Over the years, many Baseball Prospectus staffers have been hired away by major-league teams, which is a source of pride for us. We’ve gained a reputation as being a source of bright, dedicated people whose approach to baseball can be of considerable value to front offices, and if that reputation means we have to replace starters a bit more often than is optimal, well, it’s worth it.
Of course, it’s not just our staff but our readership that brings a lot to the table. If you read the comments sections, if you followed the BP Idol series, you know that the analytical approach to baseball isn’t something we have on lockdown. There are great ideas everywhere, smart people thinking about the game in ways that over time will make baseball a better game and MLB a better industry.
To tap into that pool of knowledge, one major-league team has come up with a question with which to screen candidates for potential opportunities in their front office:
If you had access to all of the information available to a major league team - both public and proprietary data, such as scouting reports, training reports, video, etc - what question(s) would you attempt to answer with that data? How would you go about that process? What potential problems do you foresee?
You can reply to this question via mlbquestion@gmail.com. If you’d like to be considered for a position, attach a resume to your response. In the interest of everyone’s sanity, please do not inquire beyond your initial submission. Every response will be read, but the team will only contact those people with whom it wishes to follow up. The deadline for responses is November 9, 2009, one month from today.
I am impressed with the non-traditional approach taken on my this team in filling a position in their front office. I can only imagine how business would be different other businesses took this kind of approach.
My question would be what is the "background level" or inherent likelihood of of pitcher arm falure, and what factors increase or decrease that level -- how to factor in things like age, innings pitched, number of appearances, number of warmups, style of pitching, etc. I have no idea whether someone has done this, or how one might construct such an analysis.
The next two big baseball questions to answer:
"How do you rank fielding?" which is getting a lot of attention and progress is being made almost every day.
"How do you prevent pitcher injuries due to fatigue?" which is also under great study. Every day, our answers to these get better, we just aren't quite there yet.
What question(s) would you attempt to answer with that data?
Answer #1: Baseball is a business. While winning is good for business, the playoffs are best for business.
So, the question is simple: what's our best path to the playoffs? And, since its a business, what are our payroll limitations to get us there?
Then, evaluate and re-value the talent that we have in our system. Start with the status quo - if we do nothing over the off-season, how many games are we likely to win, and how many will our division rivals win? Is it worth a shot to play for 2010 post-season, or are we better off retooling for 2011 or 2012?
In either of the above cases, what holes do we have to fill? Are we limited to free agents to fill the pieces, or do we have any extra depth on the roster or in the minors that would allow us to fill holes internally and through trades?
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I am impressed with the non-traditional approach taken on my this team in filling a position in their front office. I can only imagine how business would be different other businesses took this kind of approach.