Mathletics: How Gamblers, Managers, and Fans Use Mathematics in Sports, Second Edition

by Wayne L. Winston, Scott Nestler, Konstantinos Pelechrinis

Overview

How to use math to improve performance and predict outcomes in professional sports

Mathletics reveals the mathematical methods top coaches and managers use to evaluate players and improve team performance, and gives math enthusiasts the practical skills they need to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of their favorite sports—and maybe even gain the outside edge to winning bets. This second edition features new data, new players and teams, and new chapters on soccer, e-sports, golf, volleyball, gambling Calcuttas, analysis of camera data, Bayesian inference, ridge regression, and other statistical techniques. After reading Mathletics, you will understand why baseball teams should almost never bunt; why football overtime systems are unfair; why points, rebounds, and assists aren’t enough to determine who’s the NBA’s best player; and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691177625
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	02/22/2022
Pages:	608
Sales rank:	314,818
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Wayne L. Winston is the John and Esther Reese Professor of Decision Sciences at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. Scott Nestler is associate teaching professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. Konstantinos Pelechrinis is associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xvii

Part I Baseball

1 Baseball's Pythagorean Theorem 3

2 Who Had a Better Year: Mike Trout or Kris Bryant? 12

3 Evaluating Hitters by Linear Weights 18

4 Evaluating Hitters by Monte Carlo Simulation 31

5 Evaluating Baseball Pitchers, Forecasting Future Pitcher Performance, and an Introduction to Statcast 44

6 Baseball Decision Making 60

7 Evaluating Fielders 73

8 Win Probability Added (WPA) 84

9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Player Salaries 92

10 Park Factors 101

11 Streakiness in Sports 105

12 The Platoon Effect 124

13 Was Tony Perez a Great Clutch Hitter? 127

14 Pitch Count, Pitcher Effectiveness, and PITCHf/x Data 133

15 Would Ted Williams Hit .406 today? 139

16 Was Joe DiMaggio's 56-Game Hitting Streak the Greatest Sports Record of All Time? 142

17 Projecting Major League Performance 151

Part II Football

18 What Makes NFL Teams Win? 159

19 Who's Better: Brady or Rodgers? 164

20 Football States and Values 170

21 Football Decision Making 101 178

22 If Passing Is Better than Running, Why Don't Teams Always Pass? 186

23 Should We Go for a One-Point or a Two-Point Conversion? 195

24 To Give Up the Ball Is Better than to Receive: The Case of College Football Overtime 207

25 Has the NFL Finally Gotten the OT Rules Right? 211

26 How Valuable Are NFL Draft Picks? 222

27 Player Tracking Data in the NFL 229

Part III Basketball

28 Basketball Statistics 101: The Four Factor Model 249

29 Linear Weights for Evaluating NBA Players 259

30 Adjusted +/- Player Ratings 265

31 ESPN RPM and FiveThirtyEight RAPTOR Ratings 282

32 NBA Lineup Analysis 289

33 Analyzing Team and Individual Matchups 296

34 NBA Salaries and the Value of a Draft Pick 303

35 Are NBA Officials Prejudiced? 307

36 Pick-n-Rolling to Win, the Death of Post Ups and Isos 313

37 SportVU, Second Spectrum, and the Spatial Basketball Data Revolution 321

38 In-Game Basketball Decision Making 341

Part IV Other Sports

39 Soccer Analytics 355

40 Hockey Analytics 373

41 Volleyball Analytics 385

42 Golf Analytics 391

43 Analytics and Cyber Athletes: The Era of e-Sports 398

Part V Sports Gambling

44 Sports Gambling 101 409

45 Freakonomics Meets the Bookmaker 420

46 Rating Sports Teams 423

47 From Point Ratings to Probabilities 447

48 The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) 464

49 Optimal Money Management: The Kelley Growth Criterion 468

50 Calcuttas 474

Part VI Methods and Miscellaneous

51 How to Work with Data Sources: Collecting and Visualizing Data 479

52 Assessing Players with Limited Data: The Bayesian Approach 490

53 Finding Latent Patterns through Matrix Factorization 499

54 Network Analysis in Sports 508

55 Elo Ratings 524

56 Comparing Players from Different Eras 531

57 Does Fatigue Make Cowards of Us All? The Case of NBA Back-to-Back Games and NFL Bye Weeks 538

58 The College Football Playoff 543

59 Quantifying Sports Collapses 551

60 Daily Fantasy Sports 559

Bibliography 569

Index 579

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Winston has an uncanny knack for bringing the game alive through the fascinating mathematical questions he explores. He gets inside professional sports like no other writer I know. Mathletics is like a seat at courtside."—Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks

"Wayne Winston's Mathletics combines rigorous analytical methodologies with a very inquisitive approach. This should be a required starting point for anyone desiring to use mathematics in the world of sports."—KC Joyner, author of Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle Is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts

"People who want the details on the analysis of baseball need to read Mathletics. This book provides the statistics behind Moneyball."—Pete Palmer, coeditor of The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia and The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia

"Winston has brought together the latest thinking on sports mathematics in one comprehensive place. This volume is perfect for someone seeking a general overview or who wants to dive into advanced thinking on the latest sports-analytics topics."—Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets

"Mathletics offers insights into the mathematical analysis of three major sports and sports gambling. The basketball and sports bookies sections are particularly interesting and loaded with in-depth examples and analysis. The author's passion seems to jump right off the page."—Michael Huber, Muhlenberg College

"I really enjoyed this unique book, as will anyone who is a serious sports fan with some interest in mathematics. Winston is very knowledgeable about baseball, basketball, and football, and about the mathematical techniques needed to analyze a multitude of questions that arise in them. He does a very good job of explaining complex mathematical ideas in a simple way."—George L. Nemhauser, Georgia Institute of Technology

Editorial Reviews

"Sports fans will learn much from probability theory and statistical models as they abandon empty clichés (time to throw momentum out of the informed fan's lexicon) and confront institutionalized injustices (such as those built into the protocols for selecting a national champion in college football and for seeding the NCAA's basketball tournament). A rare fusion of sports enthusiasm and numerical acumen."

Booklist

"Who is Wayne Winston? Maybe we should begin by telling you who he is not. He is not some barstool fan or uninformed sportswriter who fuels his opinions with information gleaned from SportsCenter highlights or newspaper box scores. He is a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, and until this year was the statistical guru for the Dallas Mavericks. He is author of the book Mathletics, which explains what statistics really tell us about sports."—-Ken Berger, CBSSports.com

"[A] terrific read for anyone trying to model markets statistically and make trading decisions based on statistical data. . . . Reading Winston's book is a mind-opening experience."—-Brenda Jubin, Reading the Markets blog

"[Huge] and highly interesting."—-Mathematics Magazine, Paul J. Campbell

From the Publisher