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Kiley McDaniel Chat - 10/16/18

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Kiley McDaniel

2:12

Sorry for the delay and the weird day but I'll be traveling tomorrow so here we are. Still working on some projects behind the scenes that you guys will see soon. Have some preliminary FA projections (105 of them!) if you guys are into that, starting work on prospect lists, doing some work on THE BOARD and new features with Sean Dolinar, podcast is coming weekly and working on some research for the THT annual and some stuff with Craig Edwards that will be coming in the next week or two that I think you'll really like. Warning: we will quantify everything, even the stuff you don't want us to.

Tommy N.

2:12

How much do you think Eovaldi gets this offseason? 3 years $40M?

Kiley McDaniel

2:12

My guess was 3/45 at first blush, so yeah something like that

Nate

2:13

How do scouts balance the "eye test" and analytics when evaluating talent?

Kiley McDaniel

2:15

Well that's about a 5,000 word article if we're breaking down both how the execs and scouts do it. In short, scouts are instructed by most teams to avoid analytics and allows the professionals in the office to apply them, since some scouts will see tiny sample size hitter split data and apply that info incorrectly and skew the report, for instance. In reality, most teams show scouts exit velos and spin rates so they aren't in the dark, but they generally don't know how to use it, so they're given very basic instructions like "round up if the curveball spin rate is x and you graded it y but it's a borderline grade," and stuff like that. On the amateur side it's almost not used at all by scouts other than the basic stuff you can see like this college hitter is striking out 30% of the time, we all know that's bad.

GPT

2:15

Updated thoughts on Giants front office search?

Kiley McDaniel

2:16

Looks like they shot for the moon and went progressive in going after David Stearns, so it would appear everything is on the table and the hire will lean analytically, if not lean strongly that way...if we're using the binary definition of analytical/traditional

Blurg

2:16

Has the “fly ball revolution” been fueled from the top-down by quants in FO’s who convince players to increase their launch angle or from the bottom-up where players independently increased their launch angle and quants observed and advocate for it?

Kiley McDaniel

2:19

I think the idea 1) came from offices, got in the heads of progressive players/coaches, then 2) the open minded (moderate) players/coaches saw the results and starting doing it, then 3) the traditional execs/players/coaches now see there's some value in it and a) some jump in like the others before them, b) others say well let's be careful but dip our toes in and c) a smaller group just say this is stupid get off my lawn. Of Broadcasters over the age of 50, about 80% in response c)

mark

2:19

Can you freeze the top row of the BOARD please?

Kiley McDaniel

2:19

Good call, the update will have the option to show 200 rows, so that's a reasonable feature to have with it

mark

2:19

Do teams give out more information about their draft classes post draft? Do you have a different feel for certain prospects if you hear different evaluations from teams?

Kiley McDaniel

2:21

Yes, you get the full story on the hideout guys (limited amount of teams knew about a small school college guy/HS player that didn't go to showcases) and lots of scouts will tell you this pick came down to the 2-3 players and we picked this one, or agents will say this team was really aggressive on this player relative to the rest of the market, teams tell you the pick they had lined up but another team took the player right in front of them, etc. We'll never report most of it, but it's useful to have these narratives for players we didn't have complete info on before the draft.

mark

2:22

Are there certain teams that you think scouts very well compared to others, and if they draft a certain player does it make you go back and take a second look or re-evaluate if they had a higher grade?

Kiley McDaniel

2:23

Eric and I (and the rest of the industry) definitely have teams in our heads (we mention them pretty often) that we think are better than others. If they're really on a player we both don't like, we'll take a step back more than we would if a team we think doesn't do a good job take them. But we still won't change the grade until we get some real data (a summer of out of character performance, we see a tool that we didn't before) to justify changing it.

duder

2:23

How far off is the statistical analysis in the public sphere as opposed to internal analysis of teams? Obviously they have more data, but what kind of reports and numbers are they privy to?

Kiley McDaniel

2:25

The makeup info and trackman data is like 90% of it. We have comparable reports to most teams on most players, they'll just have a little more detail, see them more often. And the really advanced teams will have other data on top of this, like super advanced trackman analysis, sports science stuff, biomechanical analysis from high speed video, etc. but lots of teams either don't really do that stuff or it's a small part of th eval. Teams don't get medicals on opposing players until a trade has been agreed to and we usually hear about a grisly/disputed medical for amateur player after the draft, so we aren't even super behind on medical info for top prospects

duder

2:25

How realistic is for the Braves to go with Austin Riley at 3B next year? Or do you see him going to LF or being trade bait?

Kiley McDaniel

2:27

Mentioned on the last podcast when we talked about this (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fangraphs-audio-presents-the-untitled-...) that having Dansby/Camargo/Riley for SS and 3B means that if they all hit at once, you can move one (either Riley to RF or Camargo to super utility, most likely)

2:29

Going back to the Giants GM discussion now that I see this MLBTR report: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/10/the-giants-gm-search.html

I'd guess (you could dispute any one of these) that Sawdaye/Arnold/Bloom/Stearns/Elias would all be in the progressive pool, McLeod/Byrnes/Ng probably more moderate/blend pool

duder

2:30

Do you have any aspirations to return to work inside baseball? What kind of situation would it take to bring you back into it?

Kiley McDaniel

2:30

Sure, in the right situation, but that situation is much more specific now than it was last time. Don't think it will come along for a little while at least.

Rocket man

2:30

Pick a 19/20 year olds to shoot thru the minors and called up to majors next year?

Kiley McDaniel

2:31

Well Vlad, Tatis and Royce are all 19 right now and, in that order, could/will be in the bigs soon. Wander Franco as a 17 year old is the real longshot https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board

Fritz Ferter

2:33

Which player draws a better return, Paxton, segura, or Diaz?

Kiley McDaniel

2:33

Did a whole ranking of this in July. I actually had Haniger over the group then, but those four are all pretty close https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-trade-value-1-to-10/

Joser

2:34

What teams are doing the coolest, 'you wouldn't believe me if I told you' stuff with the minors and player development?

Kiley McDaniel

2:36

I actually talked to some guys this week that are really on top of this stuff and we tried to make a list of the teams that are clearly doing a good job, really making progress, more good than bad, etc. and we came up with like 6 teams? Trying to recall the list, but LAD, NYY, CLE, MIL, SD, HOU (notice a trend?) were all on there. Just as many are clearly doing poorly and I'd say more than 5 are in the middle of a concerted effort to overhaul (like double digit personnel changes) what they have to catch up with that top group

2:37

Trust me, GMs that aren't running one of those top 5-6 or however many teams are in the top tier are acutely aware that they are behind and most of them are actively trying to get there. Some are still in denial, but not that many.

Jason

2:38

I'm just curious what you think of the recent trend of pulling starters earlier and earlier? Do you think this is a change that has been a long time coming, or do you think it is more so a reflection of the offensive/pitching talent at this point with hitters possibly becoming smarter and pitchers seemingly falling more and more into only 2 pitch guys (though maybe it's always been like that with pitching being hard)?

Kiley McDaniel

2:39

To me, it's like you've been playing some board game with your friends forever, then you all find some game theory analysis (lets' say of Monopoly) with all the odds and it points to a clear best way to play the game. You're all going to lean that way and maybe the game is less fun since there's less variance in strategies but in reality its the same game, you're just forced to be better/more creative with a sharper focus, since everyone is doing similar stuff.

2:41

Now imagine that four of you are playing and one guy thinks all those odds things are stupid. He might win sometimes, especially if it's a game that takes 20 minutes and he gets lucky, but eventually he's going to be the clear loser of the group. I'm analytical in how I do stuff like that, so finding the best edge and best implementation and folding in reading people on top of that is interesting to me, but I totally get that maybe an older guy that's played Monopoly one way for 30 years thinks this is all dumb and hates how the game is played now. Doesn't make it the wrong strategy, he just needs to play with other people that play like him and he'll probably like it again. Winning tends to fix things.

2:42

Tying it back to your question, there's more prep materials and players are getting bigger and more talented so eventually, with steroids off the table, strategy is where everyone goes to get an edge. This was inevitable.

duder

2:42

How much sharing of Milb Trackman Data is there in baseball? Do you see it ever being available to the public?

Kiley McDaniel

2:44

Like 95% of stadiums have it and all the teams essentially get all of the info from every stadium (except the DSL), practically speaking. Teams pay six figures a year for the data so unless MLB wants to foot the seven figure a year bill for all 30 teams and make it public, I can't imagine it ever does. There's a chance MLB puts statcast in minor league parks but I don't think that's coming anytime soon.

SAL fan

2:44

is there any concern with Kelenic that he may have a Rutherfordish trajectory? I recall Blake being a pretty polished old-for-his class bat that did very well in the Appy, and then struggled since.

Kiley McDaniel

2:45

Rutherford was a tweener guy that lost a step and became a corner guy and Kelenic is a CF that could possibly lose a step, but seems less likely to do that given his build. He's also not as old as BR was and was generally seen as having a slightly superior combo of tools and performance, but they are in the same ballpark

2:46

I also think Kelenic has a little better game power potential in his swing than Rutherford does even now

Adam Henderson

2:47

Hi Kiley, this is a specific question on Wander Franco. I have read many reports on his feats at his age but can you give me an insight on his tools and how he might be this advanced at this age and with the influx of impactful youth from D.R. do we need to set the bar higher on J2 signees?

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