After the endless slog through the Home Run Derby last night — nearly as boring as the pre-pre-pre-pregame Super Bowl show — I am anxiously waiting the All-Star debut of Tim Lincecum.
I’m swamped with work today, but I want to pass along an article well worth reading. BP’s Eric Seidman, who also writes for Fangraphs.com, reports on his trip to the Pitch F/X conference in San Francisco. It’s subscriber-only, so subscribe. You really should. There are fascinating advances in the measurement of fielders’ range and how to scout defenses based on managerial decisions — such as how Tony LaRussa positions his third basemen.
Seidman specifically notes the Giants sent Dan Quill, director of application development. He’s listed here, way down the list under the IT department. Funny, I’ve never perused the Giants front office staff list before. A longer look at the above-linked directory shows that Yeshayah Goldfarb is listed as Coordinator of Baseball Operations/Quantitative Analysis, and he’s apparently a former UC San Diego pitcher. (How many baseball-loving Yeshayah Goldfarbs can there be?)
In spring training Chris Haft talked to Bill Neukom, who said this about Goldfarb and the other stat-minded guys on staff: "These are not just crunchers who give you some funny numbers. They know the game, love the game and have an opinion, and they stand up to Brian and the scouts and [vice president of player personnel Dick] Tidrow and say, 'This is not the guy you want for these reasons' or 'this is what you might not have caught on this guy.’”
