Phillies

The Phillies Were So Impressed With Their Sabermetrics Intern That They Hired Him

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jan 27th, 2014 · 3:52 PM EST

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A few months ago we told you about Scott Freedman, the MLB extern who was loaned out to the Phils to explain to Ruben Amaro what on-base percentage means. Well, it seems Amaro understood and was so enthralled by what Freedman told him that the team decided to bring Freedman on full-time.

From Jerry Crasnick’s sad State of the Phillies article on ESPN.com:

Amaro, by his admission, is most comfortable evaluating talent through the instincts that he developed as a player, along with the input he receives from a kitchen cabinet that includes Gillick, Dallas Green, Charlie Kerfeld, Benny Looper and Gordon Lakey. He’s particularly skeptical of some new defensive metrics that fuel front-office decisions, and he isn’t shy about sharing that opinion. The Phillies recently took a step forward with the addition of analyst Scott Freedman, who has a mandate to hasten the transition to statistical enlightenment. Freedman joined the organization from the commissioner’s office in November on a sort of trial-internship, but the Phillies liked what they saw enough to add him to their staff as a full-time hire several weeks ago.

The Phillies signed one player with a WAR – a controversial but relied upon SABR stat that values a player’s wins above a replacement level player – over 1.1 this offseason– Byrd, 4.1.

Perhaps had Freedman been around in 2012, he could’ve told Amaro that Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence were the wrong players to part ways with. Last season, they were 15th and 17th in Major League Baseball with WARs of 5.6 and 5.4, respectively.