BALTIMORE _ Fifteen years after "Moneyball" introduced the use of baseball data analytics to the masses, the likes of new Orioles assistant general manager of analytics Sig Mejdal can credit Michael Lewis' book _ and what it brought into focus _ for their jobs in baseball.
Today, analytics are a necessary, day-to-day part of the modern game, one that has driven championship-winning franchises such as the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros _ and an area in which the Orioles have lagged. New Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and Mejdal won a World Series title with the Astros in 2017, and hope to use their approach to bring similar success to Baltimore.
While the Orioles' analytics operation under the previous regime wasn't just one or two people in a room, its influence in the organization didn't extend far from those walls. The entire franchise suffered for it.
With Mejdal _ the engineer-turned-NASA researcher-turned-baseball executive charged with changing that _ the club will seek to build its analytics department while creating an institutional culture in which the department's insights define everything the Orioles do.
"I think it's going to touch the entire organization," Mejdal said. "That's been my experience in Houston, that analytics isn't something siloed away, but instead, it's something anybody who's making a decision in the organization is using to some degree.
"It's something that touches upon making decisions for the manager, that players are looking at the data, that scouts and coaches from the Dominican (Republic) to Triple-A are also looking at it, in that it's something that _ I keep going back to the word permeates _ but it permeates the entire organization."
While "Moneyball" focused on on-base percentage _ a stat commonly used today _ teams now use piles of information measured via multiple tools. Some teams leverage high-speed cameras, data trends, player and pitcher tendencies, and so much more to create an information base for players and coaches. That data can help players improve their pitch selection and pitch development, swing mechanics, plate approach and plate discipline. It can also help clubs decide where to deploy players in the field and can help catchers with their pitch framing and game-calling.
In the modern game, especially for a team in a division with the World Series champion Red Sox and the perennially strong New York Yankees, many said the Orioles embracing today's approach is paramount to the club being successful going forward. Analytics can be a vital tool for teams that don't have the financial resources of the wealthiest clubs.
"The Orioles are in a situation where they have to be smarter than the Red Sox and the Yankees, because they're never going to spend as much money as the Red Sox and Yankees," said FanGraphs senior writer Dan Szymborski, a Baltimore native and analyst who developed ZiPS, a statistical performance projection system that has been an industry leader for more than a decade.
MLB Network analyst Brian Kenny, author of the 2016 book "Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution" has been another vocal proponent of analytics.
"It's absolutely the best way, and the investment you make in your front office people is something that will help you exponentially down the road," Kenny said. "In order to compete with the big boys _ and that's the Yankees and the Red Sox in your own division, and the Rays, who are still very smart if not well-funded _ you are best-suited, best-equipped to go to battle with a true structure involved, not just a couple of good choices here and there, and a couple of prospects pan out. In order to give you the best chance to succeed, you need to have an entire system built, so you have good people at all levels, consistently making good decisions. That's the difference."
