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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Saturday, May 31, 2008
ML: DiamondView, for those who don’t know, is a sophisticated database that helped the Indians make decisions on player contracts and roster acquisitions, among others. The team valued it so much they copyrighted it. Will you make available a variance of that system to the Pirates?
NH: There is no doubt in my mind that DiamondView gives the Indians a significant advantage over a large portion of the industry. It is a significant undertaking to design a program such as DiamondView, but we have begun the process. One of our many goals for this off season was to add a full time programmer to spearhead our Baseball Information Systems and design a comprehensive program to effectively and efficiently store, organize, access and analyze the amount of data utilized within our industry. When Dan Fox joined the organization, we not only added an outstanding programmer but we also added a very well respected analyst (joining Eddie Epstein).
...ML: Kansas City Royals pitcher Brain Bannister did an interview recently where he espoused some of the practices of sabermetrics. Bannister, in the interview, basically concluded that statistical analysis and scouting could co-exist not just in the front office but in the ebb and flow of a game as well. Is Bannister at the vanguard of a new wave of baseball player?
NH: Brian is an intelligent young man that gets the most out of his abilities. I feel that many great players have naturally “played the percentages” and utilized the objective side of the game directly and/or indirectly. With the explosion of sabermetrics and the quality information that is available, I absolutely believe players will utilize and benefit from combining statistical analysis and scouting.
Dumatraits?...Not any longer in Pittsburgh.
Repoz
Posted: May 31, 2008 at 07:53 AM | 17 comment(s)
Related News: General, Sabermetrics, Pittsburgh
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Is it me or does Huntington come across as if he's wanting to prove to the world he's intellectually superior to every living thing? Maybe the rumor from the GM meetings is true - all the other GM's were drinking beer and having a good time while Huntington was sitting in the corner eating Sushi with his pinky in the air? I suppose we now know why Shapiro ran him out of the front office and why nobody would hang with him while he was scouting.
You have to have pity on Pirates fans who are sure to see new cults springing up soon.
Obviously, the jury is still out on Huntington, given that it's so early in his tenure as GM. Let's see if he can maximize the return on players like Bay, Nady, Sanchez, and Wilson in possible trades later this summer.
Steve Pearce hasn't looked ready for AAA this season.
Without the knowledge that Lee would inexplicably turn into Baseball Jesus, the Indians' offer was pretty terrible. A backup catcher and a young Juan Encarnacion are a good match for an All-Star corner OF? Turning that deal down is one of the smartest things Huntington has done so far.
The alleged offer (as we really don't know exactly how was involved for 100%) from the Indians was terrible then and it is terrible now. If the Indians had ponied up with a better offer they could be reaping the benefits of Bay recovering from injuries and returning to normal.
Mostly, yes. I don't take it as effete snobbery, but his interviews generally come across as a guy trying too hard to show that the Pirates are now one of the "smart" organizations, imo.
If I were one to try and divine the personal motivations of strangers, I might suggest the fact that he was perceived to have been pushed aside in Cle by Shapiro and the new sabre-wunderkind Antonetti is part of the reason he comes off that way in interviews.
"I'm just smart as they are and I'm going to prove it every time I open my mouth."
You never get that sense from someone like Theo Esptein and as a result Epstein seems far more comfortable straddling the line between sabre-nerd and old school baseball guy.
Whoever turned Nate McLouth into Mickey Mantle deserves a raise.
However, the pitching coach needs to be fired immediately. Pirates pitchers have K'd the fewest in the NL while walking the second most. The team K/BB ratio is 1.4. Only one of their young starters has anything close to good peripherals (Maholm) and none of them are getting good results.
One down year, a decline does not make. Besides, where would Shoppach fit? As the primary Catcher? Back-up? or Back-up to the back up?
That would be Matt Morris. Without him, Littlefield would still be GM and McLouth would be sitting on the bench.
All of the bad stuff last year came from the knee. Bay said it quite openly, and everybody who was watching him could tell it. When he came into this season saying that it felt like it had two or three years ago, it didn't exactly take a rocket scientist to tell that he'd be back to normal.
The Indians wanted to steal him for pennies on the dollar, which is fine, but they shouldn't have expected Huntington to just roll over for them and take back slop for his best player.
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