Data, analytics, action, baseball - a real-life love story

If you know me, you know I love the game of baseball. I also love analytics.??

When I woke up this morning, the algorithms inside of Google News blessed me with a great story from The Detroit News titled "Braves fixed Robbie Grossman in matter of days; Tigers couldn't all season."

The author got my attention with this title. But the article mixed my favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, with the use of analytics and action.?

For context, the Atlanta Braves traded for an outfielder Robbie Grossman (formerly of the Detroit Tigers) at the baseball trade deadline on August 2. Why does baseball have a trade deadline, you may ask? Because dates and deadlines are essential! (Baseball tries to ensure that there are no unfair trades leading up to the playoffs).??

Grossman was hitting .205 at the time of the trade. For my non-baseball friends - this is bad, really bad. The Braves traded away a 21-year-old pitcher playing in the Rookie league to get Grossman. Not exactly a bag of peanuts, but close.?

The author talks about how Grossman had been trying for five months to return to his old self with the Detroit Tigers. And the use of analytics, according to the author, failed him.??When the Braves acquired Grossman on day 1, they sat down with Grossman, showed him the analytics they created, and offered suggestions. Grossman took their advice, made some changes to his swing, and two days later, started to hit well again. In 12 games with the Braves, he hit 2 home runs. In 83 games with Detroit, he had hit 2 home runs.??

Last year, we saw the Braves have similar success with Jorge Soler. Soler, acquired at the trade deadline, was struggling, got traded to the Braves, and the analytics team and hitting coach, working together, made suggestions, and Soler flourished. If you don't know, Soler hit a deciding home run that helped the Braves to win a World Series.??

Pictured: Braves outfielder Jorge Soler - whom the Braves acquired during last year's trade deadline, made adjustments and ended up hitting a pivotal home run to help the Braves beat the Astros in last year's World Series.

When a reporter recently asked Grossman about his newfound success, he surmised, "So, I'm excited. I just feel lucky that I'm over here [Atlanta] and they've given me an opportunity and showed me some things that are helping me out."

After I read this article, my first thought was, wow, good for Grossman to take the feedback from the analytics team and the hitting coach, make changes, and a few days later start to see results.

How often do we know what we need to do from a business process perspective that has been validated with analytics, but we don't take action? It happens way too often.?

Analytics without the right action is just better math, pretty visualizations,?a semantic layer, databases, etc. But the magic comes when the right action is applied. The Braves were successful with Soler (last year) and Grossman (this year) because the hitting coach and analytics team worked together. They presented the analytics and hitting changes in a way that Grossman accepted. And the results were almost instant.?

Analytics with action is where we should always try and execute. When this happens, magic occurs.??And for this Brave's fan, I hope Grossman and the Braves can replicate last year's historic World Series championship.

Video below: Grossman makes the necessary adjustments and hits a home run while New York Mets fans like Roman Usatin weep.