I am a statistics geek. There, I said it, it's out there for everyone to see. I see PPG and OBP in my sleep. I'm obsessed with analyzing players through statistics. The sports world is a-changin, and if you want to keep up, you better know all about B/40 (Blocks per 40 minutes), YAC (Yards After Contact), OPS (On-base Plus Slugging), BABiP (Batting Average on Balls in Play), and eFG% (Effective Field Goal Percentage). So, with that in mind, I'm going to look over some of the common statistics in sports and find out what the strengths and weaknesses of those particular statistics are. In addition, I'll look at some of the less common statistics that you may not have heard of. Due to the vast amount of statistics there are to look at, I think I'll probably make this a running thing where I'll do a post every week or so with more statistics. That is, unless people think this is a stupid idea, then I won't do it and just go cry in my closet instead, so let me know what you think. Anyway, for this time I'm just going to look over some basic, commonly used statistics.
BA (Batting Average)
What Is It? Batting Average is a baseball statistic that measures the ratio of hits to at bats.
How Is It Useful? BA has long been the standard measurement of a hitter's performance, and it makes sense. The more hits a player gets when he's up to bat, the better a hitter he is, right? In general, it usually is a pretty good predictor of a how good a hitter is, with a BA over .300 being pretty good, over .350 being top-notch, under .250 being pretty bad, and under .200 (the Mendoza line, named for famously poor-hitting SS Mario Mendoza) being absolutely terrible.
What Are Its Flaws? BA really has 2 major flaws. The first flaw is that it doesn't account for walks. For example, when evaluating a leadoff hitter, whose purpose is to get on base any way possible, BA tells you that Willy Taveras (.320 BA) and Dustin Pedroia (.322) are basically equal. However, Pedroia has drawn a walk 13 more times in 30 fewer ABs, meaning he gets on base at a significantly higher percentage than Taveras. The second problem is that BA treats all hits as equal, whether it's a bunt single or a home run. Lets take a look at the case of Prince Fielder (.278) vs. Juan Pierre (.280). Again, very similar batting averages. However, Fielder has 58 EBH (Extra Base Hits, i.e. doubles, triples, HRs) to Pierre's 17 EBH. Obviously, Fielder's power makes him the more effective hitter, but BA doesn't show that. The answer to these two problems, of course, is to use BA in conjunction with OBP (On Base Percentage) and SLG (Slugging Percentage) in order to analyze a player.
SB (Stolen Bases)
What Is It? Pretty obvious, it's the number of bases a player has stolen.
How Is It Useful? Well, it tells you which guys are speedy on the basepaths. Guys with lots of stolen bases usually make better top-of-the-order guys (if they can couple it with a decent OBP), and they can rattle pitchers when they're on base simply because of the chance they might steal.
What Are Its Flaws? Stolen bases is kind of a sneaky statistic in that it looks very simple at first, but has a lot more flaws than it appears. The first flaw of the SB statistic is that if a player who isn't a good baserunner tries to steal a lot, he'll probably get a decent number of steals, but he'll also get caught a lot. For instance, would you rather have Juan Pierre (33 SB in 42 attempts) or Shane Victorino (27 SB in 29 attempts)? The best solution is to look at SB% (Stolen Base Percentage, SB/(SB+CS)) to see how useful a player is when stealing bases. Keep in mind, however, that an out is far more important than an advance from first to second, so the percentage needs to be much higher than 50% for a basestealer to actually be useful. In fact, statistics have shown that on average, if you're successful less than 75% of the time, you're actually hurting your team more than helping it.
BPG (Blocks Per Game)
What Is It? A measurement for the number of shots a basketball player blocks on average each game (Total Blocks/Games Played)
How Is It Useful? A high BPG average is usually indicative o####ood post defender. An average above 2.5 is usually very good for a post player, and anything above the low-1s is good for a guard.
What Are Its Flaws As with all per game statistics in basketball, it suffers from not taking into account the number of minutes played. For example, Jermaine O'Neal averaged 2.6 blocks last year compared to Alonzo Mourning's 2.3. Thos look pretty comparable, with O'Neal having the slight edge. However, O'Neal averaged 15 minutes more per game than Mourning did, which puts Mourning's per minute average at a whole different level. The other flaw with blocks is that, well, it's just not a very good measure of whether you're a good defender or not. Players who block a lot of shots often do so by losing rebounding position to try for a block, and they often get in foul trouble by attempting blocks. Also, very good shot blockers tend to see their block numbers drop as players realize how good they are and decide to try and avoid them. If you watched an Ohio State game last year, you could see this happen as teams were very hesitant to go into the post against Greg Oden. So, what do we make of the blocks statistic then? Well, whenever evaluating a player by their blocked shots, be sure to incorporate fouls and rebounds into your equation. If a player has a high block per foul rate and they still rebound the defensive glass well, then they're probably a pretty good post defender. It's a little simpler for guards, since any shotblocking you get from them is an added bonus. If you see a guard/forward with high block numbers (like Gerald Wallace), that probably means they're a pretty strong defender.
FG% (Field Goal Percentage)
What Is It? A basketball measurement of how many field goals (any shot that isn't a free throw) you make per field goals you attempt (FGM/FGA)
How Is It Useful? It's very useful when trying to analyze a player's effectiveness as a scorer. Players who have a higher FG% are typically better shooters and therefore more efficient scorers. For example, Kobe Bryant has averaged 24.6 points per game in his career to Allen Iverson's 27.9 . However, Kobe's FG% is 30 points higher than Iverson's, indicating that he is the more efficient scorer of the two.
What Are Its Flaws? Mainly that it doesn't account for the difference between post players and guards. Post players regularly put up FG%s of over 60%, since the vast majority of their shots are right around the rim. Guards, on the other hand, are much more likely to be launching more difficult shots from further out. One answer to this is eFG% (Effective Field Goal Percentage), which weighs three-pointers as 50% more important than 2-pointers [(FG + 0.5*3P) / FGA]. eFG% is in general a much better all-around measurement than straight-up FG%, and generally what I use when analyzing players.
Sacks
What Is It? A football measurement for how many times a player tackles an opposing quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.
How Is It Useful? It's a good way to measure how well a player (usually a defensive end) can get into the backfield and make plays. Double-digit sacks are very good for a defensive end/outside linebacker, and anything in the upper single-digits is pretty good for any other defensive position.
What Are Its Flaws? Hmmm, where to start? Well, first of all, it isn't really a very good indicator of whether or not a player is a good defender, since many rush ends concentrate on the sack at the expense of run defense. In general, TFL (Tackles For Loss) is a better statistic, and total tackles is also something you should take into account. For example, Mark Anderson of the Bears had 12 sacks, but only 28 total tackles. Compare that to Adalius Thomas, who had 11 sacks but 83 total tackles. Who would you rather have? The other thing to note is that sacks may also be the result of a strong secondary (good coverage resulting in the QB hanging on to the ball too long), or the result of a defensive scheme that emphasizes blitzing.
There you go, the first edition of Analyze This, maybe the first of many. Kudos to the first person who can name me all the players executing each statistic in the pictures.
Nice post mate. There are so many erroneous statistics out there - great view of the definition, uses and flaws - I really like it.
The one issue I have is Adalius versus Mark Anderson - much like your other stats, i.e. blocks, you have to look at total snaps played. I am guessing Adalius has Anderson by 3 or 4 to 1.
Excellent read. Agree with everything you have said in this post. Well done. I'll tack a crack at the photos:
1. Ted Williams
2. Rickey Henderson or Tim Raines? (tough photo)
3. Magic getting blocked by Mark Eaton
4. Artis Gilmore
5. Reggie White sacking Jeff Garcia
Dude, you are an absolute blogging machine. If Fox Sports ever comes up with a statistic to measure quality blogs per day, you'd rank right up there.
On a side note, I've always felt that in basketball, if a player passes another player the ball and that player does NOT convert the field goal, but DOES convert both free throws, then that should count as an assist.
Your thoughts?
And Fran Vasquez is avoiding dental work and entering Fred Gwynne look-alike contest somewhere in Spain.
jaysisko - you don't usually see Yards After Catch on statistics, it's usually Yards Per Catch. Almost always, YAC will refer to yards after contact.
Basketball statistics are my forte, so mostly it'll concentrate on that in the future, but I'm delving into baseball more and more in recent years, so I'll hit on some of those as well with the occasional football stat thrown in.
Ultra - yeah, I've never been a fan of BA. It's not completely useless, since it will give you a general feel for who the good hitters are, but it isn't all that applicable outside a general usage, and there are much better statistics. It's entirely way to overrated by too many baseball analysts who should know better.
North - yeah, probably, but that sort of proves my point. One-dimensional rushers aren't going to be on the field nearly as much because they aren't as useful outside of certain situations.
Nos - ding ding ding, we have a winner. It's Henderson in pic #2, the rest were dead on. The more obscure ones were Eaton and Gilmore, and Reggie White in a Panthers uni was a bit of a trick.
dehbashi - thx
Well, I'm heading out of town for the weekend, so I won't be posting any more entries till sunday, and I may or may not be able to leave comments.
Interesting stuff here mate. Just a side point, Mark Anderson was only in on around a third of the plays and was exclusively in the game to rush the passer.H e is expected to play a lot more this year, so the jury is still out on Anderson.
chitown - yeah, I realize that, and it kind of lends to my point like I told North. Last year, just looking at their sack stats you wouldn't have been able to tell a difference, but incorporate it with other stats and you can see that Thomas was the more productive player. I'm not trying to make a comment on how talented a player is or anything, I'm just pointing out the misleading element of statistics.
I've always thought that as well, though it does get kind of messy. What happens if they make only 1? Maybe we should award assists by half an assist per point, therefore getting a teammate an open 3 is better than getting them an open 2, and you would get half a point for a made free throw off an assist. It won't ever happen because people hate to mess with traditional statistics, but it's interesting to think about.
Sports have become too statistics oriented. People spend too much time researching statistics and using them as the basis to back up thier arguments. When they can't, they make up a new statistic to support their debate. Whatever happened to just watching the game? I find watching the game gives me so much more information than I can ever find spending countless hours on a computer. Seeing is believing people. The game is so much more than statistics and statistics can be decieving. Enjoy and fall in love with whatever game you love and stop spending so much time looking for and making up statistics. The only statistic that counts is wins and losses.
jlew - statistics can be deceiving, but they can also tell us a great deal of information. You can't lean entirely on statistics, and you have to know what their flaws are (which is the main point of this post), but used properly they're an invaluable analytical tool. BTW, seeing is believing gave us such notable draft picks as Drako Milicic, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Michael Olowokandi, and Kwame Brown. Our eyes certainly aren't infallible.
yea all the stats in the world in a game but the only stat at the end of the game is the final score!!!! ook your talking about all the stats i just thought id throw that in!!!!!
youre a #### BA doesnt account for walks...THATS WHY THERE IS OBP. On base percentage...and if u walk, it doesnt count as an at bat...####..what a stupid blog.
