"Moneyball" In Baseball Is Over - Data Is With Every Team Now

Baseball is swimming in data. Gone are the days when teams struggled just to collect numbers. If you watched Moneyball — with Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as his numbers-savvy assistant — you saw the start of the data revolution in baseball. But today, we’re well past that era. Every team has spin rates, exit velocities, and now even hip rotation analytics.

“It used to be about getting the data,” said Keith Law of his front office days with the Blue Jays. “Now it’s what you do with it.”

With companies like Zelus Analytics and Teamworks powering multiple MLB front offices, and Sony acquiring Kinatrax for unified biomechanical tracking, the playing field is more even than ever. The real edge now? Process, people, and communication.

Front offices now hire for traits like empathy, humility, and adaptability. “It’s not about loyalty or work ethic — those are a given,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “We want people who are authentic and human.”

As advanced tech like computer vision and motion capture become more common, teams realize: data alone isn’t enough. Success comes from translating numbers into insight players can trust — just like Jonah Hill's character tried to explain in Moneyball, only now with even more tech and a deeper human touch.

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Source: New York Times

Photo Credit: Columbia Pictures