Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 426: A Conversation with Cuba’s Sabermetric Splinter Group

Episode Date: April 11, 2014

Ben and Sam talk to Alejandro Aldama of the Independent Group for Baseball Investigation about the state of sabermetrics in Cuba.

Good morning and welcome to episode 426 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I'm Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller. We have an exciting guest today I'm happy to talk to. In a recent issue of Sports Illustrated, Eric Nussbaum wrote an article about how sabermetrics has spread to Cuba, and it has developed a little bit differently in isolation from the American sabermetrics we know, sort of like Darwin's finches on an island going through their own evolution. And there is a group in Cuba called the Independent Group for Baseball Investigation. And we are talking to one of the co-founders of that group today, Alejandro Aldama.

So we are speaking to him now in Cuba. Alejandro, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you, too. So can you tell us a little bit about how you discovered Sabermetrics, how the other members of the group discovered it, and how you came together to study this? I'm not sure exactly what was the point in we were found or we found the star metrics but we were kids we played a lot of video games and suddenly we found a new

statistics it was on base percentage that shocked us we believe we were like baseball or something like that. And suddenly we realized there were people who knew things we did not. So that really impressed us. I think that was the beginning. And did you do research and study these things on your own before you discovered the work that had already been done? Yes, we did. We have to do a lot of things. We have to try to do a war, but I'm awake.

But we didn't know the existence of Rumball value for every base out of the States. So when we found Tontango and Duoba was impressive for us and we realized that we have to learn a lot. But yes, we have very own tendencies or very own theories, mostly in the short period of time. We disagree with a lot of the traditional theories or the traditional cybermetricians. But we think in the, in the general,

we are, we are very very fond of the traditional some of the sun the compliments they are have made and that's the years uh... how uh... how available are are even the basic statistics in cuban baseball how accessible are they do you see them in the newspaper the next day

uh... is it pretty easy to get at least the basics? You know, who got base hits and who scored? Are there baseball cards for these players that you can flip around and see them? Or do you even have to sort of start from scratch when it comes to collecting this stuff? Well, the Cuban Baseball Federation has the officials play by play of the championships. It is not public information. We had a lot of troubles to get it. Senate, the Cuban Department for Stats in Sports,

could not process that data, so it was like nothing. They didn't care about it, but they didn't want to give us that information. So that's the thing in Cuba. They don't care statistics a lot or enough, but they are very jealous with that information. It's the topic of Cuba. Everything is very difficult. And is there, you know, early in U.S. sabermetrics, before the research could be done, you had to make sure that you had that information. So you had to start, you know, charting it yourself, batted balls and ground balls and fly balls and line drives and all this information that wasn't even kept by anyone before that.

So have you and the other members of the group done that sort of data collection or have you mostly just tried to gain access to the data that already existed but wasn't publicly available? I think the first challenge was the access to information. After we found Play-by-Play data, Camilo Quintas, a graduate of computer science, had to create a strike to process the data. We were able to calculate the room values

of each event of each base out state in Cuba that never had been done before. Right now we know what's the probability of winning the game in every moment in Cuba in baseball that never have been done before. We have pitch by pitch information thanks to our technology that never have been done before. Another important problem is the technology. We have bits by bits information,

but we don't have all the games. We have developed technology to process video, but we don't have the cameras. We need to have all the games. So we can't have all the information right now. But beyond the access to internet, beyond the technology problem, we are facing trouble with our name. Cuban Baseball Federation wants to use Strike officially, but we cannot be independent. Carlos Del Pino, director of the stats department

of the Cuban Baseball Federation, wants to give a lot of fans who do not have internet access to information we have in our website, www.thegib.com, because we are independent. That kind of things are not possible in Cuba. And Strike is the name of your software that you've developed, right? For people who don't know, this is the software that allows you to generate these stats or to analyze these stats. Yes, Strike is the base of all of our structure for the other projects we have. Yes, Strike is the base. It's the promodial and the most important software we have. database. It's the most important software we have.

Now, are there things that sabermetricians believe to be true in major league baseball or minor league baseball that don't apply to the game in Cuba? What are the challenges when you adapt the research

that has been done in the US to Cuba? Are there differences in terms of strategy or ballpark effects or the talent level of the players there or the run environment that you've had to adjust the work that's out there now to make it work for the Cuban game? I think the most important difference with the traditional solar metrics is the way we analyze and predict performance

in short periods of time, in high pressure situations. But it is not just a Cuban thing. Every scientific theory has solid definitions. The definition of blue situations, for example, proposed by the traditional accelerometrics, it is disappointment. Accelerometricians talking about luck. I have no word for it. We have found information with important predictive value in short periods of time and high pressure situations. We have one year of practical experience with a real team

in a real championship with good results. So even the things are very complex. We have been passing through a lot of different moments in our work. I think we have done a lot of interesting things and we have been able to apply the most important theories or most important results of the American or Canadian sorry, magicians. So you just mentioned that you have found patterns or sort of predictive data in these small samples of performance under pressure, clutch situations. And that has been something that, you know, in Major League Baseball has been looked for for decades.

And so far, all we get is noise, nothing conclusive. Do you think that it's something that's different in the sport, or not in the sport, but in the leagues that it's simply that you can find it in Cuban baseball, but we can't find it for some reason here? Or do you think that you have found something that would apply to Major League Baseball and that would teach us all about Major League Baseball if we were able to see what you found? I actually see there is a problem of the way of looking or the way of analyzing that kind of situations of course I think, I really think there is a lot of information, there is a lot of important results

that they are not public because I suppose they are working with themes that the information worth money. But what I've seen is not right. We have different ways to look at things, to analyze that kind of periods of time and i think the problem is the way you are looking or the way you are starting the analytics we are we disagree with with the concept of situations we disagree with the way you analyze or the way the public information available analyze the predictive value in short period of time. We have different theories.

Even if we were kids, we have been years working. This year we have the opportunity to work with Industriales, which is one of the most important team in the country. We applied our theories and we had great results. So we know it's different baseball, but the theories we have applied in our baseball in Industriales is a theory and that theory works in every league. Now we know that's a different league, we know it's a different kind of baseball, but we think the theory works. Beyond that, the industrialists have been used and have been, had results with our theories. We think the theory works.

Well, that's fascinating. We'd love to know more about what you've found someday, but I realize that you probably can't share love to know more about what you've found someday, but I realize that you probably can't share all of your research now that you are working with the team. So can you tell us how that worked? Because in the major leagues, it took years or decades for this research to be accepted by teams and for people who did this research to be allowed to work for teams. So you were founded in 2012, it sounds like, officially, and you had been doing this research on your own for a while. And at what point did you decide to approach teams to ask if you could work with them and offer the kind of information that you have had.

And did you find many of them to be receptive? Or was it just one team that saw the value in what you're doing? Well, we started like a group of friends who share a passion, I suppose. who share passion, I suppose. Now we have members who are graduate of computer science, engineers or mathematicians, philosophers, psychologists. I don't know, the things has changed, has changed a lot. We are officially in August, 2012, but we have been working for a lot of years before, especially Camilo and I.

I tell you, we have been doing things like we were playing with theme or with thought. We were a group of friends having fun, but this became something different and something pero esto se convirtió en algo diferente, en algo útil. Realizamos eso y nos fuimos a tomar esto en serio. Y en ese momento intentamos hacer nuestro trabajo en la forma en que podíamos vender un producto. in the way we can sell products. I'm not only saying because the money. I'm trying to say like putting the way in the manner or in the context of managers and people of baseball who don't understand anything about math can be used for our work.

When we started to do that, we received the offer of working with industrialists. work with more weeks or weaker teams but they didn't want to work with us with us but industrialist Vargas is a very small person I've been knowing that for a while for a year I know he has changed with us even his trust in us has changed but in first he was the only person who trusted us now we are very popular in cuba we have offer of 16s we have offers even in leagues outside of Cuba. But in the start, Vargas and Carlos del Pino weren't the only persons who worked or who trust in us and wanted to work with us. Now we have, I don't know, 17 seasons of the Cuban baseball.

We have the last 10 years of different categories in Cuban baseball. I think under 23 years, under 21 years, under 18 years, we have access to a lot of different projects of all the training system of Cuban baseball, all the report medics or medical reports every team season in the last few years right now we have a lot of great results even we have a system of i don't know how can i say that in english to predict uh lesions or injuries i think's the right term in English. Injuries in Cuban players. So in the moment, we are in a very great moment. But not always was like this. Do you find that players are interested in what you find?

Are they hostile to what you find? Or are they just indifferent? And I guess same question for the average Cuban baseball fan okay when we started to pull to war with industrialists and the players didn't like us they really didn't like us they they weren't happy we started to play like example, I don't know how to say that in English, defensive positions, location of the defense. I don't know if I'm saying it right. Yes, you mean defensive shifting or positioning? defensive shifting or positioning okay exactly and they didn't like but after a while the second base really raised always look to the to the bank or the bench and say when i put it down where what i have to play now there i did it he did in a moment he where I have to play now. There I did it.

He did so in a moment he didn't like to play without without our position or localization for every player. So I think we we have been changing the the minds in the players, at least in industrials. We right now we have a great relationship with the players. We talk a lot with the players. We even joking with the players. It's important to say we, in Cuba, right now the people think we made the decisions. When it goes right, they think we are genius. When it goes wrong, they think we are the worst people in the world faithful. But we are only consultants.

The merit is Lázaro Vargas. Lázaro Vargas is the manager. We talk a lot. We give him a daily report with, I don't know, how can I optimize the lineup, how to use his players in every situation. We have been growing in this year, but the decision, at least in the end, was Lázaro Vargas. It had been made by Lázaro Vargas. But we are enjoying the process, we have learned a lot, and we are very happy, what can I tell you. In the fans, in Cuba it was very complicated to know or to have access to statistics. I don't know if you have connected to the official side of the Cuban Baseball Federation,

but I don't know. I don't want to talk about it. The Cuban fans of baseball, they didn't know how to get access to any kind of different stats or advanced stats. para tener acceso a cualquier tipo de estatus diferente o avanzado. Así que tenemos mucha apreciación por ellos. Ellos nos han mostrado... No sé, no quiero hablar porque parece que estoy hablando sobre mí mismo, pero estoy muy feliz. like I'm talking about myself but I'm very happy we all are very happy with with we come we is what we have been able to do I repeat our website is www.thegib.com

we have a lot of free information that never has been seen before about Cuban baseball. It's a clear part of all the information we have. It sounds like in certain respects, Cuba might be ahead of the U.S. in terms of presenting these statistics. In that, Eric told me that he discovered your group because he was watching a Cuban baseball broadcast and he saw stats like Babbitt and ERA Plus on that broadcast that even today you don't see on most American TV channels. Is that something that has really caught on in the last couple of years, where if you watch a Cuban baseball game on TV or you listen on the radio or you read in the paper you will hear people talking about these things in a moment when we started we

didn't have access to intern we have known or we found we found, we realized that there were people who knew things that we did not, but we didn't know exactly what they were doing. It was impossible for us to have access to internet, so we were blind. We have to do a lot of things for our own. So in that process I think we have changed and Cuba has changed. Now every Sunday we have in the national television we have a game of MLB so but this is only one year ago. After the last few years the country has changed I think we have to do at least a little thing for the change but yes we in general the Cuban baseball fans they didn't know a lot about MLM they don't know anything about

cybermetricians or advanced stats or that kind of things I think the broadcast as I told you now we have now popular and suddenly everyone's or the people who talk in TV shows and that kind of things wants to talk about solar metrics or that kind of things. in Cuba. But I don't think they are really interested. I think it's like, I don't know how can I say that more in English. It's like something in the moment, something right now. I hope, I hope the authorities and the people who have the power in baseball, who have the power to make change in baseball, to do things important in baseball, open their minds. We have to work in that way. We have to do a lot of things. We are doing a lot of things.

But I think we are, Cuban in general, is blind with respect of the world. And it sounds like you have tried to reach out and educate people on your website. I see that you have video tutorials and you have information about courses in sabermetrics that you've offered. So it sounds like you have tried to spread the word to other people in the area. Yes, we are trying.

I think the problem with the Cuban is not the predisposition or interest in fans or the common fans. I listen to young people for for the psychometrics or for the science applied to baseball, I think the problem is the access to information. So we are trying to do with people or to make for people the things we couldn't have.

So we are trying to do the course or to teach some class or that kind of things to spread at least the basic knowledge about our metrics. So I think that is important for us. We are doing a lot of things, but I think that is an important thing for us. We are trying to do it. We don't think we are perfect, but we are doing. And last thing, have you done any work on translating Cuban stats to the majors or projecting what Cuban players will do once they reach the majors?

Yes, we have done some projections. We have done a lot of work on that kind of subject. But how much are you going to pay me? that kind of subject. But how much are you going to buy me? I only can tell you that within that, we expect it has a worth around 4.45. So I think that enough. Uh-huh. And is there anyone in Cuba now who you expect to make the same jump to the US within the next year or two that people should be excited about seeing? Yes, I think there is a lot of talent in Cuba. The talent is a subjective concept,

but in the last few years, I think the heroes, or the Cuban heroes, have shown or have proved that they have been able to adapt or to succeed in minor league baseball. No, the pitchers have not had much problems in the last few years. no tuvimos muchos problemas en los últimos años y eso es consistente con nuestra investigación. Pensamos que hay algunas películas, pero realmente creemos que hay algunos jugadores, un par de héroes que pueden suceder en las grandes, en las minor leagues, pero otra vez, esa información es privada. En cualquier caso, tenemos un par de jugadores industriales We have a few players of industrialist players who we think they are great, but even this conversation has been located in the island here, like not so good. Barcelona, Cuban players, Cuban heroes had the possibility of us, the possibility to succeed in my leagues, I think. I don't know if you can tell me this, but is there a level of American baseball that

you would consider the talent there to be equivalent to? You know, a lot of people will will say that the japanese baseball is somewhere between triple a and the major league level have you come up with a similar estimate of of where the cuban talent level falls on on the that same spectrum i think I think our baseball has players who can play in minor leagues, but there are players who I think they couldn't play even in a rookie league in the United States. So it's a tricky question. Uh huh. I see. Okay. Well, this has been really fascinating and we wish you the best of luck with your work and your research and people can read about a lot of it on your website. As you said, it's thegib.com, which is T-H-E-G-I-I-B dot com.

And people can read about some of the research that you've done and who your members are and can download some videos and stats to learn more about Cuban baseball. And I will link to that in our Facebook group and on Baseball Perspectives. And I'll also link to Eric's Sports Illustrated article so that you can read a bit more about the group. And it's been really interesting to talk to. Thank you, Alejandro. Thank you to you, but I want to apologize for my English.

It's not as good as we would like, so thank you. It's been great, thank you. So that's it for this week. Please send us emails for next week at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And again, I will post a link to Alejandro's organization on there. Please rate and review us and subscribe to us on iTunes. And please support our sponsor, baseballreference.com.

iTunes and please support our sponsor baseball reference.com subscribe to the play index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription so have a wonderful weekend and we will be back next week