Play Ball!
There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.*
It was a warm summer day in 1974 when I found myself at my very first Major League Baseball game. It was Shea Stadium in Queens, NY and I was with my best friend and her family. I was 9 years old and life couldn’t be better. Well, I guess it could have been better had the Mets not lost to the Cubs that day. And so began my love of baseball and the torture of being a Mets fan.
Now baseball, more than any other sport that I’m aware of, is inherently connected to statistical analysis. If there’s a baseball metric that you can think of, I guarantee there is someone out there tracking it. In 2002, the Oakland A’s turned the baseball world on its head when they applied statistics in a very non-traditional way. The A’s were faced with the reality that they were a $41 million team that needed to compete against teams with much larger payrolls (the Yankees had a $125 million payroll that year). Through the use of sabermetrics (derived from
the Society for American Baseball Research), the A’s discovered that slugging percentage and on-base percentage were more correlated to scoring runs than the traditional metrics of batting average, RBIs and stolen bases. This allowed them to find and sign talented, but under-valued players.
The book, MoneyBall, by Michael Lewis tells the whole story.
Did it work? Brilliantly. The A’s won their division in both 2002 and 2003. The analyst in me loves this story, but the baseball fan in me quickly saw a problem. A big one. While the A’s did make it to the playoffs, they never made it past the first round. One of the reasons is that I believe they had simply become too reliant on statistics and were not risk-takers. Playoffs are all about taking risks and if you don’t do that from time to time during the regular season, you’re going to be at a disadvantage.
Interestingly, non-profit organizations seem to trend in the opposite direction. Instead of applying statistics and analytics for long-term gains, each campaign is more or less treated as a play-off game: going for the one-time win each month. These organizations are usually end up running in place. However, the organizations that study their retention rates and metrics related to getting a second gift and develope strategies around those metrics will see steady and
consistent growth.
The inspiration for this post comes from excellent blog Cool Data Blog which reminded me that MoneyBall is being made into a movie. Baseball and analysis, I ask you, could there be a better script for a movie? OK, the fact that it stars Brad Pitt doesn’t hurt either! Here’s the trailer: MoneyBall Trailer.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.*
Now, despite what I said earlier, statistics are still important in the post-season. This became painfully clear to Boston fans during game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Going into the bottom of the 10th inning, the Red Sox were up by 2 runs and only 3 outs away from taking home a title that had eluded them for decades. Despite the fact that he was only batting .143, and despite the fact that he was playing on two bad ankles, and despite the fact that there was a better defensive player on the bench, the Sox manager made the fateful decision to leave the aging Bill Buckner at first base. As the Mets’ Mookie Wilson swung the bat, I’d be lying if I told you that I knew who was more shocked – Red Sox or Mets fans-as the ground ball rolled slowly down the 1st base line, passed the bag…and through Bill Buckner’s legs… allowing the winning Mets run to score. Two nights later, (unlike that summer day in 1974) there was much rejoicing in Queens.
*From Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
September 8, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Interesting- definitely need a mix of stats and bold game play.