Assertion Not checkable as stated
Houston Astros' ruthless efficiency approach is now standard across MLB
“The Astros were once at the vanguard as far as a valuation slash efficiency based approach to
Team building and running the organization.
They're not really an outlier anymore.
This is how everybody operates.”
Assertion Partly supported
Miami Marlins sold for roughly $1.5B despite poor on-field performance
“I mean, look at the Miami Marlins sold for a couple years ago to the group that included Derek Jeter. I forget exactly what it was. It was definitely in the mid one billions, right? For probably the worst franchise in all ways there is.”
Prediction Held up
MLB commissioner will likely introduce major rule changes to increase action
“I do think, especially because it's at the end of the day, it's an entertainment product. I do think we'll see the commissioner trying to make some significant rule changes. Maybe it's to the strike zone. Maybe it's moving the mound back. To get more offense i…”
Opinion
MLB analytics departments have not yet solved how to prevent pitcher injuries
“Health is a big thing that teams have still not really cracked as far as, especially how to keep pitchers healthy.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
MLB faces impending labor strife over perceived economic inequity among players
“I think on a labor front, baseball's in for a really rough time coming ahead, because I think that players are just seeing things as less and less equitable.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Jeff Luhnow faces a harder path back to MLB than fired managers
“Jeff Luno, I think, will have a tougher road. Well, especially now that he's suing the Astros for twenty-two million dollars. That probably doesn't help his chances, but he was always somebody who never quite shed his outsider status. In a lot of ways, he embr…”
Assertion Supported
Reiter: By some metrics, Jeff Luhnow was MLB's top scouting director
“Some say that by some metrics, he was the best scouting director in the seven years he was there of any scouting director, as far as picks he made that turned into big leaguers.”
Opinion
Reiter: The 2014 Astros were not run ineptly and had a strong rebuild plan
“And I came away thinking this is not a team that's run cynically or ineptly or an organization that has no idea what it's doing. It's an organization that has a very strong idea of just what it's doing.”
Insight
Reiter: Astros combined qualitative human scouting with quantitative performance analytics
“The Astros recognize that humans can detect things especially in players that numbers can't describe, that there aren't numbers for, and the trick is to properly process those observations and incorporate them with the performance data to kind of get the best …”
Insight
Reiter: MLB team standings often invert over three-year windows
“Three years down the line, which is actually a long time in baseball terms, it doesn't sound like a long time, but often if you look at the schedule, at the standings from like three years ago, they're almost upside down from where they are today.”
Opinion
Reiter: Jim Crane's patience set the Astros' rebuild apart
“I think one of the things that really set the pastors apart was patience, you know, was a stomach for the embarrassment and the torture that they had to go through for all those years and a confidence in it, right? Not to deviate from the plan. A lot of the cr…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Reiter: Computer motion analysis is close to detecting tipped pitches
“Like maybe computers one day will be able to see this. We're probably pretty close actually, as far as motion analysis and things like that, but they don't have those tools quite yet.”
Insight
The competitive advantage of pure data analysis in baseball is narrowing
“I think the data advantage is narrowing.
I do.
I mean, you don't hear very much anymore about, oh, this team's onto some new kind of way of analyzing data or discovered some new sorts of data.
Of course, I'm not going to tell you if they are, but it doesn't…”
Assertion Supported
Astros banged trash cans most during Mike Bolsinger's 2017 outing
“Turned out after people studied the exact pattern of the Astros sign stealing, he had faced them on the night of its peak, like they had banged on their trash can more times on that night than against anybody else.”
Assertion Supported
Former GM Jeff Luhnow is suing the Houston Astros for $22M
“He's currently suing the Astros for twenty two million dollars because they tore up his contract, firing him for cause in relation to this.”
Assertion Partly supported
Houston Astros' valuation rose from $600M to over $2B under Jim Crane
“He bought them for about six hundred million dollars. Less than 10 years later, they're worth estimates between 2,000,000,002 and a half billion.”
Assertion Supported
MLB is a $10.7B industry diversifying into cable and real estate
“Baseball is a 10.7 billion dollar industry now.
As far as we know, and now ownership is diversifying in all sorts of ways into cable networks, and a lot of teams have property real estate plays surrounding the stadium.”
Assertion Supported
Winning the 2017 World Series yielded roughly $450K per Astros player
“So in 2017, if you're the Astros and you win the World Series, it was like 450,000 dollar bonus per player. Which is actually a lot of money even for a baseball player. Minimum salary guys would double their salary based on this playoff share.”
Assertion Supported
Steve Cohen is MLB's richest owner by a factor of three
“And who, by the way, is now like the richest owner in baseball by a factor of three”
Assertion Contradicted
Detroit Tigers had only one part-time analyst on staff in 2015
“It was about two years ago that the Detroit Tigers, for example, had like one part-time analyst on their whole staff. Two years ago, it was like maybe 2015 or going into 2016.”
Assertion Supported
Jeff Luhnow presented a 23-page Astros rebuild guide in 2011 interview
“This was the plan that Jeff Lino presented to him when he sat down with him in 2011 to interview for the job. He made like a 22 or 23 page Essentially guide to what they were going to do and why they had to do it.”
Assertion Supported
Reiter: Jose Altuve signed for $15,000 after seven MLB teams passed
“A five foot five inch second baseman slap hitting guy who got 15,000 dollars to sign out of Venezuela only after seven teams had passed on him.”
Assertion Supported
Correa attributes seven 2017 home runs directly to Carlos Beltran's mentorship
“Correa attributes seven of his 24 home runs last year directly to Beltran, like things he showed him about tendencies that pitchers were Following and stuff like that.”
Assertion Supported
Sign stealing in baseball is legal, but using technology is not
“It's not actually illegal to steal signs. It's illegal to use technology to steal signs. But the first recorded instance of sign stealing was in 1876.”
