For much of this season, I’ve been working on and off on a substantial story about the Reds’ development process. It was published today and you can read it here.
Here’s an excerpt about DeShields to give you some incentive:
He also notes, in verbiage that will make stat-savvy fans squeal, “You have more of a sample size when you get to the big leagues. Down here, we maybe see a guy’s tendencies, but it’s 60-100 at bats.†The point he is making is that it can be too easy to get wrapped up in stats at the minor league level, where players are not always with one club for a long time. And even if they are, they are constantly working on things, so their approach may change. Analytics can help determine what a player needs to work on, but just looking at a prospect’s stat line doesn’t always tell you what you need to know.
Sometimes soon, I’ll do an out-takes post somewhere with stuff that didn’t make it into the story.
Renda is not even in the Reds organization anymore. As of the time of this article, he has been traded a third time and is in the Diamondbacks organization now.
I am completely aware. It doesn’t make his comments any less relevant in the article.
Fantastic!
Thanks everyone for the generally positive feedback. I’m glad you enjoyed the piece.
Very nice work.
De shields is often a punching bag for his lineup construction, yet he seems to understand and even value metrics. I wonder if he’s choosing to not apply the information to many of his decisions or does the information he sees conflict with the information we see?
Great article especially the human side of what is going on.Was surprised by the comment about the stat line to some degree but it may explain some things when we see a guy perform and not be rewarded or not perform and be rewarded.Certainly each player should have an individual plan but I relish the day when we here the Reds way as we now do with the Cards way or the Yankee way.This only comes with having a model of consistentcy up and down the organization that all adhere to and I believe it will under the DW regime.As for De Shields I see a man that does look at the data but if it doesn’t match what he sees or thinks then he goes his way.I am an old school guy myself so I can relate but if too much of that goes on by him and others why look at the data?My experience is anytime you say this is how we run things then right after that you throw out the word but,all anybody remembers is the but.Very nice article.
Thanks for a well-done article Jason. There is so much going on that we just can’t see from our computer desks and living rooms.
And RN staff, thanks for including Jason as a “line to Louisville”.