The 'Cats are looking for student help.
Northwestern Baseball posted to its X account yesterday, announcing a new, student-driven baseball analytics/R&D team for next season.
"As we enter a new era of competitive excellence within our program, we need your help! Interested students can reach out to [email protected]," the post said.
This is a common avenue for college programs to take when they want to invest a little more in baseball analytics. Very few college teams have full-time analytics staff members, or a full-fledged team, the way most MLB teams do these days. But student labor can help teams look into data more than they previously would have.
This feels like a particularly prudent step to take for the Wildcats. All season, I've lamented Northwestern's inability to find consistent pitching, and its unfortunate impact on a lineup that features some real hitters. Modernizing the program's approach to the game a little bit could be the first step in solving that problem.
Analytics can be a controversial subject in the sport of baseball. It's such a historic game, and there are plenty of traditionalists out there who still care about pitcher wins and batting average above all.
But the reality is, that's a naive point of view. At the college level, I can understand too many numbers being a potential distraction for players, especially if they haven't had any experience working with an R&D team before. But, generally speaking, there's no situation where having more information about how to win a sport is a bad thing. It's just not a logical take -- it's very clearly an emotional one that long-time baseball people hold dear.
And for Northwestern, this will just be a student-led team doing a little more digging than the coaching staff has time to do. It's unlikely to yield a situation where NU's hitters and pitchers have the kind of research to do on opponents that MLB players are undertaking today.
What it should do, though, is give head coach Ben Greenspan a better idea of how to deploy his pitching staff. More numbers means a better understanding of matchups, and that could be huge for an NU team that's struggled to get outs in the past.
It means there will be voices in the room advocating for an opener every once in a while. It means when Greenspan makes a call to the bullpen, there will be more intention behind it than just gut feeling. It means hitters might have a better understanding of what pitches they're missing, or what parts of the plate they fail to cover.
Because this is college baseball, we won't know much more about the express purpose of this student-led unit. But the fact that it exists at all is a much-needed step in the right direction.
Analytics are the future of baseball. All the best MLB teams are heavily invested, and that success means it's going to continue to spread at lower levels. People can be upset about that, but it's time to invest in it. Otherwise, teams and programs are going to be left behind, and this logical argument will all of the sudden be clear to every fan.
