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What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

nytimes.com

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Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#31

Post by tempestn »

This is a great lesson for hackers in general. Many of us, myself included, have a tendency to expect data to automatically win arguments. I mean, if something is irrefutably true with the data to prove it, that's the end of the discussion, right? But just as in this case, in reality, it's not even the beginning. Whether you're trying to convince your manager to go in a particular direction, or you're trying to motivate your employees to rally behind a cause, the data will help you decide where to go, but you need the right story to get people to follow you there.

And just because it's a "story" doesn't mean it's some BS you make up to get people to agree with you. It's more about considering the other person's point of view (their poorly-documented public API, if you like), and building an interface between that and your data.

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#32

Post by School-Cotton »

largote wrote: post #25
School-Cotton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is no sport or other organized competitive activity I can think of where the best in the world beats the second best in the world more than 95% of the time.

Maybe sprinting?

Good point. I'd guess that's true of stuff like weightlifting also. These sports that are about pushing your body as far as it can go in one dimension are a lot simpler and "purer" than a team game with lots of moving parts like baseball.

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#33

Post by phillc73 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #23
closed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a bayesian analysis with strong priors on the chance of winning. I'm not objecting to your critique (as I don't know much about sports), I just keep thinking of P(data | model).

Well, there is no sport or other organized competitive activity I can think of where the best in the world beats the second best in the world more than 95% of the time.

Rugby Union. I'd have to look at the exact numbers, but the New Zealand All Blacks have an amazing win rate. They do play the second best team in the world (either Australia or South Africa) on a regular basis and over the last four years have only lost once or twice. Won the last two World Cups.

Edit: Here's the data[0]. A 76% win rate since 2003. Twenty-two game winning streak in 2013. Never ranked lower than 3 in the world since 2003.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_national_rugby_u...

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#34

Post by pimlottc »

cortesoft wrote: post #2

The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.

For those curious, they ended up going 18-22 in the second half of the season. This was still good enough for a second place record of 44-33 overall, out of four teams. In the playoffs against the first place San Rafael Pacifics, they came close but lost 4 games to 3.

http://papbl_wtt.bbstats.pointstreak.com/standings.html?leag...

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#35

Post by pimlottc »

tempestn wrote: post #31

This is a great lesson for hackers in general. Many of us, myself included, have a tendency to expect data to automatically win arguments. I mean, if something is irrefutably true with the data to prove it, that's the end of the discussion, right? But just as in this case, in reality, it's not even the beginning. Whether you're trying to convince your manager to go in a particular direction, or you're trying to motiv…

The best manager I ever had was great at this. He was a former developer who understood the tech but knew how to speak the executives' language. You could convince him with a good tech story and then he'd turn around and sell to his bosses with a good business story.

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#36

Post by drumdance »

kmnc wrote: post #9

It would be interesting to see some scouting models based purely on psychological and personel relationship data. What kind of metrics are best at predicting team chemistry. Sports analytics is going to complete change most sports, we are just getting started.

A different angle is player health. The Golden State Warriors are known for resting top players when they're in Denver because they found it can take a player up to a week to fully recover from the effects of playing at altitude.

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#37

Post by billforsternz »

phillc73 wrote: post #33
School-Cotton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is no sport or other organized competitive activity I can think of where the best in the world beats the second best in the world more than 95% of the time.

Rugby Union. I'd have to look at the exact numbers, but the New Zealand All Blacks have an amazing win rate. They do play the second best team in the world (either Australia or South Africa) on a regular basis and over the last four years have only lost once or twice. Won the last two World Cups. Edit: Here's the data[0]. A 76% win rate since 2003. Twenty-two game winning streak in 2013. Never ranked lower than 3 in…

As a proud New Zealander it pains me to point out that the All Blacks still fall way short of the benchmark set by the parent comment - i.e. beating the second best 95% of the time.

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#39

Post by ericdykstra »

largote wrote: post #25
School-Cotton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is no sport or other organized competitive activity I can think of where the best in the world beats the second best in the world more than 95% of the time.

Maybe sprinting?

Competitions for "best score" (where score is a time, a number, etc) fall into a different category of sport than those where competitors are facing off head-to-head and there is interaction between competitors. And among the "best score" competitions, those which there is little variance in outcomes will result in a much higher win rate of "best" versus "second best" (a powerlifter or sprinter's score may only vary a few % between good and bad days. a bowlers' or golfers' can be much higher).

Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team

#40

Post by phillc73 »

billforsternz wrote: post #37
phillc73 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rugby Union. I'd have to look at the exact numbers, but the New Zealand All Blacks have an amazing win rate. They do play the second best team in the world (either Australia or South Africa) on a regular basis and over the last four years have only lost once or twice. Won the last two World Cups. Edit: Here's the data[0]. A 76% win rate since 2003. Twenty-two game winning streak in 2013. Never ranked lower than 3 in…

As a proud New Zealander it pains me to point out that the All Blacks still fall way short of the benchmark set by the parent comment - i.e. beating the second best 95% of the time.

As an Australian, maybe it just feels that way.
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