2 scouts, 2 stat guys debate the Moneyball revolution

Toward the end, he begrudgingly admits that scouts will have to better understand what the stats guys are doing, right before insisting that stats will never replace scouting, no way, not on his watch, oh no (of course, nobody's claiming that they should, i.e. the number one misconception about stats from the people who are scared of stats).

Bane immediately says that he's familiar with Hackabay and McCracken's concepts and writing.

Also when Bane talks about intangibles... ["No, it wasn't his elbow, he pulled a hamstring." "He had a drinking problem in the past." I'm going to have the DIPS information already. I mean, this stuff if fabulous. But I've got to have the other stuff too--the intangibles.]... I would like to kindly remind Dr. Morbius that these are the very-same intangibles that Billy Beane was interested in during the draft preperations in Moneyball. They gave a name for the guys with make-up challenges* and threw them off the draft board. The name was either the last name of an ex-A's scout or player that Lewis was told was a real nutjob.

Also, he uses himself as a counter-example to state that pitchers with success in AAA aren't always successful. He's saying to McCracken "see, you just never know what can happen" (preaching to the choir, because McCracken explicitly stated that no stats can predict the future). But the main thing Bane doesn't appreciate there is the fact that he's just one data point. The AAA stats that McCracken is working on are attempts to recognize trends, and the performance of one guy (Bane) is not a trend that can be applied across the board.

'gax, what I was specifically mocking is that THOSE AREN'T INTANGIBLES! Injury history or drug/alcohol problems are ascertainable facts; they're data that the New Analysis breed has never ignored. You hear meatheads talk about anything outside of the triple crown stats as "intangibles." They should save that word for horseshit like "character" and "making players around him better."

Know the scout lingo. Always appreciate "high ass" myself.

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/good-face-high-ass-the-baseball-scouting-glossary

It's a harrowing time for scouts, who more than ever fear the bounty of Statcast data renders their jobs irrelevant in teams' eyes. 1/9

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 22, 2017

What would we learn if we could see what an MLB team’s scouts saw? For the first time, we can: A former member of the Cincinnati Reds front office provided The Ringer with a copy of the Reds’ scouting database from between 1991 and 2003, consisting of more than 73,000 reports. Throughout this week, we’ll be using this newly declassified scouting gold mine to analyze old-school scouting’s strengths and weaknesses, profile players who defied the scouts’ expectations, and examine how scouting has evolved in recent years. In Monday’s Part 1, we crunch the numbers on how well scouts projected players.

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/3/4/18249155/cincinnati-reds-scouting-report-series-part-1-data-findings

based on The MVP Machine, it seems the Edgertronic/player development revolution will be worse for scouts than the Beane Moneyball one was. Per the book the Astros are down to ~20 scouts now. Even the ones who are technology-friendly are losing their jobs... Houston increasingly just uses cameras and data to choose players.

(also per the Passan tweet above)

Houston increasingly just uses cameras and data to choose players

...and steal signs lol