Math and sports have an intricate connection. Then, why not write something about sports? This leads to our story #32.
Our story takes off from the book (and later made into a movie starring #BradPitt) #Moneyball.
#OaklandAthletics baseball team had a limited budget for salaries compared to other franchises, and hence they needed to source players that were either undervalued or were showing potential but had gone unnoticed by rivals with deeper pockets.
And, they did by using #math (#sabermetrics). The statistics commonly used at the time were batting averages, runs batted in, and stolen bases.
Taking a more radical approach, the Oakland Athletics team set about developing a rigorous process of statistical analysis, delving deeper into the stats that gave them more solid foundations on which to assess player performance such as:
*On-base percentage - a measure of how often a batter reaches base for any reason other than a fielding error, which unveiled a meaningful way of measuring a batter’s strike rate.
*Slugging percentage - a mathematical equation that calculates the total bases divided by at bats (when the batter is batting against a pitcher), more accurately determining the power of a hitter than a statistic such as the number of home runs.
Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the team became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.
These observations often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives.
Using such figures to recruit potential stars at a fraction of their true market value, the Oakland Athletics emerged as the powerhouse of the American League West. In 2002 won, they set an American League record winning streak of 20 games in a row – not bad for a franchise operating with around a third of the financial clout of the New York Yankees
The team calculated, analyzed, and economized their way from a regional division challenger to a play-off powerhouse between the years of 1996 and 2004 – a period now referred to as ‘the Moneyball years’.
Sources:
<1> Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, a book by Michael Lewis.
<2> Moneyball, a 2011 American sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller and written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.
<3> Game-changing data part 2: How mathematics took over sports by Mehul Kapadia for Tata Communications.
<4> Wikipedia- Moneyball.
<5> Google images.
#math #mathstories #story32 #oakland #athletics #baseball #moneyball #sports #mathnbooks #mathnmovies #statistics
Our story takes off from the book (and later made into a movie starring #BradPitt) #Moneyball.
#OaklandAthletics baseball team had a limited budget for salaries compared to other franchises, and hence they needed to source players that were either undervalued or were showing potential but had gone unnoticed by rivals with deeper pockets.
And, they did by using #math (#sabermetrics). The statistics commonly used at the time were batting averages, runs batted in, and stolen bases.
Taking a more radical approach, the Oakland Athletics team set about developing a rigorous process of statistical analysis, delving deeper into the stats that gave them more solid foundations on which to assess player performance such as:
*On-base percentage - a measure of how often a batter reaches base for any reason other than a fielding error, which unveiled a meaningful way of measuring a batter’s strike rate.
*Slugging percentage - a mathematical equation that calculates the total bases divided by at bats (when the batter is batting against a pitcher), more accurately determining the power of a hitter than a statistic such as the number of home runs.
Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the team became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.
These observations often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives.
Using such figures to recruit potential stars at a fraction of their true market value, the Oakland Athletics emerged as the powerhouse of the American League West. In 2002 won, they set an American League record winning streak of 20 games in a row – not bad for a franchise operating with around a third of the financial clout of the New York Yankees
The team calculated, analyzed, and economized their way from a regional division challenger to a play-off powerhouse between the years of 1996 and 2004 – a period now referred to as ‘the Moneyball years’.
Sources:
<1> Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, a book by Michael Lewis.
<2> Moneyball, a 2011 American sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller and written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.
<3> Game-changing data part 2: How mathematics took over sports by Mehul Kapadia for Tata Communications.
<4> Wikipedia- Moneyball.
<5> Google images.
#math #mathstories #story32 #oakland #athletics #baseball #moneyball #sports #mathnbooks #mathnmovies #statistics
