FanHouse Moneyball

We could sure use it. There's an intriguing article at the numbers-heavy "Football Outsiders" website talking about applying the standardized statistical principles that are now accepted and commonplace in both baseball --remember Moneyball? And the SABR crew? -- and professional football.

College football is sort of that last statistical frontier, the Alaskan wilderness for the numbers crowd. But instead of Sarah Palin being our tour guide, we have Football Outsiders.

They begin with the obvious:

It's generally accepted that the numbers achieved in say, SEC play simply won't be on par with those in the Sun Belt or MAC. Given this, analysts and fans have adjusted as they can and the differences have been played out rhetorically in the ongoing public conversation of college football.

A new math -- similar to that which is now common for high level statistical baseball and football analysis -- may be coming to cut through some of that fog.

Nick Swisher's on-base percentage is a robust .470 in 32 plate appearances in 2008, which is well above Swisher's career OBP of .381 but which is also a pretty good sign that the White Sox are going to get the expected amount of value out of the Swisher trade. And now that I've officially lost you with numbers in my first sentence -- someone in journalism school once warned me about this -- what's that mean? It means that Swisher must surely have learned to take bad pitches from Billy Beane right before Beane wrote Moneyball. At least, that's the weird question the Chicago Tribune asked Swisher, and Swisher's answer was kind of hilariously predictable:

Nick Swisher insists he developed his knack for taking pitches and drawing walks well before that trait was publicized in a best-selling book that detailed a statistics-heavy approach to baseball evaluations. "Everyone talks about the 'Moneyball' side of it," Swisher said Saturday after he drew three walks in a 5-3 victory in Detroit. "I think it's something I had my whole life. It has helped a lot in this game, and it's a good thing and a bad thing. Sometimes you feel like you know the zone too well and you get too particular with certain pitches."

In other words, no, Swisher didn't learn to get on base from Billy Beane. He is naturally talented at it, and was then drafted by Beane to do so for a professional salary in the major leagues. Correlation ... causation ... my head hurts. Hopefully Swisher just hits home runs all year -- that should alleviate some confusion.

"Under The Gun" takes a look at one player from each team who will bear all the pressure for the upcoming '08 season.

The Athletics may be amidst a brand new rebuilding process after trading Dan Haren, Nick Swisher, Mark Kotsay, Stomper, and Billy Beane's first edition of Moneyball signed by Michael Lewis this offseason for all the prospects they can get their hands on, but that doesn't mean there aren't players on the team feeling pressure this season.

If you're Eric Chavez, for instance, you've got a lot to prove to yourself and the Athletics this season. Chavez missed 72 games last season thanks to a whole myriad of injuries. He had three surgeries this offseason alone to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, one to fix a bulging disc in his lower back, and then for good measure, he had the labrum in his left shoulder fixed as well.

There have been cadavers who've experienced less intrusion.

Chavez obviously struggled in 2007 while battling these injuries, putting up career lows in batting average (.240), OBP (.306), OPS (.752), and RBI (46) to name a few. HIs 15 home runs were also his lowest total since Eric's first full season in Oakland back in 1999.

Considering that Chavez is Oakland's highest paid player at $9.5 million this season, it's also very possible he won't finish the season as a member of the Athletics. Which means if he does perform well, he may have a way out to a contender come July.

When you own the nation's longest losing streak, sometimes it pays to lean on a few bright minds.

Duke football coach Ted Roof has connected with the university's business school (one of the nation's finest) to figure out a way to turn the football program around.

As reported by the News & Observer's Michael Moore, business school students and athletic department staffers are looking at schools around the country with similar athletic traits as Duke to figure out what they're doing. Study enough schools, the theory goes, and they'll be able to build a reliable plan for a football turnaround at Duke.

[T]his plan will go far beyond recruiting and practice time, to encompass all football, developmental and financial operations of the program. The team is, as Naedele put it, "taking it to the MBA level."

Straight out of "Moneyball," Michael Lewis' book on baseball and business, the new plan will feature statistical regressions and cold, hard data about what exactly builds a winning program.

"Strategic plans have been around, but not with the rigor or discipline that we are doing here -- ours is very much based on comparative analytics and best practices," Naedele said.

The Blue Devils could use some outside-the-box thinking. Duke owns the nation's longest losing streak at 20 games. In addition, the football program, which brings in huge profits at most BCS schools, operated at a loss of nearly $1.7 million during the 2005-06 school year, according to the university's report under the federal Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act.

I like it. College football is rich with short-term turnaround stories. Look no further than Duke which had some success under Steve Spurrier. However, the lure of a bigger program took him to Florida and the Blue Devils haven't been the same since. With this effort, Duke appears to be thinking long term, at having a say when it comes to ACC football regardless of coaching regime.

(Via: The Wiz)

For anyone who's read the fantastic Michael Lewis book Moneyball, or anyone who is remotely sabermetrically inclined, this comes as no surprise. But for the casual fan who isn't up-to-speed on the Billy Beane approach to producing runs (walks, big home runs, and limited stolen base attempts), here is a more simplistic look at it. There have been growing concerns around the Padres that pitcher Chris Young (pictured) has been so easy to steal bases off of. In his start on Friday, Young allowed four stolen bases (three to Ichiro) in four attempts. On the season, runners have stolen 15 bases off Young without being caught once, thanks in large part to a slow delivery home. So if that's the case, if baserunners nearly receive a free bag from Young, then how has he been so successful this year, to the point where he's 5-3 with a 2.89 ERA in 53 innings? The answer is simple my friends -- it's because stolen bases hardly matter.

"It's something Greg [Maddux] and I talked about in Spring Training. ... He gave me a stat that less than 20 percent of stolen bases lead to runs and if you have a pretty low opponent's batting average," Young said. "Statistically, you're better off taking your chances getting the hitter out than worrying about the guys stealing bases."

And Greg Maddux is a surefire Hall-of-Famer, so if he tells you to jump off a bridge, then you totally jump. And Chris Young went to Princeton, so whatever he says must be right. Maybe not, but the men make an excellent point. The point is not to say that it's OK to just let baserunners go freely swiping bases whenever they please. The point is that it's more important for a pitcher to make his pitch and concentrate on getting a batter out than hold a runner at the expense of making a poor pitch. And once again my friends, Billy Beane is proven to be a genius.