Executive’s View: How Have Analytics Impacted a General Manager’s Job?

It is well known that analytics have changed the baseball landscape. Moreover, it is widely understood that the evolution is ongoing. Embracing innovation, especially within the technology realm, has increasingly become a must for teams looking to keep up with — and ideally get a step ahead of — the competition. For front offices across the game, it’s adapt or die.

What does that mean for the general managers and presidents of baseball operations who lead those front offices? In other words, how have the ever-continuing advancements impacted their jobs over the years? Wanting to find out, I asked four longtime executives for their perspectives.

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On how analytics have impacted the job

John Mozeliak, St. Louis Cardinals

“When I first broke in, how you made decisions was basically based on scouting reports and traditional statistics. Now it’s much more analytically driven because of the advanced metrics. If you think about it, in the old days when people would invest in stocks… it’s the same kind of thinking now. The more information you have, the better your decisions are. That’s changed quite a bit over the last 25 years.

“Two things come to mind. One is understanding the longevity of a player. In other words, how long should you be investing in a player? The other thing is prospect evaluation; how much value someone might have, even though they’re still in the minor leagues. When you think back to 20-30 years ago, a lot of times minor league players didn’t have the same type of value that you’re seeing today.

“The economics of baseball have changed drastically. There is more revenue in the game, and higher payrolls, but there is also how you think about moving talent for talent. It’s much more based on economics than just pure ‘I think he’s a good baseball player.’”

Jerry Dipoto, Seattle Mariners

“Thinking back through all the years, including in my specific role now, there is so much more information to manage. When I first started in scouting, and then later in player development, I always stressed to everyone that in each of our independent roles, we are information managers.

“I would say it was right about the time that I was transitioning from Arizona to Anaheim [in 2011] that the volume seemingly tripled overnight. There was already a lot of information to use, but then we started getting into advanced analytics, some of the [biomechanical] information that is available to us today, and how you apply that to your decision-making. No decision is made without considering many different angles of what a player has to offer. I don’t think it’s ever going back the other way. It’s only going to continue to evolve in ways that most of us can’t even imagine.”

Ross Atkins, Toronto Blue Jays

“Cleveland certainly was, and still is, very much on the cutting edge of understanding and leaning into resources, so it had changed a great deal even before I got [to Toronto after the 2015 season]. But even now, it comes down to hiring the best people, identifying the best resources to identify and develop talent. Analytics have grown, but it still comes down to making sure you’re hiring the best people to lead that department. And not just build out research and development; it’s also interacting and engaging with our staff and players in a way that the tools can become more and more usable and deployable.”

Brian Cashman, New York Yankees

“First, it’s the talent pool from your hiring practices. The people who you surround yourself with have to be experts in certain categories of data interpretation, and they need to have the ability to utilize technology to help mine the data that exists. They also have to stay current. A) That’s expensive. B) You’re looking for a sophisticated crew of personnel that fits those qualities.”

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On hiring the right people

Ross Atkins

“The hiring process has always been paramount. We’ve hired more analysts, more researchers, more developers, and you always have to hire the best tier. I think that’s everything in this job. We’re also hiring from a different demographic. Before, we weren’t hiring as many people who were in research and development. And you hire in different ways. You hire with your values, and with a strong process where you don’t take things for granted. As far as [the size of the department], I’ll just say that we’ve grown at a very fast rate since I’ve been here. I think that’s true of the industry as a whole.”

Brian Cashman

“We post those jobs. A lot of people want to work in baseball. A lot of people who are working in baseball are making less money than they could in a different field. Whether it would be Wall Street, tech, or what have you, they love sports — they love baseball — and they sacrifice to do that.

“Portions of baseball strategy, specific to development, have been rewritten because of analytics and [non-traditional hires]. Through that lens, people have questioned how things are done, and why things are done a certain way. It’s allowed us to find higher ground on how to develop players. Also to evaluate players — how to evaluate true performance on the field versus misinterpreting performance on the field. It’s provided a more efficient lens in our decision-making process.”

John Mozeliak

“Hiring is a big part of the job, and the types of people that are coming into this game have changed. Guys that could have maybe ended up on Wall Street are now getting jobs in baseball. From that standpoint, it’s definitely changed. You’re basically trying to strengthen your decision tree. With the resources, or the tools you have to make decisions, you want to have the right people in place. When we talk about analytics, it’s also about the ability to create a model that you have confidence in, one that you can trust.

“You’re always looking to try to make improvements. Speaking on behalf of the Cardinals, I think we were pretty cutting edge 20-some years ago with our first try at this. But over time… yeah, I think our confidence in how we make decisions has improved. We’re always tinkering, but you’re also digesting more and more information that could be put into your model.”

Jerry Dipoto

“We have people who can help us determine how to help a player improve in a certain area, or how to identify special traits about a player we might want to acquire. These are people who don’t really stay and watch the game; it’s just a special skill that they have. Whether it’s mathematically or biomechanically, they identify and from there effectively just pass it on to the next.

“A variety of different personalities, backgrounds, lines of thinking, leads you to better decisions. Sometimes it’s from the person who is not a baseball lifer, who doesn’t naturally think about it a way that a former player or field staff member would think. Often times, somewhere between that — what I would call complicated simplicity — and what your instinct would tell you on the field, you’re going to reach an intersection where it all marriages and you make good decisions.”

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On the impact of analytics on scouting

Brian Cashman

“It’s allowed the scouts to utilize another lens of interpretation. Along with what they’re seeing on the field, they have confirmation [data] to run through. They can make sure that what they’re seeing is accurate. Our scouts are gifted with assessing a lot of the physical attributes, and from there applying a lot of the data, because they’re also trained in that world. They’ve been brought up to speed as the world has changed. There are data streams that they can run down to make their reporting more accurate.

“We have the largest scouting department in the industry. We value scouting significantly, and one of the mantras we live by is ‘evolve.’ Don’t be a dinosaur. You better keep up with the changes, or you’re going to wind up on the short end of things. We need to be open-minded and recognize that there might be better platforms of understanding, and of efficiency. We’re constantly in pursuit of that. If you’re not of that mindset, you’re probably not going to last long in any industry.”

Ross Atkins

“I feel that our scouting department has been impacted positively with the changes. It allows us to lean into makeup and target areas for development more efficiently, and with more focus.”

John Mozeliak

“Both departments [scouting and analytics] have seen a lot of growth. When you put it [in terms of] where you started versus where you are, obviously the analytics department has seen a greater percentage of growth. When we originally started, it was two or three people and now it’s around about 20. But scouting has grown, as well.”

Jerry Dipoto

“My role is to make sure that we are paying attention to all of the different elements that go into a decision, and then sitting down with a circle of decision-makers. And that circle may change depending on if it’s the major league team, if it’s happening in scouting and development, if it’s international.

“In international, we’re going out and trying to… this is ongoing, and I think it’s 30 teams. We’re trying to determine how to take some of the measurables that we now have access to — TrackMan, Statcast, etc. — and figure out how they evolve as players go from 12 to 14 to 16, ages we don’t really consider here in domestic amateur baseball. What is average for a 14-year-old? We’re baking this into our first level of evaluation as a player starts to approach signability as a 16-year-old.

“I can’t imagine that there was a single one of us sitting in one of these seats 20 years ago who was thinking about many of the things we’re working with today. We need to manage all of that, and you manage by trusting your people. You have to hire people who are good at what they do, and then you have to ensure that everybody has a group-minded approach to what comes next. There are answers that have helped us make really good decisions, and there are areas where we’ve made poor decisions because we weren’t informed enough.”

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On the level of expertise needed in the job

Brian Cashman

“I’m an overseer, not an expert. I can’t [speak] with some data expert that has a degree from an amazing university. I just have a general awareness. But I hire well. I hire people that have that information, and I empower them to do their jobs in order to make us better. I’m more of a steward than an expert.”

Jerry Dipoto

“I would say that you can get by with very little [expertise in specific areas]. That’s why you see so many more large baseball operations. Twenty years ago, a baseball operations group might be 15 or 20 people, and then you had your scouting and your player development groups, so it was 70 people in total. Now it’s 250-300 employees in a baseball ops group, because you have unique skill sets that have come to the dance.

“In doing what we do, there are many ‘Go’ moments. You make a trade, or you make a pick, and I shouldn’t be involved in anything that leads up to that. All I can do in some of those areas is pollute the water with what I don’t know. I might wrongly affect the situation by suggesting that we go in a different direction when the facts are pointing us towards it. You have to let your people guide you. We’re all working together. The part I play isn’t the grand master of player evaluation and identification. It’s about hiring the right people and then trusting them to do what they do.

“I’m at the stage of my career where I think I’ve gained enough through the years that most of it makes sense to me. I’m also at the stage of my career where I understand the areas where I need to keep someone sitting directly to my left and to my right — people who just know this better than I do. Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum, or in a room with one person. That said, while I represent our collective thought, I understand that I’m standing in front of the group in a buck-stops-here position. If it doesn’t go well, I’m the one to blame. I think that’s fair.”

Ross Atkins

“Again, it’s about having the right people around you. For example, I don’t have an incredible depth of knowledge of hitting, but I understand a good process, and I can identify people with good values and good content. I’m also not an analyst or a developer.

“You ask yourself, ‘Is it endless? Can you potentially have enough?’ That would be the question. You’re always trying to find the next opportunity, not just follow trends. That takes a lot of time and energy.”

John Mozeliak

“I think a lot of [executives] don’t really like talk about this topic, because a lot of it is proprietary. But like anything, as new technology gets introduced, how you evaluate it, and how you use it, is ever changing. ‘What’s next?’ is always the big question. That’s what we all chase.”