We have all kinds of fantastic stats for tracking player performance, metrics that are descriptive, predictive and somewhere in between. Today, I would like to introduce a descriptive stat for the folks on the team who do not wear spikes. Think of this as an attempt to measure the performance of management by trying to quantify the work of the front office and coaching staff using a folky metaphor.

Oh, Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honah Lee

Baseball is a game for kids. The best of the best get to frolic in the autumn mist in a Honah Lee called the World Series. Baseball has many reasons to favor youth, some structural to the game as a business and others more existential, like Peter, Paul and Mary sing about.

Team control and the aging process conspire to make young, developing players the most valuable to the ballclub. Their income constraints mean that youngsters can rack up surplus value if they hit their ceiling, and are an inexpensive sunk cost at worst. The best baseball exists in the sweet spot between the physicality of youth and the skill earned through repetition. Not exactly revolutionary, but my stat builds from the logic that you want to play guys who can either contribute to wins this season or might develop into contributors in the future. Additionally, I am assuming that playing time at the major league level is far better for evaluation and development than the upper minors due to the quality of competition as well as the availability of data, scouting tools and other resources, though obviously that might vary depending on the org and the player. Here is where Peter, Paul and Mary, darlings of the Greenwich folk scene of the 1960s, come into play. Read the rest of this entry »