Why sports statisticians should be more involved in games

Hot off the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Sean Gregory argues for more “stats geeks” on the sidelines and in the huddle during the game.

[S]itting next to your team’s manager, a scruffy baseball lifer, in the dugout is not just another scruffy baseball lifer, spitting tobacco. Instead, by his side is a guy with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, a beautiful mind who can calculate complex probabilities, in real time, in his head. He can tell you the odds of so-and-so throwing such-and-such a pitch to so-and-so on such-and-such a count.

It’s a fluffy article with not much on what the stat person would actually do, so you’ll have to imagine. Honestly, I hope sports statistics doesn’t come to that though. Unpredictability is what makes games so fun to watch.

[Time via @amstatnews]

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