Scott Freedman, Courtesy Indiana University
I am a couple days behind reflecting on this, but the Phillies announced earlier in the offseason that they would find an analytics/numbers-type person for the front office. This week, the Phillies announced they made the hire, Scott Freedman from the MLB labor relations department. Assistant General Manager Scott Proefrock did not inspire much enthusaism toward this new hire in Todd Zolecki's piece on Phillies.com:
"He's going to help us explore more thoroughly what the options are for using these metrics," assistant general manager Scott Proefrock said Tuesday. "We're looking at them to compliment the opinions of our scouts."
"I don't know if it's going to change the way we do business, necessarily," Amaro said recently. "We still plan to be a scouting and player development organization, but I think it's important to get all the information and analyze not just what we're doing, but how other clubs are evaluating players."
Freedman has a law degree from Indiana University and worked his way into baseball from an internship. In this piece on Indiana University's website, Freedman explains what brought him into the game:
"My Kelley Business Law education has provided me with a broad foundation of legal knowledge and skills to apply to any industry, sports included,” he says. “My thesis research for L470 Research in Business Law and Public Policy provided me with a relevant and tangible product to offer to officials throughout Major League Baseball as I sought employment. In fact, when I was presented with the opportunity to interview for my first internship in MLB’s Labor Relations Department, the thesis quickly became a main point of discussion that, I’d like to think, enhanced my candidacy.”
And, apparently, Freedman likes numbers. Perhaps that's why the announcement is made with plenty of skepticism:
So the Phillies analytics guy is a glorified intern. Great. Nice half-assed commitment.
— Petr Salvesen (@reclinergm) November 7, 2013
Our pal John Stolnis from The Good Phight also is very skeptical in his piece, "Phillies Hire The Analytics Guy They're Going to Ignore" from a couple days ago.
Stolins writes,
I didn't realize the Phillies didn't have access to all these statistics, guys. I didn't know all those helpful numbers had been hidden away in large paper files at the MLB Fan Cave for the last 10 years. I also didn't know Fangraphs and Baseball Reference were blocked by the Phils' internet security filters.
THEY NOW HAVE THE INFORMATION AT THEIR DISPOSAL. NO NEED TO LOG ON TO THE WORLDWIDE GOOGLEWEB, FELLAS.
But now that Freedman is here, he can bring the secret files with him. Hopefully they're not too redacted to be useful.
Kyle Scott of Crossing Broad feels that this is just a token gesture:
If this isn’t checking a box so, when Amaro overpays Nelson Cruz and someone else he’s heard of, they can say, “BUT WE HAD AN ANALYTICS GUY!”
I am not an overwhelming numbers guy; I do believe that there are many things that are intangible that go a long way towards a championship. But, numbers do play a major part of the story. If the Phillies are indeed willing to listen, they could certainly benefit from this perspective.
