Strength in numbers
Before the information revolution of recent decades, sports analysis largely consisted of vague talk about the intangible qualities of players and teams: games and championships were often said to be won because of heart, will and clutch ability. Then sports fans started getting their hands on statistics, and before long, mainstream sports discussions began revolving around numbers-based arguments about the objective quality of players and teams. “The psychologists were dethroned by analytics,” noted writer Malcolm Gladwell, moderating a panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, held on March 4 and March 5 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. In overthrowing decades of conventional thinking, sports analytics tend to emphasize the efficiency of athletes and teams, so percentage-based stats are most important. In baseball, on-base and slugging percentages matter more than, say, runs batted in. In basketball, shooting percentage is vital, not just points scored. The MIT conference convenes...