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A review by tofugitive
The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players by Ben Lindbergh, Travis Sawchik
informative
4.0
If you've read Moneyball and/or you're familiar with the ideas and concepts behind it when it comes to how it revolutionized baseball, you should read this to understand what actual modern day baseball "analytics" looks like today. This is the modern revolutionary change to how the best and most successful organizations find and develop talent.
If you're paying closer attention to baseball and organizational development, it's impossible to not have heard of Driveline and other baseball development labs. This book is heavy on the pitcher side of player development when it comes to modern day stuff, but there's also a lot of cool history related to systemic approaches to finding talent in the past and how it evolved.
Given that the book was published in 2019, it's already outdated in many ways. I'm not in the baseball industry nor am I close enough to it professionally or personally to know the newest advancements and approaches to player development, so I can't comment on that specifically. However, it is *very* Trevor Bauer heavy. Very. He is important to the story, however, so it makes sense. But he's as insufferable as his public persona is, and knowing the monster he is actually, it's frustrating that he's always around.
It's probably a little longer than it needs to be and there isn't necessarily a direct narrative or anything, but if you're like me and have spent thousands and thousands of hours playing Out of the Park Baseball and have poured over the annual Baseball Prospectus books for at least a decade, this is a must read.
If you're paying closer attention to baseball and organizational development, it's impossible to not have heard of Driveline and other baseball development labs. This book is heavy on the pitcher side of player development when it comes to modern day stuff, but there's also a lot of cool history related to systemic approaches to finding talent in the past and how it evolved.
Given that the book was published in 2019, it's already outdated in many ways. I'm not in the baseball industry nor am I close enough to it professionally or personally to know the newest advancements and approaches to player development, so I can't comment on that specifically. However, it is *very* Trevor Bauer heavy. Very. He is important to the story, however, so it makes sense. But he's as insufferable as his public persona is, and knowing the monster he is actually, it's frustrating that he's always around.
It's probably a little longer than it needs to be and there isn't necessarily a direct narrative or anything, but if you're like me and have spent thousands and thousands of hours playing Out of the Park Baseball and have poured over the annual Baseball Prospectus books for at least a decade, this is a must read.