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Craig R. Wright |
Craig
R. Wright worked
21 years in major league baseball, primarily in the area of player evaluation.
He was one of the early pioneers taking an approach that integrated science
with baseball. He is most often associated with the Texas Rangers where he
got his start in the early 1980s, but his longest association with a big
league team was a 10-year run as a year-round consultant to the Los Angeles
Dodgers. During that period the Dodgers had the second best record in the
league, trailing only the Atlanta Braves during their amazing streak of
divisional titles. From
1989 to 1996, he also provided a supplemental Advance Scout service for
post-season play that was used by six pennant winners and four World
Champions. He ended that service to have the time to work two years as a
year-round consultant to the Arizona Diamondbacks in their preparation for
their expansion draft, the first to produce a 40-homer player and two
All-Star players. He also was a consultant for a dozen years with STATS Inc,
designing their products for major league teams and some cross-over products
used by the media. He is the primary author of The
Diamond Appraised (Simon & Shuster), which was translated
into Japanese and led to the addition of the Hanshin Tigers to his client
list. He also is the co-author of The Man Who Stole
First Base (Taylor Publishing) which is a collection of stories from
the long-running radio show A Page from Baseball’s
Past, which he also researched and wrote.
(The show was created in partnership with Eric Nadel
who was the producer and voice of the show.) There is now a subscription text
version of the show, enhanced by pictures, charts,
research notes, and is a huge hit among fans and baseball historians (see
advertisement at the right). Craig
lives in his beloved Click
here to learn more about the book The Diamond Appraised
Like a lot of folks who
find themselves saddled with a public persona, there have been things put out
in the public domain about my career that are off the mark — sometimes to the
point of being exactly the opposite of the truth or literally involving a
completely different person. You get used to having to live with such
nonsense, and it was a delight to realize that here was an opportunity to
correct some of the false notions. Most are such obvious mistakes that they
quickly fall by the wayside and are not worth addressing. For example, a
writer for the Associated Press once criticized the impact my book The Diamond Appraised had on pitching practices in baseball, and
specifically credited it with helping to kill the 4-man pitching rotation — a
rather remarkable charge given the chapter in the book titled “Bring Back the
Four-Man Rotation.” It turned out the writer had never even seen the book,
and apologized for being misled without checking out the facts. There is also a bit of
confusion where some folks have written that I worked with the Seattle
Mariners under Bill Bavasi. This appears to stem from
a newspaper interview where Bavasi talked about
trying to hire me, and somewhere along the line someone missed the part in
that story that noted that I declined. For the record, I never worked for the
Mariners at any time in my career. Another well off the mark
claim that was recently brought to my attention was a baseball executive who
did an interview where he mentioned knowing me back in the early 1980s and
that I “went on to be the founder of STATS Inc.” Not even remotely close. I
did have an association with STATS Inc where for several years they were the
one client of my consulting business that was not a team. I designed their
products for the major league teams, and they advertised me as their “Director of Major League Operations,”
but I certainly was not the founder of the company or involved in its startup. To help straighten out a
few other things, I have five sub-pages you can visit: My problem with “Moneyball,” by Michael Lewis My Corrections and Additions to “The Numbers Game,” by
Alan Schwarz Wikipedia Twisting the Truth - Voros McCracken Entry Correcting
the Perception of My Role in the Rockies “Hampton-Neagle”
Signings |
The
ongoing series of stories, A Page from Baseball’s
Past, is written and researched by |
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