Mets assistant GM Adam Guttridge, who was hired by Brodie Van Wagenen as part of a series of front office moves this offseason, has been Van Wagenen's most important hire, writes Tim Britton in a wide-ranging piece for The Athletic that traces Guttridge's rise and details how he has impacted the Mets.

Among the things Guttridge has his fingerprints on? Bringing J.D. Davis to the attention of the Mets this offseason as a trade target and helping them decide in-season to start using their closer in tie games on the road.

"Sometimes data can be intimidating, sometimes it can be overwhelming," Van Wagenen told Britton. "But Adam is able to communicate that as effectively to our analysts as he does to myself, to our other leaders, to ownership and to players and coaches as well … He understands how to put people in situations to succeed."

Along with Guttridge, the Mets also hired Jared Banner (their new farm director, who grew up a Mets fan in Brooklyn), former Royals GM Allard Baird, and Russell Carleton (who was the longest-tenured writer at Baseball Prospectus) this offseason to help bolster and reshape their more analytics-driven front office under Van Wagenen.

Guttridge, who is serving as their assistant GM of systematic development, has a deep analytics background.

He began his career in baseball in 2005 with the Rockies. He then joined the Brewers, where he served as Manager of Baseball Research and Development.

After working with the Brewers, Guttridge co-founded NEIFI (normalized empirical individual forecasting index), where he co-developed the Automated Prospect Model, which received an award from MIT.

Guttridge has also written for FanGraphs -- where a piece he cowrote on the future of technology in player development was published in 2016 -- and taught at NYU.

Shortly after being hired as GM, Van Wagenen spoke of his desire to beef up the Mets' analytics department -- one that had been one of the smallest in the majors.

In the video below, Guttridge discusses the Automated Prospect Model.

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