The final panel of the day discusses the use of analytics in baseball. From left to right, Eric Van, formerly of the Red Sox, Ben Baumer formerly of the Mets, and Vince Gennero of SABR. Andy Andres moderates.
Update: Ben points out that teams are ahead of the public researchers, but that research isn’t public. The public isn’t necessarily making progress; teams are probably doing it first.
Update: Teams have developed their own datasets. The ones with more robust data have an advantage.
Update: Ben doesn’t think you need to separate range and positioning. PMR takes that philosophy. Eric points out there is a huge managerial effect to positioning.
Update: Andy asks about analytics contributing to determining a player’s makeup. Vince says big companies do this for executives.
Update: Ben changed his mind about makeup in his time with the Mets. He came to appreciate the importance of it. Could they play in New York?
Ben on whats public. Like in real life, Much of the science and break throughs are not in the public domain, even the stuff funded by tax payers, a lot of research gets classified or is done under militarys own budgets, or by large corporations.
Heck, Branch Rickey went public with stuff like OBP and the pythag or scoring differential used to predict teams expected W-L 50-60 years ago but Bill James gets credit for it. OBP has been around as a concept for over a century.