oakland once held. "When a team like Boston shares your belief system and has more money," says Beane, "it forces you to be more creative to stay ahead of the curve."
Soon he may find the Red Sox around that bend. Boston already has its own R&D crew working to invent a category of stats that will measure the impact of a player's defensive skills. And BoSox researchers have attended biomechanics symposiums, hoping to someday create a model that will reveal how a pitcher's usage affects his long-term health. "If we can make our pitchers 25 percent healthier, that's worth tens of million dollars and is a huge competitive advantage," says Epstein. History suggests the Red Sox need every advantage they can get.
By Mark Starr, Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.com/m/pt/printthis_main.asp?storyID=885218
Peering down from his office above the third-base stands at the Red Sox spring-training field in Ft. Myers, Fla., general manager Theo Epstein can be forgiven if even he can't tell the players without a scorecard. Since Epstein was named GM in November, he has wheeled and dealed ceaselessly to recast his ball club; as a result, some 40 percent of Boston's roster is new, a turnover rate double that of any other major-league team.
IT ISN'T THE numbers, though, but rather the names--or lack of them--that have Sox fans abuzz. Instead of following the strategy of previous Sox regimes, obtaining diamond studs like Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez, Epstein has corralled a host of no-name journeymen for short-term deals at relatively short money.
Why? Largely because Epstein, just 29 years old, is turning to sophisticated computer analyses of baseball statistics to evaluate players, rather than relying on century-old standards like batting average, home runs and runs batted in.
The working theory is that baseball stats can be analyzed to predict future performance and help identify hidden gems in both the minors and the majors. Teams like the Red Sox are now crunching numbers too obscure for barroom debate. Among the most prized is OPS, which combines two key stats: on-base percentage (reflects hits and walks, i.e., ability to get to first base) plus slugging (reflects extra-base hits, i.e., power).This winter the Red Sox dumped six veteran hitters whose combined salaries approached $20 million and whose average OPS was .714, replacing them at about half the cost with players whose OPS's averaged 100 points higher.The Red Sox even hired Bill James, the godfather of the baseball math called sabermetrics, as a consultant. "The real question is why did it take baseball this long to wake up to it," says James, whose books have been informing rabid fans for decades. "But it's scary being at the table. For years I've expressed opinions and the only consequence of a bad call was that people made fun of me."
REINVENTING THE WHEEL
Some call the new stat mania "the revenge of the nerds." Which may account for why its most outspoken proponent is Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, whose credibility is enhanced by a big-league playing career that spanned six seasons. Oakland pioneered this approach in the '90s--forced by fiscal reality to reinvent the wheel in order to compete with wealthier, big-market clubs. The results have been impressive. Oakland has won 11 more games than the Yankees over the past three seasons with about one third the payroll. While most teams rely on talent assessments by scouts whose instincts have been honed over decades in the game, Beane's staff is populated by young guys who haven't swung a bat since Little League and who, a decade ago, might have pursued careers as investment bankers. "What we're trying to do is produce tangible evidence," he says. "Because all those intangibles that go into a scout's prediction of what an 18-year-old kid will look like in eight years just haven't been good enough."
While this revolution in America's most hidebound sport didn't start in Boston, it is --the Red Sox--with their fervent following, their epic history of futility and their new boy-wonder GM--that have emerged as its most conspicuous face. That reverses many years wasted mimicking the Yankees' free- spending approach, which only New York can truly afford. Now the Red Sox aim to be a rich Oakland rather than a poor New York. "We lose when we give in to temptation just to make a big splash or to go for a quick fix," says Epstein. "Finding real value for every dollar you spend has never been tried by an organization with our resources. So if we can get more bang for the buck, our bang is going to be pretty loud."
Epstein, who began his baseball career interning with the Orioles while still an undergraduate at Yale, says computer analysis can render a finite bottom line, a calculation of each player's value to the Red Sox. Epstein took a barrage of criticism for rookie mistakes after he failed to land any big-name free agents--especially Cuban star pitcher Jose Contreras, who signed with the Yankees. But he insists he wasn't outmaneuvered, simply outbid at a price he refused to pay. "At some acquisition cost, player X is no longer an asset to our team," he says."There is no greater way of hamstringing a franchise for a decade than getting stuck with players who aren't worth their contracts."
HOARDING DRAFT PICKS
In the past, Boston always mortgaged its future, trading draft picks and hot, young prospects for pricey veterans who might provide an immediate shot at ending the 85-year championship drought. Now Epstein is hoarding draft picks. And this winter he refused a swap of pitchers that past Sox GMs would have made in a heartbeat: an unproven kid, Casey Fossum, for ace Bartolo Colon, who won four times as many games as Fossum in 2002, but whose 2003 salary is 24 times higher. If fans were mystified by trades the Red Sox didn't make, they were baffled, too, by ones they did--like the acquisition of Yankee slugger Jason Giambi's younger brother, Jeremy. On paper, Giambi's 2002 stats are uninspiring, a .255 batting average with 20 homers and 45 RBIs. But on the computer, Giambi had an extraordinary on-base percentage of .414 (he walks often) and an OPS of .919, numbers that approach his superstar brother's (.434 and 1.034).
Only a few teams have fully embraced the stats revolution and some remain adamantly opposed. Seattle GM Pat Gillick, who has built powerhouse teams in several cities, insisted, "We're not on OPS yet," adding, "Frankly, I don't know how much more technology we need in our lives." Beane isn't concerned about skeptics. He worries about the growing number of imitators who are neutralizing any edge Oakland once held. "When a team like Boston shares your belief system and has more money," says Beane, "it forces you to be more creative to stay ahead of the curve."
Soon he may find the Red Sox around that bend. Boston already has its own R&D crew working to invent a category of stats that will measure the impact of a player's defensive skills. And BoSox researchers have attended biomechanics symposiums, hoping to someday create a model that will reveal how a pitcher's usage affects his long-term health. "If we can make our pitchers 25 percent healthier, that's worth tens of million dollars and is a huge competitive advantage," says Epstein. History suggests the Red Sox need every advantage they can get.