Crasnick: How MLB’s analytics revolution is getting to clubhouses
From SABR member Jerry Crasnick at ESPN.com on July 2, 2018:
Before Sam Fuld appeared in 598 major league games and attracted a following as a scrappy outfielder, he earned an economics degree from Stanford. A few years ago, he would have had two choices upon retirement: Go to work for a big league organization as an outfield-baserunning coach or pursue a job at an investment banking firm on Wall Street.
Now a Plan C career path exists for Fuld. Four months ago, it took him to a conference room at Spectrum Field in Clearwater, Florida, where he spent several days explaining weighted on-base average to 63 Philadelphia Phillies in English and Spanish.
Fuld, 36, joined the Phillies in November as the team’s major league player-information coordinator. His mandate is clear: to bridge the divide between the statistical and scouting worlds and dispense knowledge to players who are receptive to new ideas.
MLB organizations are embracing a new reality: Valuable insights can be conveyed every day, and they’re more likely to resonate with players when delivered by a front-office member of the uniformed fraternity than a front-office official with a statistics degree and a 2400 SAT score.
Read the full article here: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23947049/how-mlb-analytics-revolution-getting-clubhouses
Originally published: July 2, 2018. Last Updated: July 2, 2018.