Bloomberg+Baseball= Home Run

Written by: Paul Greco on 16th December 2009

Bloomberg+Baseball= Home Run | read this item

Last week at the Major League Baseball Winter Meetings in Indianapolis, Indiana I was invited to watch a demonstration featuring Bloomberg Sports’ new baseball statistic and analytic tool.

With two products, one for MLB professionals, and the other for Fantasy Baseball owners, the financial giant is bringing its innovative technology to the ball field. With their partnership with MLB Advanced Media, Bloomberg will bring real-time stats to life for fantasy owners, and will allow team personnel and player agents to compare past and present players as they each build for the future.

Fantasy Owners

As a founding partner of FantasyPros911.com, the demonstration on how Bloomberg Sports will take their analytics to the fantasy owner’s desktop intrigued me. The web-based client design was slick and had great usability. The Draft Kit brought together key elements that many fantasy owners are looking for on draft day.
With featured tabs like Rookies, Multi-Position eligible, “Sleepers”, “Busts”, “Rising”, “Falling”, or “Contract Year” the fantasy owner never has to leave the client during the draft. For the more advanced owners, the ability to customize the draft kit with player watch lists or rankings is available right at your finger tips.

What impressed me the most about the fantasy product was the dynamic charts and graphs available for player analysis, comparison, and customization. Shown in the Bloomberg stylish fashion, there is no other product currently on the market which presents the data as easily or understandable like this one.

If there is a downside, it lies in the absence of advanced sabermetrics, which the product currently does not offer. When I spoke to Bo Moon, one of product’s developers, he told me one of the areas he sees the project improving in the future is in the ability to handle sabermetrics data. This is going to be important if Bloomberg Sports wants to entice the more advanced fantasy owner to purchase their product.

The price of the Draft Kit and In-Season tools are affordable to many fantasy owners who are not looking to stretch their wallets this season. The Draft Kit can be pre-ordered now at
http://mlb.com/bloombergsports/ for $19.95, the In-Season tool for $24.95, or you can save 29% by purchasing both for $31.95. All tools will be available to the fantasy owner in February.

The Pro-Product

Through its relationship with MLB, Bloomberg Sports will be able to provide baseball executive with historical data dating back to the early 1900s as well as Pitch F/X data. Unlike the fantasy product, the Pro-Product, goes beyond the general statistics and allows clubs to enter in their own formula’s to help evaluate players. No longer are teams stuck with generic stats such as batting average, lefty-righty splits or home and away stats, with the new Bloomberg Pro-Product, executes can now look at advanced statistics like Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and enter in the formula (HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)*3-K*2)/IP which will help calculate a pitcher’s responsibility for the runs he allowed based on his walks, strikeouts, and home runs allowed. The tool provides baseball minds endless possibilities. Because of its ability to allow clubs to enter in their own scouting reports and statistical analysis, Bloomberg provides the same security features provided to their financial clients; namely, fingerprint identification.

The “coolest” feature shown during the entire demonstration was the software’s ability to identify pitcher tendencies (pictured left). A color coded chart displayed a pitcher’s tendency to throw certain pitches based on the inning they were in, the pitch count, which player was at bat, and if there were runner’s on-base. The example shown to the media was Jamie Moyer, starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. When Moyer started out with a first pitch change-up, the software showed that his next pitcher most likely would be “fastball”, if you want to call it that. This feature will allow managers, coaches, and players to better understand the opposing pitchers tendencies in certain situations and potentially give the batter the advantage. That being said, there still is room for improvement with the overall product. Currently there is no capability to export data to CSV files; Bloomberg has said it is working on that capability.

For baseball executives, scouts, coaches, managers and player who are constantly on the go the product is not yet supported on mobile platforms. This might be the company’s biggest drawback.

My Thoughts

My first reaction after seeing the demonstration was, “Who can I tell first?” The Pro-Product is THE best baseball analytical tool I’ve seen. The ability to do a multitude of baseball related statistics at a level that hasn’t been done or seen before will allow Bloomberg Sports to be the leader in what really is an untapped business. With a future that will include defensive metrics through the SportsVision system, and team statistical customization, Bloomberg may become the Microsoft of sports data visualization. My only plea as a fantasy baseball junkie is please take what you have in the Pro-Product and somehow make it available to us owners. The ability to add formulas and utilize sabermetrics stats will only add to the dynamic charts and graphs you’ve already made available. A home run product with nowhere else to go but up.

Paul Greco is the Associate Online Editor of Baseball Digest

Topics: Analytic Tool, Baseball Owners, Baseball Winter Meetings, Charts And Graphs, Draft Kit, Dynamic Charts, Fantasy, Fantasy Owner, Fantasy Owners, Finger Tips, Indianapolis Indiana, Innovative Technology, Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball Winter Meetings, Player Agents, Rookies, Sabermetrics, Sleepers, Stylish Fashion, Time Stats

Kyle Johnson says:

December 16, 2009 at 5:25 am

Hey Paul, great article. If the Pro-Product is as good as you say, I think Bloomberg Sports could get a leg up on other fantasy products.

That pitcher tendency thing seems pretty interesting. I wonder how many teams will buy into the product? Seems like it could help out the Mets. God knows we need the help.
Mike Stuart says:

December 18, 2009 at 3:22 am

It just makes sense!
Baseball is one of the most statistical driven sports around, and who know how to handle data better than Bloomberg?
I look forward to seeing this bloom into a “must have” for owners, coaches, fantasy junkies, and maybe even the announcers!
Theo Epstein says:

December 21, 2009 at 10:28 pm

Dude, it’s far from an “untapped” market. Teams already have this. Independent companies like Baseball Info Solutions have been providing almost identical products to teams for years. This is nothing new. People in the industry aren’t impressed like you are.
Paul Greco says:

December 21, 2009 at 10:56 pm

Hey Theo, first off love your stuff. So you named one company, awesome. There are less than hands full of companies that provide this type of information. I’ve seen all of them and NONE of them do it like Bloomberg currently does. As a matter of fact, a little inside info, Baseball Solution is already in talks with Bloomberg to see how they can incorporate their Defense stats into the Bloomberg product.

I appreciate your appetite for criticism, but the fact of the matter is, the hand full of companies that have been doing it, haven’t had the presentation, stats (thanks to MLBAM), like Bloomberg has.

Trust me pal, you’ll have this on your desk before the season starts; and you’ll love it, just like the sabermeterics you use now, except you’ll have better access to the information.

Paul
Nick Steiner says:

December 22, 2009 at 12:45 am

Paul – Most, if not all, of the stuff that Bloomberg will provide is already attainable for free in other forms. Baseball Databank has the aggregate player and team statistics since ~1870, Retrosheet has play-by-play data since 1955, and Pitch f/x has… everything since 2007 and can be updated after each at bat. All 3 of those are available in SQL form and relatively easy to obtain.

That being said, Bloomberg will provide is all of the information that you would otherwise get from multiple sources in one big database. The issue is whether or not that added accessibility is worth the money.

Good rundown by the way.
Paul Greco says:

December 22, 2009 at 2:13 am

Nick,

Bloomberg has access to all the MLBAM information through their relationship with them. Where Bloomerberg completely separates themselves is in the visualization that is given to MLB Executives.

What is not in this piece, but is in the works, will be the addition of video of each player during certain at bats or pitchers while on the mound.

As I stated above. I’ve seen many of the other products, and this is hands down the best visualization of baseball information out on the market. Their relationship with MLBAM has given them a leg up on the competition, and that is why Baseball Solution is already in talks with them to see how they might be able to work together.

As I stated in the story, soon to be the Microsoft of baseball visualization and it will be on the desktop of your favorite exec’s soon.

Paul