Mathletics

Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii List of Abbreviations xv Part I. Baseball 1 Chapter 1. Baseball's Pythagorean Theorem 3 Chapter 2. Who Had a Better Year, Nomar Garciaparra or Ichiro Suzuki? 11 The Runs- Created Approach Chapter 3. Evaluating Hitters by Linear Weights 17 Chapter 4. Evaluating Hitters by Monte Carlo Simulation 30 Chapter 5. Evaluating Baseball Pitchers and Forecasting Future Pitcher Performance 41 Chapter 6. Baseball Decision- Making 52 Chapter 7. Evaluating Fielders 64 Sabermetrics' Last Frontier Chapter 8. Player Win Averages 71 Chapter 9. The Value of Replacement Players 79 Evaluating Trades and Fair Salary Chapter 10. Park Factors 84 Chapter 11. Streakiness in Sports 87 Chapter 12. The Platoon Effect 102 Chapter 13. Was Tony Perez a Great Clutch Hitter? 106 Chapter 14. Pitch Count and Pitcher Effectiveness 110 Chapter 15. Would Ted Williams Hit .406 Today? 113 Chapter 16. Was Joe DiMaggio's 56 Game Hitting Streak the Greatest Sports Record of All Time? 116 Chapter 17. Major League Equivalents 123 Part II. Football 125 Chapter 18. What Makes NFL Teams Win? 127 Chapter 19. Who's Better, Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? 132 Chapter 20. Football States and Values 138 Chapter 21. Football Decision- Making 101 143 Chapter 22. A State and Value Analysis of the 2006 Super Bowl 151 Champion Colts Chapter 23. If Passing Is Better Than Running, Why Don't 158 Teams Always Pass? Chapter 24. Should We Go for a One- Point or Two- Point Conversion? 165 Chapter 25. To Give Up the Ball Is Better Than to Receive 172 The Case of College Football Overtime Chapter 26. Why Is the NFL's Overtime System Fatally Flawed? 175 Chapter 27. How Valuable Are High Draft Picks in the NFL? 180 Part III. Basketball 185 Chapter 28. Basketball Statistics 101 187 The Four- Factor Model Chapter 29. Linear Weights for Evaluating NBA Players 195 Chapter 30. Adjusted/Player Ratings 202 Chapter 31. NBA Lineup Analysis 224 Chapter 32. Analyzing Team and Individual Matchups 228 Chapter 33.

Wayne L. Winston is the John and Esther Reese Professor of Decision Sciences at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. His many books include Operations Research: Applications and Algorithms. He has been a consultant to major corporate and sports organizations, including USA Diving and the Dallas Mavericks.

Sports fans will learn much from probability theory and statistical models as they abandon empty clichs (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