The Pecan Park Eagle

Long Live the Soul of Our National Pastime!

Baseball Savvy versus Performance Measurement

It’s really not a new issue. It’s an old one that has complexly found greater light in recent times with the help of people like Bill James and Sabermetrics  – and clubs like the Oakland Athletics and Houston Astros in their commitments to the concepts of “money ball” recruitment and management of personnel.

It’s doubtful that we could even pin down the so-called concepts of money ball to a single set of clear and specific items in every case. The  best we could probably say about them is that they are baseball administration based upon the idea that certain sophisticated player performance analysis factors can be used to reasonably predict future success or failure of players at the MLB level – and thus help to also contain the cost of both success and failure, moving forward.

In a current HOF magazine article on 2014 Hall of Fame managerial inductee Tony LaRussa, the former Cardinal manager admits to reservations about the infusion of the data approach taking on too much importance in the determination of rosters to the point of watering down the feeling bonds of “team” that he feels are essential to any long-term success in major league baseball.

In essence, LaRussa believes that a club cannot win with a superstar that places his personal accomplishments either ahead of team success, or in disconnection from team success. Tony LaRussa feels strongly that a strong team bond and commitment that includes both superstars and role players is of prime importance to any lasting, deeply rich success in the pursuit of championships.

Remembering Henry Ford and the Assembly Line

Today’s data-focused general managers remind us a little of Henry Ford and his vision for the assembly line. Ford was building cars prior to te assembly line, but the workers all worked on the whole car, one at a time, before moving on to the next. They apparently developed a good sense of team as they were working together to complete the whole car, one unit at a time, but they were apparently driving up up costs by the time it took them to get the job done.

Ford saw the assembly line as a way to get costs down by dividing the work into a number of subsets that the workers would now divide and work on separately all day. Only the final work station ever saw the completed product.

Complaints of boredom and disconnection were met with a cold response from Ford. “A honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay,” Henry Ford reportedly said. “All I ask is that you do the work.”

The assembly line survived, but it led to strong union involvement and a number of compensatory concessions to union workers in exchange for their concession to a more boring form of labor.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve always felt that the assembly line put an end to real team play in manufacturing and I would hate to see baseball becomes so mechanized that it no longer benefits from great old intuitive scouts like the late Red Murff and his ilk.

Baseball’s Bigger Egg

Baseball, to me, as a player and a fan, has always been a place where ability, wisdom, intuition, feelings, hunches, pure luck, and probably Divine intervention also comes into play as the factors that make the game both exciting and always different from any other game that’s ever been played by athletes who understand the importance of team.

As a manager, I will take a .267 hitting second baseman who understands what I just said over a .287 guy at the same spot who doesn’t get it.

The data developers do have some important contributions to make, but I doubt that even Houston Astros General Manager Greg Luhnow would claim that his “book” on all player performances is all he needs to determine the club’s future.

Tags: feelings vs. facts in baseball

This entry was posted on May 29, 2014 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.