Laurila: Interviews with Mark Cuban, Ben Jedlovec, Voros McCracken
From SABR member David Laurila at FanGraphs on March 5, 2013:
The SABR Analytics Conference has stolen some of its luster, but the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference remains an important event for the sabermetrics community. The seventh annual took place this past weekend, in Boston, and featured a plethora of thought-leaders. The Baseball Analytics panel included Ben Jedlovic, Jonah Keri, Voros McCracken, Joe Posnanski and Farhan Zaidi. Other speakers included Mark Cuban, Michael Lewis, Sig Mejdal, Dan Rosenheck and Nate Silver.
Several of them took the time to answer questions between presentations. This installment includes conversations with Cuban, Jedlovic and McCracken. Later in the week we’ll hear from Mejdal, Rosenheck and Zaidi.
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Mark Cuban [owner, Dallas Mavericks]: “Coaches and GMs evaluate talent differently. Coaches try to win possessions and games. That takes a different thought process than balancing short term versus long term. As [Houston Rockets GM] Daryl Morey was saying, coaches have a very limited window they’re trying to succeed within, whereas general managers and owners have to look at a longer time frame. You’ll see it with the Mavs, the way we approached building our team post-CBA versus pre-CBA. The variables change.“We take input from everybody, but in the end, the GM and owner have to make the final decisions. A lot of it is how you evaluate players organizationally. It’s not about any one individual, it’s what the organization is thinking.
“A lot of GMs measure their own mortality relative to their job. If they feel they’re at risk, they’ll make different decisions than if they feel safe. That’s typical in any job. People want to keep their jobs. Man loves hierarchy. GMs want to feel safe and have longevity, and hopefully they also want to win championships. If he feels there is a risk of losing his job, he’ll behave differently than if there’s no chance he’ll lose his job.”
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/sloan-analytics-cuban-mccracken-jedlovic/
Related link: For more information on the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics
Originally published: March 5, 2013. Last Updated: March 5, 2013.