Can you imagine an analytics person scolding Hall of Fame hitter Jim Rice? The staffer told Rice to stop talking to hitters. We don’t teach that here. The young player had approached Rice due to his experience and Hall of Fame success. Rice asked the staffer if he played pro ball. No.
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RJM;
What do think Ted Williams would remark?
Bob
I believe this is a family oriented site. How Williams would respond can’t be posted here. I’ll bet The Globe sports page didn’t have how Rice actually responded.
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood .." A nerd has to know his limitations". These guys shouldn't be saying anything to Jim Rice except requesting an autograph from a HOFer.
No Mr Koufax! That’s not what my coach taught me …
A few years ago, the great Sandy Koufax accepted a friend’s invitation to a party celebrating a big day for a group of middle schoolers. In honor of guest Koufax, the party’s host gifted the boys and girls with pearly white hardballs. When one of the young teens held up his new ball, demonstrating his preferred curveball grip, Koufax gently suggested something a little different for maximum break on the pitch.
“No, no!” insisted the teen, as he switched back to his original grip. “This is the way my coach told me to hold it!”
I think that this is a transition period. Mlb front offices absolutely prefer guys with high level playing experience in coaching however there is so much new stuff out there (data like attack angle, batspeed, vertical bat angle, use of tech, biomechanics etc) so teams do prefer having sports science guys with lesser playing experience because there are not yet enough players who understand that stuff in depth.
However this is soon to change as more and more players are retiring that went through the "nerd training" so they have both playing experience and the technical knowledge.
At this point teams will hire less nerds (maybe a couple to coach the players aspiring to be coaches) and then use the trained players as coaches.
At this point playing experience will matter more again and most coaches will be former players again who are like hybrids of players and nerds.
This will mean "older" players who retired before 2020 or so will have a hard time getting into coaching (because during most of their playing career that stuff wasn't around unless you where a pioneer in one of those private labs) unless they demonstrate they learned the new stuff but the minor leaguer who was drafted in 2022, went to driveline and all kinds of places and the retired this season will get a look.
If I was a baseball mlb team I would offer an academy for older minor leaguers who have 3-4 years of milb experience but are Longshots to make mlb. Parallel to playing in the minors they get courses in all kinds of nerd stuff like data analysis basics, k-vest, blast, rapsodo and whatever, then after a year maybe intern as player coaches and then finally transition to coaching.
I understand both sides. Nerds who have not played are a problem but so are old school coaches giving conflicting messages. That doesn't mean their knowledge is bad but you want to speak with one voice as an organization. So if you have worked with your player in your biomechanics lab and then a HOFer comes to him like "Forget about all that nerd stuff son, this is how it is done" it is a problem because it can confuse the player.
