This week I’m pleased to bring you an exclusive interview with Dan Fox, Director of Baseball Systems Development for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Mr. Fox took the job earlier this year after working for Baseball Prospectus. It was during his time at BP that I first noted Mr. Fox’ work, and over the past few months we exchanged several emails that led to this interview. Please note that my comments are in brackets; everything else is Mr. Fox’ words. Without further ado, here’s the interview:
GantDaily: Thanks again for agreeing to this interview. The first thing I’d like is to know a bit about your background – your college degree, where you’ve worked, etc., leading up to you taking the job with the Pirates.
Dan Fox: First, let me thank you for the opportunity to share my little part of the exciting things happening in Pittsburgh as we move forward in building a championship caliber organization. By way of introduction I’ve been in the software development industry for 17 years after graduating from Iowa State University with a degree in Computer Science. In my professional career I’ve worked for Chevron in Houston, Quilogy (a consulting firm and Microsoft partner) in Kansas City, and most recently as a software architect for Compassion International in Colorado Springs. In those various positions I’ve written lots of code, managed projects from a technical perspective, and done a fair amount of teaching, conference speaking, and along the way authored five books on development topics related to the Microsoft platform. During all of that time, however, I never lost my passion for baseball and particularly for its numbers – a passion formed in large part (and like so many in my generation) through reading Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts in my teenage years. It wasn’t until about five years ago, however, that I took deeper interest in baseball analysis when I started a blog ostensibly to write about software development and promote the teaching and book writing. I quickly discovered that writing about baseball was much more fun and threw myself into catching up on the state of baseball analysis and building a database and set of tools I could use to do my own analysis. After having a ball writing on the blog for a couple years Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times asked if I would join their lineup of columnists. I had a great time interacting with everyone at THT and after writing on their site for a year I joined Baseball Prospectus in the spring of 2006 to write the weekly “Schroedinger’s Bat” column. I can’t tell you how stimulating it was to be enmeshed in a conversation with so many intelligent fans over the course of two years and 100 columns. I think I probably learned more from my readers than they did from me and it was truly a blessing. But even good things don’t last forever and when I heard about the Pirates position, that in many ways reflected my professional skills and passion, I wasted little time in contacting them. Fortunately it was a fit and I can’t speak highly enough of Neal Huntington and his staff for how they’ve welcomed someone new to the inner workings of a major league organization. So after a tumultuous summer of selling a home, moving across the country, and buying another one, my family and I are getting adjusted to life in Pittsburgh.
GD: What are your duties as Director of Baseball Systems Development for the Pirates?
Dan Fox: In my position one of my primary tasks is to lead the development effort of the Pirates’ unified player management system. In that role I layout the architecture and design and participate in all the software development aspects of the system from gathering requirements to modeling to coding and testing. It is certainly a big challenge but one that we think will have a positive effect on the organization by bringing together data from multiple domains (scouting, performance, and player development to name a few) and allowing it to be made accessible through a core set of interfaces. As you might expect, having access to relevant and actionable information aids in the decision making processes throughout the organization. But beyond simply that, the information is more than the sum of its parts and the hope is that we can begin to explore some of many complex connections that exist among the various domains of information. In that capacity I’m wearing my software architect and developer hat much of the time. In addition, as readers may know from my writing, I’m interested in analyzing the information that our system will collect and process and so a portion of my time is devoted to building analytical tools we can use going forward.
GD: What part of the job has surprised you the most since joining the Pirates?
Dan Fox: As with most things in life, the devil is in the details. That is to say, the closer you get to something the more complex and nuanced it becomes. And so that it should prove to be the case in this new adventure shouldn’t have really surprised me, but I guess there are some lessons we need to keep re-learning. In any case, I find myself considering aspects of the game I hadn’t thought about much or that are brand new to me. And that’s been great fun to be sure, especially since everyone on the staff has been more than willing to share their knowledge and experience with me. Whether the topic is the draft, trades, scouting, or player development I always learn something from my conversations with Bryan Minniti, Kyle Stark, Joe Delli Carri, Greg Smith, and Neal Huntington [Huntingdon is the Pirates’ General Manager; the others are part of the front office staff]. I’ve also been very impressed with the level of dedication and effort that the front office here puts forth on a daily basis.
GD: The work of a baseball front office is very different now than it was even 15 years ago. Can you describe some of the ways managing a MLB organization has changed, in your opinion? What further changes do you envision in the next ten years, if any?
Dan Fox: Wow, that’s a tough question and as Barack Obama might say, a little beyond my pay grade. Not having worked in baseball before this season I don’t have the background to assess the way that front offices were run in the past. From a general and outsider’s perspective, as your readers are no doubt aware, it is no doubt the case that the front office has access to more and better information now than in the past. Part of what that means is that the decision making process is informed by a greater number of inputs and so organizing those inputs and analyzing them in a meaningful way becomes that much more important. At the risk of repeating a well-worn cliché, today’s front office needs to turn the mountains of data at their disposal into information that is actionable. Luckily for me, I get to play in that space and so this is one trend that I’m very excited about. In addition, I think the broader access to information has allowed the thinking fan along with the media (with a few notable exceptions to be sure) to be more informed which in turn raises the bar in terms of accountability. When combined with the 24-hour news cycle, that increases the demands on today’s front offices on top of jobs that were already very challenging.
GD: Clearly when you took the job, the Pirates organization was at a very low point in terms of on-field performance and minor-league talent. Did you have any hesitation in taking this job with this particular club?
Dan Fox: From the first time I met the IT and baseball operations staff during spring training in Bradenton I was very comfortable given my limited knowledge that these folks had the intelligence, humility, and attention to detail necessary to put the Pirates in a position to compete in the years ahead. My confidence in that plan was only strengthened when I talked with team president Frank Coonelly in Pittsburgh last spring; and so while the challenges are great, so are the opportunities. And I think you’re just starting to see the beginnings of that plan to restock the system through a successful draft (even with the unresolved issue with our number one pick) and the two trade deadline deals. The challenge of building systems and doing the kind of analysis that can, in at least a small way, help the Pirates turn things around has me looking forward to coming in to work each day.
GD: You mention the issue with #1 draft pick Pedro Alvarez. Many analysts are panning both MLB and the Pirates for (apparently) negotiating past the midnight deadline with Alvarez. On the other hand, many blame agent Scott Boras and his, shall we say, aggressive negotiating tactics for the situation. Do you think the Pirates (and by extension MLB) acted appropriately here? How do you foresee the arbiter ruling?
Dan Fox: I don’t feel comfortable answering this one since that’s over my pay grade and is certainly sensitive at this point. [I expected this answer but I had to try]
GD: As a longtime reader of Baseball Prospectus, I’m aware that many baseball statistics can be misleading [I’ll be writing a column on this sometime soon]. What’s the statistic that you believe is most misleading and why?
Dan Fox: If I had to pick just one I would vote for saves because of their high profile status and the media attention that high save totals command. I’m sure your readers have heard this argument before (and especially now with Francisco Rodriguez about to overtake the record) but it’s not often that how a statistic is credited changes the way the game is played on the field and yet this is precisely what has happened with the save rule (yes, it happens with wins as well but to a far lesser degree). I think there can be little doubt that the ability for a pitcher to record a save with a three run lead and just three outs to go has increased closer usage in situations like these that are simply not high-leverage scenarios. In fact in 2006 and 2007 the 23 primary closers were brought in with 3 run leads fully 26% of the time and in tie games just 15% of the time. And of those 26%, just 2% were with the tying run on base (so-called “tough save” situations). Further, those closers made just 23% of their appearances before the ninth inning. That pattern would be inverted in a perfect world where your best pitcher would pitch to protect smaller leads with runners on base or in tie games which would in turn necessitate appearances that are almost evenly distributed in the 7th through 9th innings. But at the same time the human element can’t be totally dismissed and it is clear that managers and pitchers like defined roles and so there is certainly some value there that needs to help balance the equation. So to answer your question, yes, on the surface save totals can be misleading if they’re used as a proxy for a pitcher’s effectiveness and value.
As a close second to saves I’d have to throw in a vote for fielding percentage or if you like, number of errors. The National League adopted six official fielding stats (games played, total chances, putouts, assists, errors, and fielding percentage) back in 1876 and those are the same six still in use today. But I think you can forgive the nineteenth century powers that be, since at that time there were so many errors that fielding percentage was a fairly meaningful way of judging a fielder’s performance. As fielding percentages rose over time (and they continue to inch up), the difference in the number of plays actually made between fielders eventually swamped the difference in their numbers of errors committed. By way of many sabermetrician’s favorite example, the difference in errors between Derek Jeter (18) in 2007 and Troy Tulowitzki (11) was just 7. However, under some of the advanced fielding systems the actual difference in balls fielded grows to five times or more than that when you consider not only the errors but the far greater number of balls that Tulowitzki was able to get to. So although the state of defensive analysis is still a long ways from perfect, seeing fielding percentages held up as evidence of fielding ability can be misleading to say the least.
GD: Recently the Pirates have experienced a lot of turnover amongst their minor-league coaches. Would you say this turnover was expected, given the new president/GM team, or is this cause for concern?
Dan Fox: I certainly don’t think anything should be read into the changes beyond a desire to move the organization forward. In any business when there’s a change in management there is usually a change in ideas and how those ideas are implemented. And those changes can take some time and cause reverberations throughout the organization. To me, it’s just a normal part of the process.
GD: Thank you again for you time. [end of interview]
Mr. Fox’ answers were quite detailed, so we’ll stop there. Next week we’ll analyze some of his responses, as well as take a pre-season look at the Penguins.
Dave Glass lives in Clearfield with his wife, Suzanne, and their six children. He can be reached at buggyracer@verizon.net.