The colored charts and graphs occupied a corner of Pete Mackanin's desk, and the 64-year-old baseball lifer inspected them on a recent afternoon. Spray charts. Hot zones. Swing tendencies. Pitch percentages. Those items were not always prioritized on the ground floor of Citizens Bank Park in previous seasons.
"Numbers are important. Statistics matter," the Phillies manager said. "The new wave of analytics just delves deeper."
Baseball is awash with more information than ever, although it is still unclear what big data's place will be inside the Phillies clubhouse. The Phillies, under a mandate from co-owner John Middleton, have preached a dedication to analytics.