March 05--Before last October's National League wild-card game, manager Joe Maddon said he leaned heavily on simulations compiled by Jeremy Greenhouse, the Chicago Cubs' assistant director of research and development, before compiling a lineup that beat the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Maddon is proponent of analytics but stressed it should not be the exclusive tool used in evaluations.
"I'm into all that stuff, but I think it gets overblown sometimes the way it's been utilized in today's game," Maddon said Friday. "I never want us to become fantasy baseball when we're talking about real baseball, teams with hearts and heads, different kinds of wanting to win. You can't measure that stuff. and it's true.
"This guy might want to win more than this guy, and it's true. Who do you want playing in this crucial moment? It matters. It's immeasurable. You have to balance all this stuff. I'm big into the word balance. When you choose to just maybe create your entire group upon just numbers, or just upon feel, you're missing the point."
Maddon pointed to the analytics that weren't kind to center fielder Dexter Fowler, who was a minus-12 in defensive runs saved last season.
"A lot of that has do to with him playing more shallow than too deep," Maddon said. "If he played deeper, he would get to more balls over his head, and I think automatically his numbers would come back up. Some of it might be positioning. He feels more comfortable (playing) in. We got to get him deep."
A lot of this stuff I get it, I'm into it. But I think the eyeball test will tell you the (Los Angeles Angels') Andrelton Simmons is a good shortstop, Addison Russell is a good shortstop and Jason Heyward is a good right fielder. Without these numbers, I know that.
"Those kind of numbers are for the guy who is not so obvious, the guy that hasn't made his mark yet. And if you can accumulate enough numbers about that guy and why he's good in advance of being good, that's when I like the numbers. I already know who is good."
