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Analytics: Sports Stats and 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