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Kenley Jansen: ‘Analytics will not win you championships’
Kenley Jansen: ‘Analytics will not win you championships’
Boston Red Sox reliever Kenley Jansen is amongst the crowd that believes following analytics is not the best strategy to win. He might have a compelling case.
“Let me put it this way: analytics will not win you championships because the numbers are the numbers but you don’t know how that’s going to feel,” Jansen said on WEEI’s “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast with Rob Bradford.
“Sometimes we go against numbers because we think that a starter when they pitch 75 pitches and then from 75-100 that’s when they get hit around, that’s not true. You just got to see how the guy is doing out there.”
This is definitely true. All I can think about when I read this type of quote is Blake Snell being pulled from Game 6 of the 2020 World Series. Snell tossed just 73 pitches of dominant baseball before being pulled in the sixth inning, much to the dismay of baseball fans everywhere. This trend of removing pitchers to “protect” them or in the name of analytics is blasphemous, and it backfired on the Tampa Bay Rays during that series.
As for Jansen, he has pitched for 14 big-league seasons, mostly with the Dodgers. Bradford asked Jansen if one of the three teams, LA, the Braves, or the Red Sox were overly heavy on analytics. Jansen responded with a smile.
“I’m not going to mention names,” he said. “I’m just going to tell you one is super heavy, one is old school, and one is in between. I’m not saying names, that’s for you to figure out.”
Both Sides Have The Same Information
Jansen is making friends with the old heads of baseball, but he’s actually delivering a unique perspective. Jansen went on to add that just because a stat tells you to throw a pitch at a certain time. Therefore, both sides have access to that same stat, so both can gain the same competitive advantage. He also mentions that the best pitch you’ve had may not agree with the numbers.
“The game is still the game,” Jansen said. “What can analytics do for me? For reasons in certain spots, I’m dominant and you should pitch only that part. That’s not true because how did I get to that part? I don’t want to talk about my game and be too predictable but I’m just saying how analytics can be like ‘Oh, you should only pitch here because guys have .048 batting average against you, you should only pitch there.’ No, it’s not, because how did I get there?“
I’m gonna be more bound to believe a guy like Kenley Jansen rather than any regular Joe. I think the most impactful part of this interview was the last part because Jansen does argue that analytics doesn’t mean an advantage to one side or another, but to both sides. Also, he mentions that maybe the best pitch in that situation is one that hasn’t been working for you that night.
What do you think about the right-hander’s perspective?
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