Mathletics: How Gamblers, Managers, and Sports Enthusiasts Use Mathematics in Baseball, Basketball, and Football [Hardcover]

Wayne L. Winston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2009 | ISBN-10: 069113913X | ISBN-13: 978-0691139135 | Edition: First Edition

Mathletics is a remarkably entertaining book that shows readers how to use simple mathematics to analyze a range of statistical and probability-related questions in professional baseball, basketball, and football, and in sports gambling. How does professional baseball evaluate hitters? Is a singles hitter like Wade Boggs more valuable than a power hitter like David Ortiz? Should NFL teams pass or run more often on first downs? Could professional basketball have used statistics to expose the crooked referee Tim Donaghy? Does money buy performance in professional sports?

In Mathletics, Wayne Winston describes the mathematical methods that top coaches and managers use to evaluate players and improve team performance, and gives math enthusiasts the practical tools they need to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of their favorite sports--and maybe even gain the outside edge to winning bets. Mathletics blends fun math problems with sports stories of actual games, teams, and players, along with personal anecdotes from Winston's work as a sports consultant. Winston uses easy-to-read tables and illustrations to illuminate the techniques and ideas he presents, and all the necessary math concepts--such as arithmetic, basic statistics and probability, and Monte Carlo simulations--are fully explained in the examples.

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 much, much more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

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 )

From the Inside Flap

"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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; First Edition edition (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 069113913X
• ISBN-13: 978-0691139135
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #574,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wayne L. Winston is a professor of Decision Sciences at Indiana
University, Kelley School of Business and has earned numerous MBA teaching
awards over the past two decades. Wayne also consults for several Fortune
500 clients. He and his business partner Jeff Sagarin developed the
statistics tracking and rating system used by the Dallas Mavericks
professional basketball team. Wayne is also a two-time Jeopardy champion.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read for math geek sports fans October 5, 2009

By Elihu D. Feustel

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Wayne Winston addresses a myriad of topics in baseball, basketball and football via a statistics-heavy approach. There are 50 different "bites" spread out over 350 pages. There are many familiar topics for quantitative sports fans - Pythagorean theorem, platoon effects, player evaluations in different sports, and power rankings to name but a few.

The entire book is moderately math heavy - over half of it is devoted to quantitative solutions using algebra, statistics and Excel worksheets (which you can find online via included addresses). If you do not enjoy the mathematical side of sports, you'll find most of the book unreadable. If you do enjoy math, stats or using quantitative approaches to gambling, this book is a nice review of most of the interesting approaches out there. The bibliography of cited books reads like a "who's who" of credible quantitative sports texts.

A vast majority of the "bites" are already discussed extensively in other sources. The advantage of this book for most readers is that you can get such a diverse taste of different topics under one cover. If you are a sports modeler, the wide array of topics and approaches could help stir your own creativity. On more than one topic, I found myself saying "this assumption isn't valid!" But my making these assumptions and challenging them yourself, his approach opens up many unintended doors for the reader. For example, one bite addresses and argues that teams should pass more and run less than they do. To support this hypothesis, the book looks at a payoff chart for the yardage gained from a pass attempt versus a run attempt. The payoff chart does not consider volatility (rushing for 3 yards EVERY play is better than passing for 20 yards 1/4th of the time). It also doesn't look at the "disaster side" of passing - interceptions, quarterback fumble distribution, or greater offensive issues in a 2d and 10. Each article does make you think, which is its own payoff.

My only criticism is that the writing style seemed a little clunky. If you are not fluent in math, the combination of writing style and the amount of non-math quantity may turn you off.

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Many topics, very shallow treatment. Disappointing. December 26, 2009

By Inon Zukerman

Format:Hardcover

The book talks about various aspects of using statistics and probability theory in professional sports. It is divided to four parts: baseball (MLB), American football (NFL) and basketball (NBA), and the fourth section talks about some sport gambling and general comments that are not a good fit to any of the other sections. The author of the book is a professor for operations and decision technologies and was also a statistics consultant for several professional teams such as the NBA's Dallas Mavericks (season 2006-2007).

Generally, the topics discussed in the book are interesting (to me both as a sports fan and with an interest and background in Math') and include topics like how to evaluate players, is there a correlation between teams wealth and the probability to win and how to compare players from different years.

However, the book itself is not an interesting read mainly because each topic is discussed in a very shallow level. The basic flow of each topic is to introduce the motivation of what statistical insights we are now checking, give the required math formula (usually without enough explanations or examples to understand it thoroughly), and than a single conclusion of the analysis is presented before continuing to the next topic. This results in the reader being left without any interesting findings or insights to learn about the topic in question with respect to different years, teams or players. For each given topic I could easily come up with several other questions that every die-hard NBA fan would like to see treated.

Basically, the book looks like a cooking book, that present an idea, gives you the formula (often discusses Excel implementation) and leaves all the hard work to the reader. Now, as the author consulted the Dallas Mavericks, most of these conclusions (in the NBA section) refer to that team in that relevant year (2006-2007). I would expect to see additional interesting results on each topic and without that I think the book will disappoint most readers.

Let me exemplify what I mean: a topic named "Are college basketball games fixed?" sounds like a very deep topic which should have profound consequences. However. this topic is exactly two pages long (57 lines to be exact), that obviously results in a very shallow treatment without any important conclusion. Another example, "Analyzing Team and Individual Matchups" topic (again, in the NBA section) is two and a half page long of text (and another 2 pages table) which only deals with the Spurs-Mavericks 2006 western conference semifinal. I guess most readers would want deeper analysis of more interesting encounters and see some data manipulation on other series.

As I wanted to get more information about these topics a quick look on various Internet website (which the book does give as good references points) I could find various articles that were more interesting than the book itself.

Overall, the book gave me a feeling that it is mostly a quick and naive compilation of a series of articles that were already posted somewhere else. Each topic (or an article in a blog\newspaper in a previous life) is treated without any deep thought or any desire to show deeper observations. If you are just looking for formulas, the internet is full of resources. This book presents very little interesting finding to sports fan.

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking January 31, 2013

By SportsFan

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Some very good stuff here, which made me more curious to do some of my own research, helps to read this with the PC in hand so you can play along with the downloadable content.