Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams. (Photo by David Banks/Getty Images)
(WSCR) In today’s baseball age, a debate centers around the use of objective vs. subjective scouting methods.
Subjective scouting centers around the use of one’s eyes – watching video tape and a player in action to make key personnel decisions. Objective scouting, however, involves using numbers and sabermetrics to evaluate players.
For newly minted White Sox general manager Rick Hahn, who tends to side with the objective methods moreso than former GM Kenny Williams, the White Sox will use a blended approach to player evaluation.
“It’ll absolutely be a blend,” Hahn told The McNeil and Spiegel Show. “We’ve already talked about adding some amateur scouts, adding some international scouts, obviously Kenny is going to spend a little more time on the subjective evaluation side. We’ve also spent some time – Jerry (Reinsdorf), Kenny and I, that is – talking about adding some resources on our objective analysis side, sort of beefing it up, so we have the best resources available on both subjective and objective analysis.
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“At the end of the day, I think Kenny, given his background as a player and scout and player development guy, and (having) a great deal of faith in video, if things were all close, that would probably break the tie, what his gut and what his eyes saw and what it told him. For me, given my background and some of my strengths, the objective side may be weighted more heavily in my decision; however, it’s not as if we’re going to completely disregard one.”
Hahn has been Williams’ assistant GM since 2000, but with Williams’ promotion to executive vice president, Hahn will now assume all daily GM duties.
” (I’ll spend) more time on the phone with other clubs,” Hahn said. “More time dealing with sort of strategy and philosophy within player development and international scouting and amateur scouting. The nice thing is that I had a hand in all these elements over the last several years.”
