Browns hire Jonah Hill....err Paul DePodesta as CSO

[Westside Steve]

Am I the only one here who has doubts about whether or not Jimmy Haslam and his wife are bright enough to have clue number one about this magic system?

 

WSS

[gftChris]

Am I the only one here who has doubts about whether or not Jimmy Haslam and his wife are bright enough to have clue number one about this magic system?

 

WSS

They'll have as much chance of understanding it as a leech has of a jet ski. But, they don't need to, as long as the people in charge do.

[TexasAg1969]

They'll have as much chance of understanding it as a leech has of a jet ski. But, they don't need to, as long as the people in charge do.

 

This. He is hiring smarter people than all of us put together with innovative ideas on how to build a team. Their first big task is finding the right HC and then all together finding the right GM. As Charley Casserly said this morning, this seems to be a backwards way of doing it, but we shall see over time if it works out well for the Browns.

[bbedward]

Am I the only one here who has doubts about whether or not Jimmy Haslam and his wife are bright enough to have clue number one about this magic system?

 

WSS

Nope - but maybe Sashimi Brown and Jonah HIll are bright enough to make it work. Of course it also requires getting the right "GM" and coach

 

 

We aren't trying to catch up to other teams, we're trying to forge our own path. I think that's pretty cool.

 

I like it, too.

 

I'm sick of continuing to follow the Chiefs/Seahawks model or whaever the hell we've been trying to do - let's fuck shit up so in a few years other teams are following the Browns model.

 

It could fail in 2, 3 years like everything else we've done, and I could be whining and complaining about it like everybody else - but screw it, I'll be optimistic dammit.

 

Our real QBOTF is in the 2016 draft too. We might just get it right this time.

[Johnny Fingers Farmer]

Am I the only one here who has doubts about whether or not Jimmy Haslam and his wife are bright enough to have clue number one about this magic system?

 

WSS

My fear is they won't but will act like they do and use it as their main metric of decision making. That's how you get combine warriors. Al Davis used speed as his. It didn't matter if a receiver dropped 9 out of 10 passes or a db couldn't tackle. Is he fast was all that mattered.

[tinythinker]

Well, no reason at this point not to try something different. If it works, the owner gets credit for being committed to the team's success, the hires are hailed as visionary or cutting edge, and the fans get a team that isn't a perpetual punch line. If it fails, it's just another swing and miss.

[Mudfly]

Analytics will become the new "D scheme"......

 

Every pick or signing that goes wrong will now be due to.....analytics

[Tim Couch Pulls Out]

Analytics will become the new "D scheme"......

 

Every pick or signing that goes wrong will now be due to.....analytics

 

The amount of butthurt dripping from your posts is hilarious.

[Mudfly]

Just my prediction....

 

Im not butthurt....Ive absolutely LOVED watching my team get shredded for the last 25 years.....its fun....

 

And the amount of stupid and immature that drips from your posts is disturbing.....old....and predictable....

[Tim Couch Pulls Out]

Just my prediction....

 

Im not butthurt....Ive absolutely LOVED watching my team get shredded for the last 25 years.....its fun....

 

And the amount of stupid and immature that drips from your posts is disturbing.....old....and predictable....

 

Awwww.

[Tour2ma]

Am I the only one here who has doubts about whether or not Jimmy Haslam and his wife are bright enough to have clue number one about this magic system?

No way, brah! And Jimmah has hisself smack in the middle of the decision process.

 

However, my hope is that he invests enough in the approach that he can't go against it early and early success leads to continued commitment.

[Johnny Fingers Farmer]

I'm not sure it matters how much he invests. How many millions were paid out this year to coaches that weren't even with the team. If we can say Haslam has one redeeming quality. It's he isn't afraid to throw money at a problem.

[Tour2ma]

True, but the "severance" of the last couple regimes can also be considered part of the investment in the new approach...

[hoorta]

Well, no reason at this point not to try something different. If it works, the owner gets credit for being committed to the team's success, the hires are hailed as visionary or cutting edge, and the fans get a team that isn't a perpetual punch line. If it fails, it's just another swing and miss.

 

BUT-

IMHO, for a lot of fans Jimmy is down to two outs, two strikes in the bottom of the 9th. He can't afford another strikeout, the hardcore fans are going to give up (or already have). or us oldsters who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60 are gonna be dead. Notice all those Terrible Yellow butt rags being waved around First Energy when it became obvious the Squealers had made the playoffs? A couple more losing seasons, and the Stadium will be a ghost town Sunday populated by opposing teams fans..

 

I was listening to the sports call-in here in Dayton Monday, the majority of the discussion obviously was about the Bengals, but it was pretty sad hearing Browns fan after Browns fan call and say this was the last straw, we're tuning out or switching over to Bungle Fandom.

 

I think I mentioned to Mud- we're down in Cubs fans territory. With the NFL salary cap- it's amazing we haven't been able to put together a Super Bowl level team since 1999. Hell the Panthers were there, went in the dumpster, and now are back again. How's that for getting your frustration level to a boil?

[Tim Couch Pulls Out]

 

BUT-

IMHO, for a lot of fans Jimmy is down to two outs, two strikes in the bottom of the 9th. He can't afford another strikeout, the hardcore fans are going to give up (or already have). or us oldsters who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60 are gonna be dead. Notice all those Terrible Yellow butt rags being waved around First Energy when it became obvious the Squealers had made the playoffs? A couple more losing seasons, and the Stadium will be a ghost town Sunday populated by opposing teams fans..

 

I was listening to the sports call-in here in Dayton Monday, the majority of the discussion obviously was about the Bengals, but it was pretty sad hearing Browns fan after Browns fan call and say this was the last straw, we're tuning out or switching over to Bungle Fandom.

 

I think I mentioned to Mud- we're down in Cubs fans territory. With the NFL salary cap- it's amazing we haven't been able to put together a Super Bowl level team since 1999. Hell the Panthers were there, went in the dumpster, and now are back again. How's that for getting your frustration level to a boil?

 

 

 

 

As long as it's a profitable venture, Jimmy will be here. It doesn't matter what count we give him, he's not going anywhere.

 

Truth be told, I'd buy the team too if I was guaranteed to make money regardless of how shitty it is. It's basically a no-lose situation for him.

[hoorta]

 

 

As long as it's a profitable venture, Jimmy will be here. It doesn't matter what count we give him, he's not going anywhere.

 

Truth be told, I'd buy the team too if I was guaranteed to make money regardless of how shitty it is. It's basically a no-lose situation for him.

 

Not saying Jimmy won't be here- I'm positing the fans won't. You'd have to be around 37 to remember the last time the Browns were consistently any good. Fans younger than that have only seen yet another edition of the Factory of Sadness. Of course, an NFL owner can make money playing to an empty stadium- it's all about television revenue.

[Tim Couch Pulls Out]

 

Not saying Jimmy won't be here- I'm positing the fans won't. You'd have to be around 37 to remember the last time the Browns were consistently any good. Fans younger than that have only seen yet another edition of the Factory of Sadness. Of course, an NFL owner can make money playing to an empty stadium- it's all about television revenue.

 

It's basically a set it and forget it venture for him - just as it was for Randy.

 

You think it's a coincidence that there's going to be like 5 people in between him and the general manager now?

[Unsympathetic]

We don't know that everything won't be secondary to the GM..

 

We also don't know what the models are that are being used..

 

It's objectively wrong to think that because AlDavis used to draft speed with zero football IQ.. therefore we will also.. That was just the model Al chose to use.. and it was wrong.

 

Believe it or not, Al Davis didn't invent the "only" model for evaluating talent that exists.

[bbedward]

Yea what we're setting up isn't anything like Al Davis had.

 

It's probably the closest to what the Patriots have, albeit a bit more people involved and a bit more convoluted sounding.

 

To me, I think DePodesta was the missing piece that makes this whole thing make sense.

 

Sashimi Brown running football ops and doing analytics? Not a lot of sense - but bringing in this guy too definitely paints the picture a bit more whole.

[Mark O]

Not sure if this has been posted already...but I read this and I'm a bit more encouraged.....



Haslam has been looking for answers, mostly in vain, as Browns owner.

The first thing you have to do is get out of your head Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand character in the Moneyball movie. Overweight, unathletic and socially awkward, Hill played a character based on DePodesta and intended to use DePodesta’s name. But the role was such a sloppy, inaccurate caricature that DePodesta insisted his name be removed from the script. (DePodesta actually was a letter-winner on the 1994 Harvard football team as a wide receiver, listed at 5-9, 160 pounds.)

Moneyball is the well told if selective narrative of how the Oakland Athletics used analytics—much of it driven by DePodesta/Brand—to gain an edge on their competition, never mind that Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, three aces in their prime, were starting about 100 games a year for the A’s. Oakland hired DePodesta from Cleveland, where analytics had been in full bloom, and where the franchise was a hothouse of front-office talent.

• WHO’LL COACH THE BROWNS? Peter King weighs in on the best fits for Cleveland, other coaching openings

From 1998 to 2008, the Indians employed 10 current or future general managers—John Hart, Dan O’Dowd, Mark Shapiro, Byrnes, DePodesta, Neal Huntington, Chris Antonetti, Ross Atkins, Mike Hazen and Mike Chernoff—as well as past and future managers Bud Black, John Farrell, Terry Francona and Buck Showalter.

The Indians of the mid-’90s were one of the first clubs to establish sophisticated video advance scouting systems. Around the same time, they expanded their pro scouting system to include more detailed reports on all minor league players, and soon began using statistical analysis to supplement those reports.

In 1998, for instance, Byrnes, then the assistant director of scouting, and DePodesta, then an assistant in baseball operations, used those reports to scout for hidden gems in the minor league systems of other organizations. They found in the Detroit Tigers system a 26-year-old outfielder who had never advanced beyond Double-A and had very little power. They noticed that he did, however, show a consistent knack for getting on base—then an undervalued skill.

The player’s Double-A on-base percentage was .434 on June 24, 1998. That’s when the Indians traded slugger Geronimo Berroa to get pitcher Tim Worrell and this speedy outfielder who was dead-ended in the Tigers system: Dave Roberts. Though Roberts had a tough time cracking the talented Indians’ lineup, he did go on to play 10 seasons in the major leagues, had the most famous and significant stolen base in Boston Red Sox history and was recently hired by Byrnes’ Dodgers to be their manager. (Berroa was out of baseball in three years, having hit just two home runs after the trade.)

After Oakland, DePodesta had a run as Dodgers general manager that lasted only 20 months before he was fired, a four-year run as an executive with the Padres, and his five-year stint with the Mets. One colleague with the Mets, who said he was not surprised by DePodesta leaving for football, described him as someone “always looking for a challenge,” who was “not just a baseball guy.” He characterized him as a brilliant systems analyst who “does not like confrontations,” a trait that may have worked against him in his tenure with the Dodgers.

With the Browns, however, as a football source pointed out, Haslam smartly empowered DePodesta in what has been a chaotic organizational flow chart by having him report directly to the owner. By answering only to Haslam, DePodesta, an NFL outsider, now has unquestioned authority and can designate others to handle day-to-day confrontations. It was not immediately clear if DePodesta would move his family to Cleveland or continue to use the San Diego area as his home.

DePodesta’s first big move will be the hiring of a head coach. Based on the model used by analytically inclined baseball teams, he is likely to hire a coach who may not have much experience but who is comfortable implementing the business practices and systems endorsed if not created by the front office (though not necessarily offensive and defensive schemes). That’s a sharp turn from the old-school football model in which the coach sets the culture. The manager/coach as key conduit rather than majordomo—former Rays and current Cubs manager Joe Maddon is a prime such figure—was a vital component in Haslam’s “best policies” tour.

DePodesta was VP of player development and scouting for the Mets for five seasons.
Photo: Paul J. Bereswill/AP
DePodesta was VP of player development and scouting for the Mets for five seasons.

In The Patient Will See You Now, Topol, the director of Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego, argued for a very different future in medicine, one in which smartphones replace doctor visits for diagnostic tasks, and big data empowers providers to better treat and even cure disease. According to the Dec. 15 release from STSI, the book resonated with DePodesta because he was “looking to apply his skills and knowledge to a field with global impact.”

The announcement of his hiring was billed as “Moneyball Comes to Medicine.”

Explained DePodesta in the release, “In disciplines as disparate as baseball, financial services, trucking and retail, people are realizing the power of data to help make better decisions. Medicine is just beginning to explore this opportunity, but it faces many of the same barriers that existed in those other sectors—deeply held traditions, monolithic organizational and operational structures, and a psychological resistance to change.” (DePodesta interestingly used trucking— Haslam’s business—as one of his examples.)

Deeply held traditions … monolithic organizational and operational structures … psychological resistance to change … DePodesta might well have been talking about the National Football League.

• A REVOLVING DOOR IN THE FACTORY OF SADNESS: Jenny Vrentas on the Browns’ perpetual search for stability

He knows he will encounter resistance, even if most of it will be external. The information revolution in football is underway, but it lags behind the one in baseball, which is fully populated with types like DePodesta who have long entered the next stage: synthesizing the information with on-field knowledge and observation. Some day, for instance, just as we wonder now why baseball teams used to play their defense straight up for every batter instead of shifting, we might look back and wonder why teams punted away the football so darn much.

Immediately, though, DePodesta’s challenge is not how the Browns play football as much as it is how the organization is structured and how it evaluates, acquires and develops talent in a holistic manner. With his year scouring for information, Haslam understood that his Browns, long a disorganized mess, were in serious need of organizational repair. And when he found his man, he might well have borrowed from DePodesta’s summer reading list to explain to him the challenge ahead: “The patient will see you now.”

[Westside Steve]

I'm not sure it matters how much he invests. How many millions were paid out this year to coaches that weren't even with the team. If we can say Haslam has one redeeming quality. It's he isn't afraid to throw money at a problem.

Well, as long as you can talk a good line of shit you can bamboozle a rich old idiot.

It's probably easier what are you know anything about the subject or not because whatever you make up sounds good to him.

 

Damn, that's a nice codpiece Emperor.

 

WSS

[Tour2ma]

It's probably the closest to what the Patriots have, albeit a bit more people involved and a bit more convoluted sounding.

Everything is easy when an organization is unstressed... and can you name a less stressed organization than the Patriots? Even piled atop each other all the of "Gates" don't add up to back-to-back losing seasons.

 

So this model, which as you point out we are only "close to" (and not really that close), has never been stress tested. Odds are great that it could survive almost anything now, but in year's 2 and 3?

 

Not sure if this has been posted already...but I read this and I'm a bit more encouraged.....

 

==========================================================================

"With the Browns, however, as a football source pointed out, Haslam smartly empowered DePodesta in what has been a chaotic organizational flow chart by having him report directly to the owner. By answering only to Haslam, DePodesta, an NFL outsider, now has unquestioned authority and can designate others to handle day-to-day confrontations. It was not immediately clear if DePodesta would move his family to Cleveland or continue to use the San Diego area as his home.

 

He knows he will encounter resistance... Immediately, though, DePodesta’s challenge is not how the Browns play football as much as it is how the organization is structured and how it evaluates, acquires and develops talent in a holistic manner."

Was a good read... except for the depressing part about the Indians. (Any hint as to why that once leading analytics club has fallen on hard times?)

 

But once again the Organizational Dynamics as projected in the article are just off... but I'll put that harp away. At least the external resistance mentioned for some reason is a non-factor.

 

The saving grace for the new org is the honeymoon factor... if anywhere near the right people are hired and involved in developing the org, then should get about an 18-month grace period. If someone is truly monitoring and shepherding the process, then there's a chance for it.

 

But not seeing Podesto as that guy. The process is more than analytics and will require a full-time presence, not a SoCal commuter.

[Tour2ma]

Mods,

I think this is different enough to stand on its own for a couple days anyway.

 

We've (or at least I've) been focusing on Podesta bringing a sabermetric sieve to our scouting process. That was before I came across the following article.

 

The basic take of the writer is that Podesta is not here to set up analytics to pick the better of two players. He is here to set up analytics to determine whether the higher cost of the more expensive option is worth the investment.

 

Now as the author is a mainstay at overthecap.com he may well have a bias towards this view, but I still found it a worthwhile and interesting read.

 

===============================================================================

 

Analytics, Technocrats, & the Distinction Between Talent Evaluation and Resource Allocation

 

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Bryce Johnston

 

http://overthecap.com/analytics-technocrats-the-distinction-between-player-evaluation-and-resource-allocation/#more-11105

 

Earlier today the Cleveland Browns hired Paul DePodesta away from the New York Mets to assume the newly created role of Chief Strategy Officer. As a key figure in Moneyball the book and the basis for Jonah Hill’s character in Moneyball the movie, DePodesta is closely associated with sports analytics. Because of DePodesta’s association with analytics and the fact that his experience as an executive lies in baseball, the reactions to this hire were, unsurprisingly, quite strong.

• Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports: “The Paul DePodesta hire could be revolutionary. We’re about to find out, truly, for better or worse, whether advanced analytics works in NFL.”
• Louis Riddick of ESPN: “There is a place for objective/data driven analysis to co-exist with the largely subjective process of football team building. But it will NEVER replace it. Learn the game. First. The popularity of the sport has made many wish they could objectify the game because they are either unwilling or unable to learn the game.”
• Albert Breer of NFL Network: “I have my doubts about the effectiveness of analytics in football. But maybe I’m like the old Moneyball scout grading guys on their gf’s.”

First, I would point out that individuals with an analytics acumen would likely disagree with La Canfora that a sample size of one team is enough to prove or disprove the utility of anything. Second, I would point out that Riddick falls into the same trap as the sabermetric skeptics of the post-Moneyball era in assuming that proponents of analytics intend for it to completely replace subjective evaluation. Proponents of analytics have, from the beginning, advocated for a balance between the two approaches.

 

More importantly, I think the reactions of league observers may be misplaced as a result of conflating the two primary decision-making processes that each front office must continually undertake. The first decision-making process resolves around determining which players are better than other players. This is the talent evaluation process. The talent evaluation process can be performed subjectively (scouting/film study), objectively (analytics) or based on a combination of the two. The second decision-making process resolves around determining which price to pay (in terms of salary cap space and/or draft picks) to acquire the contractual right to the performance of a given player. This is the resource allocation process. The resource allocation process involves executing transactions on the basis of the results of the talent evaluation process. Ideally, each individual in a football operations department should have a clear role supporting one of these two processes, based on the skills and experience of the given individual.

 

Most NFL General Managers are hired due to their perceived expertise in the talent evaluation process. They are typically “football guys” who have risen through the ranks of scouting departments and have developed a reputation for being able to identify talented players more effectively than their peers. Most, however, do not appear to have any discernable claim to expertise in the resource allocation process. A career spent playing, studying and/or coaching football does not prepare oneself to efficiently allocate $150 million worth of salary cap space and numerous draft picks across dozens of roster spots while competing against 31 opponents under conditions of CBA-enforced scarcity of resources. The two processes require completely different skill sets, but the NFL has historically operated as a technocracy in which scouting technocrats typically perform both roles.

 

League observers seem to be under the impression that the primary motive for the Browns hiring DePodesta is to convert the organization from employing a subjective talent evaluation process to an objective talent evaluation process. In other words, to cause the organization to bring analytics and scouting onto equal footing. While this may be part of the motivation for the hire, I suspect that the primary motivation was to secure the services of an executive with a claim to expertise related to the resource allocation process. DePodesta would seem to fit this description. The thesis of Moneyball, after all, was that a team can gain a competitive advantage by developing methods to allocate its resources more efficiently than other teams.

 

If this is the case, DePodesta can make a positive impact on the Browns without making any changes to the talent evaluation process (although I do not doubt that he will make changes). Scouting and film study can continue to reign supreme over quantification of performance and talent. The key difference will be that after hearing the Browns’ scouts explain why think Player X is better than Player Y and how much better they think Player X is than Player Y, DePodesta will have the authority to decide if the price necessary to acquire Player X is worth the incremental cost as compared to the price necessary to acquire Player Y. In my view, one of the primary causes for Chip Kelly’s downfall was that he possessed authority over both the talent evaluation process and the resource allocation process, but seemed to ignore the questions demanded of the resource allocation process and instead favored his technocratic talent evaluation judgments.

 

DePodesta’s title – Chief Strategy Officer – is telling. If the Browns hired DePodesta to elevate analytics to an even footing with scouting, or even to largely replace scouting with analytics, they could have easily given him a more traditional title such as General Manager or President of Football Operations. These titles would have indicated that he is filling a familiar role, but would perform such role differently. Instead, they gave him a novel title to, I suspect, emphasize that he is performing a new role. As such, I think this move is less about altering the methods of the talent evaluation process and more about elevating the resource allocation process to a position of supremacy within the organization. I predict that if the Browns experience success during DePodesta’s tenure, the result will not be that technocrats lose their talent evaluation jobs to analytically inclined executives, but rather that analytically inclined executives will step into organizational structures as the bosses of the technocrats. Football lifers should determine who can block and tackle, but hedge fund managers, CFOs, and corporate lawyers should make the final decisions as to asset management and risk allotment.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Bryce Johnston is the creator of Commitment Index and the co-creator of Expected Contract Value. Bryce earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in May 2014, and currently works as a corporate associate in the New York City office of an AmLaw 50 law firm. Before becoming a contributor to overthecap.com, Bryce operated eaglescap.com for 10 NFL offseasons, appearing multiple times on 610 WIP Sports Radio in Philadelphia as an NFL salary cap expert. Bryce can be contacted via e-mail at bryce.l.johnston@gmail.com or via Twitter @NFLCapAnalytics.

[Tour2ma]

Mods,

I think this is different enough to stand on its own for a couple days anyway.

... or just merge the piss out of it so it's gets no attention...

[hoorta]

... or just merge the piss out of it so it's gets no attention...

 

Good read Tour.

 

Ghoolie on resource allocation, Joe Thomas = huge waste of money.

[Furious Styles]

Analytics NEVER won the A's an AL pennant less on a World Series. People talk up Beane as if the A's won CHAMPIONSHIPS during his time.

[Mudfly]

The basic take of the writer is that Podesta is not here to set up analytics to pick the better of two players. He is here to set up analytics to determine whether the higher cost of the more expensive option is worth the investment.

 

Now as the author is a mainstay at overthecap.com he may well have a bias towards this view, but I still found it a worthwhile and interesting read.

 

Ok.....so if Im understanding this....once the talent level has been established by the talent evaluator, Podesta will be the guy who establishes value in terms of purchase price or salary?....

 

Or.....does he establish the price based upon player A @ X$.....vs.....player B @ X $.............

 

Because I do see a difference there....

 

The good part is that a guy like this would definitely prevent the $9m Bowe or $8m Kruger.....right?

 

The bad part is that we could still end up with LOTS of average players that factor out to be the better pound for pound value, than their higher paid counterparts.....(who also happen to be the difference makers).....

 

Which leads me to speculate that Jimmys focus may be on preventing over paying players(like Bowe), more than gaining the best talent available....(no matter the price).......

 

Almost feels Dolan-ish......

[jrb12711]

Analytics NEVER won the A's an AL pennant less on a World Series. People talk up Beane as if the A's won CHAMPIONSHIPS during his time.

 

I always crack up when people say stuff like this. You mofos are talking about winning championships when we hardly win four games a year. If this strategy even gets to be playoff contenders I'd give them a key to the city.

[TexasAg1969]

 

I always crack up when people say stuff like this. You mofos are talking about winning championships when we hardly win four games a year. If this strategy even gets to be playoff contenders I'd give them a key to the city.

 

LOL!

[Furious Styles]

 

I always crack up when people say stuff like this. You mofos are talking about winning championships when we hardly win four games a year. If this strategy even gets to be playoff contenders I'd give them a key to the city.

Too bad your expectations are now so low.

You're going to end up with 53 Vernon Gholstons.