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Red Sox and their traveling data center

First off, I'm a bit of a techno-nerd. I love technology for technology's sake. That being said, the Red Sox are once again demonstrating why they are so good. They have a data system that archives everything. And its portable. They take it on the road with them.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206902277

From the article:

Also making the trip will be the team's modern coveted talisman -- its EMC.

"Information makes winners," said EMC's Mark Lewis this week at a session at the AIIM 2008 conference in Boston. "Information is becoming more and more important in sports all the time." So important for the Red Sox, in fact, that the team brings along its data center to all of its away games.

Lewis, who is president of EMC's content management and archiving division, told the packed session at the AIIM event that players and managers have virtually instant access to the center. A batter suddenly scheduled to face a new relief pitcher can instantly call up videos of the pitcher to study his delivery and assortment of pitches. Conversely, a pitcher can study videos of batters he is likely to face. The pitcher can search for a weakness -- for example, the batter may have trouble hitting curve balls or a split-finger fast ball.

Lewis said teams always have to be on guard against being flooded with useless information. The days of hunches, superstitions, intuition, or second-hand stories from scouts are long gone, replaced now by the hum of EMC's storage arrays, storage area network, and sophisticated software from its Documentum unit.

"The Red Sox have gone a little crazy" with technology, said Lewis as he outlined the team's near-obsession with statistics and videos -- all of it captured, stored, and pulled up quickly.

0 recs  |  Comment 10 comments

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Don't worry.
The M's have an ace up their sleeve.  Someone sits in the dugout and has a live link to Wikipedia, which can instantly display whether the opposition pitcher coming to the mound is a veteran or not.  
And to think, I could have chosen to support the Yankees or Red Sox...

by EnglishMariner on Mar 8, 2008 9:20 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

At this point
I hope they have that high tech of a system.

by TheEmrys on Mar 8, 2008 9:48 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

I'd be interested
to see if it has provided any statistical improvement on the team overall...

we hear about teams doing different things all the time, but are there results that can be tracked because of it?

by MfaninAlaska on Mar 8, 2008 11:26 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

I don't know how you'd prove something like that
but this might be one of those correlation/causation things. The Indians (DiamondView) and the Red Sox (this) seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.

by Jeff on Mar 8, 2008 11:55 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

An interesting comparison
may be to see how teams that don't have a system like this in place. As systems like this become more popular, the technology have's vs. have not's could make it more apparant.

As a counterpoint, it may be that the philosophy of the organization to include such a system may have a greater impact than the actual system itself.

Didn't Edgar go into the clubhouse and view films before his next at bats? And wouldn't Jamie Moyer's infamous book be low-tech version of this?

by TheEmrys on Mar 8, 2008 12:38 PM PST up reply actions   0 recs

But are they doing well
because of their extra stuff, or because they just know how to assemble a good team?

This seems like it would fall into the "chemistry" argument... does it really help teams or does it get credit for helping because its something new?

Teams have been using video at their home parks for years, including the Mariners... when they sucked no amount of video and research was going to change that because their talent level was poor.

by MfaninAlaska on Mar 8, 2008 9:13 PM PST up reply actions   0 recs

I don't get it
Why would you need to carry a data centre around with you? Surely you just need some terminals?

by Graham on Mar 8, 2008 12:45 PM PST reply actions   0 recs

yes but guven the choice between a computer
and a CIA mobile command center style winnebago with satellite dishes and a missle launcher, you'd go for the latter.

by Mere Tantalisers on Mar 8, 2008 3:26 PM PST up reply actions   0 recs

Yes,
but that's 90% because of the missile launcher.

by coolguyrob on Mar 10, 2008 3:51 AM PDT up reply actions   0 recs

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