"Money Ball" More than the data Baseball team aiming for a strong way to strengthen "to lose"

ByIntel Free Press

"Money ballSpeaking of "baseball data statistically analyzed and applied to player evaluation and strategy"Saber Metrics"This is a non-fiction work depicting the former baseball player Billy Bean used for the team management to push the Oakland Athletics up to the strong team. Before and after this work came out, the utilization of data became active in the baseball world of Japan and the United States, but from the outside it is baseball team that performs complete data-oriented team management at the level that it feels "overly overkill" The team is in Major League.

Extreme Moneyball: Houston Astros' Jeff Luhnow Lets Data Reign - Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-28/extreme-moneyball-houston-astros-jeff-luhnow-lets-data-reign


"Money Ball" published in 2003 triggered many major league baseball officials to reconsider the fundamental part of the management of the team, "how their approaches are correct". William O. DeWitt Jr., who is the owner of Cardinals, also told me to reconsider about the management of the team, "I make sure that their approach is state of the art correct, get new insights from the outside It seems to be thought that it is "want".

Cardinals of the time played off in the playoff for the third consecutive year, and it was a situation I could not imagine that a big change was necessary, but because it was a medium-sized team, expensiveFree agentWe can not afford to acquire (FA), so "farmIt was very weak. "

So, Mr. DeWitt is my son-in-law,McKinseyWe asked Mr. Jeff RUNOU who was working as a management consultant at the company and asked to build a better player evaluation system. Mr. Lunen hired Mr. Sig Mejdal, a NASA engineer to create a new player evaluation system, and established a forum for many discussions with Mr. DeWitt in order to create a competitive advantage with other teams.

This person who suits himself suits herself as thoughtful of being in baseball-related occupation is Mr. Jeff Lunou.

ByEric Kilby

However, it seems that for those who worked in the system before the Cardinals' system a while ago, Mr. Lunow who suddenly appeared intellectually seemed to be getting off my nose and there were many unexpected reactions. "If a consultant goes to a company, in most cases it will face people with skeptical opinions," said Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Lunnow former colleague Michael Farello. Mr. Lunow says that the boss of the other company who had a client contract in the past has been punctured by car tires, but Mr. Lucio learned from McKinsey "How to build a relationship to get support from clients" And he seems to have built a relationship with the surroundings.

Mr. Luno did not try to persuade perfectly the surrounding people, but he said that DeWitt was highly impressed by what he did. And finally Mr. Lunov is the top of the Scout section of St. Louis CardinalsGeneral manager(GM), and it will result in killing Walt Jocketty from Cardinals who was in conflict with Mr. Luno in the former GM. Looking back then, "It was a bit unusual to make Lunao a GM, it was also a debate, but I believed that his experience and insight would lead the team to success," DeWitt He comments.

As expected by Mr. DeWitt, Mr. Luno will make a great result at the draft conference. Mr. Luno was appointed GM of Cardinals and he was in charge of selection of players at the draft conference for seven years, but the number of athletes promoted to major among the athletes acquired during that period was more than 2013 When St. Louis Cardinals fought with the Boston Red Sox in the World Series in October, 16 of 25 players on the registration list were players who Mr. Luno won in the draft during the term of office about.

ByKeith Allison

Jim Crane, who acquired eleven Houston Astros in 2011, watched Mr. Lunove. At this time, Astros retained the worst record that sees 56 wins and 106 losses rarely seen in the history, Mr. Crane seems to have pointed Mr. Luno as a necessary person for playing the team.

Mr. CraneUniversity of Central MissouriIt is a person who has been selected twice as a pitcher of the national team nationwide, and after graduating from collegelogistics· Building wealth in business, it seems that it began to emphasize the value of data from this experience.

Mr. Crane wants to set Astros' most important goal "change to a team like St. Louis Cardinals" and realize this as quickly as possible. And Mr. Crane pulled out as a bargain for rebirth of the club, Mr. Luno wants to use data more than St. Louis Cardinals era, and it is unprecedented ruthless and efficient emphasis that "numbers control Astros" We propose the policy, Mr. Klein approves this.

ByAustin Kleon

And the method to strengthen the Astros which the figures derive is "to lose". Since Astros is not financially affordable team, there is not enough money to service the other missing part while hanging a big money on the army. As measures taken there for two or three seasons, it is OK to lose team's expenses as much as possible so that funds funded from here are called "farm" "analysis staff" "new baseball school in the Dominican Republic It is to distribute it to the part of the funding efficient such as "to make it to".

Mr. Klein will take this idea with full knowledge that this is not a wonderful idea. At the start of the 2013 season, the total annual salary that Astros plans to pay to the players was the lowest $ 27 million in the league (about 2.8 billion yen), but Mr. Luno is a high baseball player with high annual salaries We released good players in the trade, the team weakened but at the end of the season the total annual salary of the players dropped to 13 million dollars (about 1.4 billion yen). The average salary of Major League isApproximately 350 million yenIt is said that the total annual salary of one team is about 8.7 billion yen in a simple calculation considering that 25 players are registered in the army. Compared to this, you can see how Astros is holding down his salary, that is, "team formation not aimed at winning now". While other teams are reinforcing the team with the aim of becoming the World Series, Astros will lose throughout the season and still keeps aiming for the attention rookie of the first draft.

As a result, the level of Astros' farm is becoming one of the best on the sphere world.


ESPN baseball columnists and critics said, "The total salary is just 27 million dollars, it's like building a team to lose, not to be defeated, to create the worst record We are criticizing everyone's mouth "and the actual results of Astros between 2011 and 2013 are more severe than the results of New York Mets from 1962 to 1964.

However, most major league clubs are not interested in Astros' experiments. For this reason, "Because we can not decide such bold measures as Astros in places like Boston and New York because the fans can not accept such violence," said the Red Sox Mr. Ben Cherrington served as GM at. The owner of another team also said that the attempt by Astros was "not like sportsmen" or if you think about your fans, you can not do it.

Of course, even in Houston, home of Houston Astros, there are many people who are not comfortable with the Astros policy,Houston ChronicleEvan Drellich served as a reporter at Mr. LunoBud-Norris"From the Astros, they are obviously overhangers of the Major League baseball team, and they say that they are really looking at themselvescolumnWe are publishing.

ByKeith Allison

When I visit the Astros office, I am surprised that it is very similar to the consulting company's office. Everyone working is clear and mentally braind and it works diligently to work. Mr. Luno gathers staff such as engineers and consultants, data scientists and physicists around himself, and those staff are like people who have worked with baseball like previous Mr. Luno is.

The experts gathering at Astros are staff members who are gathered to make good use of newly available data. In the major league stadium,PITCHf / xAnd Doppler radar TrackMan etc. are deployed, detailed data can be taken to the position, acceleration, movement, speed, and rotation axis of the ball during the game, so in order to make use of these in a variety of fields It seems that the expert's power is needed.

ByKen Teegardin

As Mr. Luno obtained athlete got at the draft conference was promoted to the major afterwards, I can tell you the high prediction ability using his data, but this ability has sold designer jeans in the past I got it from experience.

The former president of Levi says, "I hear the opinion of self declaration from the customer and make pants of exact size, Does the customer really answer honestly at that time? Are not you putting up the prospect? When comparing the actual size with the imaginary size to make sure it is possible to say ", if customers can not put on pants of the size declared as wishfully, the customer returns pants, so this is It was a serious problem. However, with time, Levi's accumulated sufficient data to predict the size feeling of the customer, and it was said that the size was corrected based on this data.

Mr. Luna thinks that such a "prediction utilizing data" can be utilized even in Cardinals, and the born from that is how to select a player at the draft conference, and so on.

ByD. L.

Over the past three years, Astros has been investigating what traditional knowledge about baseball is useful and what is not. Mr. Mejdal, who was pulled by Mr. Luno to work at NASA, brainstormed about "why the minor league is not a capabilityist" and so on to do better exercise methods derived from data analysis , Persuading the team persistently, he talks about the work at Astros.

Astros is a team with many defensive shifts, for example, for a left-handed pull hitter, it is a bit odd but it is a data-based defense, such as shortening the batting average of Goro by about 30 points by moving to the right side of the second base It seems that the method is thorough.


Besides, the two Army of Astros are not "traditional" rotation with five pitchers ", but instead of letting one pitcher serve four or five times in a row, and letting two players to throw one game" tandem system By adopting it, we are able to find players with more talent for pitching. This system is to prevent the pitcher from increasing the opportunity to prove his skill and preventing the talent from being buried by the team.

Mr. Luna raised a left arm pitcher named Tommy Shirley as the gemstone of the diamond discovered by this system. "He would have been seen as a" relief pitcher "from a left-handed pitcher's expert," Mr. Luno said. However, now Shirley is growing to a level where he is active as a starting pitcher in the minor league AAA.

ByBugsy

The data utilized by Mr. Luno is diverse and it is not a level that can be thought very much in mind. Therefore, Astros takes advantage of the program "Ground Control" that takes into account all variables and also performs weighting based on the analysis results of the analysis team. This is Astros' "brains" if you can say, it is also possible to give out the numbers expected for each team player from statistics and memos.

And next to the names of some players there is a green tab. This indication is generated automatically by the algorithm, and this display means "the player is ready for promotion". Furthermore, the gray icon is demoted, and the black icon means the player who should be fired.

Collin McHugh is a pitcher who has been active in Mets or the minor league of Colorado · Rockies so far, but was eventually picked up by Astros after receiving notification outside the fighting force. Rockies seemed to think that McHugh 's sinker was attractive, but the defense ratio was sticky with 8.94. However, according to a survey by Astros analytical team, the usual curve turns at about 1,500 revolutions per minute, whereas McHugh's curves are 2000 revolutions per minute and it is a world-class curve to kick out the revolution speed I notice.

BySlgckgc

Astros made a spot on the part which is unknown only by superficial statistical data (past achievement), and found the possibility of McHugh. After that, the analysis staff consulted with the pitching coach and changed the ball type of McHugh. Instead of a sinker, let's throw a Four Seam and even gather the balls in the strike zone to a higher extent than the general pitching theory.

"Everyone says" Collect the balls low "," said Brent Strom, Astros' pitcher coach. The Major League baseball team likes a pitcher of the type that "hit the goat" rather than the type of "get striking or hit a home run." However, due to the influence of this trend, it is said that the number of batters who are not good at high balls is getting used to major balls by hitting low balls. So Astros confirmed the effectiveness of the high ball at the minor league and it was confirmed that it was effective, so we began practicing the assembly using the higher ball also for the first pitcher's pitcher. In addition, it is said that the higher ball is effective especially for the upper swing batters.

As a result of this, McHugh, who played the game at the beginning of the season with Seattle Mariners, took 12 strikes and left a good result of not sending out a single batter.


The current Astros, ESPN's farm evaluation soared, total annual salary of the army is rising more than temporary, but the total annual salary of the team is less than 44 million dollars, which is lower than any of the major league baseball team.

The graph below shows a graph in which the left represents the total of the player's annual salary, and the right represents the victory rate in the regular season.


Although Mr. Lunov's project which seemed to be getting well at last finished, Astros will introduce Mr. Nolan Ryan with conservative baseball theory to the team in the beginning of 2014. And when the trade period comes to the end, the annual bargain sale of the out-of-fighting athletes has been stopped by Mr. Ryan. In this way, the appearance that Kane of the owner who showed full confidence to Mr. Lunow at the beginning as well as many fans as patience limit is appearing. I do not know whether Mr. Lunove's revolution will succeed successfully or whether the limits of patience in the surroundings will come first, but in future Houston Astros will entertain the ball world from a variety of angles, such as playing and acquiring athletes There is no doubt that it will be deaf.