Baseball Preparation, NFL-Style

The Inqy's Jim Salisbury takes us behind the scenes of the Boston Red Sox juggernaut to see the effort the team puts into preparing for every game. Volumes of digitized video clips and column after column of statistics approach a level of effort comparable to most NFL teams, a league which is famous for its efforts in preparation. It's fun to get caught up in marvelling at the tools/toys at the team's disposal, who wouldn't be amazed by a sortable database of video clips of pitchers and their pitches in various game situations on a laptop computer? But there was an interesting remark made by Terry Francona when the discussion turned to the information at his disposal as a manager:

"I like this stuff," he said. "It's what I believe in. I believed in it when I was in Philly, but I wasn't sure how to put it into practice and we didn't have all these resources. These guys have broken it down to where I can handle it and apply it."

Not only is the NFL known for its preparation, but it is also known for teams copying ideas and philosophies of successful teams. This has gone on for a long time in the NFL (it's only recently that the 49ers offensive coordinator is not a candidate for a head coach opening is not an annual event) but we are only beginning to see similar trends in baseball (Oakland A's assistant GM's getting hired away annually so that they can employ their sabermetric know-how for other organizations).

To be fair, the Phillies should not be taken to task because these tools were not available to Francona four or five years ago, as much of this technology and analytical power was in its infancy. But while we are drawing analogies to the NFL, perhaps the Phillies can learn something from their counterparts on the gridiron and begin to copy the latest trends that seem to be paying large dividends on the diamond.