Evaluating Front Offices and Farm Systems: Part 2

Last week I tried to assemble a conceptual framework for evaluating general managers and front offices by applying a couple of economic principles to player acquisitions and departures. This week we will add a few more performance measures by looking at team draft and farm system efficiency. The overall goal is to create a dashboard of indicators that can help us understand how well a team’s front office is performing their duties in addition to the typical winning percentage and eye test measures.

Read more at Banished to the Pen.

Evaluating Front Offices and Farm Systems: Part 1

The following is a conceptual framework for what I hope becomes a model to help us baseball lovers better evaluate certain aspects of baseball organizations such as general managers effectiveness and farm system efficiency.

 This will be done in multiple posts to retain the attention of readers. My approach is driven by the simple model of the firm and the many economic principles that go along with that method. The economic fundamentals used in my research have been slightly adapted to fit the constraints of baseball. For example, instead of dollars, the WAR stat might be used to calculate a value. Also, certain economic equations break down when using them in a pure baseball sense, so alterations and in some cases new equations were needed to comply with these baseball controls. I will do my best to explain these adaptations as I go along. I must admit this was challenging and I still feel there are several areas in which my thought process might be flawed. Hopefully, with enough time and tentation I will be able to come to some meaningful conclusions. 

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See the full visualization dashboard at Underground Analytics

Creative Destruction in Baseball: A Deeper Look

In my last post I provided a brief introduction to the concept of creative destruction and how teams and players should consider embracing the principles behind it. The plan for this post is to dig a little deeper into this notion by identifying teams and players who are already reaping the benefits from embracing this mindset as well as examples of failures for not establishing this fundamental.

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Creative Destruction in Baseball: Intro

While watching the Angels and Blue Jays game the other day, Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez mentioned that C.J. Wilson had expressed to him before the game that he had re-invented himself six times during his ten year professional career. This reminded me of a term frequently thrown around by economists and corporate leaders called creative destruction. The word sounds like an oxymoron and to a certain extent it is. However, it is a concept that teams and players should embrace especially in this presumed transition period of baseball.

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Updated MLB Statcast Data (July 2015)

I am pretty sure by now we all know what Statcast is, have most likely seen it in use, and (for those of us who have been listening to the BttP Podcasts) are aware of its origins. Before the season, I compiled a database of all public MLB Statcast statistics and posted it here. Since then there has been a flurry of data released which warrants an update.

MLBAM is releasing a majority of its Statcast data the same way it released the PitchF/X data, through this pretty little website: http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/. Most of this information on this site looks like mumbo-jumbo, but do not worry. There is another, more efficient and prettier website where you can download the data for free. It goes by the name BaseballSavant.com. Darren Willman, creator of the Savant network of websites, has tapped into the MLBAM website and has graciously made all of this data easily accessible to everyone.

I took my own stab at integrating the xml files from the MLBAM website into my own database. While I was able to successfully connect to the portal and download the info, I ultimately found it much easier to just download the stats from Willmans’s website.

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More on Game Theory and Defensive Shifts

Last week, I took a look at defensive shifts and how players could possibly fight back by understanding game theory. We used bunt probability research conducted by Tom Tango to give us a better idea of what types of outcomes could go into our game theory matrix. We then solved for equilibrium to give us a rough estimate of the ratio that batters should bunt or swing away, and the ratio that defenses should shift or not shift. In this post, I will demonstrate a different game theory structure that might be more suited for looking at bunting into the shift.

In the previous post, we used a matrix also known as “normal form” to play the game. This time we will use the extended form also called a “game tree.” This form of game is more conducive to visualizing a sequential game. In a sequential game the first player makes a move and the second player counters. In our example, player one is the defense and player two is the batter.

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Beating Defensive Shifts with Game Theory

Barring a rule change outlawing them, it seems defensive shifts are here to stay. In fact, teams are using them increasingly and becoming more efficient at them in the process. This is not a good sign for predictable hitters such as David Ortiz, Brian McCann and the plethora of other pull-happy hitters. Smart baseball minds such as Tom Tango and Bill James have written about ways that hitters can essentially fight back by bunting or simply becoming a more well-rounded hitter. In this post I will attempt to build on some of these findings. More specifically I will be using game theory to help prove that hitters have a way out of their proverbial pickle.

 First, let’s discuss game theory.

 Simply put, game theory is the study of strategic ... Read full article at Banished to the Pen