IntroducingSystemChangeInBaseball

The Genesis, Implementation, and Management of New Systems is a fascinating article about the challenge of introducing system change in major-league baseball, with a side-trip into applying useful metrics.

The problem itself wasn't the people. Our scouts were very loyal, passionate, industrious people. The problem was the operating system. The industrial inertia was leading them further and further away from the truth. The operating system at the time, which I'll refer to as Subjective 1.0, was incapable of providing solutions to all the new problems the game was facing.
...
It wouldn't be easy for us. First of all, no small market team had ever made the playoffs in the post?strike era. The A's like everybody else in baseball had ceased to do one very critical thing?to ask the na�ve question: "If we weren't already doing it this way, is this the way we would start?"

-- DaveSmith 2004.02.07

Wonderful stuff. Thanks, Dave. Now, what I want to know is how the heck did you find that site?

-- JimBullock, 2004.02.07

Chance favors the prepared web surfer. --Dave

Technical links related to this article

Baseball as a Markov Chain by Mark D. Pankin

Teaching Statistics Using Baseball by Jim Albert Reviewed by Steve Morics

J. Alberts Home Page with lots of Baseball related work

(Sabermetrics is the mathematical and statistical analysis of baseball records.)

An Introduction to Sabermetrics by Jim Albert

The Sabermetric Manifesto By David Grabiner

Sabermetrics - Wikipedia

Does anyone know if this is the same Thought Leader Forum (see name of URL in original post) that David Schmaltz talks about? I doubt it, it seems to be geared for 'investors'.

Looks to me as if Paul DePodesta is an inspired manager who practiced the theoretical work of Jim Albert (et al).

KenEstes 2004.02.08

Updated: Monday, February 9, 2004