“There’s 50 feet of crap, then there’s us” –Moneyball

As America’s national pastime, baseball has influenced the lives of many. As the nation has grown, baseball has as well. America has taken its fair share of hits throughout history, but since the Civil War, baseball has always been there. Baseball has been counted on to supply an escape to the world's problems. There's something about walking through the turnstiles, emerging from the concourse, and seeing the beautiful, well-kept field that gives one hope that better things are to come. As the United States has matured, baseball has gone through a revolution. With the efforts of Bill James and other statisticians, the use of statistics has changed the way the game is looked at and how it is played. Teams now use statistics to analyze everything in the franchise. Using statistical analysis in major league baseball is beneficial because it allows teams to properly and adequately analyze players despite not reaping the revenue that other teams possess. Teams that use statistical analysis can make up for the fact that they play in a smaller market and do not possess the budget and revenue that large market teams are blessed with.

As baseball has emerged as a major business and competition, the struggle of analyzing players has long been alive. Teams must find a way to out smart their opponents. With the formation of the National League in 1875 and the American League in 1901, came a premium on finding and signing the top available talent. Branch Rickey changed the approach of scouting with the development of the farm system in the Cardinals’ organization in the 1930s. Rickey’s farm system helped the Cardinals reap success in his tenure as President and General Manager. The Cardinals won three World Series Championships in the decade while using home-grown players as the rock of the team. Rickey continued developing the Cardinals up until the early 1940s. In 1942, Rickey’s last season with the Cardinals, the Redbirds had their best season in franchise history, winning 106 games and the World Series title. The farm system has allowed teams the opportunity to trust scouts’ instincts by testing the players in the minor leagues before playing a game in the major leagues. With all the minor league teams to scout and all the amateur players to research, baseball relies more on its scouts than any other major sports league.   It has long been believed in major league baseball that the old-fashioned scouting system properly sees a player’s potential and tools. Teams assemble a group of scouts who are assigned a particular region in which they are to find the best players for that respective team to sign. Andrew Steelman, an economics author and longtime baseball lover, states in his article Baseball Science that scouts have long believed that you can judge a player based solely on looking at him (2). Scouts are always looking for a potential major leaguer and it is all based on projection. It is very rare for a scout to see a player who is already major league caliber. The scout has to see the potential of a player and do his best to forecast the future. Scouts look through the current strengths and weaknesses of a player and examine whether the tools are there to allow him to make an impact at the major league level. This leads to Steelman saying that scouts tend to favor high school players over college players due to potential rather than track record (2). With Branch Rickey’s development of the farm system, scouts can take a risk based on possible potential of a player. While the potential for a high school player may be higher, college players provide experience and maturity to an already gifted makeup. In Moneyball, Michael Lewis, a financial journalist and proven author, states that scouts venture out and evaluate players all over the country in order to find the next star. The scouts do not pay particular attention to statistics, but rather base decisions on the five tools: hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, arm strength, and fielding abilities (16). While all of these abilities are important, the five tool system leaves out a very important part of the game: baseball IQ. Having knowledge of the game and what should be happening at any particular time allows a player to fully grasp the situation and make a solid decision on what is best for the team. Possessing solid intangibles can allow a player’s career last longer than it would without. The five-tool system is used only for position players. Each scout has their own way of analyzing pitchers. However, pitchers are judged primarily on his pitch repertoire, command and makeup. The makeup factor is often confusing. To simplify: if two pitchers were to have the same four pitches with the same plate command, but one of them is five foot nine one hundred sixty pounds and the other is six foot four two hundred fifty pounds, the scouts would prefer the latter. The scouts see a body that they can develop into something special. When a scout sees a player, he gives the player a numerical grade on his abilities. The grading system used to be on a scale of one to five but has now been changed to twenty to eighty in most baseball circles. A grade of twenty shows poor ability in that skill while a grade of eighty shows exemplary ability. A rating of fifty is considered major league average. For a player to be considered a quality major league prospect, their skill set should possess at least two above average tools. In What is Sabermetrics?  the author Bradley Woodrum, a sports writer for FanGraphs, reports that the scouting system analyzes not only the physical attributes of a player, but also the mental attributes. Teams can avoid major problems well in advance of the time they occur if they can recognize destructive patterns in a player’s lifestyle (2). The scouting system is beneficial in some circumstances. However, the human element of scouting provides a flaw in the system while statistics do not lie. It has long been believed that the old fashioned way of scouting provides effective analysis of a player and what they might become.

Statistical analysis in baseball has evolved into what it is today. It began with a revolution and has thus been turned into a formula for many teams’ success, including the Oakland Athletics. Statistics play an important role in evaluating performance and players in the game. Since baseball became a professional sport, statistics have been kept in detail for fans, players, and team personnel. The practice of keeping records of statistics started in the 19th century by Henry Chadwick, who is often referred to as the “father of baseball.” Chadwick is credited with creating the box score which is published daily in newspapers across the world. The box score shows a player’s statistics in the game in a format that can be easily understood for readers. The basic format of the box score has changed little since the original ones designed by Chadwick. Chadwick is also credited with devising the statistics batting average and earned run average. In 1947, Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers at that time, hired Allan Roth who became baseball’s first full time statistician. Roth introduced many theories that are used in the present day including the idea that on-base percentage was more important than batting average and that platooning players was effective if used properly. For his efforts in the field of baseball statistics, Roth was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1977, a Kansas prison guard named Bill James self-published an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract. In the book, James coined the term “sabermetrics” meaning the application of statistical analysis to baseball records, especially in order to evaluate and compare the performance of individual players (Lewis 20). Bill James’ interpretation of baseball statistics contradicted that of the baseball traditionalists. James introduced a new approach to evaluating players and strategies, and his theories have become indispensable tools for agents, statistics analysts, front office workers, and any true baseball lover. James is currently the Senior Advisor of Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox, one of the leading teams when it comes to the use of statistical analysis. In the article How Sabermetrics Works, Jacob Silverman, an established writer for HowStuffWorks, states that sabermetricians have questioned basic assumptions on how talent and player contributions are judged and have created a revolution against the baseball norm (1). As statistics have emerged in baseball, the application of statistics to player development and scouting has been rapidly increasing as more teams are partaking in this belief. With the help of Chadwick, Roth, and James among others, statistics have advanced through the course of time and now are as common as “three strikes and you’re out.”

With baseball statistics being such a key component in the baseball world, people are taking advantage. The ability to understand sabermetrics has been a skill sought after by many, but perfected by few. According to David Grabiner, a professor and author of The Sabermetric Manifesto, the basic goal of sabermetrics is to evaluate a situation or player for a given purpose. The most common use of statistics is to evaluate past performance and to predict future performance (2). People want to understand a player’s value and what they bring to a franchise. Seeing this craving for numbers, countless websites have been created in an effort to allow fans to further reach the game of baseball. Websites such as Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, offer advanced statistics to the casual fan. Baseball-Reference is commonly used by major league teams as a statistical database as there are no limits to what the website can do. FanGraphs is a website more accessible for fans but is still used in select major league circles for its capability to customize spreadsheets and graphs. Literature has also become a key component in the way teams analyze statistics. Each year, numerous books are published predicting statistical outputs for the upcoming season and other statistical measures. Select Major League Baseball front offices are eager to get their hands on these statistical encyclopedias. Two of the more well-known annual publications are the Baseball Prospectus Annual and the Bill James Handbook. The Baseball Prospectus Annual mainly focuses on the minor leagues and player development. It analyzes team’s farm system and how it will turn out in years to come. The Bill James Handbook is said to be owned by every general manager in baseball. Each year, Bill James and his team at ACTA Sports publishes “The Handbook” to provide statistics for the past season and projections for the upcoming season. “The Handbook” offers a player register in which every current major league baseball player’s career statistics are published for all to see. It also offers Bill James’ own statistical projections for each player in the upcoming season. These projected statistics play a major influence in what transactions a team will make in the offseason and how much a player is of value to a team. As the statistical revolution is changing baseball, the internet and literature have helped teams analyze and project player performance.

Using statistical analysis in all aspects of the game of baseball allows a front office to properly get the most “bang for their buck” as some teams are not blessed with the revenue and budget that other teams are. Unlike scouting, statistics do not discriminate. You are what your numbers say you are. Small market teams versus large market teams. The baseball equivalent to David versus Goliath. In this case however, David holds statistical analysis rather than a sling and a stone and Goliath can only fret at the way David uses his weapon. “The pleasure of rooting for Goliath is that you can expect to win. The pleasure of rooting for David is that, while you don’t know what to expect, you stand at least a chance of being inspired” (Lewis 187). Major League Baseball has many small market teams including the Oakland Athletics, Tampa Bay Rays, and Minnesota Twins. In his article Playing the Numbers Game, Steve Gierschier, a SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) member and Sporting News staff writer, says that many of Bill James’ philosophies are being embraced by baseball front offices. Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, is among the most notable at using James’ theories and philosophies as guidance for how he has conducted his day-to-day operations and has been successful (3). Andrew Steelman states that the Oakland A’s front office is analyzed in depth in Michael Lewis’ 2003 book, Moneyball. Moneyball follows the A’s through the 2002 season in which the team won the American League Western Division despite having one of the lowest payrolls in baseball (2). The steps in which Beane takes to develop a winning team are extensive and detailed. With a tight budget, Beane must always think ten steps ahead or else he will fall five steps behind. Tom MacLennan, a contributor to The Journal of Popular Culture, analyzes Moneyball’s philosophies and what it brings to the table in his article, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. “Moneyball by Michael Lewis explores a significant paradigm shift in baseball: namely, why some baseball executives seem to be much better than others are at getting more wins out of fewer dollars. Although the game on the field is ruthlessly competitive, there is much incompetence among the executives and scouts” (MacLennan 1). Billy Beane is one of the few executives in baseball, along with Andrew Friedman of the Tampa Bay Rays, to use statistics to their advantage and to develop a system with a long term goal rather than a short term solution. Michael Lewis explains that people in their respective fields operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage (98). Beane and Friedman have used the data that is there in front of them to their advantage in building highly respected, winning franchises. Jacob Silverman points out how baseball is able to use numbers by stating that sabermetrics are made possible because baseball is a sport in which every pitch, every play, every inning is recorded and analyzed (1). Unlike most sports, baseball is capable of being fully recorded and every play can be archived. In the article M.V.P. Debate Goes Beyond the Box Score by Nate Silver, an established sabermetrician and writer, Silver states that statistics enable the ability to measure different elements of the game- defense, situational hitting, base  running- which were once weak points of statistical analysis (1). Being able to now analyze every component of the game, general managers who use statistical analysis are a step ahead of those who don’t. However, a small market general manager must have a plan. They must live and die by the plan. Money will not just become available. It’s getting the most of what you have that’s key. According to MacLennan, Billy Beane takes structure to a whole new level. Billy Beane’s approach to the A’s is to make the system, rather than the player, the star. Beane wants to be idolized for his creativity with statistics and his approach to running a team (2). This philosophy allows teams to not over-commit and overvalue a single player, but rather have a strategy on how to make the team successful year in and year out. With a budget of roughly $40 million, Beane’s goal is to win games as cheaply as possible. To do this effectively, he acquires players with the qualities that fit his system that the market undervalues and sells the players whom the market overvalues (MacLennan 2). No general manager in baseball better understands what Sabermetrics can do more than Billy Beane. A statistic is only useful if it is properly understood. Therefore, a large part of sabermetrics involves the understanding of how to use statistics properly and which statistics are useful for what purposes (Grabiner 1). Billy Beane understands how to properly use Sabermetrics and advanced statistics and this leads to the Athletics maintaining a competitive team. Opposing teams often see Beane and others as lucky and say their results are flukes. According to Andrew Steelman, “Other general managers may look at the A's and simply think that their recent success has been a fluke. In their minds, the traditional way of running a baseball team - from judging talent to managing a budget - has worked for generations (even if it really hasn't) and with time will be proven superior to Beane's unorthodox methods” (4). The bridge between large market baseball teams and small market teams was once a hard one to cross but through statistical strategies and budgeting, teams are able to shorten the gap and make for a more competitive game.

The trademark symbol of the statistical revolution has been the use of the on-base percentage statistic. Ask a casual fan about Moneyball and their first response will be “On-Base percentage is superior to batting average.” Billy Beane’s use of the stat has changed the way baseball is played and scouted. On-Base percentage is a measure of how often a batter reaches base for any reason. The aforementioned Allan Roth was the first statistician to state that on-base percentage is a more valuable statistic than batting average. Bill James brought the philosophy to life in his Baseball Abstracts. Both Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta (Billy Beane’s Assistant General Manager) analyzed the works of Bill James and the way he looked at the game of baseball. Beane and DePodesta used on-base percentage to search for players who could fit the Athletic mold (Steelman 3). Having this set philosophy that players who get on-base the most score more runs which results in more wins has allowed the Athletics to be successful despite playing in a small market. Players such as Scott Hatteberg are often overlooked in the baseball circuit but the Athletics see Hatteberg as a player who will benefit them as his on-base percentage ranked in the top ten percent of all players. With on-base percentage being the most proficient stat that Billy Beane uses, Beane had to put it into focus in the Athletics system. Tom MacLennan discloses how Beane was able to accomplish the same belief throughout the organization by saying “To do this, Beane replaced traditional scouts with statistical number crunchers” (1). This has allowed to uniformity throughout the organization as all employees share the same beliefs and philosophies when it comes to baseball. According to Nate Silver, statistics have validated the conventional wisdom that getting the leadoff hitter on base increases s team’s chance of scoring greatly (3). When the leadoff hitter reaches base, the team’s chance of scoring a run in that particular inning goes up fifty percent. Therefore it is effective to stress to the players the importance of getting on base. However, general managers can only do so much in emphasizing on-base percentage. According to Tom MacLennan, one great step Beane took to make sure his use of statistical analysis showed on the field was to hire a field manager that implemented his policies and beliefs, including the importance of on-base percentage (2). The importance of unison throughout an organization cannot be stressed enough. Battles between the manager, players, and front office can crush a franchise. Hiring a manager who shares the same beliefs is very important when it comes to the success of the team.  As Moneyball has emerged as an established theory, the statistic on-base percentage and its direct influence on the winning of baseball games has led to key changes in how the game is looked at.

Using statistical analysis in major league baseball is beneficial because it allows teams to analyze players properly despite not bearing the revenue and economic stability that other teams possess. The development of statistics has allowed teams like the Oakland A’s to level the playing field and compete at the highest level. With the efforts of Bill James, Allan Roth, and Henry Chadwick, baseball has emerged as a game for thinkers and philosophers as well as a game for athletes. These men, not blessed with baseball talent, have forever changed the way the game will be played. Statistics in baseball are as important as home plate and the pitcher’s mound. This revolution will not look back, but only continue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Gietschier, Steve. "Playing the numbers game." Sporting News. 26 Aug. 2005: 22.

eLibrary. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

Grabiner, David. "The Sabermetric Manifesto." N.p., n. d. Web. Web. 15 Dec. 2012.

Lewis, Michael. Moneyball. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003. Print.

MacLennan, Tom. "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game." Journal of Popular Culture 4(2005):780. eLibrary. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

Silver, Nate. "M.V.P. Debate Goes Beyond The Numbers in a Box Score." New York Times. 15 Nov. 2012: B13. eLibrary. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.

Silverman, Jacob. "How Sabermetrics Works." N.p., n. d. Web. Web. 15 Dec. 2012.

Steelman, Aaron. "Baseball Science." Region Focus. 01 Jul. 2004: 32. eLibrary. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.

Woodrum, Bradley. "What Is Sabermetrics? And Which Teams Use It?." N.p., 12 2012. Web. Web. 15 Dec. 2012.