[Wayne L. Winston] Mathletics : How Gamblers, Managers, and Sports Enthusiasts Use Mathematics in Baseball, Basketball, and Football(pdf){Zzzzz}

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. In a new epilogue, Winston discusses the stats and numerical analysis behind some recent sporting events, such as how the Dallas Mavericks used analytics to become the 2011 NBA champions.

Publisher: Princeton University Press; With a New epilogue by the author edition (March 18, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0691154589
ISBN-13: 978-0691154589

Editorial Reviews
Review
"Sports fans will learn much from probability theory and statistical models as they abandon empty clichés (time to throw momentum out of the informed fan's lexicon) and confront institutionalized injustices (such as those built into the protocols for selecting a national champion in college football and for seeding the NCAA's basketball tournament). A rare fusion of sports enthusiasm and numerical acumen."--Booklist

"Who is Wayne Winston? Maybe we should begin by telling you who he is not. He is not some barstool fan or uninformed sportswriter who fuels his opinions with information gleaned from SportsCenter highlights or newspaper box scores. He is a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, and until this year was the statistical guru for the Dallas Mavericks. He is author of the book Mathletics, which explains what statistics really tell us about sports."--Ken Berger, CBSSports.com

"[A] terrific read for anyone trying to model markets statistically and make trading decisions based on statistical data. . . . Reading Winston's book is a mind-opening experience."--Brenda Jubin, Reading the Markets blog
From the Inside Flap

"Winston has an uncanny knack for bringing the game alive through the fascinating mathematical questions he explores. He gets inside professional sports like no other writer I know. Mathletics is like a seat at courtside."--Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks

"Wayne Winston's Mathletics combines rigorous analytical methodologies with a very inquisitive approach. This should be a required starting point for anyone desiring to use mathematics in the world of sports."--KC Joyner, author of Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle Is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts

"People who want the details on the analysis of baseball need to read Mathletics. This book provides the statistics behind Moneyball."--Pete Palmer, coeditor of The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia and The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia

"Winston has brought together the latest thinking on sports mathematics in one comprehensive place. This volume is perfect for someone seeking a general overview or who wants to dive into advanced thinking on the latest sports-analytics topics."--Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets

"Mathletics offers insights into the mathematical analysis of three major sports and sports gambling. The basketball and sports bookies sections are particularly interesting and loaded with in-depth examples and analysis. The author's passion seems to jump right off the page."--Michael Huber, Muhlenberg College

"I really enjoyed this unique book, as will anyone who is a serious sports fan with some interest in mathematics. Winston is very knowledgeable about baseball, basketball, and football, and about the mathematical techniques needed to analyze a multitude of questions that arise in them. He does a very good job of explaining complex mathematical ideas in a simple way."--George L. Nemhauser, Georgia Institute of Technology

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Interesting read for math geek sports fans
By Elihu D. Feustel on October 5, 2009
Wayne Winston addresses a myriad of topics in baseball, basketball and football via a statistics-heavy approach. There are 50 different "bites" spread out over 350 pages. There are many familiar topics for quantitative sports fans - Pythagorean theorem, platoon effects, player evaluations in different sports, and power rankings to name but a few.

The entire book is moderately math heavy - over half of it is devoted to quantitative solutions using algebra, statistics and Excel worksheets (which you can find online via included addresses). If you do not enjoy the mathematical side of sports, you'll find most of the book unreadable. If you do enjoy math, stats or using quantitative approaches to gambling, this book is a nice review of most of the interesting approaches out there. The bibliography of cited books reads like a "who's who" of credible quantitative sports texts.

A vast majority of the "bites" are already discussed extensively in other sources. The advantage of this book for most readers is that you can get such a diverse taste of different topics under one cover. If you are a sports modeler, the wide array of topics and approaches could help stir your own creativity. On more than one topic, I found myself saying "this assumption isn't valid!" But my making these assumptions and challenging them yourself, his approach opens up many unintended doors for the reader. For example, one bite addresses and argues that teams should pass more and run less than they do. To support this hypothesis, the book looks at a payoff chart for the yardage gained from a pass attempt versus a run attempt. The payoff chart does not consider volatility (rushing for 3 yards EVERY play is better than passing for 20 yards 1/4th of the time)

Many examples of statistical analyses in major sports
By David J. Aldous on June 30, 2011
Consists of 50 short sections, each giving a statistical analysis of a specific question in baseball, football, basketball and gambling thereon -- typical examples being Evaluating (baseball) fielders, Why is the NFL's overtime system fatally flawed, End-game basketball strategy, Rating sports teams. So it's useful for providing an overview of the type of questions people have studied statistically, and interesting to see the author's answers to the specific questions. But what lies between the questions and the answers strikes me as much less satisfactory. Typically the author just writes down a formula intended to predict future probabilities or ratings based on past data, explains how to do the calculations in Excel spreadsheets, and shows the results. This is fine as far as it goes, but (to me, as someone who teaches freshman statistics (FS)) it is not usefully connected to FS. Interpreting what the results of a linear regression or a test of significance actually mean, and when they are applicable, involves subtleties far beyond what any brief text explanation can provide. So a reader who doesn't already know FS will surely be unable to internalize what's going on, or to be able to start doing analyses for themselves. And a reader who has taken a good FS course such as Statistics, 4th Edition will have lots of unanswered questions about why the author does this procedure rather than that procedure and how reliable the conclusions might be.