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

by Wayne L. Winston

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.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Science, Business, Baseball, Football

376 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using a spreadsheet program and a modicum of knowledge on how to use it, you too can follow along with this book and figure out stats in sports ball. Moneyball is a thing, but I neither watched the movie nor read the book. This book goes into that kind of math.

Mathletics is a book that uses Applied Mathematics to demonstrate the method of figuring sports stats. It uses Markov Chains, Monte Carlo Methods, and more. There’s a whole bunch of things that a modern spreadsheet can do and I didn’t realize. The book points out a number of things that are factored into figuring out each statistic for a player. I’m assuming that this book comes with a deluge of data since it references spreadsheet files. They might be connected to a website or something of that nature because this book doesn’t have a disk accompanying it.

The book is divided into four major parts. The first part is focused on Baseball. This part discusses the effects of each individual player, the effect that the Park they play in has on hits, the effect of the pitcher on the game and a lot of other information. The second part is focused on American Football. For example, it discusses the decision-making that goes into choosing a Field Goal over a Two-point conversion attempt. The third part focuses on Basketball. The final section focuses on Gambling. It talks about how much to bet on something, and how the odds are produced.

The book is really informative. It has a lot of data tables and images of spreadsheets so it goes by quickly. There are also a ton of equations to whet your mathematical appetite. A lot of it focuses on probability which is expected in the case of games. However, this book is not for the mathematically disinclined. While the equations aren’t too heavy-duty and a lot of it is done with a spreadsheet, it still discusses some advanced stuff. My other problem is with jargon. Although the book does tell you what things are, it goes on to use a lot of acronyms and shorthand for things. Thankfully, a lot of the abbreviations and acronyms are explained in the front of the book and organized alphabetically.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it (because I like math and sports).

[Nick Black]

http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/...
http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.c...

[Paul Dilley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read only the baseball section, which was a good description of the most widely used "classic" sabremetric statistics spread out over about 17 chapters. It was published in 2009, so nothing about the Statcast "revolution," and very little on probabilistic modeling and its dis/advantages (though some forecasting and a chapter on MonteCarlo simulation). Definitely not written at the level of an undergraduate introduction, but of course that's not an inherent fault. And despite the playful title, the writing is textbook-dry and contextual narrative is scarce, choppy and disappointing. There are some gems like a six sentence isolated paragraph on why the Yankees underperform, beginning with "Most baseball fans are surprised that the Yankees, with their huge payroll, do not win the World Series every year" (69). I also laughed when reading the two-paragraph section entitled "Is Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) Overpaid?" The answer speaks for itself: "Therefore, for A-Rod to generate fair value over the next ten years he would need to continue to produce at the level of his phenomenal 2007 season for the 2008-2016 seasons" (82).

[Cristian Keller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not simple for me to rate this Book. On the one hand it's very interesting. You can find many useful things about sports Statistics. It can be useful for sportman, betters, coaches and so on. On the other hand it's too specifically for USA Sport (Baseball, Football and Basket). And in my case sometimes I have problem to understand some things especially on Baseball.
I think it's very useful for USA readers. Perhaps for others less.

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would be five stars if the title weren't ridiculously cheesy and if it were more updated. This book accompanies Winston's Coursera class. I've found useful data and methods useful to my research, both in his class (the effect of penalties on MOV in NCAA) and in this book (calculating win probabilities).

Also, this book has been peer reviewed.

[Victor Herrera Guzmán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing insight to a more analytical and objective analysis. Some statistical concepts needed to be known, in order for a better understanding of the book.

Perhaps a more detailed, step-by-step, model creation for your own analysis, could have been useful.

This is the first book I read, related to the subject, but it's really good.

[Andrew Hosbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super cool book if you are into sports, gambling, statistics, or understanding the way math can be applied to everyday life. There are sections for most popular sports, but the book focuses on baseball, football, and basketball. I used this book as the textbook for a sports analytics class I took at Ohio State and can certainly say that I learned a fair bit from it.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just recently got into sports data analysis as a hobby, particularly NFL football, and this book has given me a solid grounding in methods used and how best to interpret them. Much more so than any statistics or maths textbook has.
An absolute must read and highly recommended.

[Doug Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winston gives a great survey in 51 short chapters of the ways in which the tools of operations research can be used in analyzing sports, with emphasis on American major league baseball, NFL football, and the NBA. An annotated bibliography gives sources of additional information.

[John Doe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple and useful.
Not a bad read. Wish I had picked it up back in the days betting on football games.
My favorite part is all the tables loaded with data.
If you dont have the patience to read the whole book, just read the tables. :)

[Lee Fritz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read enough of this book to know that I do t care enough about sabremetrics or sports statistics to keep reading. The technical format isn’t universal in its appeal, so I’ll save my time for something else.

[latrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mathletics explores how mathematics is applied in sports like baseball, basketball, and football, demonstrating how gamblers, managers, and enthusiasts use statistical models and data analysis to make informed decisions and gain an edge in the game.

[Nick Duggan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read the second edition - not what I was expecting. Super technical and formula based. References excel sheets with advanced calculations so didn’t even feel like a boon - more like an online statistics course.

[Matt Flaherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a good introduction into how statistics are being used to analyze sports. There also examples provided throughout the book which allows the reader to gain hands on experience that’s easily accessible.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book to read if you are interested in sports wagering and/or fantasy sports.

[Jack Stroud · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book is outdated

[Devendra Mittal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great to understand the rational behind making some decisions.

[Wyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The math in this book is pretty complicated, so if you didn't take several math courses in college be prepared to skip over a lot of the details. A lot of the explanations of the thinking behind the math was quite interesting. However, I often found that there wasn't much of an explanation of why the authors were calculating the thing that they were calculating. It would have been helpful to get more of an explanation along the lines of "let's use this calculation to rank the best players of all time" or "here's a formula a general manager would use to determine how much to sign a player" or "here's a formula you can use to determine which bets to make on an upcoming game". At times it felt like the calculations being run didn't have much of a use in understanding sports.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a while to get through, but that's ok as each chapter is really a short essay of its own. I skimmed more than a few of them. It is very interesting stuff, though there were a few leaps/assumptions made that I didn't quite understand, or in some case, that I disagreed with. Would be fun to have a talk with this author.

This is a good book to read to help a runner think a bit outside the box. We tend to get stuck in our ways of thinking and this reminds us that it's always worth it to re-examine our beliefs. Our doctrinal adhesions as it were.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of examples of how data, models, and statistics (a.k.a., analytics) are used in sports. Winston goes right to demonstrate various analyses, without any of the background theory. This keeps the discussion at a level where any reader can read it, and essentially pick and choose where to focus. He also provides an extensive list of references in an annotated bibliography for those wishing to delve deeper. My primary criticism is that, while you can download the files used in the book, a number of the files he references in the book are not in the downloadable zip file.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading due to the shear number of topics covered. The math gets a little involved at times and, in my opinion, could have been presented in a way that was easier to follow. Most of the book is dedicated to quantifying baseball, football and basketball. Other sports covered include: soccer, golf, hockey and volleyball. Have you ever thought about how to quantify volleyball??

Overall, I eat this stuff up and it totally sucked me in. I promise the author will show you something new about the sports you love.

[Alpha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, pretty good. A nice introduction to statistics in sports, this book did a fantastic job at keeping the content at an approachable level for a newcomer to the field. I personally wasn't as interested in the process and was hoping for a more in-depth look at the field, but I'd highly recommend this book to someone who hasn't heard of Sabermetrics or Bill James or is interested in starting their own statistical analysis of sports data.

3.5/5

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this would work a lot better as a text book, where you work w/ some of the data he presents hands/on. He does offer access to a bunch of ss online so that you can participate as you read along, however, not taking advantage of that had me not get as much into this book as might have otherwise. Still, I enjoyed a lot of the research that has been done and the counter-traditional results that are out there.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really find anything in there that you wouldn't already learn from college stat/probability course but had some interesting stuff but better for someone that doesn't already know anything. 3 stars cause I would recommend this book but not for trading or if you already have a grasp of statistics.

[Kevin Thang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part university statistics course, part excel course, only difference the topics covered are all sports related. Written by three professors, felt like I was taking a statistics 101 all over again. Heavily informational covering analytics and trying to explain the current analytics being used in each sport. Be prepared to understand excel because 25% of the book is filled with excel spreadsheets.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has some interesting insights into the games we watch. The math can get pretty heavy. Even without understanding all the math involved, the conclusions drawn from the calcultions can be interesting.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a super technical book essentially if you wanted to do your own statistical model with few observations. There is some good history on different statistical models (Sagarin) but it was definitely like a textbook and not a lot of takeaway observations similar to Freakanomics.

[Jeramey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads much more like a textbook than I expected, but still highly informative. Definitely not the first "sports and math" book I would read. If you're well versed in statistical analysis or really into the use of math in sports, you'll enjoy this book.