Brian Walton
February 16, 2004
Cardinals Ink Sabermetric Consulting Agreement
Birdhouse Exclusive Interview with Ron Shandler
By Brian Walton
On Friday, Ron Shandler, editor and publisher of Baseball HQ, author of the Baseball Forecaster and operator of RotoHQ.com, made an announcement. His organization, one of the most respected in the baseball analysis field, had just signed a consulting agreement with the St. Louis Cardinals.
To this Cardinal fan, the news of Shandler’s announcement was a very pleasant and welcome surprise. It sends a very positive signal as to the team’s intent to use analytics to help guide their future. The Cardinals are joining a group of eight to ten other teams who seem to be taking sabermetrics seriously, “the search for objective knowledge about baseball”.
This weekend, I caught up with Ron to get the details. (Also, check back here at the Birdhouse in the upcoming days to learn more about this story from the team perspective.)
BW: Ron, congratulations on your new business relationship with the Cardinals. How did this come about?
RS: Jeff Luhnow, who was named last fall to the position of Vice President for Baseball Development for the Cardinals, is a subscriber to Baseball HQ and a reader of our Baseball Forecaster and likes some of the work we have done there. He asked if I would be interested in working on some projects relating to the Cardinals and join an advisory board he is forming as he is developing systems for the team.
BW: How does the Cardinals ownership and management feel about this?
RS: Well, publicly, they are in full support. That came up in our conversations as to the real commitment of the team in all this and I am satisfied with that.
BW: How soon are you getting started?
RS: Well, the 2004 team is pretty much set. The 2003 Cardinals led the league in on base percentage, so they are in good shape. On the pitching side, there’s more that can be done, but they’re basically set for now.
BW: How often is this new advisory board coming together?
RS: Right now, there are plans for two onsite meetings each year. The first one will be around the All-Star break, especially if the team is in position to make some moves for the stretch run. The second onsite meeting in St. Louis would occur around October or November, before all the free agent signings start hitting. There is an outside possibility of maybe something at spring training, though there is not that much of a need, not much change, this year. The rest of the year would be email exchanges and private message boards that we would all interact on.
BW: What is the role of the board?
RS: The way I see it, Jeff Luhnow has an organization in place there as far as creating these systems and what not. He is looking toward this advisory board to provide them with a sounding board, a sanity check, for the direction they are heading in. On occasion, they might say, “We have three players here. Which one of them might be the best fit for our organization?” They would take the information we provide and integrate it into all the work they are already doing there.
BW: Recently, the Cardinals bought software called Scout Advisor by a company called eSolutions. Will you be working with that, or is it distinct from your work?
RS: I have read about that software, but I believe it is used on operational and organizational aspects rather than as a specific evaluative tool. I think it is completely separate.
BW: Will this advisory board consist only of Baseball HQ members or will it also include other members of the baseball world?
RS: There will be four of us from Baseball HQ involved, but there will also be at least one to two others who are experts in areas that we don’t get into, such as defense. They’ll be looking into other sabermetric sites that evaluate defense and pull in someone from there.
BW: Do you think there will be any reaction to what some would call a fantasy-oriented site getting involved with a team’s operation?
RS: I am prepared for whatever backlash there might be. My perspective is that we are a fantasy-oriented site only because I have a business to run and that is a marketplace that is lucrative. All the evaluation we do at Baseball HQ is serious analysis. In a different venue, we’d be looked at no differently than the work that Bill James does. In order for us to reach a marketplace and be able to stay in business, we decided that the fantasy marketplace is where we would find the most customers, so that is where we targeted our work. But the quality of what we do is no less than that of the other leading sabermetricians.
BW: Will the fact that for the first time, Baseball HQ has a business relationship with one team, affect the rest of your work with other teams and question the impartiality in it?
RS: That was something that came up in the contract negotiations and it is not going to be a problem. We have 30 freelance writers who write for Baseball HQ and the four of us who are involved with the Cardinals will probably not be doing much specific Cardinal analysis during the season. We’ll have other writers do it. If there is information that we glean from our relationship with the Cardinals that we can pass it on to those other writers, we will. If there are things we can’t and they have to remain confidential, then we’ll have to do that. This is a new dynamic. We’ll have to see how this works out. We have enough Cardinal analysts on staff that our Cardinal coverage will not suffer at all.
BW: One of the factors that you said that attracted Luhnow to Baseball HQ is your Baseball Forecaster. For those who aren’t familiar with it, what is it all about?
RS: It’s a book that we have been publishing since 1986. It’s devoted to a different type of player analysis. Its whole focus is to look beyond traditional statistics - to try to ferret out the true skills gauges that make up player performance. We run trend analyses and preliminary forecasts and have been pretty successful in identifying sleeper picks for fantasy leaguers. You can buy it from our site at BaseballForecaster.com, where there is ordering information, at some retailers and from amazon.com, as well.
BW: In the Baseball Forecaster, you coined a new term, “fanalytics”. What is that?
RS: It really comes down to a whole public perception of fantasy not being serious analysis to some extent. I was looking a term that would kind of set us apart and still be able to use these applications for fantasy baseball and to let everybody know it was serious and stuff that has value. So, I was trying to coin a term that embodies what we do and separates from those who play fantasy baseball more as a gambling game or just a casual sport kind of thing.
BW: You are running a series of Forums in major cities around the country, including one in St. Louis this coming Sunday, February 22. What are they about?
RS: It gives fantasy leaguers and fans an opportunity to interact with some of the top writers and analysts in the baseball and fantasy baseball industry. We get together in what are basically structured Q&A sessions where a couple of writers focus on a specific topic. They start with a short presentation and follow with questions and answers. The Forum ends with a general Q&A session where attendees can ask anything about any topic at all. We’ve been doing this for our third year locally. We started this in our annual Arizona Fall League conference that we have been doing for nine years now. There is a lot of interest in having this interaction, which gives the attendees the extra sense of getting inside information by having that opportunity to talk with the writers and analysts themselves.
BW: That sounds great, but isn’t it kind of intimidating? Do you have to be a fantasy expert to attend one of these Forums?
RS: No, no, not at all! In fact, it’s probably more intimidating to the writers. (laughs) The folks who show up at these sessions are fans, educated fans, bottom line. They’ll ask questions about everything: “My last keeper decision is between these players; who should I pick?”, “What’s the latest you’ve heard about the injury to so-and-so?” It’s very open; it’s a very laid back and casual environment. Folks just absolutely love it. In fact, 75-80% of the people attend these sessions come back every year. It’s just a lot of fun.
BW: Well, I look forward to seeing you at several of these Forums coming up, including in St. Louis. One last question. Back to the business relationship with the Cardinals. When all is said and done, what is the success measurement of this for all parties and what is the term of your contract?
RS: It is a one year contract that we signed. Measure of success is interesting, because I think all of us who were involved each has our own personal agenda. That’s why the negotiation was kind of an arduous process. For some of my writers, the opportunity to work with a major league organization in itself was an accomplishment of a goal for them. Just to be able to contribute and whether or not their input provides value to the Cardinals. Just having this experience is worth it for them. For me, it’s a little bit different. I told Jeff right up front that I was not giving up my business. I had no interest in being a staff member of the Cardinals. He had no interest in hiring me either. (laughs) This is basically an independent contractor agreement. My major goal is to be able to bring back something to my readers, because Baseball HQ and Baseball Forecaster will remain a part of what I do. So, being able to negotiate what I could and could not bring back was what took up a lot of time. If I can provide my readers with several columns during the year on what goes on inside a major league organization showing how our methods help the Cardinals one way or another, in small ways or large ways, then I think that for me will be the accomplishment of my goal.
BW: We’ll be watching this to see how this relationship progresses. I hope we can check back with you periodically throughout the year.
RS: Great, absolutely!
Note: Deric McKamey, Baseball HQ’s Co-Director of Minor League Analysis, and a part of this new Cardinal advisory board, will join Ron at the First Pitch fantasy baseball symposium on Sunday, February 22 at the St. Louis Airport Marriott. Brian Walton will also take part in the experts panel. Click here for details.
