Gut Feels, Spreadsheets of Data, and Trusting the Process: The Theory of Astroball

Gut Feels, Spreadsheets of Data, and Trusting the Process: The Theory of Astroball

"If a human being can sense it, a human being can quantify it." - Sig Mejdal

If you just became of fan of baseball, you know that the Houston Astros are one of the best teams in all of baseball for the past few years. In 2017, The Astros even won their first World Series ever. But not so long ago, the only hope that Houston fans could cling to was a two word statement called "The Process." Those two words were printed on t-shirts during the lean years of the Astros rebuilding process. Albeit those shirts would be outsold by t-shirts from other vendors that would poke fun at the misfortune of the Astros. Those shirts would say the Lastros or the Disastros. Little did these fans know, what was going to happen just a few years later thanks to the innerworkings of the process. 

In the early 2000's data became mainstream to the baseball world with the book, "Moneyball." This book essentially showed how a franchise that is dirt poor could compete against franchises that were filthy rich. The Oakland Athletics of the early 2000's and still to this day broke the mainstream process of trusting scouts, and instead went all-in on using data being used by out of college Ivy League students. This was going against what was tried and true within professional baseball. Even though the Athletics would compete, they couldn't get over the hump and go to a World Series. While what the Athletics accomplished earns respect, they missed their desired mark of winning a World Series. 

After "Moneyball" became read by hundreds of baseball fans, all other 29 teams soon adopted a data driven approach to their franchise. Some sooner rather than later. What was once an advantage for the Athletics became not so much, once every other franchise adopted a similar data driven approach. 

In the early to mid 20-teens, the Houston Astros desperately needed to rebuild. Newly named General Manager and President of Baseball Operations for the Houston Astros, Jeff Luhnow had to make drastic decisions. Luhnow had to rip the heartstrings of every Astros fan to give the Houston franchise a chance to win a World Series. The early workings of the Process were created. Step one was to trade away players who could gain prospects for the Astros who could help the franchise in the future. The next step required a data driven person, that person was Sig Mejdal. Both Luhnow and Mejdal left the storied St. Louis Cardinal franchise, and went to the Houston Astro franchise. Both Luhnow and Mejdal did good work for the St. Louis franchise, but at times they felt handcuffed. In Houston they would not be handcuffed. 

Luhnow and Mejdal wanted a data driven approach to create the rebuild of the Houston Astros. Even though they wanted a data driven approach, the Astros wanted to use an old-school approach as well. This approach would be valuing what the franchise's scouts had seen and felt about a prospective player and then they would go in and quantify the human element of its scouts through data. According to author of "Astroball" Ben Reiter, " The idea was, essentially, to systematically scout the scouts in order to determine which of their judgements had real predictive value and which were the product of cognitive biases.." Therefore, everyone from the scouts to the "Nerd Cave" had valuable input and inputs from both sides could be quantified. Therefore, the Astros were meshing new school and old school together to create a winner. 

In addition to the data and the opinions of the scouts, the Astros had one last crucial element for their organization's decisions on who they wanted to be part of their franchise. The last element was character. What data and mechanics won't tell you is how a human being acts. Luhnow believed that if the player could not control himself, then he would be a liability to the organization. Luhnow is a respectable man because when there is a mistake, he will apologize to the player and cheer on that player if he is successful with another franchise. Luhnow is quoted in "Astroball" by saying, "We thought from the beginning we'd be the most transparent front office in baseball. Is there a risk we end up giving away some company secrets? Possibly. But we felt the benefit of having fans feel like they're involved in the process is important." That takes a lot of guts. Perhaps it is best said that Luhnow is attracted to players that are much like him, men of character. 

So what can we as amateur coaches learn from the process behind "Astroball?" We can learn that we can trust our gut feels and eyes, but we must quantify it through data to find the truth. When we do this we are truly tracking improvement of our players. A crucial piece of the whole puzzle though is character. We must not only be teaching the game of baseball, but also teaching our players how to be men of character. Therefore, if we follow this approach we are creating winners on and off of the field.