Greg Hayes

Selection Analysis of Atlanta Braves General Manager

Greg Hayes

10/4/14

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Greg Hayes

Executive Summary

The position of General Manager at the major league level is, one of if not, the most grueling jobs in all of professional sports. In its modern form, it has turned into a 365 day a year cycle that that includes, but is not limited to preparing for the Rule 4 Draft (amateur), preparing for Rule 5 Draft (current professional), interacting with the media as the face of the franchise front office. Evaluating his/her own current roster as well as keeping tabs on all other teams’ roster movements. Managing the club’s payroll with attention to short and long term salary cap issues while staying abreast of MLB rules. In addition, there are fan support concerns that are almost always present when the GM position comes open.

Technology, sabermetrics, and understanding of avant-garde baseball theory are all concerns that lie ultimately on the General Managers desk. Perhaps the most important job description is the innate ability to judge talent. Not simply baseball talent but the 50 to 100 men and women necessary in modern MLB team’s front offices that a GM relies upon. There are simply not enough hours in a day for a present day GM to make every decision and surrounding one’s self with quality decision makers is paramount to success. The last factor that is not as quantifiable is communication, secondary to the vision of the candidate to run the organization.

For this Atlanta job we will take into consideration a few of the factors that makes Atlanta a unique job. 1. Resourcefulness / Contract Arbitration: Big salaries and a new stadium will mean tricky and careful allocation of resources. Atlanta currently is 15th out of 30th in payroll rankings.

2. Domestic Scouting for farm system: Atlanta has a strong farm system that is a bit thin now due presumably to the fact that the current major league roster is young and has been only recently brought up from the minors. There is certainly a cyclic effect to farm system call ups but this makes me believe that a high importance must be put on talent evaluation of the prospective GM especially on the offensive side.

3. GM Salary: The Braves are going to need to take GM salary into consideration for obvious financial comparison purposes.

4. PR / Media Savvy: Ability to rally fan base and curb Low Attendance is very important factor for choosing a GM in Atlanta. The Braves preparing to move to suburban Cobb County in 2017, corporate owners, Liberty Media are surely aware that attendance is in danger of finishing at its lowest point since 1991.

5. Likelihood of winning: The fan base will be more receptive to a pick yourself up by the bootstrap candidate who has recently taken a down club and brought back the hope of winning.

Based on the factors listed above and the analysis used below, it is our recommendation to choose Dayton Moore as the next General Manager for the Atlanta Braves baseball program.

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Our team of consultants used the list of objectives below in Figure 1 to use as a baseline for selecting potential candidates for the position of the Atlanta Braves General Manager.

Figure 1. List of Objectives and Supporting Attributes.

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Potential Candidates:

The potential candidates below were chosen by looking at resumes based on the Objectives and Attributes Lists above in Figure 1. The consultant team opted to pick these three candidates based on their skills as they aligned to our vision of the future of MLB.

1. Dayton Moore – Between 1994 and 2005, Mr. Moore worked with the Braves as scout, assistant director of scouting, assistant director of player development, director of international scouting, director of player personnel development, assistant General Manager. Then in 2006, he went on to be the General Manager for the Kansas City Royals. His education consists of an undergraduate degree in Physical Education and Health and a master’s degree in Athletic Administration from George Mason University.

2. John Coppolella – From years 2000 to 2006 Mr. Coppolella worked for New York Yankees. From there he went to work for the Atlanta braves and in 2011 he was promoted to assistant General Manager, a position he still maintains. His education consists of an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame. He is known to have a strong understanding of statistics and sabermetrics.

3. Dan Kantrovitz – From the years of 2004-2008 Mr. Kantrovitz worked for the St. Louis Cardinals as amateur scouting, international scouting, professional scouting, assistance scouting director, and director of college scouting. In addition he has assisted with the creation of the Cardinals’ computer system. From the years of 2009 to 2011, he worked for the Oakland A’s as the director of the international scouting department. Mr. Kantrovitz currently works for the Cardinals as director of scouting. His education consists of an undergraduate degree from Brown University and a master’s degree in statistics from Harvard University.

Table 1. Preliminary Ranking of Decision Factors vs. Potential Candidate.

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The Decision Factors Table listed above in Table 1 was based of the consultants’ subjective ranking between zero and one hundred. The higher the number, the higher the ranking was for the candidate. Please note that pay was inversely proportional to this and based off estimated annual salaries we assumed it would take to fill the Atlanta Braves General Manager position for each candidate. In this case, a higher ranking meant a more favorable (lower) salary. Simply based off the information above, assuming all factors have the same priority, the most likely resulting candidate would be Dayton Moore with an Overall Score of 60 points. However, we will see below, by focusing in on the custom needs of this position, this result may change. Below in figure 2 is the Influence Diagram for this particular setup.

Figure 2. Baseline Influence Diagram for Atlanta Braves GM position.

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Below in Figure 3, we can view the basic decision tree used in conjunction with Table 1 to model this decision making process.

Figure 3. Baseline Decision Tree for Atlanta Braves GM position.

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Figure 4. Dayton Moore vs. Resourcefulness and Likelihood of Winning (Maximized Sensitivity for Dayton Moore).

Figure 5. John Coppolella vs. Salary and PR/Media Savvy (Maximized Sensitivity for John Coppolella).

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Figure 6. Dan Kantrovitz vs. Domestic Scouting and Salary (Maximized Sensitivity for Dan Kantrovitz)

Discussion:

From Figures 4, 5, and 6 above we can see that it is possible to maximize the expected value of the choice using the model shown in Table 1 and the Decision Tree above in Figure 3 by placing the weighted priority on certain decision factors. For each candidate we looked at the two decision factors where they had the maximum ranking and ran two way sensitivity studies varying those two weighted values from zero to one respectively. While doing this we made the other decision factor weights functions of the variable decision factor weights and trimmed data such that the sum of the weights didn’t exceed one.

In Figure 4 we focused on Dayton Moore. His strengths lied on resourcefulness/contract arbitration and likelihood of winning rankings. In Figure 5 we focused on John Coppolella and his two highest strengths were PR/media savvy and then salary rankings. Next, in Figure 6, we focused on Dan Kantrovitz’s strengths of domestic scouting for farm system and salary.

In the case of Dayton Moore and Dan Kantrovitz, there were two points that reached 100 as the weights shifted in the favor of their strengths. Naturally this is to be expected but it can be graphically represented in Figures 4, 5, and 6 above. The next step of the sequence is to decide which factors need to be emphasized. Since Frank Wren was relieved of his duties for poor winning success and runaway contract costs, our consultants decided to rank the priorities in the manner shown below in Table 2.

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Table 2. Prioritized Decision Factors Table.

The ranking of priorities were weighted as shown above in Table 2. The priorities were placed on likelihood of winning, resourcefulness / contract arbitration, domestic scouting for farm system, PR / media savvy, and finally salary. The representative Decision Tree for this model can be seen below in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Decision Tree for prioritized Decision Factor Table. Dayton Moore Wins.

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Conclusion:

Since it was decided to place the priority primarily on winning, resourcefulness, and scouting ability; the model yielded Dayton Moore as the clear winner as the choice for the General Manager position for the Atlanta Braves. We brought Dan Kantrovitz into the equation for his attractive estimated salary and ability to perform the analytics needed for the modern game. John Coppolella was an obvious option due to his current assistant GM position and familiarity with the program. However the metrics proved less in his favor than the other two candidates. This could be seen in Table 1 and in Figures 4 through 6 where he had less of an expected value even when the priorities were stacked in his favor.

It would be our suggestion to spend the resources on Dayton Moore. If he were to decline the offer, the next candidate to offer the position would be Dan Kantrovitz. If the latter were to happen, the risks of lack of experience would be higher but the added benefits of analytical ability and recruitment skills may prove to be worthwhile.

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References

Marbotty. “The Five Baffling Habits of Dayton Moore pt. 1” FANPOST. 2-May 2012

Malone, Tim. “Trade WARP: Evaluating MLB General Managers” Baseball Prospectus. 31-July 2013

“MLB Manager Contracts” Other League. 29-September 2014

Wong, Glenn M. Deubert, Chris . “Major League Baseball General Managers: An Analysis of Their Responsibilities, Qualifications and Characteristics” Social Science Research Network. 1-April 2010

Morris, Ian. “The case for John Coppolella as the Braves' next GM” SB*Nation. 23-September 2014.

“SB Interview: John Coppolella, Braves Director of Baseball Administration” Squawking Baseball. 2- March 2009

“Dan Kantrovitz Director of Scouting St. Louis Cardinals” St. Louis Cardinals : Front Office.

“Dayton Moore” Wikipedia.org 27-September 2014

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