The Intersection of Analytics and Sports
The Origins
Bill James is considered an expert on advanced baseball statistics – in 2006 Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world – but in 1977 James was just an average, albeit dedicated baseball fan. During this time all player evaluation in the industry was done by trained scouts who watched hours of baseball tape and critiqued every aspect of a player’s mechanics. James’s self published a book that used advanced statistics instead of observation to analyze the sport; he combined advanced mathematical modeling with a sport. He watched very few games (after all, no satellite television) and relied mostly on box scores and complicated mathematical formulas to determine a player’s worth. He named his process sabermetrics. James’s book argued that the scouts’ time-tested evaluations were mostly wrong.
The baseball establishment immediately ignored his idea. After all, what does a guy with no professional baseball experience, who doesn’t even watch all the games, know that a scout with thirty years of experience doesn’t? Despite a lack of interest, the idea did not die and in 2003 the ideas hit mainstream when writer Michael Lewis profiled Oakland Athletics General Manger, Billy Beane (a James’s disciple), in his best selling book Money Ball. Relying exclusively on advanced statistics and saddled with a diminutive payroll, Beane assembled a roster of undervalued, but talented players. Sabermetrics transformed the Oakland As from a low payrolled loser, to a low payrolled winner, finishing 1st or 2nd in their division every year from 1999-2006.
Baseball is the perfect sport to measure individual achievement. Each pitch, at bat, and throw is a separate independent action that can be graded, charted, and deciphered. What about a different team sport: basketball? If Alex Rodriguez hits a home run, you can easily analyze its impact on the team. However, if Dirk Nowitzki makes six straight points and the opposing team orders two players to guard him, leaving a teammate open for an easy shot, how do you measure Nowitzki’s contribution? This paradox is why many doubt that Sabermetrics can transform basketball, but this hasn’t stopped a few talented individuals from searching for the intersection.
The Intersection
Daryl Morey’s resume reads like a board member on a technology firm: B.S. Computer Science, Northwestern; M.B.A., Entrepreneurship M.I.T. You would expect a person with these credentials to develop the newest computer technology; instead he is the General Manager of the NBA franchise the Houston Rockets and the only GM not to have been a former player, scout, or coach. Owner Leslie Alexander hired Morey to run his team because he “wanted somebody that was doing more than just looking at players in the normal way.” (New York Times) Morey exact philosophy is kept secret, but many argue that he uses a combination of Sabermetrics and traditional scouting. This formula has won him 58 percent of his games and guided his team to the playoffs in two of his four years. Chris Wallace, the GM of the Memphis Grizzlies called Morey “the perfect individual to meld traditional scouting…with the more high-tech version of quantitative analysis.” (New York Times)
The Medici Effect showed that incredible breakthroughs are often a result of different fields “coming together to find a place for their ideas to meet, collide, and build on each other.” The rise of advanced statistics is a perfect example of it. Further, “Innovations must not only be valuable, they must also be put to use by others in society” and this is exactly what happened with advanced statistics and basketball. Bill James began the revolution in baseball and Billy Beane proved his ideas have value, but wasn’t able to realize the ultimate goal. Many attribute this to Beane’s complete reliance on statistics. (Beane famously called Prince Fielder “too fat to play”. Fielder is now a perennial All-Star)
This year the Daryl Morey and the Rockets did not made the playoffs, but the Dallas Mavericks did and won the NBA championship. Why do I bring this up? The Mavericks happen to employ Roland Beech, practitioner of sabermetrics and founder of NBA statistical analysis website 82 games. The Mavericks hired Beech to supplement their traditional player-scouting department. In essence, Morey found the intersection, but the Mavericks crossed it.
November 5, 2011 Leave a comment