9781422285237 - Analytics: Sports Stats & More

Not Just Baseball Baseball indeed led the way, but every sport has caught the analytics bug. In golf, analytics has helped the media and general public clearly understand some aspects of the game. For example, “strokes-gained putting,” a performance metric that Mark Broadie helped develop with the assistance of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been embraced by the PGA Tour and is used during broadcasts. It calculates the number of putts a golfer takes relative to the tour average, taking into account the initial putting distance. At the end of the round, the tournament, and the season, it spits out a stat that shows the fine line between failure and success. In the NBA, there are still questions within the sport as to howmuch analytics can determine a player’s value. A 2005 quote bywriter Chris Ballard explains that “every action on a basketball court is influenced by nine other players, not to mention a coach. For this reason, there is no ‘Holy Grail’ in basketball equivalent of baseball’s on-base percentage.” That is changing rapidly, as a host of complicated formulas is put into play. Being able to track dozens of stats from each player each game through the use of computer programming has changed how teams approach the draft, game strategy, and more. Just the graphics alone created

32 C areers O ff the F ield • Analytics: Sports Stats and More