23
2010
Amazin’ Saberhead Vs The Amazing Kreskin
An article by 
I came across an interesting post by Jerry Vrentas of the Star-Ledger who reveals that Omar Minaya has been consulting frequently with a sabermetric guru before making a trade or player acquisition.
Meet Ben Baumer, who serves as the Mets’ official Statistical Analyst, Baumer has been serving the Mets in this role for the last seven seasons going back to Jim Duquette who hired him. (You mean there was someone else to blame for that ill-fated Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir trade? Egads!)
In his day-to-day, Baumer gets a daily stat file from the Mets. He goes to most of the home games, spring training and the winter meetings.
Wow, if I knew that being a fantasy geek could lead to a gig like this, I might have completely drenched myself in hundreds of paperback copies of Moneyball at the $1.00 bin at Barnes and Noble. Man, what I would give to get a daily stat file from the Mets…
It seems like that big book Jerry Manuel keeps flipping through during a game, comes from Baumer himself, a self acknowledged sabermetric purist.
Laptops aren’t allowed in the dugout, but coaches are given a fat binder before every series statistically breaking down the matchup with the opponent.
So that’s why Frank Catalanotto batted cleanup against the St. Louis Cardinals last weekend… It’s really starting to make a lot of sense now… I think I’m finally starting to get this stuff…
Here is one of the most profoundest quotes I’ve come across in quite sometime. If you’re wondering why the Mets feel the need for an official statistical analyst on the team, heed the words of Ben Baumer, who says,
“If you have an independent observer saying the same thing, you feel much more comfortable about whether what they’re saying is true or not. Whereas if they’re saying different things, maybe you don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong — but you know maybe there’s more going on.”
Wow… If I knew there was a sweet job like this in the Mets front office, I would have lobby Jeff Wilpon years ago.
I don’t know about you guys, but I feel a whole lot better knowing that there was more to the last few depressing seasons than just bad luck, bad baseball and bad management. Who Knew? Do we still use scouts? I guess they’re a dying breed.
Personally, I think the Mets would have been better off hiring the Amazing Kreskin who once lobby the Mets for a job.
In a letter to Jay Horwitz, the Mets’ Vice President of Media Relations, Kreskin offered to meet with the team as a group, where he would train and condition them mentally using a technique that would relieve them of the negative impacts the losses have exacted, thereby improving their playing and leading to success on the field.
Wow, that was in 2007… Nothing has really changed much has it…
The Amazing Kreskin… Ha, ha, ha… I love being a Mets fan!
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
Went to my first Mets game, a Mayors Trophy game at Shea, in '73. We beat the Yankees 8-4 and I was hooked. I marched in two Banner Day parades, and before the Grand Slam single, there was the "Hendu Can Do" grand slam - I was there. I've collected Mets memorabilia all my life and started Mets Merized Online to feed my addiction.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationals | 26 | 18 | .591 | - |
| Braves | 26 | 20 | .565 | 1.0 |
| Mets | 24 | 21 | .533 | 2.5 |
| Marlins | 24 | 21 | .533 | 2.5 |
| Phillies | 23 | 23 | .500 | 4.0 |
Last updated: 05/25/2012
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How has he managed to keep his name out of the media for this long? Especially if he travels with the team? You would think one of the beat writers would have noticed him before now. Strange.
Another way to prove how inept and stupid this organizzation is.. really?? Sabermetrics to get players?? The why the hell is cora, castillo, tatis, Garbage mathews jr, perez and other he’s brought in since 2007 are on the team??
Please, jay horowitz should’ve been fire long time ago, and this “guru” doesn’t work coz obviously we haven’t won shyt and the players either don’t care or have a losers mentality.. gimme a break
Joe D.,
Does anything truly shock or surprise anymore? I believe there are more employees doing the saber stats thing for most organizations than people realize. I think that scouts–TRUE baseball scouts, who scouted for talent across the nation, are a thing of the past. I firmly believe that the influence of stats has detracted from the game. There just aren’t as many scouts who just WATCH the players play. Sure, there are baseball people and scouting has it’s place, but too many moves are made/not made anymore based totally on stats.
Sociologically, it’s interesting that with the rise of the stats oriented baseball game that inner city and urban youth are no longer interested in baseball. I think it’s partly due to the lack of true scouts watching talented players play in those areas. They’ve been assigned to find cheaper talent in the carribean and south america. It’s not just because basketball and football are more appealing as many have asserted. It’s easier for the organizations, (not just the Mets) to call a high school coach and ask them to send a stats pack to their organization. The stats guru looks through and decides whether there is a player “noteworthy enough” to send a scout. Just my two cents. That and two quarters can get you a cup of coffee. (only at my house however)
I always suspected that the Mets had a saber guy influencing decisions but was never really able to know for sure until now. You look at some of the darlings of the saber world that most Mets fans would have never signed like Luis Castillo for one and Ryan Church for another. But then after they got Francoeur I thought it went completely against every sabermetric inclination in the book. It wasnt until the day after the trade at the press conference that I learned this trade was all on John Ricco and that Omar didnt want anything to do. This was Ricco’s call Omar said. Obviously, Ricco is the only normal one in the Mets hierarchy.
I remember how obsessed the Mets were with some of Zambrano’s alphabet soup stats, but all I saw was some terrible good old fashioned numbers like a high ERA and WHIP.
I cant argue Beltran signing of course, I think we all agreed on that one, but there was also a small war between saber and traditional fans when we signed Moises Alou at the time. Most of us wanted nothing to do with him because he was broken down and injury prone, but the other side argued that his metrics or what not made it a great risk and signing. Whatever.
I was crushed when we traded Xavier Nady who was my favorite player in 06. Again the saber blogs all said he was less than a replacement player. Huh?
I dont believe the Mets use scouting reports anymore. Look at that dictator Bernazard who ran the whole show, you think his underlings could get a word in edgewise?
Anyway, I can go on and on, but I’ll stop here and close by saying that if this is the product of a saber influenced team, well it stinks.
No wonder there’s been so many retarded moves over the past few years.
like that Francoeur one, right? The one that you guys were praising? Or is it that the bad moves must be decisions by the statistical analyst, and the good ones by the scouts, right?
Werent they all falling all over themselves for the Mets to sign 38yo Mike Cameron to a 2 year deal? I think he batted like .240 something the last 2 years, and anyway after a crappy start for the Red Sox they put him on the DL. They say he looks finished, I’m glad we didnt get that guy.
whatever you want to do to get site hits
If I had to rely on you for hits, I’d hang myself. Go troll somewhere else.
stop writing inflammatory posts then, and I’ll gladly leave
Inflammatory? Isn’t FJM the nutjob who ripped Marty Noble to shreds cursing him up and down like a Mexican whore drunk on tequila? Why do you nerds always overreact whenever somebody disagrees with your mathematical views on baseball? Get a life, get a girl friend, get drunk on one of your wheat microbrews.
No, I’ve never had anything to do with Marty Noble. That’s Fire Jerry Manuel, I’m Fire Jerry Now, and I have a girlfriend, thank you very much
Wow, this might actually be the dumbest blog post ever written. Yeah, I’m sure it was the saber-guy who wanted Cats batting fourth.
Looks like the peanut gallery at AA caught wind of this. It’s ok for them to mock whoever the hell they want, but god forbid someone dares to say something about a metric guy and watch out, the dogs come out.
It is the manner by which this slam job was taken. Very very little is known about Baumer besides that long (and IMO interesting) presentation he had on the problems with defensive statistics last season. MetsMerized has assumed that all the wrong decisions in the organization were made by ONE GUY yet make no mention of the old school types of which are countless (Krivsky and Ricco as two examples). The SABR world was against nearly every move made by the FO recently. Castillo as an overpay as shown by his declining UZR, Cat shouldn’t have made the team and give Evans a chance, Jacobs would have no business making the team while Carter would have (no emphasis on Veterans when compared to rookies or young guys). Rodriguez was a massive overpay along with Cora, the vesting options making utterly no sense. Thus far I will admit I have been kinda wrong on Frenchie, but traditionalists have been dead wrong on Pelf. Everyone raved about his ERA last year while his peripherals were pretty similar and he had some bad luck. Now he is getting some good luck with an improvement in his peripherals and he is lights out. This piece was absolutely unnecessary. If it was done in jest then that’s fine but it obviously wasn’t with the question of whether or not we have scouts anymore. The SABR world emphasizes a joint operation between scouts and statistical analysts, not a schism. It’s pieces like this that outright damage any chance of progress being made towards understanding baseball.