Keith Woolner to join front office

[Steve Buffum]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/artic ... cleid=6187

[consigliere]

Wow, that's a nice catch.

Do you think Woolner would be a good get for a Q&A?

[Steve Buffum]

Do you think Woolner would be a good get for a Q&A?

A Q&A with the guy who invented VORP? Yeah, that'd be good.

[consigliere]

swb wrote:
Here's the problem as I see it: I don't have a problem with the front office's approach or spending habits, but I would like to see them do a significantly better job of identifying players. In any given year, there are any number of relievers available that aren't prohibitively expensive, and although reliever performance is admittedly volatile, we (as an organization) just seem to have a lower "hit rate" than a) a significant number of teams and b) we need to be to be a successful franchise using the existing model.

(copied over from Scout.com)

Is this maybe where the Keith Woolner hiring may come into play?

Also, in regard to Lara, he is really have a tough time in Buffalo. I'm starting to wonder if last year was an outlier and this year's performance is much closer to his career norms than last year....although he has been BRUTAL this year, so it really doesn't compare to anything.

[gdbenz]

My take is that the hiring of Keith Woolner is a direct result of how the Indians are going about deciding which free agents to pursue and for how much. A few weeks back, I wrote a column called "The Real Value Analysis" http://www.theclevelandfan.com/article_ ... hp?id=1609 detailing the Indians use of consult Vince Gennaro to help them quantify the value of signing a particular player. By use of statistical measures that you can find, coincidentally, on Baseball Prospectus (where Woolner was), the Indians are attempting to determine the expected economic return of signing a particular player. In some ways, the analysis is groundbreaking in its attempt to help budget strained teams like the Indians make the best decisions possible. In other ways, it is baloney because it relies on so many other variables, not the least of which are injuries. It will be interesting to see how this ultimately factors into how the Indians build a team going forward.