Skepticism about the White Sox process

Source: southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com --- Monday, June 27, 2016
One of the things you hear all the time in Baseball analysis, especially from people who think of themselves as “data-driven” or “analytical,” is that the appropriate way to judge people and decisions is on the process, not the results. Smart moves don’t always pay off, and bad ones turn out just fine sometimes, so the outcome of a choice isn’t the most important aspect of assessing a decision (if it should be considered at all). What goes less often discussed is that assessing process is much easier said than done. We don’t know how the sausage gets made—what the scouts said, what the analysts suggested, if the owner thought it was worth his money. (In Baseball, unfortunately, it’s always his money, but that’s an article for another day.) We in the public sphere judge transactions based on the eye test, some reports from aspiring scouts, and incomplete public analytics like PECOTA. A major league organization has numerous people with substantial expertise working full-time in each of these areas, so it would be foolish to think they have the same approach or rely on the same information as even the most knowledgeable fan. Puzzling out why a decision was made is even harder in the case of the White Sox, as the precise division of responsibility between Executive Vice President Kenny Williams and GM Rick Hahn remains unclear nearly four years after they assumed their current positions. Of course, if you don’t know what information ...

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