The Miami Marlins have talked about their interest in goosing up their advanced analytics department during this offseason. Or at the very least, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com has discussed this as a goal in Miami. Given that the Marlins have offered up some interesting "internal statistics" claiming oddities like the league's leading ground ball offense would "benefit two to three wins" from moving in the fences, it is fair to say that the organization could use some more manpower in that aspect.

Well, they just got some more, in the form of former Toronto Blue Jays analyst Jason Pare. From Frisaro's MLB.com piece:

With advanced data becoming more prominent in the sport, team officials said at the end of the 2015 season that they were looking to build an analytics department. Bringing in Pare is the first step. Pare held the title of baseball operations analyst with the Blue Jays. In Miami, roles are still being determined.

Previously, only one person was in this "department," Dan Noffsinger, an 11-year Marlins man who worked up the scouting ranks to the position of director of baseball operations in Miami, was the only person noted as the "analyst" on the team. Noffsinger was a Harvard graduate, but he also did not have any noted chops in the analytical game outside of anything done within the confines of the organization. At best, we can only guess that he is aware of the advanced statistics work that has been brewing in various ballclubs, but he is only on the fringes of incorporating such thought into a slow-to-develop Marlins organization.

Pare, on the other hand, has a recorded history in sabermetrics thanks to his prior work and the method in which he was introduced into baseball analysis. Pare is a former writer for Baseball Prospectus, having worked there in 2007. He also was hired away by the saber-savvy Cleveland Indians organization, serving as an analyst and assistant under one of the early print-to-front-office heralds in former BP alum Keith Woolner. Pare was then hired by the Toronto Blue Jays most recently under the recommendation of former BP writer Joe Sheehan, who was serving as the lead analyst man in Toronto. Pare has credentials in the analyst game that Noffsinger could not boast by staying in Miami's organization.

Pare's role has yet to be determined, but the suspicion is that he will head the now-two-person analytics department. There is a chance the organization grow to up to three members during this time period. This is all a step in the right direction for the Marlins, who have long made decisions without these sort of numbers involved. For years under Larry Beinfest and former Harvard graduate Michael Hill, the Fish have made a number of moves with questionable sabermetric roots and justifications.

Now, by signing someone with both experience within front offices and analytic roots outside of baseball, the team has a shot at really building an analytic organization to rival Miami's primary-scouting thought process. This is the best way to boost decision-making, by blending both parts and having all of those voices at the table for personnel decisions. Further more, it boosts the chances the Marlins will be working on novel research to try and keep up with the growing sabermetric innovation in other front offices. Quietly, this is probably one of the better moves the Marlins have made this offseason.