Statcast changes that model. Statcast is not something that a fan has to seek out—it’s just there. It’s there in any national broadcast, it’s there on teams’ social-media accounts, it’s there in everyday interviews with players. The scope is remarkable, and also somewhat complicated. It gives Statcast a platform immeasurably larger than that of any other analytic endeavor in the game’s history, and that requires the information be accessible in ways that previous iterations of baseball analytics never had to worry about.
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“I have all these issues with certain things, and I would do this and that differently,” Pavlidis said. “But also, my God! Look at this. This is amazing! There’s all this incredible data they’re giving us for nothing—nothing! It’s free … This is a gift.”
Source: Emma Baccellieri, Deadspin
Please don’t let either the title or the source discourage you from reading this — this article is outstanding.
I completely understand why the title is no good. The article covers so much ground that it’s hard to sum up in 10 words or fewer. I had the same issue with deciding what section to put here to quote.
It’s a meaty topic – the pros and cons of Statcast and the challenges this system has compared to anything previously – and Baccallieri does a great job presenting it, including quotes from different sides. Among those she quotes is Tom Tango, who now is helping to shape the presentation of the Statcast data.
Baccallieri uses the rise and fall of route efficiency to tell the story of how Statcast is different from everything that came before it. She goes into detail about what the system aims to achieve and the challenges of making that happen.
But really – read the piece to find out more.