The fragile competitive advantage

[Riverbrian]

The Twins employ a large group of analysts who gather metrics large and small and they do this in order to gain a competitive advantage over competition.

Every major league team employs large groups of people who gather metrics large and small and because all teams do it... this minimizes the completive advantage that can be gained by any team. 

The Twins employ scouts who gather intel on opposing players and they gather intel on their own players and they do this to gain a competitive advantage over competition. 

Every major league team employs scouts who gather intel on players and because all teams do it... it minimizes the competitive advantage that can be gained by any team. 

The Twins employ coaches... lots of them who work with players with the purpose of making them better than past metrics. They do this to gain a competitive advantage over competition.

Every major league team employs coaches... lots of them and because all teams do it... it minimized the competitive advantage that can be gained by any team. 

Teams spend millions of dollars on players that they believe will give them a competitive advantage over other teams.

All of the money spent and all of the highly paid front office personnel, analysts, scouts, coaches working for a competitive advantage that amounts to:

1.8 runs per game from North Pole to South Pole.

1. Dodgers averaged 5.2 runs per game

10. Brewers averaged 4.5 runs per game

20. Orioles averaged 4.2 runs per game

30. Tigers averaged 3.4 runs per game. 

1.9 hits per game from North Pole to South Pole. 

1. Blue Jays averaged 9.0 hits per game

10. Cardinals averaged 8.6 hits per game

20. Orioles averaged 7.9 hits per game

30. A's averaged 7.1 hits per game

2.2 runs allowed per game from North Pole to South Pole. 

1. Dodgers averaged 3.2 runs allowed per game

10. Padres averaged 4.1 runs allowed per game

20. White Sox averaged 4.4 runs allowed per game

30.  Rockies averaged 5.4 runs allowed per game 

The Objective of all of this is to produce More Wins and Less Losses. The Win/Loss Differential from North Pole to South Pole is:

1. Dodgers 6.8 Wins - 3.2 Losses per 10 games.

10. Padres 5.5 Wins - 4.5 losses per 10 games

20. Marlins 4.3 Wins - 5.7 Losses per 10 games

30. Nationals 3.4 Wins - 6.6 losses per 10 games

For those who have read through. Why did I type all of this?

The reason was... to simply illustrate how thin the margins are. To remind people how many people in each organization are working together to produce what amounts to slight advantages against tough competition. 

And then I do so to make this statement. 

If you allow players to struggle and remain in the lineup because you believe that they should be better but are not playing better. 

You NEGATE ALL of the limited competitive advantage gained from all of the analytics, coaching, scouting in one fell swoop

Rendering it nearly pointless. 

 

 

 

[terrydactyls]

44 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

The Twins employ a large group of analysts who gather metrics large and small and they do this in order to gain a competitive advantage over competition.

Every major league team employs large groups of people who gather metrics large and small and because all teams do it... this minimizes the completive advantage that can be gained by any team. 

The Twins employ scouts who gather intel on opposing players and they gather intel on their own players and they do this to gain a competitive advantage over competition. 

Every major league team employs scouts who gather intel on players and because all teams do it... it minimizes the competitive advantage that can be gained by any team. 

The Twins employ coaches... lots of them who work with players with the purpose of making them better than past metrics. They do this to gain a competitive advantage over competition.

Every major league team employs coaches... lots of them and because all teams do it... it minimized the competitive advantage that can be gained by any team. 

Teams spend millions of dollars on players that they believe will give them a competitive advantage over other teams.

All of the money spent and all of the highly paid front office personnel, analysts, scouts, coaches working for a competitive advantage that amounts to:

1.8 runs per game from North Pole to South Pole.

1. Dodgers averaged 5.2 runs per game

10. Brewers averaged 4.5 runs per game

20. Orioles averaged 4.2 runs per game

30. Tigers averaged 3.4 runs per game. 

1.9 hits per game from North Pole to South Pole. 

1. Blue Jays averaged 9.0 hits per game

10. Cardinals averaged 8.6 hits per game

20. Orioles averaged 7.9 hits per game

30. A's averaged 7.1 hits per game

2.2 runs allowed per game from North Pole to South Pole. 

1. Dodgers averaged 3.2 runs allowed per game

10. Padres averaged 4.1 runs allowed per game

20. White Sox averaged 4.4 runs allowed per game

30.  Rockies averaged 5.4 runs allowed per game 

The Objective of all of this is to produce More Wins and Less Losses. The Win/Loss Differential from North Pole to South Pole is:

1. Dodgers 6.8 Wins - 3.2 Losses per 10 games.

10. Padres 5.5 Wins - 4.5 losses per 10 games

20. Marlins 4.3 Wins - 5.7 Losses per 10 games

30. Nationals 3.4 Wins - 6.6 losses per 10 games

For those who have read through. Why did I type all of this?

The reason was... to simply illustrate how thin the margins are. To remind people how many people in each organization are working together to produce what amounts to slight advantages against tough competition. 

And then I do so to make this statement. 

If you allow players to struggle and remain in the lineup because you believe that they should be better but are not playing better. 

You NEGATE ALL of the limited competitive advantage gained from all of the analytics, coaching, scouting in one fell swoop

Rendering it nearly pointless. 

 

 

 

You forgot to state your assumption that talent, execution, and competitiveness have zero impact on your data.

[jorgenswest]

I don’t disagree. I just don’t have anyway to measure struggle in season. It certainly can’t be by looking at fangraphs or baseball reference. There would be no way for me to discern struggle from random variation due to sample. In-season splits will naturally vary considerably and give the false impression that a player is trending up or down. This is particularly true of relievers who even in a full season have a small sample. It seems like it would be difficult to measure how well the Twins discerned struggle but relatively easy to criticize any lack of response to an apparent down trend.

[LastOnePicked]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

6.8 Wins - 3.2 Losses per 10 games

Gosh, that would be fun.

And I enjoyed what you did here. It's a reminder that baseball is a game where very small things matter, accumulate, and make a very big difference over the long run. Just like life.

I love baseball. And if your point was to give Kepler fewer at-bats and Pagan fewer innings, I agree. :)

[Riverbrian]

46 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I don’t disagree. I just don’t have anyway to measure struggle in season. It certainly can’t be by looking at fangraphs or baseball reference. There would be no way for me to discern struggle from random variation due to sample. In-season splits will naturally vary considerably and give the false impression that a player is trending up or down. This is particularly true of relievers who even in a full season have a small sample. It seems like it would be difficult to measure how well the Twins discerned struggle but relatively easy to criticize any lack of response to an apparent down trend.

Great post. I agree with you completely. Blood Sweat and Tears says "What goes up must come down". 

Much like the stock market it has to be nearly impossible to time the peaks and valleys and I'm not going to ask for that because that would be an impossible expectation. Other than to say... "Let the hot player continue".  

However, there has to be a limit. How long are struggles allowed to continue? How many chances are granted?

I purposely didn't list names but we've all seen what Pagan for example has done since 2020 and what he was allowed to continue doing in 2022 and he's back. Kepler since 2020. Gallo since the trade in 2020. We saw what Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer was allowed to continue doing in 2022. In the Randy Dobnak thread I brought up my dissatisfaction of continuing to hand the ball to Martin Perez in 2019. Logan Morrison playing every day in 2018 is still my poster child for all of this.

Logan Morrison playing every day erases any slight competitive advantage that many are working hard to gain.    

[Riverbrian]

57 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

You forgot to state your assumption that talent, execution, and competitiveness have zero impact on your data.

The impact of talent, execution and competitiveness on data and results was the point. 😀 

[Riverbrian]

33 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Gosh, that would be fun.

And I enjoyed what you did here. It's a reminder that baseball is a game where very small things matter, accumulate, and make a very big difference over the long run. Just like life.

I love baseball. And if your point was to give Kepler fewer at-bats and Pagan fewer innings, I agree. :)

If less at bats and fewer innings are earned... Yes... that is what I'm saying. 😉

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, jorgenswest said:

I don’t disagree. I just don’t have anyway to measure struggle in season. It certainly can’t be by looking at fangraphs or baseball reference. There would be no way for me to discern struggle from random variation due to sample. In-season splits will naturally vary considerably and give the false impression that a player is trending up or down. This is particularly true of relievers who even in a full season have a small sample. It seems like it would be difficult to measure how well the Twins discerned struggle but relatively easy to criticize any lack of response to an apparent down trend.

Baseball Savant may be our best source for having any chance of discerning struggles as outsiders without access to the extreme amounts of data teams have. By no means a perfect tool, but something like exit velocity for hitters, or spin rates for pitchers, can give a little more context to the fangraphs and b-r numbers. To your point, hitting .150 for a week looks bad, but could be a struggle or random variation. Adding in data on if a guy is still hitting the ball 90+ mph and just getting "unlucky" or he's hitting the ball 65 mph and is struggling to really square balls up regularly can help distinguish a little more between struggle and random variation.

Teams use those sorts of things all the time. Especially for pitchers. Extension, arm angle/release point height, velo, spin rate, etc. are all used to track a pitcher throughout a game to help make decisions. Opponent exit velos can get wrapped in too as they go through the lineup multiple times and you can see if guys are squaring him up better. It plays into the short leashes that we see on starters now as we don't have to rely on a managers "gut" as much to know when a guy is tiring but can see his arm slot getting lower, his spin fading, and his extension shortening in real time from pitch to pitch.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

The impact of talent, execution and competitiveness on data and results was the point. 😀 

What you have not accounted for is the wide gap in financial capacity.  The Dodgers and Rays can manage all the competitive frailties you have described equally well and the Dodgers will come out on top because they can pay 3X as much per whatever measure of success you would like to use. 

[Riverbrian]

3 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

What you have not accounted for is the wide gap in financial capacity.  The Dodgers and Rays can manage all the competitive frailties you have described equally well and the Dodgers will come out on top because they can pay 3X as much per whatever measure of success you would like to use. 

I didn't spend a lot of wordage on it but I did have the sentence: 

"Teams spend millions of dollars on players that they believe will give them a competitive advantage over other teams". 

This implies that financial capacity is part of the competitive advantage that teams try to gain over each other. 

 

In short, paying a guy 100 million to play every day and produce below the Mendoza line negates that financial competitive advantage.

Not playing that guy they are paying allows them to pave over that mistake. The financial ability to pave over these type of mistakes is one of the larger benefits of having a payroll competitive advantage. 

Playing that player removes that.   

 

 

[terrydactyls]

4 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

The impact of talent, execution and competitiveness on data and results was the point. 😀 

I sure didn't get that at all.

[Major League Ready]

3 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I didn't spend a lot of wordage on it but I did have the sentence: 

"Teams spend millions of dollars on players that they believe will give them a competitive advantage over other teams". 

This implies that financial capacity is part of the competitive advantage that teams try to gain over each other. 

 

In short, paying a guy 100 million to play every day and produce below the Mendoza line negates that financial competitive advantage.

Not playing that guy they are paying allows them to pave over that mistake. The financial ability to pave over these type of mistakes is one of the larger benefits of having a payroll competitive advantage. 

Playing that player removes that.   

 

 

I agreed in principle with your post.  It just irks me that the financial disparity it 3X or more from top to bottom.  The frequent failure of free agents does negate the advantage to a degree.  Unfortunately, they can fail half the time and still have a sizeable advantage over teams in the bottom half of revenue.

[Riverbrian]

5 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

I sure didn't get that at all.

I'm frequently misunderstood. 

[Beast]

That’s not where the competitive advantage lies, though.  It lies in your willingness to acquire and retain players.  Analyze and scout your heart out.  If you’re the Royals and won’t give any money to the players you’re scouting, who cares.  Great job with those all high draft picks and coaching them up for the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers to reap the rewards later.  The competitive advantage in baseball is in the payroll.  That’s why this league needs a salary cap or more expansive profit sharing.  

And 5.2 runs per game is massively different than 3.8.  That’s not some minuscule difference.  Hits per game mean nothing if not adjusted for power.

[IndianaTwin]

13 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

...Much like the stock market it has to be nearly impossible to time the peaks and valleys and I'm not going to ask for that because that would be an impossible expectation. Other than to say... "Let the hot player continue"...    

I'm not disagreeing with your post as a whole, but the challenge with comparing to the stock market is that "let the hot player continue" is analogous to folks' financial tendencies to chase the hot stock and dump those that tank. That leads to buying high and selling low, a sure way to lose money.

And how does that fit with the notion of regression to the mean? I mean, if Rod Carew is hitting .280, I'm keeping him in the lineup, because you know he's going to get hot enough to end up at .330. (And to clarify, I'm talking about 30-year-old Rod Carew hitting .330. He's 77 now, so .280 is about what we might expect from him in 2023.) 

And therein lies the challenge. It's easy to say, "Keep Carew in the lineup," because he's Rod Carew. But how do you handle a Gallo to determine whether 2023 will be a regression-to-his-mean year or the continuation of a decline? 

[Nine of twelve]

10 hours ago, Beast said:

That’s not where the competitive advantage lies, though. The competitive advantage in baseball is in the payroll.  That’s why this league needs a salary cap or more expansive profit sharing.  

This is the unfortunate truth. I'd say that MLB needs both of those options in some form and that the two things are intertwined. I think the owners need to realize that MLB as a whole is the product, not individual teams, and for that reason it's important for all 30 teams to have the ability to compete on a more-or-less equal footing. The problem is that an equitable system of accomplishing that would be very complex.

To me, a team that has good success at player acquisition and development should have the ability to retain its top-flight players at a salary that is fair to the players. That, of course, would require a larger payroll, and if the profit sharing/salary cap system prevents a team from doing so that seems unfair. And on the other end of the spectrum, a system that provides the same financial wherewithal to a low-payroll team as it does to a high-payroll team could result in the ownership of a low-payroll team just pocketing the money. That would seem to incentivize assembling a bad team. So does that mean that the system should take a team's performance into account? Should there be a salary floor, and if so how would that be made fair in the case of a rebuilding team with a dozen rookies on the roster?

I wish I had the answer.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Nine of twelve said:

This is the unfortunate truth. I'd say that MLB needs both of those options in some form and that the two things are intertwined. I think the owners need to realize that MLB as a whole is the product, not individual teams, and for that reason it's important for all 30 teams to have the ability to compete on a more-or-less equal footing. The problem is that an equitable system of accomplishing that would be very complex.

To me, a team that has good success at player acquisition and development should have the ability to retain its top-flight players at a salary that is fair to the players. That, of course, would require a larger payroll, and if the profit sharing/salary cap system prevents a team from doing so that seems unfair. And on the other end of the spectrum, a system that provides the same financial wherewithal to a low-payroll team as it does to a high-payroll team could result in the ownership of a low-payroll team just pocketing the money. That would seem to incentivize assembling a bad team. So does that mean that the system should take a team's performance into account? Should there be a salary floor, and if so how would that be made fair in the case of a rebuilding team with a dozen rookies on the roster?

I wish I had the answer.

I am quite sure MLB owners do not understand the importance of keeping all teams relevant.  Unfortunately, they can't do anything to narrow the gap without the Players Association approval.  They made it abundantly clear during the last CBA their priorities have nothing to do with parity.  There is no way in hell the players will accept a salary cap.  That would require a prolonged strike.   Don't blame MLB.  Their interests are much more in line with fans as compared to what players want.

[dxpavelka]

Let me lay it out.  The Twins scored less than 700 runs in 2022.  If they don't score over 800 in 2023 they will be fragile and at a competitive disadvantage.

[Riverbrian]

16 hours ago, Beast said:

That’s not where the competitive advantage lies, though.  It lies in your willingness to acquire and retain players.  Analyze and scout your heart out.  If you’re the Royals and won’t give any money to the players you’re scouting, who cares.  Great job with those all high draft picks and coaching them up for the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers to reap the rewards later.  The competitive advantage in baseball is in the payroll.  That’s why this league needs a salary cap or more expansive profit sharing.  

And 5.2 runs per game is massively different than 3.8.  That’s not some minuscule difference.  Hits per game mean nothing if not adjusted for power.

I believe most are in agreement that money is a competitive advantage. I'm not sure who would argue against that. I know you are talking about money spent by the Mets, Dodgers and Padres in comparison to what the Twins, Pirates etc. spend but for the purpose of this discussion... let's just talk about the money spent on Joey Gallo this year.

Spending more money on Joey Gallo than other teams are willing to pay for Joey Gallo is using Money to gain a competitive advantage. It doesn't matter if any of us think it's a bad move and it doesn't matter if the Mets spent 25 billion on someone better. Acquiring Gallo with money was done to make an incremental improvement to the team. Coaches working with players to improve them is done to make an incremental improvement to the team. Analytics, shifts, hot/cold zones, spin rates... you name it... this data is used to make incremental improvements to the team. Everybody is trying to make incremental improvements to the team. Teams platoon to make incremental improvements to the team and the incremental improvement is maybe 1 extra hit every couple of games.

Teams do a lot of things, employ a lot of people, spend a lot of money in order to gain an extra hit a game on average. Letting one player... or two players, work through extended slumps negates these incremental improvements that you are spending time, money and resources on. 

I didn't want to mention names... but I started this discussion because of Emilio Pagan, Max Kepler, Joey Gallo, Gilberto Celestino etc. Pagan got chance after chance... he personally negated the slight gains that they worked real hard to gain. Kepler negated gains, he got chance after chance. Gallo will negate gains if he is allowed to hit like last year and keep playing. 

We platoon Garlick with a lefthanded hitter for a slight platoon advantage, We give it right back by ignoring actual Pagan performance. We turn to the bullpen after two times through the rotation to gain an advantage the third time through the order. We give it right back when Celestino is allowed to hit like crap.   

Runs per game... if you highlight #1 (5.2 Dodgers) and #30 (3.4 Tigers) and say massive! OK... but you are comparing top with bottom. It gets a lot tighter when you compare #6 through #25.  But... OK... let's compare top with bottom. Yeah... that's 290 more runs a year. It's quite a bit. Also consider that the Dodgers led the majors in runs allowed so the Dodger advantage must be doubly massive. The result. Two extra wins every 10 games. If the Tigers gain one more win per 10 games and the Dodgers lose one more game per 10 games. They are both 81-81. 

The margins are thin. The overall point is this... teams do an awful lot of things just to gain a hit here and there and produce a run here and there in order to produce a win here and there. Letting a player just struggle negates it.  

[Riverbrian]

On 2/3/2023 at 10:23 PM, IndianaTwin said:

I'm not disagreeing with your post as a whole, but the challenge with comparing to the stock market is that "let the hot player continue" is analogous to folks' financial tendencies to chase the hot stock and dump those that tank. That leads to buying high and selling low, a sure way to lose money.

And how does that fit with the notion of regression to the mean? I mean, if Rod Carew is hitting .280, I'm keeping him in the lineup, because you know he's going to get hot enough to end up at .330. (And to clarify, I'm talking about 30-year-old Rod Carew hitting .330. He's 77 now, so .280 is about what we might expect from him in 2023.) 

And therein lies the challenge. It's easy to say, "Keep Carew in the lineup," because he's Rod Carew. But how do you handle a Gallo to determine whether 2023 will be a regression-to-his-mean year or the continuation of a decline? 

Agreed... I don't think you can time the guy who goes 3 for 25 and follows it with a 11 for 25 for a .280 but I am talking about that guy who goes 5 for 25 and then goes 5 for 25 again. 

I am talking about that season long problem spot that you keep playing expecting to turn it around that doesn't. We all know who those guys were last year and in years past and we should all know that the Twins have shown that they will be patient with them.

How long can you stay patient with them and if it takes a while what is the reward at the end? 

With the combination of depth and the If's on this roster... these thoughts are on my mind a lot.  

 

[Heiny]

Wow.   As an older fan, I think that computers and technology and money have changed the game so much that it can be difficult to keep up with all the analytics.  I often find myself having to google all the abreviations used to describe performance.  I long for the days of just people watching and seeing what is happening on the diamond.  Baseball in the 60's and 70's to me was much more fun to watch.  Maybe that was because I was a kid.  I still love the game, but money and tech have sure changed things.

[Nine of twelve]

4 hours ago, Heiny said:

I long for the days of just people watching and seeing what is happening on the diamond. 

Watching baseball is still like that. Fans have always paid attention to what strategy the managers are using, and to that end a lot of people like to take all the analytics into consideration. But it's not necessary to do that in order to enjoy watching a game.