Analytics in Sports: Should it be Left Up to the Nerds?

It's hard to argue against analytics in baseball because so many teams in recent years have won World Series by being obsessed with it (Astros, Cubs, Red Sox).

It's different in basketball because of the team dynamics. Baseball is essentially an individual sport where you add up a bunch of small matchups to get an outcome. Basketball is far more dynamic, and current analytics likely miss a lot of things. For example, 3pters and layups are the most "efficient" scoring methods. But what impact does taking a few midrange shots have on how a defense schemes for and plays a team, or how does it mentally affect the defender knowing you might pull up, even if its theoretically a bad shot? Those kinds of things are much harder to capture in a fluid system where every decision impacts every other decision.

 

People only do something if it works.

Nobody has forced teams to go to analytics, results consistently show you are quickly left behind if you don't. You can argue the Rockets take it too far, but everybody shoots a ton of 3's now and not many long 2's.

 

I don't see why you can't have both. No player should not understand the fundamental mechanisms of the game if they've been in it long enough to get to pro level. If you develop more advanced min-max tactics that generally get good results, yeah, why not lead with that? But when that fails as it often does in playoff games, it shouldn't be impossible to adjust and return to more fundamental ball if that's what's needed in the moment.

I kind of want to see how a proper military squad commander would do as a coach. I have no military experience myself, but I cannot imagine that any commander worth his salt doesn't have multiple layers of plans set up and communicated to his squad before an operation. Nor would I expect a good commander to allow his subordinates to not be properly trained to adapt on the fly as needed. As they say "No plan survives contact with the enemy." In sports, that's "Oh, crap, so-and-so can't miss from beyond the arc tonight" or "Damn, whats-his-name is no-hitting us. Where'd that come from?"

I also suspect that military commanders ARE using extremely-advanced tech and data analysis and everything at their disposal to gain battlefield advantage. However, there's also a reason the people developing those systems and feeding them that info aren't the ones in charge of the actual execution of the operation.

 

Did they dive more into fundamentals? Were they talking about bunting and hitting to advance runners? I'm not sure what other fundamentals there are offensively.

 

isn't coach spo a nerd coach?

 

Losing to the Astros in the playoffs is proof that the nerds rule strategy...though not athleticism.

On fundamentals, here is a pretty good bunt attempt in the playoffs....
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=370e64c8-7486-465e-a190-9b84c700f8c4

Fundamentals that have been abandoned are because they fail, too...just more often.

i should say, there are some fundamentals that have abandoned because players that can execute them aren't good enough at other aspects of the game to play regularly.

 

I’m still a firm believer in advancing runners-hitting behind, sacrificing in close games-but the goal is to score runs. Have to have a bit of both imo.
As far as the pitching, managers have always went with either gut feeling, what their eyes tell them about the pitcher or matchups. That is literally analytics without quantifiable data, add in the quantifiable data and now it’s just confirmation of what the eyes say.

 

Basketball, I’m more conflicted on. I believe in numbers and efficiency. But not at the point of rigidity and banging head against the wall. Have to have counter punches to your opponents adjustments.

 

Gut probably isn’t analytics (even though you’re probably making that feeling from some sort of thought process)
The rest is analyzing the situation and making a decision.
You also have to know the players, some can handle longer and more pressure. To me it’s key to know how pitchers do 2nd or 3rd time through lineup(where most starters get most damage).
It’s funny they compare to Dusty because he has a reputation of burning up pitchers, not sure if warranted or not.

 

In fairness, the Rockets manage to actually win games and playoff series while the Twins haven't won a single playoff game in 18 tries. That being said, baseball is a different beast though, where anything is possible while basketball playoff series victories tend to go to the better team.

As for the generalization of "leaving it to the nerds" well...yea...I wouldn't want an idiot to do analytics work.

 

Great answer.

To build on this, AI isn't to the point where it could actually coach a pro basketball game, where it could probably do a good job with a baseball game. Maybe when we get a quantum trash can.

 

why are nerds so interested in sports. what we need is

"Analytics in Dating: Should we leave it up to the nerds."

Should we always go for a Home Run by uses the same pitch, but in huge volume. How important is the Wing Man in today's game? Should we be more fundamentally sound to score on a more consistent basis. And do regular season stats matter in getting the ring.

 

Hard to comment on this since we don't know if "analytics" was the actual motivation for this move. Could just be this radio guy had time to fill so he went on this rant.

That said, the output of analytics is information. Saying you don't want analytics is saying you don't want information. So to those who want to make uninformed decisions, I say, feel free to do so!

The only issue is if the analytics are performed/used incorrectly, and therefore yield misinformation/misinterpreted information. But that is a problem that also exists in using the ol' eye test, so that's not a damning critique.

 

Pretty ass-backwards as they just got beat by a team that also did all the analytical-type moves throughout the two games. Pulled pitchers early, replaced them with starters, didn't play small ball or advance runners all that well, constant shifts, etc.