Acta gets the Farmstros Endorsement

Acta was a foreign FA. It’s hard to notice it from listening to him speak, but Acta is a DR native.

He’s shown a tenacity for sabermetrics which is looking at the numbers and putting your players in the best possible position to win. Mark Shapiro is one of the best GM’s in baseball and if I’m recalling correctly he does take numbers into account when making GM decisions. I don’t want to say he’s a full blown sabermetric GM like Billy Beane but I do believe they are apart of his decision making process. It’s only fitting that one of the best GM’s would be going after one of the most intelligent managers available. I haven’t heard anything about the Toronto position, was Cito Gaston let go?

Acta had a bad gig in Washington, mostly due to the front office (the GM was under investigation) which provided him less than ideal players, most organizations understand this. His intelligence makes him one of the hottest manager prospects at the moment. Think Terry Francona before he went to the Red Sox (Phillies) or Bill Belicheck before going to the Patriots (Browns).

First, he has more than just 3 years coaching the Nats. He started his coaching career as a player-coach in 1991, and managed in the minors until 2000, winning a championship along the way. He also spent 3 years as Frank Robinson’s 3B coach and a while as Willie Randolph’s 3B coach.

He also showed that he could do well with talent by taking the Dominican World Baseball Classic to a top 4 finish in 2006.

He’s bilingual, which goes a long way to being able to communicate directly with everyone on the team (except Kaz). This is a big selling point for the Indians, who have a lot of Latin infielders and prospects.

And in those 3 years in Washington, he apparently did a good job at helping young, inexperienced, struggling (and perhaps unqualified) players keep an even keel and manage their frustration. Baseball is hugely mental, and so this could be a major benefit to some of the young guys the Astros plan on transitioning in.

The question remaining in my mind is how well he’d be able to interact with the veterans on staff. He’s familiar with the big guys—he managed Oswalt and Berkman in the minors and Carlos Lee from managing in the Venezuelan winter league. Whether that can translate into getting hustle out of El Caballo, and getting Roy to be upfront about his health is still up in the air.

The Cleveland Asst. GM, Antonelli, developed proprietary player statistical software for the Indians, which has been compared to a more sophisticated version of PECOTA, and is in charge of developing statistical and technological systems to give the Indians an edge over other organizations. J.P. Ricciardi was a Billy Bean assistant who was hired by the Blue Jays to bring “moneyball” techniques to that team. Although he was fired at the end of this season, he was replaced by his assistant—-so I am assuming the Blue Jays are still sabermetric oriented.

Given that background, I’m not surprised that these two organizations are interested in Acta. Also I think that Acta has had the reputation in baseball circles as one of the bright young manager prospects.

Wins? I dunno. But we’d have seen a better use of bunts and attempted steals.

“the traditional stats that have been used for more than 50 years are still legit and work”

I have to disagree. For instance, if we’re going to judge by runs batted in and batting average, Tejada was a much better player than Lance Berkman in 2009.

I hope we all realize that this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

I will say one thing though: It’s not enough to just use sabermetrics. Anybody can say they use them. What’s important is that you demonstrate an understanding of them with your decisionmaking.