BOCA RATON, Fla. – A decade or so ago, the hiring of analytically-skilled general managers such as David Stearns of the Milwaukee Brewers, Farhan Zaidi of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Matt Klentak of the Philadelphia Phillies would have been considered a triumph for sabermetrics. Now it’s no longer remarkable.
Analytics have long been a staple of the Toronto Blue Jays’ decision-making process, and that hasn’t changed under Tony LaCava, the interim general manager. In fact the Blue Jays may be adding to their analytics team.
“There’s a couple lenses that you’re going to look at players with. Obviously the traditional lens of scouting, but the analytics is another important lens to help make good evaluations,” LaCava said. “We’ve always used it and we’ll continue to do so.”
The Blue Jays are known throughout the industry as a team with more than its share of scouts. LaCava has a background in scouting, and so do Blue Jays executives Andrew Tinnish and Perry Minasian. But since scouting and data can complement one another, the Blue Jays hope to add more analytics.
“I think we’re going to be adding to it in time,” LaCava said. “Not sure exactly what the timeline would be.”
Team president Mark Shapiro built a strong analytical group in Cleveland and suggested at his Toronto introduction that he’ll continue seeking as much information as possible. If anything the challenge is making sense of all the available data.
The promotion of Joe Sheehan to director of analytics reflects the work that Sheehan has been doing in recent years under former GM Alex Anthopoulos. Baseball operations analyst Jason Pare, who joined the Blue Jays from Shapiro’s Cleveland Indians, also contributes to Toronto’s analytics efforts.
That continuity can allow the Blue Jays to build on an existing strength.
“We’ve got a really good group. It’s always been collaborative. It’ll continue to be collaborative,” LaCava said.
