 Hi guys, I am joined by one of my most favorite people in the whole world today, our David Cohn, probably one of your favorites too. David, great to see you and before we jump into the whole world of safer metrics, please give us a family update. How's everybody? Well, Nancy, thank you. It's good to be with you too. Everybody's doing okay, you know, we're getting along like everybody else, just dealing with the new world that we live in trying to homeschool an eight-year-old boy who's a handful and I'm sure a lot of parents out there can relate to trying to adjust to kids being at home and trying to get them on a distance learning program. And I have to add, he's beyond adorable little Sammy. Well, thank you. Yeah, he's been great so far. I mean, kids are very resilient. So I, you know, I think the, as each day goes by, they kind of understand what's going on and it's a tremendous learning experience for young children about how the world is so interconnected and we're all in this together and I think he understands that now probably as well as anybody. Well said, David. As always, that's what you do. Okay, let's get to work. We're going to talk safer metrics today. First question, when did you even get into it and when did you realize it was going to be important? You know, Nancy, I got into it through my agent back in the early 90s and these were the early, early days of saber metrics, probably even pre-saber metrics, but we use them for arbitration cases when I played for the Mets and went to arbitration against them, the front office of the Mets and I really became kind of schooled on the issues, especially with regards to pitchers and how one loss records with pitchers can be very deceiving. There's so many things that go into a pitchers performance that go way beyond his one loss record and, you know, his defensive support, his offensive support, what day he pitches on, how many runs they score. There's so many other, so many other things that come into play with regards to pitchers and, you know, I think that kind of opened my eyes a lot to the business side of baseball and how you can give credit where credit is due, Nancy. That's really what it's about for me. It's about finding out who really deserves the credit on who won this game or who contributed the most to winning any kind of game on any given day. That's so important, David, and that strikes a chord on the discussion of balance and the dominance of the sabermetric world. Is it out of balance? You know, I think you come full circle with it, Nancy. I think it's a good point that you bring up is that, you know, is there still a feel in the game? Is there still a place for a gut feeling throughout the course of a game? And I think when you're in the middle of a game, then absolutely. Pitchers and hitters still react by gut feeling. Numbers can't really come into play when the game is going on. During the middle of a game, pitchers still have to rely on what they feel, what their best pitch is, how they're feeling, how their arm feels, how the baseball feels in their hand. Same for a hitter, a hitter in the batter's box. And I know I've talked to Paul O'Neill about this a lot. Sometimes they just pick up something intuitively that's their gut feeling about what pitch is coming next or what they should do or how they react. So I really believe that during the course of a game, the gut feeling and the feel of the game is still a very, very big part of it, a very important part of the game. Yeah, I was gonna bring up Paul O'Neill as well, because he's always said he's a guy that did not want all that information. He did not want to know what was coming. He just wanted to get up there, see the ball, hit the ball. Yeah, there are a lot of players like that, Nancy, that don't really don't want to get jammed up mentally with all the information that's out there. They're coaches for that. There's certainly certain players that can thrive with more information. And I think as a coach, that's probably the most important thing that you need to learn about your players is who can handle information and who can't. And the ones who can't, certainly you're going to do more harm than good by trying to help them if you inundate them with too much information at once. So certainly there's a balance there and you need to respect that balance if you're a coach nowadays. David, back when all this was starting, did you ever think it would get to the point where it is today? No, I don't think anybody really saw this type of information that we get today. I mean, to me it's not just about Saber metrics anymore. The whole term analytics has taken a whole new meaning because every movement is tracked on the field. It's not just about mathematical equations anymore. It's about movement on the field, about Doppler radar being able to track every player and every movement that they make in terms of efficiency, how fast they are, how fast they throw the baseball, the efficiency of the spin, whether it's off the batted ball or if it's a thrown pitch, what type of spin efficiency is there nowadays? I think we've gone way beyond in terms of analytics what we ever thought we were going to see on a baseball field. And I wanted to ask you as a follow-up, do you think this focus, this kind of focus and spotlight on analytics and Saber metrics has changed the way guys play the game? I do. I think with each passing year the older players start to get more receptive to some of this new information and the younger generation that's just coming up is so easily adaptable to this type of information because that's kind of the way they've already grown up with computers, with social media, with that type of data information that they've been exposed to at a young age, they're ready to go with these type of information. They learn this way and I know even some of the young prospects in the minor leagues are already way ahead of the game in terms of the new analytics and how to read this information coming at them, how to interpret it, that they're much more advanced than some of the older players and I think the older players are catching up right and left. Guys like Zach Britton have talked about how you know what? From year to year this is starting to make sense to me. I'm starting to figure out how to utilize some of this information and how to incorporate it to help help me become a better pitcher or help me improve the design of my pitches, the movement and the grip that I'm using to get the type of movement that I want on my pitches. Let's practically apply some of this stuff. This is so fascinating. A guy like Garrett Cole, take a look at him. Are certain analytical numbers, certain sabre metrics more applicable and more informative with regard to which pitcher you're looking at? Yeah, I think there is. You know, Garrett Cole talks about now we have a baseline for comparison throughout the league so we know what an average spin rate on a foreseam basketball is. So you can compare to all the other pitchers across the board and as long as you have that baseline for comparison then you have credibility. So then you can look at that baseline for comparison and see where you rate and then see if you can improve it or see if say throughout the course of a season maybe you've dropped off a little bit and if you're in a slump then you can go to that baseline for comparison and compare notes and see oh where was I in in July? Where am I in August? Where am I in September? Am I getting a little bit fatigued? Does that show up in my spin rate? How do I compare to the rest of the league? I think that's the key and that's what Garrett Cole talked about most most importantly is you know we now have a complete database for a comparative nature in terms of a baseline for comparison across the league on everybody that comes through the big leagues and even in the minor leagues now they have this equipment in the minor leagues that everybody now is rated so to speak and we know exactly what the average is on every pitch that's thrown or every batted ball for that matter as well. Taking a look at all the safer metrics are there certain measures that you feel are the most valuable? You know I think it varies from from individual to individual. There are certainly things that are valuable for scouts and if you're out scouting nowadays instead of just using the eye test which I think is still very important but you also now have some numbers to back it up so when you're doing evaluation of talent coming up you now have some punch behind your evaluation you can you can back it up with the numbers you know whether that's exit velocity or spin rate for a pitcher and certainly if I'm pitching in the big leagues nowadays I certainly want to know my numbers you know and Nancy I think it goes back to the golf industry the golf industry the you know PGA were the first ones to come out with these launch monitors and all of these professional golfers use this information and this technology to get much better Tiger Woods is one of the premier golfers in the world over his career and he really benefited from this technology in terms of getting his golf clubs fitted getting the launch angle just right being able to hit the golf ball you know much farther being able to to get his spin rate just right now we're using that technology into baseball and you can design pitches that way or hitters can certainly evaluate their launch angle or exactly what they're doing in terms of trying to improve and to get the results that they're looking for. David if you had access to all of this information do you think it would have changed how you approach your game? Yeah I would have loved it Nancy you know I was enamored with putting spin on a baseball with the type of spin to make the baseball move to make a curve how to throw a curve ball how to throw a slider a slurv everything in between you know that was my sweet spot I was I was obsessed with how to spin a baseball and I never had a way to measure it I never had a you know a tool to use to design pitches and that's something I would have loved to been able to do to have that information that technology to be able to try to design new types of curve balls new types of sliders find out the type of movement on on splitters or fastballs it would have been right in my wheelhouse I would have loved to have had it I'm actually a little jealous of these guys nowadays that they have these advantages. And just one final question do you feel just like perhaps focus on wins and losses and ERA might have been out of balance back in your day is there too much emphasis on a couple of safer metrics analytics that might be out of balance? You know I still believe that there is a balance there between old and new school so to speak but I also know that whatever we use to evaluate pitchers and hitters whether that was just batting average for batters back 50 20 30 40 years ago or for pitchers just ERA and one loss record I think that was woefully inadequate to tell us that the full scale of who did what who deserve credit who was the best pitcher who was the best hitter I think we have much more numbers nowadays much more data to kind of give us more information and who won the game who helped you win that game you know who did the most you know when probability added who added the most value to winning the game winning the world series championship game to game pennant races I think the numbers we have now give us a much clearer picture a much more complete picture of who's who's doing what and who deserves credit I gotta say there is nothing better than baseball clinic with david cone you're the best thank you nancy always great to talk to you too I very much feel the same always thanks david until next time enjoy florida and the family take care thank you nancy