Interessante articolo sull'approccio dei Phillies all'analisi. Da questo saltano fuori alcune osservazioni:
1) Incredibile in che ruoli abbiano relegato gli analisti.
2) Incredibile la totale mancanza di conoscenza analitica di Amaro.
3) Incredibile che non abbiano capito cosa avesse portato loro successo:
The 2012 Phillies scored 684 runs, the team's fewest since 1997. Their batting average (.255) and slugging percentage (.400) were both higher than in 2011. But a .317 on-base percentage was the franchise's lowest since 1991 (.303).
Their injury-riddle roster drew 2.8 walks per game in 2012, which marked the lowest rate for any Phillies team since 1963.
Non vedono i risultati davanti agli occhi? Evidentemente no, perché:
When the Phillies' offense was at its best from 2006 to '09, the lineup averaged 217 home runs per season. The team hit 158 in 2012. One of the first skills to decline with age is power, and these Phillies are older than their predecessors.
Patience was another characteristic of those teams. From 2006 to '09, no team in the National League drew more walks than the Phillies. Only the Red Sox and Yankees walked more during that span. The Phillies averaged 3.8 walks per game from 2006 to '09, or one more walk per game than in 2012.
This winter, Amaro responded by signing Delmon Young (3.3 percent walk rate) and trading for Ben Revere (5.2) and Michael Young (5.1). They were among baseball's worst in drawing walks. (The league average was 8 percent.)
...
When discussing Delmon Young, Amaro said, "If I'm not mistaken, even in a year when he didn't have his best year, he drove in more runs than anyone on our club."
This was true; Young had 74 RBIs, and the Phillies' leader was a tie between Jimmy Rollins and Carlos Ruiz at 68.
But that is misleading. Young batted with 415 runners on base in 2012, the 20th highest amount in all of baseball. He drove in 13.5 percent of those runners, which ranked 100th among hitters with at least 500 plate appearances. Using a formula for expected RBI totals given Young's opportunities, just a major-league average player should have amassed eight more RBIs than Young did. If Ruiz batted with the same opportunities as Young, he would have had 31 more RBIs
La singola cosa più assurda è che nella firma di Delmon Young abbiano usato scouting reports DI SETTE ANNI FA. Da mani nei capelli. Anche se non credi per niente nell'analisi e la vuoi scartare in toto (e qualsiasi operazione che scarti un aspetto in toto è per definizione sbagliata), come cavolo fai ad usare reports di SETTE ANNI PRIMA? Già 2 anni sono troppi.
Amaro ha preso una squadra giovane, con un payroll basso (e la possibilità di alzarlo), che segnava tanti punti e puntava sulla farm. E l'ha fatta diventare una squadra da .500 che firma antichi veterani superpagati. Quest'anno saranno ancora più o meno lì ed il futuro è nebuloso per una squadra oggi vecchia e piena di infortuni. Un lavoro impressionante.
