JUPITER, Fla. • This vast traveling library lived in a red, wheeled trunk that was modeled after an equipment box that was once re-engineered to have a secret compartment for stashing booze during prohibition.
Hiding goodies goes with the job.
But instead of housing something for after the game, this red trunk carried binders and binders and binders loaded with info to help during the game. One morning in Arizona, former Cardinals bench coach Joe Pettini was digging through this crate – which was labeled “DUNCAN” – and pulling out three hold-punched sheets with intricate notes and drawings on them. He was updating the binders from a vast filing system of players. There were sheets for players who had long since retired, and yet they were there just in case, say, Bobby Bonilla popped up at third base for the Houston Astros one day.
The binders and notes were pitching coach Dave Duncan’s scouting reports – the data he and his colleagues meticulously kept. For each hitter, they’d know what pitch got him out and where to put the fielders to aid in that outcome. These sheets molded the Cardinals pitching game plans and their defensive alignment for more than the past decade. This old-school database, stacked neatly in the trunk, was had elements of Moneyball before Moneyball had a name. And when Duncan took a leave of absence this winter, that stockpile of info went with him.
The Cardinals believe they have ways to replace the Duncan database.
It could be part of a subtle sea change in the clubhouse when it comes to how baseball’s new metrics are used and embraced.
“I was a video rate when I was here as a player,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said in his office this past winter when talking about the prep he and Duncan did for games. “And I know that gave me an advantage as a catcher, and I believe that will give me an advantage as a coach and manager. So I’ll take every resource we have. We have some smart people upstairs and (I’ll) take all the info in. This game moves fast, and you have to have instincts and you have to trust them. (But) I don’t believe you run out there unprepared.”
His predecessor, manager Tony La Russa, would often rail against the Moneyball approach. He warned the cold cut of stats was no substitute for warm-blooded instinct. And, yet, La Russa had his sabermetric moments. He would pay attention to splits when filling out his lineup, and he would warn against small sample sizes. He batted the pitcher eighth partially because he believed in something that metrics could help him verify. Heck, his management of the bullpen could inspire a whole lecture series based on splits, abuse points, and sabermetrics. Duncan’s use of information to make informed decisions about future approaches had obvious elements of today’s statistical analysis.
One recent spring, Duncan was trying to convince a new pitcher of the value of getting groundballs. So throughout the exhibition games, he asked somebody to chart the different results from groundballs and balls in the air. On the dry-erase board near his desk, there were hash marks under different categories: groundball outs, fly ball outs, groundball extra-base hits, fly ball extra-base hits. The totals grew throughout the spring until it was clear that extra-base hits were darn difficult to get on the ground. Outs weren’t. QED. Duncan’s goal was to illustrate to the pitcher how difficult it was to get hurt by staying on the ground.
It wasn’t quite dERA*.
But it was using metrics to make a point.
* Defensive-independent ERA.
In that same room this spring, Matheny has gathered his coaches to talk about the information they will have at their disposal this season. Matheny met with the Cardinals’ analytics department this winter to discuss the info they had available and the info he wanted to know more about. Matheny said offering all those numbers to the clubhouse would be “like asking the players to drink water from a fire hose and I’m not going to do that.” But he did want to familiarize his coaches with the data that is out there. He has talked about how they could incorporate it into their advance scouting. You know, like Duncan’s binders.
“We got together this morning about the info we’re giving our scouts (for) advanced scouting,” Matheny said earlier this spring. “I think we’ve got a good feel for what it is we need and (how to) use the resources from the people who are a whole lot smarter than us.”
Matheny went on to describe his view of sabermetrics place in the clubhouse.
“I know who Bill James is,” Matheny said. “I’ve read a number of the books. I understand a lot of the statistics out there. I just think a lot of them are just more applicable and more usable. We’ll make them available to all of the coaches, and that’s really the process we’re in. Every single coach has the responsibility in game and when we’re doing our training and how we’ll begin all of our positioning and our pitch selection. Whatever each coach needs information-wise – and we’ve got plenty of it. It’s going to overload everybody at first. This is what we can come up with; this is what these guys have.
“Then (it’s) what do you need?”
The Cardinals were OK with Duncan taking his binders with him because there was an intellectual property element to those items. When Jeff Luhnow left to become the general manager of the Houston Astros he took some of the metrics and databases and info that he developed with him, though some proprietary info had to be left behind because he had work with remaining Cardinals’ staffers to develop it.
With the Duncan trunk, the thought was the Cardinals have a lot of that info still available – though it will come via a different medium. Matheny said it: “our positioning and our pitch selection” will be aided by the analytics available. Chad Blair, the video coordinator who worked many years with La Russa and Duncan, remains on staff and will be essential to such advanced scouting. He has a keen eye for tendencies and weaknesses. The Cardinals also have an agreement with TruMedia, which describes itself as an “innovative sports analytics firm.” TruMedia’s programs will give the Cardinals access to film that can be sorted in new and immediate ways. If the Cardinals want to see, say, all the changeups that Tim Lincecum has thrown to righthanded batters this season, it’s only one keystroke away. And the Cardinals no longer have to do the editing themselves. That’s advanced advanced scouting.
The stats to further describe what they see on the video will also be available.
The charts and notes that Duncan kept showing where each batter hit various pitches were used to help set the shortstop, or to guide the third baseman closer to the line. Late last season, Rafael Furcal’s arrival to start at shortstop coincided with a spike in the defensive success David Freese had at third base. Coach Jose Oquendo said that was partially because with Furcal’s range, La Russa could take the info from the scouting reports and arrange Freese in a different spot, one closer to the line that played to his strengths. In past years, when it looks like Skip Schumaker had the lefthanded hitter played perfectly for the double play, he got there partially because of Duncan’s books.
The books may be gone, but the info isn’t. The video available and the stats that Matheny has talked about using are going to fuel the Cardinals’ advance scouting and game prep now.
The jump drive is the new red trunk.
“I think it’s a valuable tool,” Matheny said. “It’s not the whole story. Just like the rest of it isn’t the whole story. You need your eyes. You need experience. You need some instinct. You throw all of that together. We have resources. We have some very smart people in this organization who take this statistical analysis and give us an advantage.”
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