Statistical Thinking In Sports

Since the first athletic events found a fan base, sports and statistics have always maintained a tight and at times mythical relationship. As a way to relay the telling of a game's drama and attest to the prodigious powers of the heroes involved, those reporting on the games tallied up the numbers that they believe best described the action and bes

The unlikely worlds of sports fans and statisticians collide in this interesting and accessible collection of previously published articles on the use of statistics to analyze sports, which the editors have thoughtfully culled from a variety of American Statistical Association (ASA) publications. Heavily weighted in the areas of competition (rating players and teams, evaluating strategies for victory), the articles vary in mathematical complexity, but most will be accessible to readers with a general knowledge of statistics. Newly written material from the editors and other notable contributors introduces each section of the book, and a chapter with suggestions on using the articles in the classroom is included. Organized by sport to make it easy for readers to find the papers in their particular areas of interest, Anthology of Statistics in Sports contains separate sections devoted to the major North American team sports of baseball, football, basketball, and ice hockey. Two additional sections cover miscellaneous sports and more general issues related to sports and statistics. This book grew from the efforts of members of the ASA Section on Statistics in Sports, which is dedicated to promoting high professional standards in the application of statistics to sports and fostering statistical education in sports.

Although sports statistics receive vast amounts of media attention, disciplined analysis of the data is rare and the analyses published by statisticians are typically scattered across journals and conferences. This book is the first in over twenty years to provide a comprehensive and accessible survey of statistics in sports. It contains separate chapters devoted to American football, baseball, basketball, cricket, soccer, golf, ice hockey, tennis, and track and field. Four additional chapters review outcome predictions, graphical techniques, tournament designs, and Bayesian applications across all sports. Each chapter has been written by a recognized statistical authority in that field and includes the history of statistics in that sport, a look at current statistical issues, and an evaluation of current statistical models. Themes throughout the book include player ratings, the existence of hot streaks and clutch play, prediction of record performances, and the effects of changes in rules, scoring and tournament structures. The book will interest any sports fan wishing to go beyond the data in newspapers and magazines, and will be an invaluable resource for statistics instructors looking for exciting material.

This handbook will provide both overviews of statistical methods in sports and in-depth treatment of critical problems and challenges confronting statistical research in sports. The material in the handbook will be organized by major sport (baseball, football, hockey, basketball, and soccer) followed by a section on other sports and general statistical design and analysis issues that are common to all sports. This handbook has the potential to become the standard reference for obtaining the necessary background to conduct serious statistical analyses for sports applications and to appreciate scholarly work in this expanding area.

Apply statistics in business to achieve performance improvement Statistical Thinking: Improving Business Performance, 3rd Edition helps managers understand the role of statistics in implementing business improvements. It guides professionals who are learning statistics in order to improve performance in business and industry. It also helps graduate and undergraduate students understand the strategic value of data and statistics in arriving at real business solutions. Instruction in the book is based on principles of effective learning, established by educational and behavioral research. The authors cover both practical examples and underlying theory, both the big picture and necessary details. Readers gain a conceptual understanding and the ability to perform actionable analyses. They are introduced to data skills to improve business processes, including collecting the appropriate data, identifying existing data limitations, and analyzing data graphically. The authors also provide an in-depth look at JMP software, including its purpose, capabilities, and techniques for use. Updates to this edition include: A new chapter on data, assessing data pedigree (quality), and acquisition tools Discussion of the relationship between statistical thinking and data science Explanation of the proper role and interpretation of p-values (understanding of the dangers of “p-hacking”) Differentiation between practical and statistical significance Introduction of the emerging discipline of statistical engineering Explanation of the proper role of subject matter theory in order to identify causal relationships A holistic framework for variation that includes outliers, in addition to systematic and random variation Revised chapters based on significant teaching experience Content enhancements based on student input This book helps readers understand the role of statistics in business before they embark on learning statistical techniques.

One of the greatest changes in the sports world in the past 20 years has been the use of mathematical methods to analyze performances, recognize trends and patterns, and predict results. Analytic Methods in Sports: Using Mathematics and Statistics to Understand Data from Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Other Sports, Second Edition provides a concise yet thorough introduction to the analytic and statistical methods that are useful in studying sports. The book gives you all the tools necessary to answer key questions in sports analysis. It explains how to apply the methods to sports data and interpret the results, demonstrating that the analysis of sports data is often different from standard statistical analyses. The book integrates a large number of motivating sports examples throughout and offers guidance on computation and suggestions for further reading in each chapter. Features Covers numerous statistical procedures for analyzing data based on sports results Presents fundamental methods for describing and summarizing data Describes aspects of probability theory and basic statistical concepts that are necessary to understand and deal with the randomness inherent in sports data Explains the statistical reasoning underlying the methods Illustrates the methods using real data drawn from a wide variety of sports Offers many of the datasets on the author’s website, enabling you to replicate the analyses or conduct related analyses New to the Second Edition R code included for all calculations A new chapter discussing several more advanced methods, such as binary response models, random effects, multilevel models, spline methods, and principal components analysis, and more Exercises added to the end of each chapter, to enable use for courses and self-study

Teaching Statistics Using Baseball is a collection of case studies and exercises applying statistical and probabilistic thinking to the game of baseball. Baseball is the most statistical of all sports since players are identified and evaluated by their corresponding hitting and pitching statistics. There is an active effort by people in the baseball community to learn more about baseball performance and strategy by the use of statistics. This book illustrates basic methods of data analysis and probability models by means of baseball statistics collected on players and teams. Students often have difficulty learning statistics ideas since they are explained using examples that are foreign to the students. The idea of the book is to describe statistical thinking in a context (that is, baseball) that will be familiar and interesting to students. The book is organized using a same structure as most introductory statistics texts. There are chapters on the analysis on a single batch of data, followed with chapters on comparing batches of data and relationships. There are chapters on probability models and on statistical inference. The book can be used as the framework for a one-semester introductory statistics class focused on baseball or sports. This type of class has been taught at Bowling Green State University. It may be very suitable for a statistics class for students with sports-related majors, such as sports management or sports medicine. Alternately, the book can be used as a resource for instructors who wish to infuse their present course in probability or statistics with applications from baseball. The second edition of Teaching Statistics follows the same structure as the first edition, where the case studies and exercises have been replaced by modern players and teams, and the new types of baseball data from the PitchFX system and fangraphs.com are incorporated into the text.