Reese Kaplan -- Don't Invest and Plan to Lose

On Monday the NY Post carried a story which, if you had ANY charitable feelings at all towards the Wilpon ownership of the Mets baseball team, buried it in a deeper and darker place than you'd ever had imagined.  The basic narrative of the tale involved the use of three dimensional models for both hitters and pitchers to help them see how they looked when things were going well, what changed when they were not going well, and how they could through behavior execution get back to their optimal style.  Wow, what a concept, right?  It wasn't the stuff of science fiction.  It was scientific analysis that actually worked.

 

Much to everyone's surprise the Mets did indeed sign on with a vendor to do a live demonstration of how this three dimensional video analysis worked.  A vendor was brought in and after careful setup and configuration they were able to show Jeff Wilpon personally how this system indeed could demonstrate how players could learn what to change to improve their game dramatically.  It was indeed an impressive new approach to how the game could be played better and how to reduce the prolonged slumps by both guys swinging the bats and guys hurling the ball.  What could possibly stop the Mets from proceeding?

Well, the price tag of this new system was $150,000.  Now that's not exactly pocket change, but when you consider the lowest level bench player earns roughly four times that amount, it didn't seem like much of a deep investment that would potentially benefit all twenty five of the players.  If you averaged it out, even with roster changes throughout the year, you're only looking at about $6000 per player.  

 

Needless to say, Jeffie said no.  How could they sink that kind of major money into putting a competitive product on the field, shorten slumps and ensure whomever was on the payroll was performing at their absolute best?  This past spring they had a one-time analysis done to give them a foundational database, but still they are lone wolves proceeding without the cameras and, more importantly, without the data.

Many Mets fans have blasted the owners and the front office for not doing all that was possible to make the team competitive.  A lot of the criticism was dismissed as just dissatisfied fans mouthing off, but the more you looked into this situation the worse it got.  

 

In addition to the changes in the front office, Steve Cohen has already talked about taking on hundreds of millions of dollars of losses in the first few years to make the team into a top rate one.  That news -- willingness to swallow and extra $400 million per year in losses -- must come as music to the ears of all fans, not just the disgruntled ones. 

 

He's not only looking to expand and improve data analytics, he's also pledged to look worldwide for talent, another shortcoming for the Wilpon front office.  Their big ventures in that scenario include Kaz Matsui, Tsuyoshi Shinjo and players of that ilk, rather than going after the ones who required large posting fees or competitive salaries.  

 

The post season is nearly over and the vote will come soon enough, but I'm for the first time beginning to feel a modicum of confidence that Cohen will be approved and that changes will be made to the stagnation and bargain hunting of the past.  Baby steps...