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(03-11-2013 04:45 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(03-11-2013 01:32 PM)freeblazer Wrote:  

(03-11-2013 01:14 PM)blazr Wrote:  

(03-11-2013 11:08 AM)freeblazer Wrote:  But it's not exactly the same as what GMs are doing. They're related, but different. As a fan, I don't necessarily care if a player is overpaid or underpaid; I just want to know if he's good or bad. But a GM needs to know both whether he's good or bad, and whether his value matches, exceeds or falls short of his cost. And that's why there are so many Ivy League MBAs running professional franchises these days.

And which players are due for a sharp jump in productivity or the dreaded "regression to the mean." Old-school folks, and old-guard analysts like Vitale, love to bash analytics (or not bother to understand when they are making them look stupid) because it turns sports into just "crunching numbers." But if you dug up a 19th century mathematician in the Arctic and thawed him out, all he would have to know is that there's a sport that has 100+ years of recorded history and where the rules have remained virtually the same...he would probably laugh at how obvious and easy it would be to analyze the present or even predict the future with a high degree of certainty with the luxury of so much history.

One of my favorite statistical trends right now is the one showing how stupid it is to give baseball players long-term contracts after the age of 30. There are obviously non-baseball-related reasons to do it sometimes (the Angels will sell infinitely more tickets because of Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton), but the decision to reward past performance with a long-term contract that starts at 30 or older when historical models demonstrate pretty conclusively that it's a huge mistake rarely works.

But it's almost too easy for smart people to win in baseball. Basketball advanced statistics are more interesting and complicated. The efficiency ratings and five-man unit statistics are really cool. And the new defensive analytics prove that people have been misunderstanding defense for almost as long as basketball has been played.

These numbers would have loved Squeaky, who was a great on-ball defender, but was at his best when he was full-on freaking out a post player who was petrified to put it on the floor even one time because he had no idea where Squeaky was. That's where most of his steals came from, and the havoc he created is what they're doing a better job of measuring. Squeaky was the best defensive basketball player in the country in 2006.

I started a thread a couple of months ago about the Prouty efficiency ratings and ranked the Blazers of the past 10 years. Since then, I have been going over the stats of every player who ever wore a UAB uniform and when I am finish will rank the top20 or so. I can tell you this though. Oliver Robinson's senior year blows everyone out of the water and it isn't even close.

Well, what's most satisfying about a statistical analysis is when it proves what you knew all along.