[philkid3]

Came back to post this.

The rays were one of the organizations that had a clue before most others did. One of the priorities of the Wall Street--trained front office that took over three years ago (a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, Matt Silverman, is the Rays' president) was to put an advanced statistical model in place that could measure defense with the same precision that has been applied to offense for years. "It's been a big focus of ours to get to a point where we feel comfortable taking information that we get internally, statistically, and use it with what our scouts are saying," says general manager Andrew Friedman, who was an analyst at Bear Stearns. "We've come a long way." Like the more advanced organizations that over the past few years used Zone Rating and UZR and plus/minus as road maps in developing their own models, Tampa Bay's internal metrics are closely guarded, proprietary secrets.