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Article: Where are the Twins at with statistical analysis?

Parker Hageman

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Thrylos St Paul Saints

Thrylos

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How many other organizations have Pitchf/x in all their affiliate parks? It would seem something that owners, and players would agree on, to install Pitchf/x in as many minor league ballparks as possible and share all the data. That would allow orgs to cut down on scouting costs while allowing lesser known players to be more visible to other teams. Are the startup costs such a barrier, or what?

 

"or what" is more like it. The startup costs are < $50-100 K a ballpark and, even though most affiliates will whine about it, the MLB clubs can foot the bill (and write it off) in a jiffy.

 

You mention "owners" and "players". The big issue is the party you don't mention and the one that will get the most exposed by it: Umpires.

PitchF/X knows the strike zone and can show how bad home plate umpires suck

It is all politics

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Willihammer Cedar Rapids Kernels

Willihammer

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Pitch f/x is a tool just like a radar gun.

Its a little more than that. Here is the pitchf/x data for one pitcher for one game

 

http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/tabdel_expanded.php?pitchSel=434538&game=gid_2012_09_25_clemlb_chamlb_1/&s_type=&h_size=700&v_size=500

 

edit: and here is a key: http://webusers.npl.illinois.edu/~a-nathan/pob/tracking.htm

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bird College Ball

bird

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The SABR stuff has become glamorized. It's a bit overrated by us chatters.

 

Your run-of-the-mill data analysts DO practically grow on trees these days. We're all proof of that. We have two dozen contributors to TD who are pouring through mountains of statistics, using all the latest software technology, and then communicating the results quite succinctly to anyone who will listen. For free.

 

Statistics verify the story. They don't tell it. Give me the qualitative assessment, often hugely enriched by experience-based intuition, from scouts. Verify their story with a look at the statistical stuff.

 

I mean, you guys are great and all, but...

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drjim Cedar Rapids Kernels

drjim

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The SABR stuff has become glamorized. It's a bit overrated by us chatters.

 

Your run-of-the-mill data analysts DO practically grow on trees these days. We're all proof of that. We have two dozen contributors to TD who are pouring through mountains of statistics, using all the latest software technology, and then communicating the results quite succinctly to anyone who will listen. For free.

 

Statistics verify the story. They don't tell it. Give me the qualitative assessment, often hugely enriched by experience-based intuition, from scouts. Verify their story with a look at the statistical stuff.

 

I mean, you guys are great and all, but...

 

Yes. I think the reason it is very overrated by us chatters is that it allows us to tell the story of a player when we have watched him only a handful of times at most as opposed to scouts who will watch many repetitions of the same thing.

 

I find it pretty funny that just because the Twins front office doesn't speak in the same language that writers here do that all of a sudden the Twins don't know baseball or understand what they do. Statistical analysis basically breaks down everything to this:

Pitching - maximize Ks, minimize BBs, shoot for more GBs and less FBs

Hitting - don't swing at pitches outside the strike zone and put a good swing on those in the strike zone - then determine appropriate tradeoffs between contact rate and pop

Defense - large amounts of range, the ability to catch the ball, and strong, accurate arms = good

Baserunning - take extra bases when possible at an appropriate risk

 

I am actually much more interested that the Twins are using pitch f/x and the like to enhance scouting operations than I would be in finding out they have multitudes of people crunching numbers to find new and creative ways to say the above.

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old nurse GCL Twins

old nurse

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This article shows the twins still know nothing about advanced statistics.Pitch f/x is a tool just like a radar gun. But it has nothing to do with advanced metrics.

 

Embarrassing.

 

What "advanced" statistic has predictive value. They only describe what happened for that year.

 

Thus to you it is insignificant to know what the pitches thrown do. It is far more useful to know the skills of the player than just the outcome.

 

Embarrassing is that people still do not get the notion that the front offices do not talk about the methods they use to analyze players. People like Beane do it for whatever reason. The 14 people on this board who complain have no clue if the Twins use metrics or not. They make the assumption that because they don't talk about it it is not done.

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drjim Cedar Rapids Kernels

drjim

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Well hell, if that's all there is to it why would any team ever bother?

 

I still think there is huge value in it that is being exploited by more progressive clubs in terms of in game strategy such as defensive shifts, matchups, etc. This is where I think the Twins have great room for improvement, though I'm not sure if there is even thought of using more advanced statistics in that matter, which is a shame.

 

I also think that it is useful as an enhancement to scouting (which is how the Twins seem to most be utilizing it), but I would still say it is vastly overrated as a primary method of player evaluation - which is where much of the weeping and gnashing of teeth as it concerns the Twins front office is found.

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Willihammer Cedar Rapids Kernels

Willihammer

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Exactly, it is the outcomes. If pitching boils down to this:

 

Pitching - maximize Ks, minimize BBs, shoot for more GBs and less FBs

 

Then how do you explain Kevin Correia?

 

Goin's remarks are evidence that there are very smart people in the organization with advanced ideas. Jr's actions evidence that Goin and his like are being, to some degree, ignored.

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Jack Torse Prep Ball

Jack Torse

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Stat's are extremely valuable with placing value or determining ability in respect to their peers with major league players. They say less about minor league players and absolutely nothing about amatuer players. (The article headline mentions "statistical data" but only pitch fx is discussed in relation to that. I will assume it means newer sabermetrics too.)

 

None of this really matters because the Twins always seek out the cheapest talent available. Stats or Scouting is always trumped by who can do the job for the cheapest possible price.

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DaveW All-Star

DaveW

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Twins always seek out the cheapest talent available.

 

Except that time in 2011 when they had the 9th highest payroll in baseball, or when they gave Mauer one of the biggest contracts in baseball history of course. Don't let facts get in the way of your complaining though :)

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FrodaddyG College Ball

FrodaddyG

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Except that time in 2011 when they had the 9th highest payroll in baseball, or when they gave Mauer one of the biggest contracts in baseball history of course. Don't let facts get in the way of your complaining though :)

There's always outliers.

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drjim Cedar Rapids Kernels

drjim

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Exactly, it is the outcomes. If pitching boils down to this:

 

 

 

Then how do you explain Kevin Correia?

 

Goin's remarks are evidence that there are very smart people in the organization with advanced ideas. Jr's actions evidence that Goin and his like are being, to some degree, ignored.

 

I think Correia is best explained by a combination of cheapness and desire to fill innings more than a lack of understanding of what makes a good pitcher. The Twins, despite our hopes and what they may have hinted at, were never really on planning on dipping too far into the free agent pool for a pitcher nor guarantee more than a couple of years, so they went for the guy who can fill the most innings at the cheapest rate. I don't especially agree with this plan but I still don't think it shows a lack of understanding on what makes a pitcher valuable.

 

I think a better example is seen in Meyer/May/Worley, the type of pitchers that they acquired when they traded away assets rather than spent assets.

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drjim Cedar Rapids Kernels

drjim

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I am too lazy to look it up, but in the 05-07 range the Twins obliterated the record for K/BB ratio for a staff over an entire season (maybe multiple times). Even though a bigger part of the equation was limiting BBs over high K rates, I would say that shows some understanding of what is necessary for successful pitching.

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ThePuck First Round Pick

ThePuck

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I am too lazy to look it up, but in the 05-07 range the Twins obliterated the record for K/BB ratio for a staff over an entire season (maybe multiple times). Even though a bigger part of the equation was limiting BBs over high K rates, I would say that shows some understanding of what is necessary for successful pitching.

 

It helped having that one guy...you know...the guy who should have won three Cy Youngs in a row for us.

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Oldgoat_MN First Round Pick

Oldgoat_MN

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I'm actually completely comfortable with St. Peter's comments to you, ABG. I don't feel like the Twins owe it to anyone to give away their inside secrets. Just because Billy Beane was willing to let an author follow him around and see pretty much everything doesn't mean that's how it should be done. Don't get me wrong. I too want to know all of the inner workings of the front office, but it would be silly for them to do that.

 

I think it's silly to think that HR, RBI and ERA and Wins are all that the team looks at. If Goin was willing to talk about Pitch F/X, that likely means there are about a dozen or more things that he didn't want to talk about.

 

I won't pretend to understand the Correia signing, but I'm also not going to pretend I'm smarter than the people in the Twins front office either. I have to believe that they make their decisions based on many different factors, some statistical.

 

Maybe that's naive, and since they don't share their secrets it's obviously debatable with every transaction/decisions, but again, I have no problem with them keeping their secrets to themselves.

 

Terry Ryan should tell me, because I would like to know. And no one listens to me.

He can't tell you! You're Seth Stohs!

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FrodaddyG College Ball

FrodaddyG

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The article doesn't mention the other wing of Twins stat analysis. JR has this one guy on his Friendster account that really seems to like sabermetrics. Or maybe it was that he owned a Buick Lesabre. Either way, if that guy ever logs back into his account, JR's going to pepper him with questions.

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