One Way Teams Can Connect with Fans
Mon, Apr 28, 2008
by Geoff Young
In the middle of April, something pretty cool happened about 100 miles north of San Diego: The Dodgers invited several people who blog about the team to hang out in a luxury suite with staffers during a game. Reaching out to folks who talk about them constantly — almost obsessively — in a public forum was a shrewd move on the part of the Dodgers.
The good folks at Statistically Speaking have invited me to participate in their latest roundtable discussion. In it, we talk about Trevor Hoffman, stats on TV broadcasts, and small-sample wonders.
Enjoy!
I mentioned that the bloggers hung out with team staffers, but that doesn’t do it justice. The names of those staffers? Ned Coletti, Frank McCourt, and Tommy Lasorda. You may have heard of them.
Even if you’re a cynic who believes such a maneuver could be motivated only by the desire to buy influence, you have to admit, the Dodgers went all out in their efforts. It’s not every day that a team’s most ardent and vocal supporters get an audience with the general manager, owner, and iconic figure.
One of our regular readers (Coronado Mike) noticed what the Dodgers had done and suggested that maybe the Padres could put something similar together for their bloggers. I offered no comment at the time, but in fact, I was trying to organize such a meetup with the club.
Although the Padres and I had some good dialogue, ultimately it bore no fruit. Why? Well, that’s not for me to guess, but it’s my hope that the intial groundwork laid in these discussions eventually will lead to something greater.
Meanwhile, I’m glad to see teams starting to think of folks who are passionate about their product as good customers rather than enemies of the state. As a blogger, I’m thrilled at what the Dodgers did and I hope that other teams will follow their lead. As a business owner, I’m impressed by the team’s emphasis on fostering goodwill in the community. As a Padres fan, of course, I’m disappointed that the Dodgers beat our guys to the punch. But in the end, I like to think that we’re all better off — even if only in some small way — for what our neighbors to the north did a few weeks ago.
The Dodgers have a loyal following. Even though they didn’t need to reach out, they did it anyway. I don’t buy into the sense of entitlement that some bloggers seem to adorn, but I do think that most people appreciate being appreciated. I also think that teams whose following may not be as loyal as the Dodgers’ might want to take note of that organization’s actions. The Dodgers saw an opportunity to connect with their customers and advocates, and they pounced on it.
Smart business decision, that.
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April 28, 2008 at 7:46 am
I don’t think anyone expects baseball to be at the forefront of new media relations but when even 70-something John McCain is holding conference calls with bloggers I think it illustrates how important blogs can be to getting a message out to the core audience.
With all the flak the Padres are catching over a perceived lack of investment in big name players, high concession and ticket prices, boring and predictable losses, etc., I would have thought they’d jump at the chance to reach out to the bloggers, the one group that is ideally positioned to communicate the team’s strategy to the fans in general. Apparently they’re more comfortable going on the team’s radio station and issuing cliched soundbites in response to the same old questions.
April 28, 2008 at 8:07 am
Great piece Geoff. This new age requires and allows for innovative marketing…
April 28, 2008 at 8:08 am
From what I understand, the Padres are still on board for doing something, but it’s a matter of logistics. I’m sure it takes some doing to wrap one’s head around dealing with bloggers, and they just want to work slowly and methodically. The product on the field shows that they’re not exactly quick to push the panic button.
April 28, 2008 at 8:22 am
#3@Dex: “slowly and methodically”, just like the Padre baserunning.
April 28, 2008 at 8:33 am
#4@Anthony: That was my thinly veiled joke, spelled out.
April 28, 2008 at 8:44 am
Is their a hint of Dr. Charles Steinberg in this move by the Dodgers? This has his fingerprints all over it.
April 28, 2008 at 8:49 am
I wonder if the Padres are working (again) with Baseball Prospectus for another gathering which can (and has) included blog writters? “New media” has many forms. Since the Padres did this in 2004, doesn’t that put them “ahead”?
April 28, 2008 at 9:07 am
#3@Dex: That is news to me.
#7@LynchMob: Yes, the Padres deserve (and have received) credit for their work with Prospectus. That said, Prospectus has been fairly mainstream for some time and doesn’t represent Padres fans exclusively. This takes nothing away from what Prospectus has done, of course, but it’s apples and oranges.
April 28, 2008 at 9:09 am
Heard the Coach say something that got me thinking. Caller suggested that the team get more speed, more bunting, and station to station players. The coach said the Padres don’t believe in speed, or station to station baseball. Is this true?
Because if true, I think that is exactly the opposite offensive philosophy required to be successful in Petco.
To hear AG say he loves getting on the road, to listen to commentators suggest the Padres will have a good May because they are on the road, what does that say about Petco.
Remember dave Roberts, getting on base, stealing second, and generally disrupting things. That seemed like a good thing to be doing.
April 28, 2008 at 9:20 am
#9@PM: “Speed” and “station to station” are opposites.
I expect the Padres don’t believe in bunting, because it is often poor strategy. On the other hand, I’m sure they’d like to have faster players, if those players could also get on base and hit with at least some power. A healthy and not-incendiary Milton Bradley would be ideal.
They haven’t had much speed in the Petco era, but they’ve been successful at home nonetheless. What speed they have had has often been concentrated in one or two players. They won 47 games at home last year and their fastest hitter was Mike Cameron. Bradley had that good 1st - 3rd, 2nd - Home speed, too, but he was only here for 42 games. If a team can win 47 games at home with basically the same offense it has this year, then obviously they can succeed without a lot of speed. Their problem hasn’t been speed so much as a near-total lack of OBP and power. We’re hitting 214/293/291 at home. All the speed in the world doesn’t turn that into runs. Seriously, our slugging at home is lower than our OBP, which is itself crap.
April 28, 2008 at 9:25 am
You know it’s bad when you start seeing things like this…
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/.....g-a-p.html
April 28, 2008 at 10:04 am
#6@Dan: I contend that his leaving the Pads was one of the biggest losses the club has ever sustained…
His ability to create goodwill, buzz, and excitement around a baseball team (subpar or otherwise) is second to none.
April 28, 2008 at 10:11 am
#11@KRS1:
Despite my relocation to VA and my love of the Pads, for the record, I AM NOT VA Padres.
April 28, 2008 at 10:16 am
On the other hand, the Padres work very closely with the Ted Williams chapter of SABR and give the members places to meet before games.
The Dodgers have shown no inclination to help out the L.A. chapter of SABR, although the Angels will send a speaker from time to time.
I got invited to the Dodgers bloggers summit despite the fact that I don’t blog about the Dodgers for the most part. So there went my chance to ask Frank McCourt if he was actually a real person.
April 28, 2008 at 11:26 am
#9@PM: I think the Padres not believing in speed is similar to the Moneyball fallacy. Of course they like speed, they probably just think it’s less important than good control of the strike zone and other hitting qualities. They may also find it to be overvalued in the marketplace as compared to some other worthwhile attributes like control of the strike zone.
I think a similar misunderstanding arises with respect to station to station baseball. Of course they like it when guys get on base and then get moved over with hits. They may just believe that with Petco’s hit suppression this is a less reliable way to score runs than guys getting walks and the occasional HR. I think a significant caveat of implementing this strategy, or any strategy, is that the Padres are going to ultimately make personnel decisions based on who’s available and at what cost.
Ultimately, with the intelligence and success of the front office personnel, along with their significant statistical resources. I’m less likely to question their strategy than the implementation of that strategy, like the signing of the aging and oft-injured Edmonds. Aging sluggers without great OBP skills don’t seem like the best fit for Petco.
And frankly, I find the analysis of the xx radio hosts to be simplistic and uninformative. One has to only listen to Scott Kaplan championing Juan Pierre to recognize the depth of their baseball knowledge, or rather lack thereof.
April 28, 2008 at 11:41 am
#3@Dex: ha yeah this was the Padres respoince:
“If you can get at least 25 bloggers together we will give you a discount on tickets and a scoreboard welcome!”
#11@KRS1: CAn you even call that a fire sale? Its more like an ashes sale…
April 28, 2008 at 12:05 pm
#1@Anthony: It is surprising that a small market team with a small market payroll treats its fans with such big market cold detachment. You’d think small payroll combined with high prices for everything including watered-down beer, few fringe benefits and little fan outreach would be a recipe for a business disaster. But maybe this maximizes profits even if it minimizes fan loyalty. And JM may consider this more of a make-money business than a break-even hobby, like we would consider the position or some of the more beloved sports owners do like Mark Cuban.
April 28, 2008 at 12:20 pm
With the arrival of Sandy Alderson, I thought they were going with the whole ‘Moneyball’ approach. Correct me if I’m wrong, I didn’t actually read the book, but doesn’t that mean they would build the team around hitters who had a good knowledge of the strike zone? Brian Giles and Josh Bard seem to fit but who else has there been?
When they moved into Petco Park, weren’t they supposed to build a team that was fast enough to cover the spacious outfield, steal bases, and hit a lot of doubles and triples. Mike Cameron in center field and Dave Roberts/Milton Bradley in left certainly fit that mold but that’s about it.
It seems like they’ve gotten to the extreme opposite end of both of these spectrums. Like everyone else, it’s driving me crazy watching this offense.
April 28, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I don’t get why they wouldn’t be blogger friendly. It doesn’t cost them anything really. Are they afraid that they can’t control what bloggers would write? Presumably they can’t control what gets printed in the UT either.
#10@Tom Waits: Absolutely right. The problem is our offense stinks, and when you combine that with a total lack of speed it just makes it look that much worse.
April 28, 2008 at 12:30 pm
#18@JMAR: Unfortunately the Moneyball concept has been badly misrepresented by “experts” who either haven’t read the book or haven’t understood it. The basic idea behind Moneyball is that organizations should identify and exploit inefficiencies in the market. In the specific case the book dealt with (i.e., the A’s at a particular point in time), ability to control the strike zone was undervalued by many decision makers, which made players who possessed that skill relative bargains.
April 28, 2008 at 12:35 pm
#18@JMAR: Moneyball really means finding players who are undervalued by the market. When the book was written players who had high OBP and low BA were undervalued. Now everyone is after high OBP players so they are no longer undervalued. I have no idea what the new moneyball skill set would be. In the Padres case it may be injured pitchers who want to come to Petco to rebuild their career.
On offense it seems like the Padres strategy is to look for veterans on the last year of their contract so the team can get an extra draft pick when they leave. The problem with that strategy is usually guys with one year left are either old and washed up (Edmonds) or have other issues that preclude a long term deal (Bradley).
Signing or trading for these broken down vets may make fiscal sense and it’s certainly helped rebuild the farm system but the ceiling is very limited. Kind of like the team’s draft strategy actually.
April 28, 2008 at 12:41 pm
#20@Geoff Young:
Also, it was clear to me in reading the book that Beane thought it was the right way to build an offense — OBP and power. Lewis also made the argument for such an approach, IIRC.
April 28, 2008 at 12:45 pm
#22@Stephen: Given the conditions at the time, it was a great way to build an offense. It’s still a good one, though more costly than it used to be thanks in part to the success of the A’s.
April 28, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for the ‘Moneyball’ clarification. So what is the philoshophy of carrying a team full of guys that would be great #7 hitters?
I really wish they would go the route of the ‘87 Cardinals. Speed, speed, and more speed. Throw two bats in the lineup that can reach the seats and everyone else can run like crazy. It seems to me like that formula would work great in this ballpark. I know, it’s easier said than done but I’d love to see that kind of excitement in Petco.
April 28, 2008 at 1:25 pm
The other big part of Moneyball is to build the team through the draft and farm system. Having home grown talent such as Hudson, Zito, Mulder, Giambi and Tejada helped a lot.
April 28, 2008 at 1:30 pm
#24@JMAR:
I’m sure you’re being at least partly facetious. Many of the Padres are hitting like 7th place hitters (and not great ones at that), but most of them are better than that.
Those mid-80s Cardinal teams come up a lot, but people seem to forget that they finished out of the playoffs as often as in it, and that would have been true even in a 3 division format with the Wild Card.
How many games can we realistically expect to win at home? We went 47-34 last year. Even winning 50 at home means you’ve got to go 500 on the road with an offense that may not be enough. It’s certainly possible; the Angels have succeeded recently with a non-traditional offense. But we should be aware that we’d still be 6-8 games out right now if every Padre ran like Jackie Owens.
April 28, 2008 at 1:47 pm
26: i dont think so. We have been in 22 of the 26 games into the late innings. Many times losing these games with players not being able to take an extra base on a ball in play and players making poor defensive plays. If Emonds has Jackie owen speed he probably could had saved 5 runs himself this year. If P-Mac has that speed, he makes it to 3rd and we win the 22 inning game. Not saying speed is the answer, but when we are playing as poorly as we are now, the speed would had won use more games than we think.
April 28, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Here are some April 2007 stats:
Cameron: 0HR, 192BA, 41sOPS+
Sledge: 3HR, 234BA, 121sOPS+
Barret : 4HR, 276BA, 114sOPS+
Agonz: 7HR, 309BA, 146sOPS+
MGiles: 2HR, 327BA, 128sOPS+
Kouz: 1HR, 113BA, -3sOPS+
BGiles: 1HR, 290BA, 101sOPS+
Greene: 4HR, 265BA, 123sOPS+
Bard : 1HR, 286BA, 98sOPS+
13-13 WL, 3.68ERA
115R, 231H, 54/2B, 25HR, 90BB, 196K, 248BA, 318OBP, 95OPS+
April 2008
84R, 207H, 34/2B, 15HR, 92BB, 213K, 225BA, 297OBP, 70OPS+
April 28, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I have a question. Who is Jackie Owens? Is he/she the genetically constructed offspring of Jesse Owens’ frozen DNA and Jackie Joyner? If so, I can’t wait to see him/her run!!!
April 28, 2008 at 2:03 pm
#29@Pat: Bastard!
April 28, 2008 at 2:07 pm
#19@Anthony: Oh it’s all about not having “control”. Geoff and I both were at BlogWorldExpo last year where this very issue was being discussed. Basically, some teams are conscious of the fact that there isn’t really any prerequisite to being a blogger. At least with a major media outlet, a team can be confident that the reporter has some sort of media training and is being overseen by an editor whose boss is a publisher that knows how to “play the game”. Bloggers (and their readership) are wild jungle men by comparison.
April 28, 2008 at 2:08 pm
#27@SDSUBaseball: We’ve been outscored by 37 runs. We’re 4-7 in one-run games, in some of which more speed would have only allowed us to tie, not to win.
When your team is hitting 214/293/291, and you’re giving up 50% more runs than you score, speed isn’t going to help. Besides, speed doesn’t necessarily translate into good defense. Even when Edmonds was a good defender he wasn’t fast, and Gene Kingsale was never a good defender.
April 28, 2008 at 2:35 pm
32: I didnt say give speed and take away their defense or to replace our players with good speed players that play poor defense. If the players we have had speed things may be different. Give Edmonds good speed and I think he makes more plays. I just think if the players we have had the speed without losing whatever else they have it would had made a difference. Its hypothetical.
April 28, 2008 at 2:36 pm
#32@Tom Waits: Agreed, every player hitting below his career average has been more costly to the team than a lack of speed. I’d rather see Khalil with 4 HRs right now than blazing speed.
April 28, 2008 at 2:42 pm
#33@SDSUBaseball: No doubt, but we’d be better served if all else equal they had greater OBP or SLG. But the point is nothing occurs in a vacuum, if you have 2 equally valued players and one is faster than the other, he necessarily has to have a deficiency in some other part of his game. Let’s leave Juan Pierre for the Dodgers and keep Giles for ourselves
April 28, 2008 at 2:43 pm
#34@FriarFanDan: Well of course I agree with that. I am just saying that having speed would had helped aswell, especially when they arent hitting. We dont even have many people that can score from 2nd on a single.
April 28, 2008 at 2:45 pm
#35@FriarFanDan: Except Pierre can play CF cant he? We are lacking a defensively capable CF. LA has 2.
April 28, 2008 at 2:54 pm
#37@SDSUBaseball: Meh. I don’t know how effective he’d be in Petco. His poor arm would definitely hurt, but I don’t know enough about his range/positioning/routes to know how well he’d fare on getting to balls. Again, just becasue he’s fast doesn’t mean he will be good defensively. Roberts was fast and horrible in Petco’s CF.
April 28, 2008 at 2:59 pm
#37@SDSUBaseball: Edmonds may not be a gold glove CF anymore, but he’s still a capable CF and his defense is likely to improve as he settles in and becomes accustomed to Petco. I’d also be wary of penalizing him for not getting to balls that he may only be close to because of good jumps and routes.
April 28, 2008 at 3:00 pm
#33@SDSUBaseball: As leaky as the pen has been, and with our total lack of hitting, I could see maybe one more W. But then, a faster team might be defensed differently. The keys to our season so far have been nobody on, a near-total lack of power, and a leaky pen.
#37@SDSUBaseball: It’s hard to tell. Some measurements make him look bad, some good. He’d be an upgrade over Edmonds but a 616 OPS CF isn’t helping much. Another 3 or 5 weeks of this and we may see a Hairston-Gerut platoon in center. Still not much defense, probably, but at least there’s something at the plate. And by then it may be time to see if either of them can contribute next year. Sigh.
April 28, 2008 at 3:05 pm
#39@FriarFanDan: I don’t know, Dan. Edmonds looks absolutely terrible out there. The numbers back that up, too. I doubt its comfort. I think it’s injuries + age. The injuries may heal, but it’s like he’s running in sand out there.
April 28, 2008 at 3:07 pm
#40@Tom Waits: Not really advocating for Pierre, just saying he is probabaly better defensively and hasnt been worse offensively so far this year. I would really like to see Gerut back up on the club. We need to start spreading AB’s around.
April 28, 2008 at 3:09 pm
#39@FriarFanDan: I dont think so, but I guess you can have your opinion. When guys like Scott hairston are better defensively in CF, I think you are no longer a capable CF.
April 28, 2008 at 3:19 pm
#41@Tom Waits: You very well may be right, and I may just be desperately optimistic, but if it was more physical ability than comfort, I would expect his OOZ to suffer but his RZR to still be strong, but it’s the other way around. This may just be a statistical fluke due to a small sample size.
#43@SDSUBaseball: Hairston thus far has outperformed most CFs defensively, another statistical fluke or a silver lining in this cloudy April?
April 28, 2008 at 3:24 pm
#44@FriarFanDan: Fielding stats are raw and many metrics say opposite things about players. When it comes to fielding I think you can see fairly well when I player looks like a porr defender. Thats what Edmonds looks like this year. I could understand his bat being slow, but defense shouldnt take too long to come back, so I dont think there is anything left.
Good for Hairston. He proved a lot of people wrong and he looks like he may be serviceable in CF defensively. But again, this is relying on statistics for defense which isnt as clear cut as hitting.
April 28, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Geoff, Tango wrote a very nice ‘review’ of your book: http://www.insidethebook.com/e.....view_book/
… I still have to pick it up when I get home from college (and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!).
April 28, 2008 at 3:45 pm
#45@SDSUBaseball: I agree, but people’s eyes also told them that Jeter is one of the best defensive shortstops. When you combine a lot of losses (many of them close), a big outfield, and good jumps/routes that don’t result in outs, I think that’s the recipe for undervaluing a CF’s capabilities and an instance where fielding statistics may be helpful. If Edmonds is the CF for the year, I don’t think he’ll be great, but I think he’ll be capable. And thus far, I think he’s been subpar (which is made worse by our hopes and the team’s needs), but not terrible.
April 28, 2008 at 3:59 pm
#47@FriarFanDan: Friar, outside of NY, very few who watched Jeter say he is “one of the best defensive shortstops”. He got the GG for being on TV every night and hitting well for the Yanks.
April 28, 2008 at 4:12 pm
At this point why screw things up and miss out on Stephen Strasburg in the 2009 draft? He’d probably look pretty decent in a Padres uniform.
Off topic but Brian Matusz and Josh Romanski are on XX 1090 right now.
April 28, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Jeter has a flair for the dramatic play. Combine that with his post season play, and thats what people remember. Edmonds in his prime had the same good fortune. They both would make the highlight reel.
Nettles wasnt the best 3B either, but it would have been hard not to take notice of his glove in several WS.
It is interesting though that Jeter won his GGs in his thirties, as his defensive play was declining.
April 28, 2008 at 4:35 pm
#47@FriarFanDan: Yeah, I agree with Coronado Mike in 48. Gold Gloves are often won on the basis on your reputation, your hitting stats, and a couple of highlight plays.
I don’t know if Edmonds is just missing balls that other CF would miss by a lot because he gets good jumps, but as slow as he looks, that’s hard to believe. It’s like he’s expecting there to be another gear that simply isn’t around anymore.
April 28, 2008 at 4:37 pm
BP STAT OF THE DAY
Top 5 2008 NL Relievers, by WXRL
Player, Team, WXRL
Carlos Marmol, CHN, 1.6
Brad Lidge, PHI, 1.2
Renyel Pinto, FLO, 1.1
Matt Capps, PIT, 1.0
Brian Wilson, SFN, 1.0
April 28, 2008 at 4:42 pm
#48@Coronado Mike: That was my point, people’s eyes deceive them, particularly when they are emotionally invested in the game. Rewarding Jeter for a few plays and the Yankees winning is similar to penalizing Edmonds for a few key plays and the Padres losing. Defensive statistics, while not as useful as offensive statistics, are helpful for providing a frame of reference. Jeter wasn’t as great as he appeared to Yankee fans, and Edmonds isn’t as terrible as he appears to Padres fans, subpar, but not terrible
April 28, 2008 at 4:50 pm
#51@Tom Waits: I still think he’s been subpar. It’s just that highlight plays in the outfield are often the combination of poor jumps/routes and good speed. While disappointing fans is often a result of good jumps/routes and poor speed. So as a result, Edmonds appears worse than he actually is, while fast guys often appear better than they are.
April 28, 2008 at 5:59 pm
GY … thanks for the link to the Q&A you did at StatSpeak … 3 good questions … 9 good answers!
I was reading a “blog” at the SDUT and noticed that BAs were used in a way to further the point of the writer … whereas going to more/better stats would have been counter-productive to the tone and/or point of his post … hmmm … so I left a comment pointing back to the Question #2 … fyi …
http://www3.signonsandiego.com.....d_comments
Seemed like a good opportuntity to provide some feedback … let’s make some (healthy / productive) noise!
April 29, 2008 at 2:05 am
#54@FriarFanDan: I dont really agree with this either. There are many spectacular plays made by good jumps and Edmonds has let me down plenty of times this year with bad routes and bad speed. Edmonds made spectacular plays in his prime with good routes and really no speed. Also, Edmonds has been terrible this year and I dont think he will be anywhere near capable considering the size of the NL West OFs. I never though Jeter was good defensively, I dont know why that is relevant. I believe fielding stats can be useful, but I depend more on what I see if I have seen the player play.
BTW, did one see that catch Reed Johnson made?
May 13, 2008 at 10:48 pm
[...] Since the team balked at hosting the official Padre blogger meetup day, we’re free to be as angry as we please without risking good standing with the [...]