Cactus Log: Giants’ Turner on embracing analytics
By tylermaun2
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Baseball isn’t exactly in a culture war, but Hall of Famer Goose Gossage’s recent comments are just the latest in the rift between the old-school crowd and that of the 21st century game.
On Saturday at San Francisco’s Minor League complex in Scottsdale, I sat down with Giants director of player development Shane Turner for a conversation regarding some of his organization’s top talent for an upcoming Prospect Primer story. While I’ll have loads more from Turner on the prospects in that piece later this month, I wanted to share his thoughts on this hot button issue.
Turner has managed or coached at every level in the Giants system and also played at four Minor League levels before reaching the big leagues in 1988. I asked him what he felt the biggest differences were between leading his department with his experience as a player and coach in the Minors and the new school “Harvard nerd” administrations (as Gossage referred to them) that have cropped up around the game. Working in a system like the Giants’ with both a classic emphasis on work and a new-age embrace of statistics and analytics, I thought Turner might have a wide-ranging perspective on the issue, and I was not disappointed.
“One thing I have to offer is I did do it. I know as a player, as a coach and manager, those experiences, they’re still right here. I know what it felt like to get called up to the big leagues the first time. I know what it felt like to get released. I know what it felt like to strike out four times in a game, get demoted, get promoted, and I tell my coaches, ‘Man, stay in tune with those feelings because these players are going to experience it.’ I think that’s the biggest thing that being through it all and having experienced it all and holding on to it [does].
“I have this saying that a lot of guys who played this game, you get better and better the longer you get away from the game. It’s a little bit that you become a better coach and much more compassionate when you remember just how tough this game is to play. I hold onto those feelings, and those are actual conversations I have with this. One of the first things I tell guys is the first time I got called up to the big leagues, I said I wasn’t playing the same game. I saw names on the back [of jerseys] where I never did to that point even if I faced some of those guys along my path. I tell them all the time it’s the same game, and you have to get to that point.
“But I’ll say this, from the analytics side, I’ve learned so much. It’s confirmed things that I believed. It’s shown me an early sign, sometimes something I wasn’t paying attention to. I really think that you need a combination, if you use the best of both worlds and use them the right way. To me, you can overuse either part of it. I do know this: Players get better on the field at the end of the day, but you need to use all the information you can find, and kids are different today. They’re more analytical. They’re more visual. You have to change with the players. You hear it all the time everywhere in the world, ‘Oh, this generation…’ I’m like, ‘It doesn’t matter. These are the kids and players we have today.’ If I try to coach the way I was coached 25 years ago, we’ll lose players, and we’re not in the business of losing players. We have to find a way to get through to all of them.”
