Where numbers go next

Links (7)

Boston Globe/James: Where Numbers Go Next
Published 10/7/2007 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
Boston Globe/James: Where Numbers Go Next Statistical analysis is not dead - it just needs to have a new focus, according to Bill James: In sports, mathematical analysis is old news as applied to baseball, basketball, and football. Statistical research of player performances has now been routinely applied to improve the results of individual teams. But it has not yet been applied to leagues . This unexplored area holds great promise for sports, and sports fans. Rather than beginning with the question How does a team win? - the query that has been the basis of all sports research to this point - what if we begin by asking How does a league succeed? ...

Sunday Readin': Bill James On The NBA
Published 10/7/2007 by Hot Shit College Student at Thank You Isiah
... . BJ in the Globe: ...

Bill James: NBA Needs More Parity
Published 10/7/2007 by Tom Ziller at FanHouse
... turns his attention to the major sports leagues in this week's Boston Globe Magazine (via ...

Monday Bullets
Published 10/8/2007 at ESPN.com - True Hoop - Blog
... Bill James, statistical Wizard best known for his work in baseball, writing in the Boston Globe: "In the NBA, the element of predetermination is simply too high. Simply stated, the best team wins too often. If the best team always wins, then the sequence of events leading to victory is meaningless. Who fights for the rebound, who sacrifices his body to keep the ball from rolling out of bounds doesn't matter. The greater team is going to come out on top anyway. A fan can look at the standings in December, pick the teams that will make the playoffs, and might get them all. This has a horrific effect on the game. Everybody knows who's going to win. Why do the players seem to stand around on offense? Why is showboating tolerated? Because it doesn't matter. Why don't teams play as teams? Because they can win without doing so (although teams like these may crumble w ...

Bill James Can Go To Hell
Published 10/12/2007 by M. Haubs at The Painted Area
Don't get me wrong, I have always been a huge Bill James fan. I still remember the first time I found The Baseball Abstract , by happenstance in a mall in Fort Myers, Florida, on a spring break trip to Grandma's - truly one of the great revelations of my life as a sports fan. I'm pleasantly amazed that Jamesian-style tools of rational analysis have become increasingly common and mainstream in baseball. And I'm thrilled that the rational analysis revolution has finally reached basketball, even though we're still in the early stages. But this Bill James story from Sunday's Boston Globe Magazine, titled " Where Numbers Go Next ", has piqued my frustration. The story centers around James' thoughts on the evolution in statistical analysis in sports. He seems to believe that the next steps should go beyond analyzing players in the name of determining what makes a team win, and focus on deter ...

Crash and Byrne(s)
Published 10/15/2007 by Dan Fox at Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered
... Suspecting that had the tape of game three much less the series been rewound and replayed again and again the Diamondbacks don’t hit into three double plays and Torrealba doesn’t hit that homerun in most of those alternate outcomes is I’m sure of little comfort to Arizona and its fans. But for the baseball fan in general we should embrace that balance of probability and contingency, since it is one of the many things that make baseball such a great game. ...

Looking Past The Distractions
Published 10/17/2007 by Kurt at Forum Blue And Gold
... • I’m a little late to this party but still wanted to mention it. Recently baseball stats demi-god Bill James weighed in on what is needed to “fix” other sports, including the NBA. His main problem with The Association — the best team always wins. See, in the summer-long 162 game baseball season the best teams do rise to the top, but then come the playoffs and it’s a crapshoot (see Rockies, Colorado). James thinks that a certain amount of unpredictability is great. ...