Look at Ray Ray Run

I doubt the Sox were applying much of their bad data to any decision making previously which is a lot better than applying data incorrectly imo. I've listed tons of pitching success stories so I'll spare you the repeat.

The White Sox would have the best starting staff in baseball TODAY if they kept their guys. I'm not sure why anyone is arguing their successes are in the past. The best starting staff by a mile too. Sale, Rodon, Crochet, Bassitt, Cease with reserves of Giolito, and Lopez.

My guy, what are you talking about? One, the game has not evolved significantly in the past 10 years. There's no reason to create these fake windows. 10 years is not long enough to evaluate development. Giolito, Quintana, Cease, Rodon, Sale, Lopez, Bassitt and Crochet are still pitching in the MLB and with success. 12-25 years ago?? One won a cy young last year and the other may win one this year. 4/5 of their last playoff rotation was home grown and the 6th one was Dane Dunning who was also home grown.

Tihs narrative isn't true though. They've hit on more than Sale, Rodon and Crochet. The White Sox have a lot of success stories. The Sox got 170 innings of a 3.8 FIP out of Phillip fucking Humber They turned Mark Buehrhle into a borderline hall of famer. They unlocked Gavin Floyd's talent that had remained hidden. The acquired and turned Matt Thornton from an out-of-control reliever into one of the games best. They converted Sergio Santos from a SS into a dominant closer with an elite pitch. They acquired John Danks as a failed prospect and turned him into a viable ++ MLB arm prior to injury. They took a guy released by the Yankees and turned him into one of the most consistent pitchers in MLB (Quintana) who went on to acquire Cease who you took from being a designated reliever (read every scouting report that exists prior to the trade) and turned him into an ACE. They acquired Gio and Lopez when their stock had tanked and rebuilt Giolito. They developed Bassit and then gave him away for Bum Samardzija. They reinvented Nate Jones and Hector Santiago and made them both viable big leaguers (Jones was +++ before injury). They did the same with Kahnle. That's just me pulling cases from the top of my head without looking at all the details. Claiming the White Sox only developed Rodon, Sale and Crochet is nonsense.

What is the value add of having access to data (not assessments, or scouting reports, or PD plans) three days early? Was there really such a lack in communication throughout the org that the only way to derive insights for promoted players was via data on a cloud? What organizational gain is being derived from that? Is it meaningless? I guess not. Is it adding anything to a given players expected outcome? Of course not. Also, what does it even mean to "reveal" a proprietary model? No one is asking them to release any information. How you speak about your usage of data and your evolution of it is very telling in regards to how you're leveraging it. This is a topic I am very fluent in, unlike pretty much everything else I talk about where I'm a complete moron. The examples they provided for data optimization and advancements were examples that would be provided by a first year analyst for a consolidation project.

Interesting, I actually think data has heavily skewed towards benefiting pitching. Hitting is so reactionary by default that it's much harder to optimize, which is why the run scoring environment has tanked.

Models shouldn't be your primary idea generators, they're idea assessors and maximizers. I see far too many people who try to develop hypothesis from correlated components as opposed to using the data to validate or substantiate your observations/areas of focus. I call it directionless modeling which might as well just be throwing s%*# against the wall until something sticks.

Mechanics, in general, are optimized first to maximize stuff and then everything else is considered. There's a reason pitchers haven't thrown pitches that move or etc in a certain way and it's because it's even less natural than throwing already is. By focusing on depth and movement, you try things that your body wouldn't otherwise do which i believe leads to injury in addition to max effort. I'm not saying there's not value to obtaining those abilities, but the problem is the value isn't there on the health side meaning the individual players get much less long term return on that investment. Meanwhile, the teams can just recycle you and max out another guy. The goal should be to maximize stuff while maintaining natural range of motion, but the stuff maximization tends to overwhelm the other goals from my experience.

The job of data is merely to represent, statistically, the observations coaches and PD departments have been monitoring for years. Is it more exact? Of course. Has it revolutionized pitching in baseball? Not for the reasons you're citing. In fact, it has limited sustained success, dramatically decreased average innings pitched and tenures, all the while increasing injury frequency. Also, decreasing the sample would just increase statistical noise. Using a 20 year window allows a long enough window to assess careers and the general impact of process/programs. It's fascinating how I spend much of my days now telling people that data has become overvalued and overrated. The amount of people I've witnessed in my career who leverage data for pure stupidity and think, that, because they're leveraging data it's valuable, is endless. In my personal life I feel as though I spend half my days driving down Machine Learning (predictive models) and LLM implementations as oversold tools that should be a resource but not a decision maker, and the other half of my days implementing and selling the value of those products to businesses. I guess I'm part of the problem! The Sox have shown zero examples, in my opinion, of the viability of their data usage. The examples I was given the other day were people that have accomplished nothing and actually have gotten worse YoY (Smith/Schultz and etc).

The problem is moving data to a cloud doesn't actually improve outcomes in anyway. It's merely a way to provide access to the information, which in theory can provide you with more opportunities but as someone who has worked through many-of-these types of moves, it's not worthy of celebrating or citing as a large advancement. Properly defining the data also has value, but only if you can derive meaningful outputs from the data. The White Sox have not shown that ability under Chris Getz, in my opinion, and therefore I don't place much value in data consolidation. Data is everywhere in 2025, and people love to cite it's value without providing proof of concept. So while it's great the Sox have fixed their DBMS and gotten data aligned, they haven't shown any examples of getting value from that data.

How were they good at pitching overhauls? Huh? I haven't run this data in a while, but the White Sox were #1 in baseball in pitching WAR originating from the organization (meaning pitchers who were called up from the minors to the Sox or guys who were a part of the Sox minor league system and left) as of my last check on this (which was sometime last year) over the 20 year window reviewed. I'm not sure what you're expecting, but even if they fell back into the 3-5 range, they were still one of the very best teams in the game at developing and outputting pitching success and it wasn't just starters. They are absolutely PR fluff. The things cited around R&D, but most specifically data was frankly meaningless. The advantage of data adaptation in baseball is around proprietary models and robust predictive analytics, and saying you "cleaned up the data and moved it to the cloud" in no way implies advanced modeling. When he was asked to define an edge-area for the Sox, he was able to provide the specific edge for the Giants and the Red Sox but frankly provided nothing of substance/meaning for the White Sox. While cleaning up the data is a nice start, it is a long cry from leveraging data in a strategic and unique way. In fact, the thing they cited as their focal point within the offensive data (zone command, swing decisions etc) isn't some under-valued market gap and has resulted in the White Sox having the 2nd worst offense in MLB. I said it before and I'll say it again, copying what others are doing will always result in you being behind the times. The Sox had shown one ability previously, which was to produce high quality pitching, so while I like Brian a lot (As I've noted before, I know Brian from his San Francisco days and have known him for a long time), there's not much results-room to grow in the pitching space and offensively the White Sox have shown zero reason to believe they have changed/improved.

How's this working out? Haven't heard any updates on Colson's slash line "since Arizona."

The Sox have sold this narrative before. I'm not miserable, I'm simply realistic. They released a ton of "modernize the org" articles a few years back. The man thanks Jerry for everything 5 minutes into the interview. I'm happy to break down why the things discussed in the video aren't ground breaking. I have never wanted the Sox to become the Pittsburgh Pirates and why you think anything that has happened in the past three years is positive is beyond me. I never clamored for the Sox to become the cheapest organization in pro sports. I certainly didn't clamor for them to act the way they have been. You're watching a fluff podcast put out by the team on their own sports network and then you're offended when that's called out. If you want to be excited about "cleaning up data and putting it in the cloud" then so be it. Also, it's undeniable that the Sox best area before was pitching development. It was not the area that needed a significant overhaul. The Sox have produced more pitching WAR than almost any team in baseball over the past 20 years.

I like Bannister, but all this focus on overhauling pitching seems like a no-win game as the Sox were very good at that previously and so, while there's always room to improve I feel there was more low hanging fruit to tackle. Also, this is just PR fluff. The Sox are selling you how much they're changing while their results are as bad as the game has ever seen. It's a new angle to sell hope when at rock bottom.

I think pitch counts and inning limits have actually exasperated the issue because they're really only a pro-ball thing, and so these kids can deload a bit and max up the effort even more at the pro level. They also run counter almost any other endurance training (which pitching is) because maintaining levels and not deloading are really important for endurance training so your body doesn't lose acclimation. I think you'd need this inning and pitch count maintenance at a much younger age.

Can either of you help me understand the great work the Biomechanics group is doing? I'm surprised to hear that limiting injury isnt one of the goals of the biomechanics department/team. I agree its not the only function, but id expext it to be a component. A lot of people doing great work in the organization, it sounds like.

Ironically enough, the last team to get arm maintence right was the White Sox and they were mocked ruthlessly for it. Reserve max effort for big situations, tone done velo, develop and rely on change/slower slider. Very few peoples arms are built to throw 96-99 MPH all the time. Its not the off speed. Its not the pitch count. It's not the innings pitched. Its not arm angle or extension. Its max effort velocity. Its people building velocity that their arms wouldn't normally produce. It has a cascading effect too because then guys who throw 91 feel they have to throw 94 and they're over throwing too. You should grow into velocity - meaning throwing 93-94 tops in youth/high school ball and as your body grows and develops you build and add with it. I wouldn't draft a single kid who threw 98+ in high school. The Dodgers dont believe they can fix this so they have stocked up on arms to play the numbers.

Harold gives me a first hand glance into the incompetence of the white sox with his takes and opinions and im grateful for that. No one hates quants in baseball more than Harold.

Grandal will always be YOUR guy to me lol

Rick knew how to get respect from players, even if he was a mental wreck in the playoffs. Harold blaming Hahn when he damn well knows the day to day accountability is driven by coaching and the Sox hiring LaRussa to sleep in the dugout removed any accountability from the players.

Lynn is friends of their show, which is why they brought him up. He has also been vocal about the White Sox charade with AJ.

"Yeah, it's dumb but does it really matter." White Sox should consider this for their marketing slogan... maybe even put it in the tunnel leading to the dugout so every player can slap it as they come out.

Sox back to being on pace for 111 losses. Making them the 10th worst team in the modern era.

Kyle Harrison is gonna be a stud.

I've been hearing soccer was ready to explode in popularity in the US for 30 years.