Hidden Figures

[Edgy MD]

Among the things Brodie Van Wagenen has been turning over since his appointment has been the analytics department, which reportedly employed only three full-time staffers by the end of 2018. Apart from taking a big step forward by naming Adam Guttridge assistant GM overseeing analytics — essentially elevating statistical analysis to a cabinet-level position — they today announced two new hires: longtime Baseball Prospectus analyst and writer Russell Carleton, and Andrew Perpetua, who had previously been hired by Guttridge at the analytics firm he founded, NEIFI (Normalized Empirical Individual Forecasting Index).



Carleton is the author of https://www.triumphbooks.com/the-shift-products-9781629375441.phpThe Shift: The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking. He's alo got a PhD in clinical psychology from DePaul, which probably makes him smarter than me, and maybe smarter than all of us except The Old Original JB. Wondering whether guys should be bunting more against the shift He's thought about this https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/45919/best-of-bp-2018-bunt-joey-bunt/a lot. Like, https://www.baseballpro?spectus.com/news/article/46581/baseball-therapy-should-i-bunt-it-now/a lot. He says goodbye to BP and hello to the Mets https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/46832/baseball-therapy-title-goes-here/here.



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Perpetua, for his part, developed https://www.xstats.org/XStats, a system for using Statcast data for something more than jawdropping and speculation, but to evaluate and project performers. That kind of sounds like a useful guy to have around. He has written for Rotographs and The Hardball Times, and is one of the world's leading authorities on https://www.rotoql.com/qlwire/backup-backstops/Travis d'Arnaud. Definitely a useful guy.



Carleton and Perpetua join Alderson-era holdovers T.J. Barra and Joe Lefkowitz. Christopher Pang jumped ship to the Yankees this offseason. It's hard to wish him well.



Welcome to the Mets, smart dudes.

[seawolf17]

This seems really encouraging.

[Centerfield]

Yeah, I think this is terrific too.



What did he say about bunting against the shift? I guess it depends on the situation but is he generally in favor of it?



I'm guessing his conclusion is not "Don't ever ever do it, even if you're down multiple runs in the ninth and the entire team is hovered around first base". Which is what the Mets' philosophy has been.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I'm still gobsmacked at the preposterous notion accompanying this story that it was Alderson who preferred the Mets go without sufficient staff in the analytics department and will point out that every new Mets GM since Duquette came with a promise to beef up staffing there. Let's see if in 2 or 3 years these guys remain or aren't downsized so that the club can afford to re-sign an outfielder, as apparently was the case under Sandy

[A Boy Named Seo]

Yes, very promising Also, Carleton's book is only $2.99 on Kindle if anyone here buys electronic books from that devil retailer. I just bought it.

[Edgy MD]

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: I'm still gobsmacked at the preposterous notion accompanying this story that it was Alderson who preferred the Mets go without sufficient staff in the analytics department and will point out that every new Mets GM since Duquette came with a promise to beef up staffing there. Let's see if in 2 or 3 years these guys remain or aren't downsized so that the club can afford to re-sign an outfielder, as apparently was the case under Sandy

Yeah, this bugged me too. And Alderson had been off the job for half a season, so it's not particularly fair to characterize him as holding the bag at the end.

[LWFS]

Smart people are pretty cool to have in-house, provided that when it's time to make baseball-related business commitments, you listen to those smart people.

[Vic Sage]

yes, smart people are window dressing if there are still dumb people making the decisions. I do not yet know whether BVW is the former or the latter, but I know what Jeffy is.