Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

I really hope to see future election coverage from him; not sure how that will happen at ESPN.

The geeks are winning that culture clash. ESPN.com now includes a lot of advanced metrics in their stats and last year in the Mike Trout vs Miguel Cabrera MVP race they discussed why Mike Trout was the favorite of the new school at length, constantly discussing his obscene WAR[1].

Nate Silver was ahead of his time on those advanced metrics but he was undoubtedly one of the pioneers. If people had been more receptive to his brand of statistics five years ago he likely never even goes into politics. Sports was his first love (along with poker, which he goes out of his way to not mention these days, unfortunately. He even obscured his username on the largest poker forum[2], so it would be harder to find with search engines).

Completely random thought that probably means nothing, but is worth noting: he's openly gay[3]. With the tide on gay athletes turning sharply and quickly, I have to think that factored into his decision. Perhaps he is hopeful he can play a role in that, being the champion of the gay athlete or at least the one guy at ESPN they know will be on their side.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wins_Above_Replacement

[2]http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/members/4548/

[3]http://gawker.com/5969477/sexually-gay-but-ethnically-straig...

>Perhaps that genre of ESPN commentator is finally on the way out.

There is room for both, IMO. The 40+ year old crowd are largely comprised of people who are "done learning things" (a quote my father actually told me when I told him about my baseball research), so you need to have the Joe Morgans of the world.

But since all of the winning teams in baseball rely on an analytical approach, it's never been more obvious that nerds dominate the level of the sport where decisions are made. And commentators are shifting as a result of that, since it's just natural.

But you do need both, often because the people in the 2nd group tend to have worse social/presentation skills than the individuals in the 1st group. No slight intended (I belong mostly in the 2nd group, for god's sake), but it is not an unfair generalization.

Readers prefer reading human narratives over rational analysis in all areas, whether sports or politics. It's not even really about a distaste for mathematical analysis so much as a distaste for cold rationality in general. There's lots of fascinating strategy involved with blocking schemes in American football ("if I step here, he'll step here, so instead I move this way...") that are analytical but not numerical. With the occasional exceptional comment by John Madden, these are rarely discussed.

So you are right about the typical role of stats in sports. Commenters like chasing and lnanek2 are mistakenly keying on the fact that sports, having well-defined rules and human-constructed elements, are very easy to measure and so lots of numbers exist. As you correctly point out in reply to chasing, these numbers are simply thrown out there without actually being used in a coherent analysis.

On the data journalism mailing list, we've had a small discussion about how Nate could be replaced by any of the other data-minded journalists...it's not because his work was simple, but Silver himself has said that his analysis is straightforward and the math is accessible...the difference is that Silver gives a damn about context and analysis In a methodological way.

He definitely brings in good writing talents and a possibly unmatched inquisitiveness...but his methods and predictive analysis aren't irreplaceable. And yes, part of the draw is the brand that he's worked tirelessly to build...but this is a brand built on verifying results...I.e. being conclusively right....if the Times were to bring in another blogger who predicts the 2014 Congressional race to a T, and explains his/her methods and shows a real love for it, I'll subscribe to that blog and not give a whit about how many years of blogging they've done.

Contrast this with the irreplaceable Roger Ebert. He was incomparable as a writer, but his brand was built on something very subjective...and thus, once he's gone, it's hard to justify going back to RogerEbert.com, no matter how great of critics there are to replace him. Roger's brand is based more on long-built loyalty...Silver's brand is more based on making verifiable hypotheses and being correct...time and time again.