Jason Kanzler’s Coding Background Could Expose Bugs in Mariners’ Blueprint

The Mariners hired a manager who understands analytics well enough to challenge the front office’s conclusions. We should hope Jason Kanzler will tell Jerry Dipoto when the numbers don’t support the plan.

Kanzler’s coding background makes for a fun introduction. A baseball manager who taught himself to build apps should get some attention, especially in places like Seattle. But the part that really matters comes after we’ve exhausted all the jokes that involve a laptop.

Someone who understands how a system works should also understand how it can produce a crappy answer. Remember, humans built those models. People choose what goes into them. The Mariners’ assumptions deserve as much scrutiny as the decisions that come out. That gives Kanzler an opportunity to do something valuable inside the Mariners’ organization: examine the assumptions that survive because everyone involved has gotten comfortable with them.

As Adam Jude reported in The Seattle Times, Kanzler believes his varied experiences help him reach better questions faster. His familiarity with analytics should let him get deeper into a recommendation before it becomes a lineup decision or a hitting adjustment. We should expect him to use that access.

Jason Kanzler Has the Background to Call Out a Bad Plan

A recommendation arrives with numbers attached. Hey, that’s cool. What was the input?

A hitter going 3-for-8 against a pitcher gives us a .375 average and very little reason to build a lineup around it. Sure, the number is accurate. The conclusion can still be a reach. Kanzler surely understands that distinction well enough to catch it before it becomes the Mariners’ plan.

Also, we’re talking pretty basic, ordinary baseball questions. A manager who understands the analytical work is more than likely equipped to pursue the answers beyond the first explanation.

Kanzler’s résumé doesn’t guarantee he’ll get every call right. Teaching yourself to code and winning a pennant aren’t exactly in the same realm. But what we should like about his background is the appetite it suggests for understanding how things work. That curiosity should serve Seattle well when a recommendation looks cleaner on a screen than it does from the dugout.

We should want him debugging a plan when it fails, checking the inputs before running it again, and telling Dipoto and Justin Hollander when the problem calls for a rewrite. See…we can hit the buzzwords too.

There’s a trap here for the Mariners. Kanzler’s comfort with analytics makes him an obvious philosophical fit, and it would be easy to treat that fit as the accomplishment. Everyone speaks the same language. Meetings run smoothly. The manager understands what the front office wants.

Now, what happens when he thinks it’s wrong? That conversation could become one of the most important pieces of this hire.

Mariners’ collaboration needs to survive a disagreement

Kanzler has already described how he wants that partnership to work. At his introduction, he said his staff, players and the organization would all inform his decisions. He also made clear that he is comfortable making the final call when the information leaves room for judgment.

That gives us something to hold him to. Player feedback belongs in the process, and the manager has responsibility for deciding what to do with it.

According to Adam Jude’s reporting, Hollander emphasized a shared vision as the Mariners work to complete the coaching staff. There is already a meaningful connection behind the reported addition of CJ Gillman as hitting coach: Kanzler said he had tried to hire Gillman before and praised his communication and coaching methods.

Kanzler has his own reasons for believing in the coach expected to lead Seattle’s hitting instruction. His endorsement gives us more substance than another promise that everyone will work well together.

The same standard should apply to his relationship with Dipoto and Hollander. Kanzler’s analytical background gives him a foundation for examining their recommendations. His job now requires him to decide how those recommendations serve the players he manages.

We should expect that process to produce some disagreements. The value of hiring someone with his knowledge is that he can explain where the reasoning holds up and where it needs more work.

His coding background makes for a good introduction. Whether the Mariners put his judgment to use will give us a much better story.

Add us as a preferred source on Google