Stumbling on wins

by David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt

The next quantum leap beyond Moneyball, this book offers powerful new insights into all human decision-making, because if sports teams are getting it wrong this badly, how do you know you're not? Sometimes the decisions that teams make are simply inexplicable. sports teams have an immense amount of detailed, quantifiable information to draw upon, more than in virtually any other industry. They have powerful incentives for making good decisions. Everyone sees the results of their choices, and the consequences for failure are severe. And yet... they keep making the same mistakes over and over again... systematic mistakes you'd think they'd learn how to avoid. Now, two leading sports economists reveal those mistakes in basketball, baseball, football, and hockey, and explain why sports decision-makers never seem to learn their lessons. You'll learn which statistics are connected to wins, and which aren't, and which statistics can and can't predict the future. Along the way, David Berri and Martin Schmidt show why a quarterback's place in the draft tells you nothing about how he'll perform in the NFL... why basketball decision-makers don't focus on the factors that really correlate with NBA success... why famous coaches don't deliver better results... and much more.

Genres: Sports, Economics, Nonfiction, Baseball

311 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 2009

Reviews

[Gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would be interesting to put this concepts in conversation with more current player valuations. As someone who watches all sports and coaches soccer, I enjoyed the book. Biggest takeaway is to be open to new information.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ever since Moneyball came out in 2003, there's been a boom in quantitative research into sports. Much of this comes from the field of economics, which makes sense, since economists are comfortable with statistical modeling, regression analysis, issues of inefficient markets, rational decision-making, commodity values, etc. -- all of which can be readily applied to professional sports. After all, it's pretty clear that despite the huge amounts of data available, decision-makers in sports (from GMs to coaches) make poor choices all the time. This somewhat dry book draws upon this vastly-expanding field of research to present some recent findings as to why these kinds of mistakes are made, in terms the average reader can understand (although, that understanding will be greatly enhanced the more versed you are in statistical analysis tools and methodology).

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, much of the discussion and many of the conclusions won't feel very fresh. For example, it's been pretty well-established in such circles that the NBA teams overpay for scoring, and don't value scoring efficiency nearly as much as they should be. This holds true for drafting, all-star selections, trades, contacts, etc. so the parts of the book that discuss that aren't breaking new ground (although perhaps the authors are providing sounder evidence). The same can be said for much of the analysis of the NFL, for example, that teams punt on 4th down too readily, that kickers are paid based on field goal kicking even though the value of their kickoffs (in terms of field position) is generally worth more, that the evaluation of quarterback potential and performance is hugely ineffective and riddled with errors. I'm only a very casual football fan at this point in my life, but these are all areas of conventional football wisdom that have been questioned for years.

Which is not to suggest the book is wholly yesterday's news. There's a nice section on whether or not coaches really "matter" in the NBA, which suggests that they generally don't, but that a few do, and who they are may be surprising. There's also a nice bit on hockey goaltenders, and whether there's much difference between them. However, the book focuses primarily on professional basketball and football -- so it's probably best suited to NBA and NFL fans with a taste for this kind of analysis. Unlike, say, Moneyball, there's no running storyline of any kind, and thus the book feels more like a series of assembled articles than a cohesive statement about anything. In an effort to keep the book readable, a lot of important data and explanations are buried in the endnotes, and potential readers are advised to take the time to refer to them. All in all, not a bad book, but not a groundbreaking one either.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a dork and a sports fan, buy this book immediately.

[Xon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love sports and I love stats, but this book did nothig for me. There were a couple of decent points made but nothing I considered new or terribly interesting. One interesting point was the statistics supporting the more basketball players shoot the ball the more they get paid. If a college student had a FG% in the low 40's but scores 25 points a game, he is more likely to get drafted higher than a player who shoots 50% but only scores 15 points a game, regardless of any of the other positive impacts on the game. The book had some good numbers supporting points over efficiency. There is also some interesting data related to goalies in the NHL.
These interesing correlations however were few and far between. The authors pointed out extremely obvious facts and then attached some numbers to support it. I think everyone knows that just because a player is a high draft pick doesn't mean he will automatically be the best player in the draft or have the biggest impact on his team. Sports fans can remember Michael Olowokandi and Ryan Leaf. That is why there are always top ten lists of draft busts on TV. I think everyone knows that the more money you spend on players doesn't automatically make your team better. Yes, everyone remembers the Knicks this past decade and the current Cubs. That is why there are always lists of the worst contracts in sports.
Finally, there is a pretty lame argument in the book with regards to Black vs White QB's. I feel the argument is weak and the whole idea of trying to make a determination on this subject with the stats they provide make it even weaker. You can go round and round on this subject, but the book states that Black QB's are compensated differently than White QB's even though both are inconsistent. The main reason for this is teams are not valuing the rushing statistics Black QB's provide. They never mention that there is a whole other position in football designed for rushing the football. They make a huge deal about rushing yards helping a team win but Black QB's not being compensated for it. If you watch enough football, it appears that the elite QB's in the game are pocket passers, regardless of skin color.
Anyways, not worth reading. Stats explain a lot but I feel like this book either pointed out the obvious or used numbers to explain only part of the whole picture.

[Eduardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting read in the vein of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game and Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won. I preferred the two aforementioned books more than this one but it is still solid in its own regard. It does not cast its net as wide as Scorecasting but it is definitely broader in scope than Moneyball.

This book definitely seems to be intended to be more of an indictment of coaches, owners, and general managers and their decision-making. In that sense, it is closer to Moneyball because it looks at how statistics can be used to more accurately demonstrate the value of a player in terms of wins and losses and the view is far from that of the powers that be. Unlike Moneyball, the book does not have any resolution or cases of shifts in thinking, just figures, tables, and explanations about why decision makers get the decisions they make wrong.

The book is wider in its scope because it covers more than baseball but even though it covers more sports, the focus is still very narrow: wins produced. Scorecasting worked to dispel sports myths with evidence and those myths were not necessarily limited to a particular sport. Stumbling on Wins uses examples from the big three professional sports in the US to tell the same tale, that those in charge don't know how to evaluate talent in terms of the skills that matter in order to help their franchises win more.

There were two points I took away from this book, that people don't truly know how to measure value and that Phil Jackson is the only coach in American pro sports that measurably makes his players better. I guess I was hoping for a bit more to like this book more.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more than their first one (The Wages of Wins). I also happened to read them in reverse order, so maybe this one spoiled the original for me. This one has many of the same flaws as the original, but also makes me want to read more of their research. Sports fans should enjoy this book, and it at least makes for interesting discussion. Some of the topics include the consistency of players in different sports, 4th down strategies in football, and the effects of coaching on a team.

There is some interesting stuff about drafting players, but there are some serious flaws in their analysis of quarterback draft position and NFL success. They try to claim that quarterbacks drafted late are just as successful on a per-play basis as quarterbacks drafted in the early rounds. But to make this claim, they make a critical assumption that quarterbacks who don't get playing time are just as good as quarterbacks who do. They don't state this assumption explicitly in the book, but it's clear from reading more of their research, as well as their blog. Others have shown that if you make assumptions that players who don't play are a little worse than those who do, then draft position and performance are much more highly correlated. Thus, you can come up with any result you want by the assumptions you include. It kind of makes me wonder what other important assumptions they've made without telling us in the rest of the research they discuss.

I would probably give the book 3.5 stars, but I rounded up to 4. It's very enjoyable to read, even if some of their conclusions are questionable.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Again, dipping into the roomie's personal collection.

An economic analysis of business decisions made in the sports world, Stumbling on Wins has very little entertainment value to offer.

Sure, it's interesting to know that black quarterbacks are undervalued or that NBA players are overplayed between the ages of 24-28 but that's about it. The authors set out to show that a number of decisions made in sports that are presumed to be rational, are actually far from it.

When combining economics and sports its no secret that most of the pages will be filled with comparative statistics. While each chapter sets out to highlight is own individual point, the findings are all well recapped and presented with bullets in the final chapter, rendering the time I spent actually reading the book worthless.

Oh well, next time I'll check the ending before I begin!

But then again, I'm really just not a sports fan so what business do I have reading this!?

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were lots of very interesting statistical analysis of decision making in the world of sports both by general managers and coaches, building on the popularity of Moneyball by Michael Lewis, two economists take statistical analysis into different sports, primarily the NBA and NFL, with a little hockey and baseball thrown in. While this book was for me an easy to read popular economics book it still kind of had the feel of being written by two economists. This book also relates the author's findings generated by applying economic analysis to sports back into the realm of economic statistical modeling. I was surprised by some of their findings and the statistical measures utilized, particularly in the NBA, and enjoyed how the authors analyzed factors outside the traditional statistics such as: coaching impact, age and race influence decision making and results in sports.

[Brandt Callahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book as the authors go through the big 4 sports and lay out scenarios where coaches/managers/executives on sports teams make decisions “based on statistics or analytics,” but the statistics used in the analysis are not quite ones leading to winning all the time. The authors also do a good job of explaining any technical terms they use throughout the book. They also provide formulas for many of the sport specific statistics which allows the reader to further understand the metric and what goes into them. It would be cool now to see a rejuvenated version of the use cases and examples in the book come from statistics before 2008.

[Cate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I read Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game and wanted to read something similar but about football. Alas, this book seems to contain a lot of math that boils down to this fact: past performance is no indicator of future success in professional football. So basically, stats aren't that useful. It did have some interesting info on black quarterbacks (whose running ability is undervalued), three of whom played in Philly.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The good: An interesting look at what really contributes to what matters in sports (wins). It was nice to see an empirical basis for why Phil Jackson is a great coach, why rebounds are more important that points scored despite what GMs think, why Isaiah Thomas isn't as bad as you think, and why goalies are goalies are goalies.

The bad: A very half empty outlook. I'm fed up with economists pointing out that humans aren't rational decision makers and how a supercomputer would be better.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cogent, readable series of short essays on the impact of irrational behavior in sports decision-making. The difficulty of predicting future performance of athletes using anything other than age as a metric should leave readers convinced that participation in fantasy sports leagues is much like playing the lottery.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in parts, but this is obviously a blog converted into a book, rather than content so substantive that it was suited to a book. Most of the inefficiencies discussed are relatively common knowledge by now among statistics-savvy fans, although I did think the analysis on how kickers' value comes more from their kickoffs than field goals was interesting and new.

[Umugaba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Red Auerbach:

These guys today want you to believe that what they're doing is some kind of science. Coaching is simple: you need good players who are good people. You have that, you win. You don't have that, you can be the greatest coach who ever lived and you aren't going to win.

[Lenox Parker]

loving it so far.