Then you are worth, and should expect, a sizeable paycheck, even from the Cubs.

Hendry hasn't worked for the Cubs for awhile now so I wouldn't expect much out of them.

The other thing is you want this analytics director to be able/willing to stand up in a meeting and say "That seven-year contract Jed wants to offer to Alfonso Soriano (pt.2) is a horrible idea. We've run the studies on player aging for his skill type (present cogent summary), and he's likely to be a major albatross by year 4."

Guys like that in junior positions -- and that's what this is -- don't last long in organizations. Their only hope is to have something of a talent for diplomacy and to be virtually never wrong.

No one worth 150-200 should be happy reporting to the Assistant GM.(*) That's a deal-breaker.

The type of attitude and pay grade you're sketching out is more of a consultant than full-timer.

(*) And no one junior to the Assistant GM is worth 200K.

Guys like that in junior positions -- and that's what this is -- don't last long in organizations. Their only hope is to have something of a talent for diplomacy and to be virtually never wrong.

No one worth 150-200 should be happy reporting to the Assistant GM. That's a deal-breaker.

Agree. But, someone that junior will almost certainly be ineffective at building/running an analytics team, and delivering value.

This position, to be effective, should report to Epstein, and needs to be expected to challenge the GM, scouting and player development, when necessary and backed by hard evidence.

If you don't want that, don't waste your time. Just license a copy of ZiPs and CAIRO from the developers, and have an intern run them.

In sports, I think that if anything the value-add is smaller and there's far more analytics talent out there than in the other industries, thus sports teams will not be willing to pay as much. As far as they are concerned they aren't competing with the financial industries and the like for talent - there are still more people who want to work for sports teams than there are jobs.

But therein lies the problem --

They're treating something that could provide substantial value at a relatively small cost if a FO were to approach these less as "jobs" and more as "careers"... Not everyone is going to be a GM - but almost everyone is going to want to say, buy a home, a car, raise a family, etc... Treat everything below the exec level as a "job" because you can get serious talent for the short haul at a deep, deep discount -- and you're creating tons of inefficiency, tons of waste (via turnover), and tons of hidden cost.

These skillsets here are professional skillsets. Pay them professional wages. You're still getting a discount because there are tons of people who do this sort of thing in different settings and a lot of them would be willing to take 10-25% pay cuts to be doing it in a baseball setting... but when you insist on doing it at a 50-75% discount, you are truly making it a "job" that someone will only be doing for a year or so.

Talent is talent... there are more dbas - even very, very good ones -- than there are gold glove SS's that hit 325/375/450.... but the paradigm is the same -- if you can lock one up for a decent period of time, why in the world would you want to have to find a new one every year?

Agree. But, someone that junior will almost certainly be ineffective at building/running an analytics team, and delivering value.

This position, to be effective, should report to Epstein, and needs to be expected to challenge the GM, scouting and player development, when necessary and backed by hard evidence.

If you don't want that, don't waste your time. Just license a copy of ZiPs and CAIRO from the developers, and have an intern run them.

My take would be that this director wouldn't be saying... don't bother going to arb on Darwin Barney - dWAR is vastly overstating his value -- it would be saying "Well, we've run the numbers, introduced some normalization to account for the high level of shifts our IF employs, and here's the thing.... there were 12 other 2B who could post similar dWAR under the same adherence to a defensive shift... we also think - based on some limited data - we have actually identified another 5 AAAAers that could be had for a song and produce the same.... and of those 17 total -- 12 of them have career OBPs higher than DB's highest single season mark."

I guess I'm saying I'd split the difference between you and SBB...

I wouldn't expect to be Costanza'ing it up "How could you trade BUHNER!!!" --- but at the same time, you don't even need in-house staff to look-up dWAR on Fangraphs...

The analyst role here is to work through multiple projection systems, perhaps create a "better" proprietary system, and give the data to the higher ups (GM/Asst. GM) who have other info "I" presumably don't have... salary ceilings/floors, availability, etc.

I don't believe that either of these - especially the latter - are true in fact (I think that the reason there's a perceived shortage of talent is the heavy emphasis on tool knowledge over anaytical skills).

I don't have enough thumbs to stick up for this comment.

I wouldn't want to structure this silo in a way that I'm constantly running through people that would enjoy the short-term (6-10-18 month) 'experience'

Yeah, that's key to your argument, I think. I can see going either way here...

Then you are worth, and should expect, a sizeable paycheck, even from the Cubs.

I imagine (wrongly?) that a number of us have skillsets like Joe's (I do - I'm guessing rustier analytics, more data architecture?) and don't make paychecks like you're talking about, snapper. Otoh, maybe I need to prep my resume...

A guy who's just happy to be in MLB isn't going to take that stand, and risk his job. I want a guy who is equally willing to go back to his old industry if his opinions aren't respected.

This is partly a corporate culture thing, isn't it? I'd be willing to make analogous statements where I am, in part because I've got a sense of job security / good fallback options but also because I know that I've the leeway to do so.
(Also, I've a talent for diplomacy and a solid track record, but the latter took time to prove.)

I mean, a SQL whiz also proficient in semantic data analysis/mining? Great... let me know when you find one of those

I'm not sure they want an SQL whiz, but rather someone who's capable enough to use it for the purposes of data mining and analysis. This basically describes any writer for the Hardball Times Circa 2009 or some guys for BP and Beyond the Boxscore (also circa 2009). As to whether those guys also have leadership and management skills, who knows. It's sounds basically like they want some guy to be their Mike Fast or Tom Tippett.

Agreed that the 150-200 is way too high. There isn't even much value add to the job, and it reports to the Assistant GM. Finance guys write programs and algos that make banks wheelbarrows full of money. The difference between that, and clueing in an Assistant GM to the virtues of the Jeremy Giambis and Ken Phelpses and Franklin Gutierrzes of the world is, one assumes, self-evident.

God damnit you are the most miserable piece of #### I've ever seen. Do you even like baseball?

Demonstrated expertise with R, STATA, SPSS, SAS, or similar software.
Demonstrated expertise with SQL Server, Microsoft Access, My SQL, Oracle, database administration/structuring, data warehousing and data modeling.
Knowledge and demonstrated ability in the areas of programming, software-coding, ETL, and/or machine learning techniques

What? What happened to COBOL and FORTRAN?

What? What happened to COBOL and FORTRAN?

The planet ran out of punch cards.

I imagine (wrongly?) that a number of us have skillsets like Joe's (I do - I'm guessing rustier analytics, more data architecture?) and don't make paychecks like you're talking about, snapper. Otoh, maybe I need to prep my resume...

This obviously varies by industry and geography. My prices reflect NY, Insurance and Banking. If you work in Tulsa, clearly the price is a lot less.

But for a real analytics director, we're talking about somebody with 10-15 years industry experience, an advanced degree (or an actuary in Insurance). That's at least an AVP (in Insurance/Commercial bank titles), or Director (I-Bank titles). Those people make well north of $100K (total comp) if they're any good.

And, if I'm the Cubs, running a corporation in a highly competitive industry, making $100M long term committments to highly variable assets, I want high priced talent making the decisions.

It's absurd to be willing to pay the boy genius $3.5M p.a and balk at paying a couple hundred grand for a real head of analytics.

What? What happened to COBOL and FORTRAN?

Don't laugh, but recently we were looking at changing prices on a product launched in the 1980's, and we had to find someone to interpret Fortan to find the rate tables in the pricing model.

The analyst role here is to work through multiple projection systems, perhaps create a "better" proprietary system, and give the data to the higher ups (GM/Asst. GM) who have other info "I" presumably don't have... salary ceilings/floors, availability, etc.

It's not even necessarily to give them the data - it's to give them the conclusions that can be drawn from the data along with enough of the data to give them the ability to make an informed decision.

-- MWE

FWIW, just about every director of analytics job that I've seen listed in other industries lists hands-on usage of SQL and statistical tools as a requirement.

-- MWE

61 - Not sure how far north is well north, but okay - we're in the same ballpark; thanks.

A guy who's just happy to be in MLB isn't going to take that stand, and risk his job. I want a guy who is equally willing to go back to his old industry if his opinions aren't respected.


This is partly a corporate culture thing, isn't it? I'd be willing to make analogous statements where I am, in part because I've got a sense of job security / good fallback options but also because I know that I've the leeway to do so.
(Also, I've a talent for diplomacy and a solid track record, but the latter took time to prove.)

I think this is true -- I probably don't have a talent for diplomacy, but I do have a track record and when I do take a strong stand -- even one contradictory to higher ups -- it's not on a whim or because I like hearing my own voice complain.... In fact, in a really weird way - I almost consider it something of a fringe benefit. I'm not expected to hold my tongue or simply grin-and-bear bad decisions... of course, I like to think I present the critiques in well-founded, constructive ways that aren't just clever methods of calling other people idiots -- so maybe I have reserves of diplomacy I hadn't considered till this moment ;-)

I imagine (wrongly?) that a number of us have skillsets like Joe's (I do - I'm guessing rustier analytics, more data architecture?) and don't make paychecks like you're talking about, snapper. Otoh, maybe I need to prep my resume...

I really think the problem is really that this stuff is really valuable "in the middle" of an organization -- and those 'in the middle' jobs, at least from my seat -- are awfully hard to come by for an external applicant.

The entry levels get scooped up out of college and the C levels get head-hunted -- but managing a team of internal architects and analysts (on the data/content side, not the numbers side), it's just awfully hard to find someone external who can pick up the business knowledge quickly. I.e., doesn't matter if you've presented white papers on RDF to W3C that eventually became standards - that's no guarantee you can plug and play that knowledge within our frameworks, platforms, CMS, CSC, etc... Well, check that -- I have zero doubt such a person WOULD get a shot, but the up-and-running time would be enormous because we can't just 'start' in the perfect world, we have to transition to it.

...but that's back to my argument about the value of institutional knowledge... I don't want to continually have to clue new analysts in on the idea that we proved two years ago (but haven't told anyone, because it's propriety value that we don't particularly want to share) dWAR as it's currently calculated is horrifically flawed.

God damnit you are the most miserable piece of #### I've ever seen. Do you even like baseball?

While I occasionally wonder how much SBB likes baseball based on his other posts, his questioning how much value one of these guys would bring to a baseball organization is by no means an example of it.

And your comment is clearly out of line.

61 - Not sure how far north is well north, but okay - we're in the same ballpark; thanks.

All in total comp (bonus, long-term equity, etc.) is probably ~$200K at the AVP level, ~$300K at the VP level. That's in Insurance. Commercial banking would probably be a little higher. I-banking probably quite a bit higher. And, I'm talking expensive cities (NY, SF, LA, etc.)

People who currently have similar job titles/roles include the following:

Boston Red Sox - Tom Tippett, Director of Baseball Information Services
Cleveland Indians - Keith Woolner, Director, Baseball Analytics
Houston Astros - Sig Mejdal, Director of Decision Sciences
Pittsburgh Pirates - Dan Fox, Director, Baseball Systems Development
Tampa Bay Rays - James Click, Director, Baseball Research and Development

It's a weird posting. They say they want someone to develop and manage a staff, run the budget, interact with the senior management team, etc., but then they require:

Demonstrated expertise with R, STATA, SPSS, SAS, or similar software.
Demonstrated expertise with SQL Server, Microsoft Access, My SQL, Oracle, database administration/structuring, data warehousing and data modeling.
Knowledge and demonstrated ability in the areas of programming, software-coding, ETL, and/or machine learning techniques.


Those are rarely the same people. You want you hardcore quant/programming skills from your analysts. You wan't your director to direct and interpret the analysis, have managerial skills, and be able to translate between the quants and the top management. There's zero reason the director needs to know how to code or build models, as long as he/she can interpret the output properly.

Hmm, I might be able to bridge that wide territory. I've

- Developed and shipped dozens of commercial software applications.
- Written computer based game simulation systems.
- Built successful development organizations as large as 40 people, that had excellent records on shipping high quality products on time.
- Served as CEO of several startups, including one where I raised over $12M from VCs and a Fortune 500 company.
- Obviously managed budgets, organizations, and succeeded in hiring and managing people in a manner that more often helped rather than hindered their performances.

My negatives
- This may shock people here, but I have a reputation for being a very direct and opinionated person.
- I have developed in SQL in the distant past, but most of my database work has been building data systems from scratch for performance reasons.

My positives
- This may shock people here, but i have a reputation for getting along well with peers, subordinates, and supervisors.
- I am trending towards broke, so my negotiating leverage is rapidly declining.

I'm tempted to apply, just to see if I could talk to them. Unfortunately I'm working 80 hour weeks building another startup from scratch, so I probably won't find the time to dust off (and I mean dust off, it's old) my resume.

For comparison, I have worked in an analytics group for a large company in a high cost-of-living area (although not as high as SF or NY). Everyone in the group had an advanced degree (MS, MBA, or PhD) and 5+ years of work experience; nearly everyone in the group frequently coded in some language (SQL for the DB-focused guys, R or Stata for the others); and everyone contributed frequently in meetings with non-analytics people outside the group, and the guys who coded less participated more frequently in those meetings. None of us managed anyone. All-in compensation (base, $ bonus, stock) was in the neighborhood of $140k - $160k. The guy we reported to -- whose responsibilities were a match for the job description laid out here -- was obviously north of us.