June 7, 20196 yr I had to start a thread on it, because for those interested in player development advances, this has been a fantastic read: https://www.amazon.com/MVP-Machine-Baseballs-Nonconformists-Players/dp/1541698940 Excerpt from the ringer: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/6/3/18644512/mvp-machine-how-houston-astros-became-great-scouting About half-way through it, one of the best baseball books I've ever read.
June 7, 20196 yr 7 hours ago, bmags said: I had to start a thread on it, because for those interested in player development advances, this has been a fantastic read: https://www.amazon.com/MVP-Machine-Baseballs-Nonconformists-Players/dp/1541698940 Excerpt from the ringer: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/6/3/18644512/mvp-machine-how-houston-astros-became-great-scouting About half-way through it, one of the best baseball books I've ever read. After reading that excerpt, I want Luhnow to have Kenny's job. Excellent stuff.
June 7, 20196 yr I was debating getting this. I listen to Effectively Wild podcast, so I've heard plenty about it. I wonder if the Sox were one of the teams willing to share some insight or one of the ones that refused to speak.
June 8, 20196 yr At least the sox got two progressive hitting guys with lisle and johanson. Not sure how it is with pitching though.
June 8, 20196 yr Author 15 hours ago, CWSpalehoseCWS said: I was debating getting this. I listen to Effectively Wild podcast, so I've heard plenty about it. I wonder if the Sox were one of the teams willing to share some insight or one of the ones that refused to speak. It focuses on a series of players such as Trevor Bauer and their use of targeted training to improve, The hitting coach of JD Martinez, Driveline, rapisodo tech, the astros and I believe the Rays. Its not really a survey around the league. More of how advances are changing the league as analytical scouting once did, and the history of it
June 11, 20196 yr You wonder how far behind the Sox are in terms of analytical and technological advancements compared to the early adopters. I know we have at least been using trackman stuff for the last couple years but that isn't saying a whole lot compared with the rest of the league.
June 11, 20196 yr Author 7 hours ago, BackDoorBreach said: You wonder how far behind the Sox are in terms of analytical and technological advancements compared to the early adopters. I know we have at least been using trackman stuff for the last couple years but that isn't saying a whole lot compared with the rest of the league. It seems the innovators just have invested more in pushing the analytics teams from just focusing on acquisitions and scouting what's there to identifying good candidates for changing. Now the book does mention the sox positively for investing in 3 hitting coaches, including Matt Lisle. Hopefully he is serving as a conduit who can relay analysis from the rapisodo and edgartronic to the players. But who knows.
June 12, 20196 yr The biggest factor is how much power the nerds get. Many teams have sabermetrics guys but then the final say has a non stat guy using his gut feel. Similarly a team might have a "data hitting coach" but then have traditional hitting coaches who just ignore him and teach what they think is right. The great strength of luhnow is that he creates power for those guys, if an old school coach postures like "i have 30 years experience in pro ball, we do it my way" he gets fired while in other teams following the saber guys is more optional than mandatory.
June 12, 20196 yr Author I don't know if anyone else is reading this, but the piece on k-vests made me want to buy one for madrigal right away.
June 26, 20196 yr Just picked this up and am a few chapters in. It may be the single most fascinating baseball book I've ever read. Trevor Bauer is a total weirdo and I cant get enough of reading about his process.
June 26, 20196 yr 17 minutes ago, mqr said: Just picked this up and am a few chapters in. It may be the single most fascinating baseball book I've ever read. Trevor Bauer is a total weirdo and I cant get enough of reading about his process. Didn't Bauer make some comment that he will only sign one year deals once he becomes a FA? Will be interesting to see if he actually puts his $ where his mouth is.
June 28, 20196 yr On 6/11/2019 at 6:54 AM, BackDoorBreach said: You wonder how far behind the Sox are in terms of analytical and technological advancements compared to the early adopters. I know we have at least been using trackman stuff for the last couple years but that isn't saying a whole lot compared with the rest of the league. Big Data Baseball referenced how late we were in getting on the analystics train. We were ranked dead last or near it for defensive shifting in 2014 or 2015. I am just hoping things have changed since.
June 28, 20196 yr On 6/12/2019 at 6:08 PM, bmags said: I don't know if anyone else is reading this, but the piece on k-vests made me want to buy one for madrigal right away. Absolutely. Madrigal has a classic out of sequence swing that starts with pushing the hands forward. Also a too flat swing plane. This stuff can be fixed, I'm currently working with a HS player on the same issue but you need to fully commit to that change and accept that you might get worse for a couple months. This is not an easy thing to do though especially if you had as much success in the amateurs as madrigal had. Bregman did such a change with the astros but not everyone is willing to do it and there is also some risk that a swing change doesn't work. Don't forget that he has taken 10000s of swings with his old swing, to overcome that muscle memory it takes months of work with total conviction. Edited June 28, 20196 yr by dominik-keul@gmx.de
June 30, 20196 yr Kyle boddy also posted he would like to be a pitching coordinator. He has a whole lot of demands though like he needs to have 100% of what is going on, limited travel days and ability to continue to be driveline CEO. Many GMs probably wouldn't like being dictated that much.
June 30, 20196 yr Author 9 minutes ago, dominik-keul@gmx.de said: Kyle boddy also posted he would like to be a pitching coordinator. He has a whole lot of demands though like he needs to have 100% of what is going on, limited travel days and ability to continue to be driveline CEO. Many GMs probably wouldn't like being dictated that much. I think someone will take a chance but the hardest hurdle would be making sure anything new he teaches at driveline was not developed as the pitching coordinator. if he moves in to an org they would have basically had to buy driveline so you would need a rich ass owner.
July 1, 20196 yr Most owners hate paying non baseball personnel. Except for the GMs the pay for analysts and coaches is pretty bad. Thus they will probably prefer one of boddy's assistant coaches to get 80% of the performance for 20% of the cost. I think that is pretty stupid, player dev can generate so much money so that it is worth spending on it. Most owners don't see it that way because player dev doesn't show results until 3-4 years later and even then it is not certain.
July 15, 20196 yr Read the first 30 pages or so this weekend of a friend's copy. Interesting stuff, especially how most of this stuff was started "bottom up". Some of the training methods and injury prevention stuff was bandied about by one of our trainers (school basically had one full time trainer on staff and the baseball team would get him once a week) at the DIII level when I was playing, including the weighted ball stuff and long toss. Will def finish it when he's done. Moneyball seemed (at least from my perspective) to have been written 5-7 years too late. This book feels like it was written as the zeitgeist is happening. Edited July 15, 20196 yr by chitownsportsfan
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