Baseball is back – and teams must find a balance to win World Series
Baseball is back and after a weekend where every fan had optimism, the season slog now begins.
For fans of other sports, particularly football here in the UK, it is hard to imagine a team losing 65 games and still winning a championship. However, that's the reality of baseball.
A season that spans 162 games in 185 days, losing five matches in a row – while frustrating – doesn't mean your season is over, but that's both the joy and torment of baseball.
Like all sports, baseball is everevolving. In 2003, Michael Lewis brought sabermetrics into the light with his book Moneyball, the story of how the traditionally underfunded Oakland A's were competing with the big-spending teams.
Moneyball broke down barriers as managers were challenged to look beyond the "five tools" and understand the value of a player getting on base, taking pitches and advancing runners.
Once the cat was out of the bag, big-spending teams applied Moneyball and the A's were once again looking for a field leveller.
The next evolution of sabermetrics, currently in full swing with Theo Epstein and the Chicago Cubs, raved about launch angle and exit velocity.
Launch angle was discussed way back in the 70s, but it found traction again as players sought to hit the long ball, while concerns about strikeouts diminished with players taking big swings on every play.
In the last four seasons, the strikeout rate in baseball has jumped nearly 15 per cent as players have focused on getting big hits, correcting their swing and ensuring the ball exits the bat at the right angle, anywhere between 13° and 20°, and the right speed.
Teams and coaches place different values on the stats, and as such, each outfit has a style they play, but the real question is just how practical are all these analytics.
The Red Sox are a positive example. They have won four World Series after 86 years without one. They applied analytics, worked with a budget and managed to get title wins, despite getting caught up in a cheating scandal.
But for their demonstration of success, there are significantly more teams that have invested heavily and not reaped the rewards.
Oakland would be the prime example. Since 2012, the A's have operated with the smallest budget in baseball but still managed four seasons with 90-plus wins, not including last year’s shortened season, which projected at 100-plus wins. Yet, during that time, they have never won a World Series.
Unlike Oakland, the New York Yankees regularly top the salary spending in baseball and have also applied sabermetrics to their roster build. The Yankees have also had four seasons with 90-plus wins, two of those being 100-plus, but haven't won a World Series since 2009.
So here's my point. Sabermetrics will get you so far, but more and more teams are finding out building your team one way won't win you a World Series.
If you want to win in baseball, you need to find a balance because all the stats reset to zero in the postseason and the team with the hottest bats win.