Jacobs Field Pizza Feed Recap
by Corey
Last night, Alex and I attended a Baseball Prospectus-sponsored event at Jacobs Field. We got to have a Q&A session before the game with several key members of the Indians' front office, then enjoy C.C. Sabathia's dominating performance from the stands alongside BP authors Will Carroll, Joe Sheehan, and John Erhardt.
A few hours before game time, we were intorduced to Assistant GM Chris Antonetti, Special Assistant to the GM Neal Huntington, Assistant Director of Baseball Operations Mike Chernoff, and Coordinator of Baseball Operations Kyle Stark. (To quote Will Carroll, could the job titles be any vaguer?) Among the things they spoke about were:
I knew of DiamondView before last night, of course, but having heard it described to me, I failed to understand why it was so great. Hearing Tagliaferri (and Carroll) talk about it made me realize what all the fuss was about. What the Indians can do in seconds using DiamondView, every other team in baseball still takes days to do using old-fashioned methods. The Indians are so far ahead of the curve in terms of using software to track data, in fact, that they emply the same number of people in the Information Services department, nine, as the Chicago Cubs do in their entire front office!
When a player from another organization, for example, comes up in trade talks or whatever, a member of the Indians front office can use DiamondView not only to see that player's stats and biographical data, but to see a log of every time he has been mentioned in a phone conversation with another GM, every time he has been mentioned by an Indians scout, every time he has been mentioned on a certain website, where the Indians rank him in terms of trade preference within his own organization, and so on.
When another GM calls the Indians, meanwhile, they can use DiamondView to know instantly which of that GM's players they would be willing to receive in which trades. Other teams take days to have their interns research things like that each time a phone call is made. As Carroll said, "When other teams begin talks with the Indians, they know they're already at a major disadvantage."
I would have thought that systems like DiamondView had been developed by every team in pro sports by now, but apparently that is not the case. Just so you know, I believe Joe Sheehan will be publishing a column about DiamondView sometime this week on Baseball Prospectus.
As for the game itself, we got to mingle with Carroll, Sheehan, Erhardt and Tagliaferri out in the left field bleachers. Too bad for us that the game only lasted 2 hours... though it did allow us to catch the end of the Cavs game. All in all, we had a blast.
A few hours before game time, we were intorduced to Assistant GM Chris Antonetti, Special Assistant to the GM Neal Huntington, Assistant Director of Baseball Operations Mike Chernoff, and Coordinator of Baseball Operations Kyle Stark. (To quote Will Carroll, could the job titles be any vaguer?) Among the things they spoke about were:
- How the team prepares for the draft, namely a gigantic 3,000-hour meeting in which every scout reports on every prospect known to man. The front office then ranks every player.
- That Andy Marte has been pressing at AAA. As Huntington said, he's "grinding the bat into sawdust." Therefore, don't look for Marte to be an early call-up. But do look for Jeremy Sowers, Andrew Brown, Franklin Gutierrez, Jaosn Dubois, and Ryan Garko to get the nod should the Indians need some depth.
- Why C.C. Sabathia's mechanics, though they may put him at risk for injury, are the precise reason for his success. Antonetti explained that Sabathia is "hyper-flexible," which I had never known before. Will Carroll also went to great lengths to praise the team for taking every precaution possible to protect C.C. We were assured that the Indians played no role whatsoever in holding C.C. out of the World Baseball Classic.
- They admitted that the Robbie Alomar trade was a mistake, in that they tried to contend and rebuild at the same time. However, the front office learned from its mistakes, and might not have pulled off the Bartolo Colon deal without first failing.
- The importance of "make-up," which is high. Although make-up is a criminally vague term, it actually emcompasses about 14 different measures of personality.
I knew of DiamondView before last night, of course, but having heard it described to me, I failed to understand why it was so great. Hearing Tagliaferri (and Carroll) talk about it made me realize what all the fuss was about. What the Indians can do in seconds using DiamondView, every other team in baseball still takes days to do using old-fashioned methods. The Indians are so far ahead of the curve in terms of using software to track data, in fact, that they emply the same number of people in the Information Services department, nine, as the Chicago Cubs do in their entire front office!
When a player from another organization, for example, comes up in trade talks or whatever, a member of the Indians front office can use DiamondView not only to see that player's stats and biographical data, but to see a log of every time he has been mentioned in a phone conversation with another GM, every time he has been mentioned by an Indians scout, every time he has been mentioned on a certain website, where the Indians rank him in terms of trade preference within his own organization, and so on.
When another GM calls the Indians, meanwhile, they can use DiamondView to know instantly which of that GM's players they would be willing to receive in which trades. Other teams take days to have their interns research things like that each time a phone call is made. As Carroll said, "When other teams begin talks with the Indians, they know they're already at a major disadvantage."
I would have thought that systems like DiamondView had been developed by every team in pro sports by now, but apparently that is not the case. Just so you know, I believe Joe Sheehan will be publishing a column about DiamondView sometime this week on Baseball Prospectus.
As for the game itself, we got to mingle with Carroll, Sheehan, Erhardt and Tagliaferri out in the left field bleachers. Too bad for us that the game only lasted 2 hours... though it did allow us to catch the end of the Cavs game. All in all, we had a blast.
1 Comments:
Post a Comment
« Home