A few weeks in the past, Alex Coffey of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a profile of Ani Kilambi, the assistant GM who heads up the Phillies’ R&D division. Studying it, one element instantly jumped out at me: Coffey printed the identify of Philadelphia’s proprietary database. It’s known as Rocky. That’s a enjoyable identify, and it follows the league-wide development of golf equipment giving their databases names which can be each lovely and particular to both their workforce or metropolis. It was the primary time I’d come throughout the identify, although the article indicated that it had been round for years.
Like many individuals, I first realized about workforce databases when it was reported that Chris Correa, then the Cardinals’ scouting director, had illegally accessed Houston’s database in 2015; Correa later pled responsible to 5 felony costs associated to his unauthorized entry. Even earlier than that, although, groups had been understandably secretive concerning the info they used. Milwaukee’s sports activities science wing is called The Lab, and the Brewers have made it very clear that they don’t need anybody coming close to it. The images under are from an MLB.com article about The Lab in 2020.
That secrecy typically extends to the identify of the database. I think about the pondering is that it’s more durable to interrupt into one thing should you don’t know what it’s known as. Nonetheless, there was an inconsistency that bothered me. The names of those databases are a intently held secret, but I already knew a handful of them. I questioned why that was, so I set off on a analysis marathon to search out as lots of the names as I probably may. It took many, many hours, and my record remains to be not full.
What I discovered is each occasionally, the identify of a database will find yourself in a newspaper article. Most of the time, it’s a extremely large article that glorifies the entrance workplace of the workforce in query, or assures followers that the analytics division is doing good work. As if to focus on the ability of the system, it’s virtually at all times known as a “proprietary database.” Then the identify largely disappears from use. It isn’t talked about once more and the workforce goes again to performing prefer it’s a thriller. The impression I acquired is that entrance places of work are extraordinarily secretive concerning the names of their databases, however solely till they’ve one thing to achieve by revealing them.
On this article, I record each publicly obtainable identify I may discover. I wish to be very clear that I’m not revealing any info that isn’t already on the market. Each identify that you simply learn has already been reported, virtually at all times in a serious publication. I did ask round a bit and realized a pair extra that haven’t been recognized publicly, however I gained’t be together with these. These groups have labored exhausting to keep up their secrecy, and I’m going to respect that.
I’ve damaged down the identify of every database under. I’ve additionally given it a rating, utilizing WAR as a handy measuring stick. The names are presupposed to be enjoyable, so I’ve determined to deal with them that manner, awarding credit score for cleverness, aptness and, most essential of all, weirdness. Clearly, these scores are extraordinarily subjective.
You’ll notice that not each workforce is listed. It’s doable that I’m lacking a reputation that has already been made public, however there have been a number of that I couldn’t discover. In 2016, Jeff Lengthy wrote an article concerning the naming development for Baseball Prospectus. He listed two rumored names that I couldn’t verify: BASEtech for the Padres, and Stache for the Reds. (If I’d been in a position to verify Stache, it will have racked up a complete lot of WAR.) Nowhere may I discover something concerning the databases of the Angels, Brewers, Dodgers, Giants, Rangers, Royals, or Twins. Congratulations to these groups for actually figuring out the way to hold a secret.
One final notice: A pair groups nonetheless have their websites listed by search engines like google and yahoo, which strikes me as a gargantuan oversight. I urge them to deindex their websites instantly. Any butthead may attempt to guess a password and log in. I gained’t say which groups, and I wish to take this chance to impel everybody studying this: Don’t be a butthead. It might be each immoral and unlawful. In addition to, not being a butthead is its personal reward. Now on to the names we do know!
A’s: The Tye Resolution
Sadly, our first entry doesn’t really matter. The Tye Resolution wasn’t a complete workforce database. It was a FileMaker database hand-compiled over a number of years by Tye Waller, who served as first base coach, outfield coach, and, for 2 years, bench coach. It included knowledge about pitch choice and batted ball distribution, all to assist Waller create a greater defensive positioning plan. Waller coached with the A’s from 2007 to 2015. Based on DRS, Oakland’s outfield was value 56 runs over that interval, eighth-best in baseball. Oddly, when the A’s let Waller go, they informed him it was as a result of they wished to deal with newer concepts. “[Manager Bob Melvin] stated they’re going ‘leading edge,’ however I don’t know what meaning,” Waller informed reporters.
WAR: 3.0
The Tye Resolution could not have been an official identify, however actually does appear to have been apt, because it was a one-man present.
Astros: Floor Management
Is that this the bottom that launched a thousand quips? Earlier than it turned well-known for being hacked, the Astros weren’t hesitant to crow about their state-of-the-art database. Its prominence is without doubt one of the causes that intelligent names turned de rigueur. The identify even has a enjoyable origin story. Earlier than he turned Baltimore’s basic supervisor, Mike Elias was an up-and-coming government in Houston. In 2014, Evan Drellich associated the story of Houston’s database, “The Astros, after all, wanted a reputation for theirs. When an e-mail went out for options, Elias occurred to be sitting subsequent to his spouse, Alexandra, a advertising specialist. She tied the themes collectively instantly: the Astros, the house program, a mainframe for workers working all all through the nation and even the world.”
Oddly, Mission Management may need been a extra applicable identify. Minute Maid Park is simply 25 miles from the Johnson House Heart, and once you hear the identify Floor Management you doubtless image a giant room full of individuals at computer systems checking in. That’s the Mission Management Heart. A type of individuals on the laptop represents the bottom management workforce, but it surely’s not the identify of the entire operation. Floor Management feels so proper as a result of David Bowie’s “House Odyssey” introduced the time period into the general public vernacular.
WAR: 7.0
Not solely is Floor Management intelligent, but it surely’s proper on track for a workforce named the Astros, in House Metropolis, with a mascot named Orbit. Commencing countdown, engines on.
Blue Jays: The BEEST
To begin with, this technique has virtually actually been both supplanted or renamed. The identify is a reference to former workforce president Paul Beeston, who left in 2015. I’m positive it’s not, but it surely may even be a reference to Beast of the X-Males, who, just like the Jays, is a beautiful shade of royal blue. What higher method to get your gamers to purchase into analytics than by giving your database a nickname that they’d need for themselves?
WAR: 6.5
It loses a win or two for being named partially for the aim of ingratiating somebody to their boss, however nonetheless, it’s known as the BEEST.
Braves: Tomahawk
I discovered this identify in a Baseball America article from 2016, so it’s doable that Atlanta modified it sooner or later up to now seven years. I hope they’ve. Hammer would have the identical really feel, with the added advantages of honoring the franchise’s biggest participant and never being offensive.
WAR: N/A
I award you no factors.
Cardinals: Purple Chicken Canine
By some accounts, this database was known as Redbird relatively than Purple Chicken Canine, however both manner, the identify was modified after the unwelcome publicity of the Astros hack. Redbird is barely boring, whereas Purple Chicken Canine has some cleverness, combining the Redbirds with fowl canine scouts.
WAR: 3.4
Neither choice is especially thrilling, however that really makes them each stable suits for the stolid Cardinal Method.
Cubs: Ivy
There’s one thing comforting about somebody completely assembly your expectations. Of all of the names which have been made public, none feels prefer it fits the workforce higher than this one. Few groups have as wealthy a historical past because the Cubs, and even fewer like to have fun their historical past as a lot because the Cubs do. I’m positive the workforce kicked round choices like Day Video games, or Let’s Play Two, or Harry Caray’s Glasses, however ultimately, Ivy simply feels just like the classiest choice.
WAR: 3.5
Whereas it’s not flashy, it positively meets the transient as a cute reference to a beloved a part of workforce lore.
Diamondbacks: Cobra
A diamondback is a rattlesnake present in Arizona. Cobra is the frequent identify of a number of styles of venomous snakes. A diamondback shouldn’t be a kind of varieties. Nonetheless, whereas it doesn’t match up completely, it really works nicely sufficient. I suppose they may have named the database Rattler or one thing, however actually I simply wish to be performed with this one. I needed to see a bunch of images of snakes whereas conducting my analysis, and now I’m afraid that I’ll by no means sleep once more.
WAR: 2.5
It’s completely positive, apart from the half the place I had to take a look at snakes.
Guardians: DiamondView
As far as I can inform, the Guardians had been one of many very first groups to place their database collectively. Alex Kaufman wrote about DiamondView in 2014, and famous that the workforce had been utilizing it way back to 2003. It’s doable that the workforce has a brand new database created nearer to this decade and that this identify is outdated.
WAR: 3.2
The Guards get a move right here, just because they created their database in a world the place most individuals hadn’t but realized that databases are presupposed to have lovely names.
Mariners: Trident
Discover somebody who loves you as a lot because the Mariners love tridents. The trident has been part of the workforce’s model identification for the reason that starting, showing inverted to create an M on hats and jerseys. It returned to prominence final yr, each due to the workforce’s Metropolis Join uniforms and since the gamers used one of their residence run celebrations. “That proper there’s positively going to inspire you to hit extra homers,” Julio Rodríguez informed reporters.
WAR: 4.6
A lot of life is simply determining who you might be and studying to embrace it. The Mariners are all in on tridents, they usually don’t care who is aware of it.
Marlins: The Fish Bag
A part of me thinks that that is an elaborate joke. Fish luggage are an actual factor. They’re insulated luggage that permit fisherman hold the fish they’ve caught contemporary. However would The Fish actually identify their database after the factor you employ after you kill a bunch of fish? Is the Royals’ database known as the Guillotine? Nonetheless, it’s proper there in black and white in a 2017 article by Tim Healey of Fort Lauderdale’s Solar Sentinel: “Among the many workforce’s belongings is The Fish Bag, an inner residence base of kinds for all the Marlins’ analytical work, together with an growing quantity of information visualization instruments — charts and graphs and whatnot to assist the much less analytically inclined digest all of the numbers.”
WAR: 8.4
Both any person within the Marlins entrance workplace pranked Tim Healey, or any person within the Marlins entrance workplace simply picked essentially the most absurd identify they may consider. Both manner, it’s an MVP-caliber transfer.
Mets: The Matrix
I’m sure that this database has been changed. The Matrix was profiled within the New York Put up in 2015. That was 16 years after the movie of the identical identify was launched, but it surely was the identical yr that the Mets went to the World Collection.
WAR: 2.8
What this identify has to do with the Mets (other than alliteration) is past me, however there’s nothing notably unpleasant about it.
Nationals: The Pentagon
The Nationals get credit score for being the primary workforce on our record to go for a reference that’s extra concerning the area than the precise workforce. Actually, the Pentagon is true throughout the river from Nationals Park, so shut that naming the database after it’d sometimes be complicated. Clearly, failing to call the database the Library of Congress was a missed alternative, however the Nats additionally get a bonus for the sheer intimidation issue.
WAR: 4.9
I can’t consider a greater endorsement for this identify than the truth that somebody may feasibly say, “I would like to search out out whether or not this man has the aptitude to launch bombs; somebody get me the Pentagon.”
Orioles: Omar (Orioles Administration and Analysis)
Lastly, a workforce whose proprietary database has some road cred. Possibly I needs to be embarrassed by this, however the one episode of The Wire I’ve ever seen is the pilot. Omar wasn’t within the pilot, however as I perceive it, he was a lovable scamp with penchant for armed theft. I’d say the O’s can match the Nationals within the intimidation division.
WAR: 7.9
It’s not utterly clear to me what this has to do with baseball, however so far as honoring violent, fictional hometown heroes goes, this one’s an MVP candidate.
Phillies: Rocky
Talking of violent hometown heroes of the fictional selection, Rocky is an enormous enchancment over Philadelphia’s earlier database. That one was known as the Phillies Holistic Data Location, or PHIL, which is truthfully the worst factor I’ve heard in my life. Data places are very a lot not a factor, and I don’t know what may or would make their info holistic. Why hassle to create a backronym for Phil when the primary phrase is Phillies? As for Rocky, all I actually need is a sneak peek simply to see how good a fielder it thinks Nick Castellanos actually is.
WAR: 7.4
You possibly can argue that Rocky ought to rank barely forward of Omar, however I needed to knock off win or two off for the PHIL factor.
Pirates: MITT (Managing, Data, Instruments, and Expertise)
What’s going on in Pennsylvania? First PHIL and now MITT? Whereas the acronym isn’t as tortured Philadelphia’s, it’s nonetheless fairly insipid. Then again, there was as soon as a time when Pittsburgh’s analytics division was thought-about leading edge, and MITT may need had a hand in that.
WAR: 0.9
The Pirates have a lot enjoyable historical past to play with, however apparently it pales compared with the prospect to spell out the phrase “mitt.” You recognize, like a baseball mitt.
Rays: Uncle Charlie
This identify is probably going outdated, as Marc Topkin wrote it up all the best way again in 2013. Uncle Charlie is a nickname for a curveball. Apparently, since 2013, 10.2% of the Rays’ pitches have been curveballs, precisely in the course of all main league groups and precisely on the large league common. In that sense, no workforce’s Uncle Charlie has been much less exceptional.
WAR: 3.3
Within the sense that the workforce kind of picked a generic baseball time period, it’s not that totally different from calling your database MITT. Nonetheless, it’s pretty odd as baseball phrases go, so the Rays get some credit score.
Purple Sox: Beacon
The Purple Sox have extra database names within the public document than another workforce. There was Carmine, which Tom Verducci as soon as described as “the digital brains of the Boston operation.” The identify is a reference to the shade of pink, and the workforce was sometimes known as the Carmines, most prominently by White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson. In an article concerning the 2018 transition from Carmine to Beacon, Rob Bradford wrote that Carmine had been round since 2000.
Of their 2019 e book The MVP Machine, Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchick reported on a pitching-specific software known as PEDRO, brief for pitching, analysis, growth, analysis, and optimization. Naming it after a Purple Sox legend was an ideal transfer, and ‘optimization’ is the one phrase that’s clearly there simply to make the spelling work.
WAR: 3.5
Fenway Park is true off Beacon Avenue, which ends up in the close by Beacon Hill neighborhood, website of the Massachusetts State Home. It’s a pleasant native contact, but it surely’s not notably fascinating.
Tigers: Caesar
The Tigers didn’t end constructing their first database till 2017, when Carmine was sufficiently old to drive. They named it Caesar, a nod to the Ilitch household, which made its fortune promoting the most affordable pizza the human thoughts is able to comprehending. On the time, Caesar was actually on the mind over at Ilitch Holdings. Proper when the Tigers had been rolling the database out, Little Caesars was giving a makeover to the toga-clad, laurel-laden mascot of their brand. Essentially the most notable change? Eradicating his chest hair.
If I had been in cost, I would swap the identify of the database to honor a former Tiger with an unimaginable identify: Suds Sutherland. That manner, somebody may conceivably say, “Seiya Suzuki swings at sinkers. See? Suds Sutherland says so.”
WAR: 2.7
Caesar is a stable starter. It wins factors for playfulness, but it surely offers them proper again by enjoying on the surface pursuits of possession relatively than on one thing that has to do with the workforce or town.
White Sox: Scouting Portal
The Scouting Portal is one other system that has to have been outmoded by one thing else. In a 2012 interview, Dan Fabian, then the director of baseball operations, stated that it was “a website the place you’ll be able to go to see any of our scouting reviews or statistical info on-line.” He additionally stated that it had been round since roughly 2002.
WAR: 2.0
This can be a alternative degree identify, within the sense that it’s barely a reputation in any respect. It was simply individuals calling the factor what it was. There was no extra motive to present it a elaborate identify than there’s to present a reputation to the chair you sit in at work. (For those who do have a enjoyable identify for the chair you sit in at work, please inform me about it within the feedback.)
Yankees: B.A.S.E. (Baseball Evaluation and Statistics Engine)
This one works on a number of ranges, all of them unfathomably fundamental. It’s a database known as B.A.S.E. in a sport known as baseball. It’s a baseball evaluation and statistics engine known as Baseball Evaluation and Statistics Engine. I think the Yankees had been going for one thing like HAL 9000 from 2001: A House Odyssey, however they missed the mark. As a substitute, it’s just like the man out of your hometown who acquired a sandwich named after him within the cool lunch spot as a result of he’s well-known now, besides the man’s identify is Turkey Sandwich.
There by no means has been and by no means can be a workforce extra enamored with its personal mythology than the New York Yankees. You imply to inform me nobody thought to name this factor Pinstripes, or Bomber, or the Cathedral, or Twenty-Seven? Or how about Babe, or Lou, or Joe, or Yogi, or Mick?
WAR: -2.3
The only worst season {that a} certified Yankee has ever put up was Bernie Williams‘ -2.3 WAR marketing campaign in 2005. B.A.S.E. is the equal of that season.