"Like other professional sports NBA analytics are taking shape on the professional basketball court. Major League Baseball's last two champions, the Chicago Cubs and the Houston Astros, both are led by front offices with a strong emphasis on using data analytics."
- Feb 20, 2018 in How NBA Analytics is Changing Basketball
From ESPN:
"Former algorithmic trader John W. Henry bought the club in 2002 and promoted little-known Theo Epstein, a then-28 year old Yale graduate with a law degree, who became the youngest general manager in baseball. Epstein built a team based on sabermetrics, and two years later the Red Sox had their first World Series championship in 86 years, with two more to follow in the next nine years.
Henry has also hired sabermetrics godfather Bill James as a senior advisor and Tom Tippett as director of baseball information services. Tippett helped create Carmine, the team's proprietary baseball information system. Carmine puts customized data just a few clicks away, allowing the Red Sox to combine various kinds of data and estimate future performance. ...With Epstein's 2011 departure for the Chicago Cubs, his assistant GM Ben Cherington stepped into his shoes as GM and kept the Sox rolling in the same direction. For the past two seasons, manager John Farrell has followed suit, giving the team a cohesive approach to implementing sabermetrics.
Unlike the A's, whose "Moneyball" strategies were designed to overcome payroll limitations, the Red Sox appear to have an almost unlimited budget for players. That plus their dedication to sabermetric principles makes Boston the leading Big Moneyball team."
In a Moneyball world, a number of teams remain slow to buy into sabermetrics
"The Yankees were known for tumult during much of the George Steinbrenner era but have had a remarkably stable front office in recent years, with GM Brian Cashman serving since 1998, analytics director turned assistant GM Michael Fishman since 2005 and manager Joe Girardi since 2008.
Cashman has boasted of having 14 analytics staffers in addition to Fishman, who consults with Girardi before each series. Cashman's public comments -- such as his invocation of Chase Headley's muzzle velocities -- reveal the integration of analytical information into his decision making.The current staff includes Scott Benecke, who holds a Ph.D. in applied statistics, three other research analysts, four developers and several interns. The Yankees' nearly unlimited ability to spend on players extends to the front office as well.
Whether the Yankees use sabermetrics consistently enough has been questioned, in part because of some huge contracts providing minimal return between the lines. It's a fair critique when a team that spends like the Yankees misses the playoffs in consecutive seasons. At the same time, the Bombers are playing a bit of a different game, chasing both star talent at high marginal cost and World Series titles, and have posted 22 consecutive winning seasons and counting while doing so.
As they move into the future, the Yankees appear poised, with their large, deep staff, to adapt quickly as new tracking data comes to the fore."
For more information, email our Sports Institute of Analytics team:
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