David Stearns on How Analytics Have Impacted a General Manager’s Job

Earlier this month, an article titled “Executive’s View: How Have Analytics Impacted a General Manager’s Job?” was published here at FanGraphs. Featured were Ross Atkins, Brian Cashman, Jerry Dipoto, and John Mozeliak, with the foursome sharing their perspectives on this ever-evolving aspect of their shared position.

Shortly after the piece ran, two people suggested David Stearns as a followup interview subject. That’s understandable. Now in his second season as the president of baseball operations for the New York Mets, the 40-year-old Ivy League product has two decades of experience within the industry, almost all of it in front offices.

A summer intern with the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to graduating from Harvard University in 2007, Stearns subsequently worked in MLB’s central office, then served as co-director of baseball operations with Cleveland, became an assistant general manager with the Houston Astros, and, in 2015, was hired by the Milwaukee Brewers as general manager. His data-driven approach was a common thread throughout. Moreover, he has remained true to his analytic bent since assuming his current position following the 2023 season.

Stearns was at Fenway Park this past week when the Red Sox hosted the team whose front office he now leads, so I took the opportunity to get his perspective on the subject at hand. Here is our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

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David Laurila: I’ll start with the question I asked Atkins, Cashman, Dipoto, and Mozeliak: How has the continued growth of analytics impacted the job?

David Stearns: “Over the span of my career, we’ve been inundated with more and more sources of information — information sources that are increasingly granular in nature, increasingly have to do with the processes of playing baseball, and not necessarily the results or outcomes of playing baseball. Those lead towards more and more complex algorithms and models that require greater numbers of analysts, and really smart, creative people to have in a front office. So, one of the greatest changes is just the size of the departments within baseball. The information has grown to such a enormous extent that we need more and more people to manage the information. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind. And then we need to make all that information actionable.”

Laurila: The GMs I spoke to earlier all stressed the importance of the hiring process. It’s not just bringing in enough people, but also bringing in people with a high degree of expertise.

Stearns: “Yes. That is certainly true in the analytics space. I think it’s true throughout the baseball operations department in general. Again, these groups have gotten much bigger throughout baseball operations, and so hiring is incredibly important. Ultimately, the people within the group dictate a lot of the successes or failures of a particular organization.”

Laurila: Are you making most all of the hiring decisions, or are you delegating some those responsibilities within different departments?

Stearns: “You have to delegate. If you include medical personnel, coaches, scouts, analysts… baseball operations departments right now are 200-250 people deep. One person can’t possibly do all of that hiring. You need the other leaders in the organization to spend a considerable amount of their time on the hiring process, on the management of those departments. So yes, delegating the hiring process is a big part of it.”

Laurila: Has that always been the case for you?

Stearns: “I think I’ve increasingly recognized the importance of the hiring process over the course of my career. I imagine when I first started, I didn’t really think about how the people you hire in certain positions really impact the entire organization. Now I have a keen awareness of that. So that has certainly changed, although I think it has to do more with just gaining experience in the position, rather than anything particular to analytics.”

Laurila: Has the way you view analytics changed over time?

Stearns: “So, I think analytics… when advanced information, when models, first
entered the baseball realm, in broad strokes they were largely looked at in the player acquisition spaces. They’re going to help you acquire players. We are now at the point where information sources, housed within the analytics umbrella, impact everything we do. It impacts the acquisition, it impacts development throughout the organization, it impacts medical, it impacts mental skills. There isn’t a group within our base of operations that analytics and information sources don’t impact.

“That has evolved over time — certainly over my time in baseball, for sure. I think that speaks to the growing granularity and process-oriented metrics that we’re able to have right now. Analytics, in general, can impact and serve a purpose throughout the baseball umbrella.”

Laurila: Would I be correct in assuming that you were initially as knowledgeable as most analysts, but that is no longer the case given the explosion of information?

Stearns: “Yes. When I first started in the industry, and throughout my time as assistant general manager, and as a general manager — in the beginning — I think I had a very clear understanding of how our models were made. I probably didn’t have the background to be the one creating our models, but I could certainly connect the dots on how a particular equation was being solved. That’s not the case anymore. Our modeling techniques, because of the sophistication of the data, and frankly, because competitors across the league keep pushing each other to get better and better… our modeling techniques have become much more complicated to the extent that what we’re doing now rivals what’s being done on Wall Street, or with any business that is dealing with enormous volumes of data.”

Laurila: Keeping a core group of talented people you trust is important, but at the same time, can a group get stagnant if you don’t introduce new voices into the equation?

Stearns: “Organizations can absolutely get stagnant. You constantly try to guard against that, whether it’s with new voices, with brainstorming sessions, with being very aware of what your competitors are doing, with trying to understand what’s going on in different industries. So yes, stagnation and complacency are certainly hurdles that organizations need to overcome.”

Laurila: How do you bring people into the fold that you know will add value?

Stearns: “Well, you don’t know. You just try to put together the best hiring processes you can. Recommendations are very, very important. But certainly, I haven’t been 100% in the hiring process throughout my career. I’ve been fortunate to work with some really talented people, but sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you anticipated.”

Laurila: What is an example of something you’ve been wrong about over the years? Not in terms of hiring, but a way in which you approached a certain aspect of the game?

Stearns: “Without getting too deep into specifics here, I think we are constantly learning about how different skill sets, how different attributes in the game, contribute to wins. That’s all we’re trying to do — win games — and I think we are constantly learning how different elements can contribute to winning. The balance of of those elements, in my mind, has certainly changed from when I first started in the game.”

Laurila: Former players populate front offices, some at the highest positions. How valuable are the skill sets they bring to the table?

Stearns: “For those in the position I have, or in similar leadership capacities, I think having played the game at the major league level, or at a very high level, lends an immediate credibility that maybe someone like me didn’t have at the outset. Increasingly, as our models become more complex, as our data becomes more sophisticated, translating that information and making it more actionable… I think executive leaders who have played the game at a high level probably have a pretty good understanding of how to make that information actionable. They understand how to get it in the hands of people who can actually make the impact of helping players perform better, rather than just living in a fancy-looking model up in the baseball ops office.”