Baseball’s Lessons For Distributors
Two books document the rise of game-changing analytics within major league baseball (MLB): Moneyball (’03) and the highly-recommended, Astroball (7/18)[i]. The 2018 MLB playoffs featured the best, most analytically-empowered teams (along with big-talent payrolls).
Studies on MLB analytics departments from ’03 to ’18 reveal that:
- Teams that invested early in analytics feasted on the low-hanging fruit.
- The race for analytical effectiveness did not start, however, until 2009 when 1/3 of the teams still did not have one full-time quant.
- By 2018, the biggest analytics payrolls included: Red Sox, Astros, Dodgers, and Yankees.
- Building an effective culture of analytics is tough. It takes new, special talent to execute.
- The 2018 Baltimore Orioles with the sixth worst losing season in history had a small analytics department with turnover.
- Baseball teams are now stealing best analytics talent from one another.
From Astroball, you will learn how pervasively talented the Astros have become with analytics. Now, they are being raided for their analytical talent. Notably: the Red Sox stole the Astro’s bench coach, Alex Cora, after the Astro’s won the world series in 2017. As the rookie Sox manager in ‘18, Alex won another World Series ring.
And, Nov 19, 2018, the lowly Orioles stole the #2 and #3 analytics managers from the Astros: Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal. Elias will be the new GM charged with rebuilding the Orioles from scratch, and creating a “Culture of Analytics”.
Distributors: Who Is Your Analytics GM?
I’ve been turning around distributorships with “customer profitability analytics” (CPA) since 1976. I helped design a simple CPA capability into the ERP offerings from both NxTrend and Prophet21 in the late ‘90’s. And, I’ve worked with Waypoint Analytics’ breakthrough CPA cloudservice and its clients for the past ten years.
Many distributors have experimented with CPA, but too few have acted on their new insights. What’s missing? Many CEOs understand and believe the insights from CPA, but they have no new, dedicated analytical talent to spearhead new plays. And, there is none to steal from competitors…
…Until now. But, instead of stealing the best CPA Analytics Champion (I’ve seen), you can rent his talent (if he isn’t quickly overbooked). His name: McKinnon Shisko. For more info, check out his website at: www.pivotalag.com.
Request a free copy of my “Astroball Discussion Questions” (keyed to excerpts from the book Astroball). bruce@merrifield.com