As Major League Baseball has continued to evolve, the implementation of and importance placed on advanced stats has become significant.
From valuing newer and more in-depth pitching and hitting metrics, to using defensive shifts with more frequency, the information age can be felt throughout the sport.
The Los Angeles Dodgers made their most notable shift in October 2014 by hiring Andrew Friedman as president of baseball operations.
Friedman replaced former general manager Ned Colletti with Farhan Zaidi, and the Dodgers front office has since added more executives with a strong background in analytics.
Alex Anthopoulos, hired as vice president of baseball operations, is the latest to join the fray in Los Angeles. Anthopoulos spent the past six seasons as the Toronto Blue Jays’ general manager.
While he’s a proponent of using advanced stats, the 38-year-old executive also hired plenty of scouts during his tenure in Toronto. According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports, Anthopoulos believes scouts were crucial to the Blue Jays’ success:
“The best moves we made were the ones we didn’t make because of the information we got from our scouts,” Anthopoulos said. “Sure, you look at the analytic side, but you’re talking about the human side, too. We looked at plenty of guys who could help us, but our scouts would give us information, letting us know that they wouldn’t fit into this group or dynamic that we had here.”
Several professional scouts have been dismissed in part a shift in the process of scouting. Front offices across the league have put an emphasis on hiring those with more of a background in sabermetrics as they seek to gain any competitive advantage.
Of course, last year’s World Series champion, Kansas City Royals, are flush with a robust scouting department. For as much as the Dodgers are pegged as an analytically-driven front office, Friedman and Zaidi have maintained all approaches are utilized.
Anthopoulos believes that to be the case and is confident the array of executives working for the Dodgers bring a unique perspective that will lend to a strong decision-making process.
