MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Convention

I realize this is almost a week old now but I wanted to mention a few key points from the Baseball Analytics panel at the Sloan Sports Analytics Convention.

The panel was led by Rob Neyer and included Shiraz Rehman (Director of Baseball Operation, Arizona Diamondbacks), Tom Tippett (Director of Baseball Information, Boston Red Sox), John Abbamondi (Asst GM, St. Louis Cardinals), John Dewan (Baseball Info Solutions) and former Boston GM Dan Duquette.

There was significant talk regarding defense and the metrics used to capture it. Dewan stated the some of the teams his company works with (roughly 15) are far behind in terms of their knowledge of defensive information and what to do with it.

Tom Tippett discussed player projections and the difficulty of determining individual career tracks. When discussing player options Abbamondi admitted the Cardinals employ an option-pricing model. He also discussed the anticipation of HitFX although he was worried this would level the playing field too much for less analytically inclined organizations.

Dan Duquette seemed a bit out of place in the discussions. He kept referring to 20-game winning pitchers as if they completely controlled their wins and losses, which we know to be erroneous. It was clear that the other baseball folks represented a new bread of management.

I did not take any notes during the event so I am obviously missing quite a bit of info. There was a nice writeup on the Hardball Timesand over at Baseball Musings.