Someone who gets it

I just finished Pat Kirwan’s book “Take Your Eye Off The Ball – How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look”.

You know, ever since I decided to start Real Sports Analytics I’ve always been on the lookout for like-minded individuals who could recognize the value of this concept. I met a few at the MIT Sports Analytics conference last March in Boston, but Mr. Kirwan’s book is especially refreshing coming from someone with vast experience both inside the NFL and as one of the most respected analysts in the business.

First of all, before I get into the “why?”, I would highly, highly recommend this read to anyone who has an interest in furthering their knowledge of the game. If you’re looking for an advantage to winning your fantasy league, impressing your friends or just being more knowledgeable about the game you’ll love this book. It is well worth the 222 pages. As a disclaimer, I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with Mr. Kirwan nor have I ever met or spoken to him.

OK, now to why this book is so relevant (without of course giving away the “secret sauce”, Mr. Kirwan and I still want you to buy and read the book)…

First of all, the book spends very little time talking about the “tired” statistics that are usually associated with the game and that I’ve talked about before on this blog. He does a fantastic job of explaining fairly advanced topics like play calling methods, blocking schemes, rush strategies and the difference between a 4-3 and 3-4 defense (this chapter alone is worth the price of admission).

Secondly, Mr. Kirwan gives tips on what to watch for and how to keep track of what’s really happening in the game. How can you tell what type of blocking scheme the offensive line is using? How can you tell when it changes (and it does)? How does a running back “read” which cut lane is open (based on helmet position – cool…)? The chess match that not only occurs between coaches, but between say the left tackle and a defensive end. (The defensive end used an outside speed rush move on the last play, is he going to go inside on this play or outside again, or is he going to use a speed/power combo move?) It reminds me a lot of a baseball hitter’s guess-work in deciding between a breaking ball or a fast ball for the next pitch.

Although I don’t necessarily agree with Mr. Kirwan’s “explosion” rating for judging defensive linemen, he at least is moving things in the right direction (take your eye off the statistics!). Very few times does he mention passing efficiency or yards after catch or hurry ups. It’s refreshing.

What is outlined in this book is the next growing trend. It’s the “tip of the iceberg” as far as sports analytics is concerned. When any sports fans “look away from the ball” and actually try to digest what is going on in any sports their experience and take-away is only that much more heightened.

Mr. Kirwan, if you are reading this I would love to talk to you about how to expand your analysis. It seems several times in the book you start heading down the Real Sports Analytics path, but you’re not sure where that might take you.

Well, I’d certainly like to buy you lunch and show you some possibilities.

Not so "dream teams"

We as Americans are fascinated by "dream teams". Why? Who knows, maybe we just like the idea (if for a short time) a dominate force overcoming all obstacles put in its path. Maybe we just like the idea of watching multiple superstars coming together and creating something "greater than the sum of their parts". Since the days of Gehrig and Ruth sports fans especially have been susceptible to this phenomena.

The latest incarnation of a "dream team" has taken its form in the shape of the Miami Heat. In case you missed it (vacation on Mars?), Miami in the off season signed Lebron James (quite possibly the greatest player of his generation), Dwayne Wade (NBA MVP) and Chris Bosh (one of the best forwards in the NBA)...

Will this work for the Miami Heat? In not so many words, yes. But, I need to qualify my "yes". Is the purpose of a professional sports team to win championships or make money? Well, there certainly have been cases where teams have not won a championship in a while, but still seem to generate high revenues (ref. Dallas Cowboys). And there are other times when champions have come from teams that don't necessarily have the highest of revenues (ref. 1997 Florida Marlins).

So what is the point (from a team's perspective) of a dream team? Well, it's quite simple actually, it's a win/win any which way you look at it. The dream team is going to sell tickets and provide enormous publicity for the team. Just look at the Miami Heat's marketing activities over the summer. Did any other NBA team stage any production anywhere near what they did after signing Lebron? If they did, did you take notice? (I didn't)

So what did Miami accomplish as a result of signing these three players and putting on such a high-profile marketing event? Well, they certainly are going to sell tickets. I don't imagine that the sales of Miami Heat t-shirts, jerseys and well, just about anything else with their logo is going to hurt sales-wise this season either. Also, did you notice the game Tuesday night? It had all of the markings of a football-style "kickoff classic". Would that game have even been televised if not for Miami's "big three"? This is MONEY IN THE BANK for the Miami Heat organization. (eat your heart out P.T. Barnum)

Now for the 2nd part of the question? Now that they have signed the "dream team" or "big three" or whatever you want to call it - will they win a championship? Well, it doesn't really matter from a money point of view, like I said before, the money is already in the bank (the organization's primary motive in my opinion). But how much real analysis did the Miami front office put into researching how well these three guys (and the other players on the team) would play as a cohesive unit? Or does it really even matter???

What I will tell you is this, with the exception of the "original" dream team in the 1992 Olympics no dream team has ever lived up to its expectations. Even the 1992 dream team played at a level "less" than the sum of their parts in my opinion, it's just that sum was so darned high and everyone else's was so low they couldn't help but to win.

So why don't great individual performers and performances correlate to championships? It's something that sports announcers and other prognosticators call "chemistry". So what is "chemistry"? My definition - the interaction between players and coaches and subsequent results. I know, I know, that's vague, but in it's simplest form I think it's true. I do emphasize though the relationships within the players though - coaches matter to some degree, but I place the weighting mostly on how the players interact with each other in the arena of play. You can absolutely hate your coach, or have a horrible relationship with the coach and still win a championship.

How do you measure "chemistry"? Gosh, lots of people have certainly tried and there is no shortage of statistics that attempt to represent the concept of chemistry. If you've read any of my previous posts you understand my complete and utter disdain for statistics. What I do in my work has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with statistics, let me be perfectly clear on that point. There was a guy yesterday who was counting how many _dribbles_ Lebron had in the game - WTF???

If you want to get serious about chemistry, let me know. Yes, I do deal with numbers (not statistics), but the methods I use to generate these numbers help to represent ACTUAL player performance and yes, "chemistry" more accurately than anyone else has ever dreamed. In the few games that I've modeled in various sports (Football, Soccer, Basketball) the overall performance of the team (and whether or not they win) can always be shown by direct causes and consequences. I can look at my numbers and without looking at the score tell you unequivocally who won or lost the game.

On the other hand, I'm not a marketing company so if you just want to pay a lot of money to make money on marketing and ticket sales - good for you, it's the American way and I certainly won't stand in your way. Remember that America is also home to the saying "you can't make money without spending money". (the Miami Heat is doing both right now)

BUT, on the other hand, if you are really, really serious about winning. Well, that usually is a completely different thing that I CAN help you with.

(By the way, I'm not above eating a little crow. Congratulations to the Browns for winning their 2nd game of the season - against the defending world champions no less!!! Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again.)

How multi-million dollar decisions are made

I've been traveling recently and spending an unusual amount of time in hotel rooms as a result. The TV in the hotel room I find to be pretty much useless. Why? Well, first of all, I can get everything I need from the hotel's internet connection. News, sports, movies (Netflix), etc it's all there and I don't have to wait (and wade) through countless commercials to get what I'm looking for. Not to mention that there's usually nothing on worth watching. I typically travel Mon-Wed and except for Monday night football (of course) I don't watch anything on the useless screen provided by the hotel. Until a few weeks ago...

I cannot remember the exact circumstance, but after a very, very trying day I did turn to the otherwise useless box in my room for an evening of "brainless" entertainment. And what did I find? The HBO's series "Hard Knocks".

For those of you who have never seen the show, the premise is a (invisible) camera crew that follows and films the New York Jets through training camp and their pre-season schedule. From a "tabloid" TV perspective it's great entertainment. We watch as men who are dedicated to the game of professional football do everything possible to make an NFL squad. We watch the trials and tribulations of grown men driving Masarati's with state of the art GPS systems that still lack the ability to be on time to practice and team events (sorry Jason, had to take the shot). The impact their dedication and success (or failure) has on their psyches and on their friends/family makes for a compelling story. On the other hand, you also get a unique perspective on the "proven" players, what they do during training camp (including hazing rookies) and the drama involved in re-signing a top cornerback to a new contract (Darrelle Revis).

(Side note, I find the "Revis island" commercial very entertaining.)

The connection this show provides to Real Sports Analytics is actually something that I've been talking about here for quite some time. Identifying and judging (grading) talent on "Hard Knocks" is done by guys who have been coaching and been involved with the game of football for more years than I've been alive. Rex Ryan probably has more football knowledge in his left pinky finger than I have in my entire body. But you know what? Sometimes I think all of that knowledge gets in the way of good decisions...

One of the most important, critical benefits that I bring to my clients in my consulting practice is my view from "outside the box". Call it a third-person perspective or "30,000 foot" view, whatever - basically when anyone, including businessmen, coaches, scientist, etc look at a problem for too long they get a form of "blinders" on their subject matter. I'm sure this has happened to you.

At the end of most training sessions during the Jets training camp the coaches would sit together (in a somewhat spartan environment) to discuss the days events and provide roman-emperor-like "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on certain players. There are a few things that I find interesting about this...

First of all, no one brings up grading. Not once do I hear a coach say "Player X graded out at 90% in the practice session, maybe we should try him with the first team tomorrow". The feedback from the coaches almost entirely consists of "I like this guy because..." or "I don't like this guy because...". The performance measurement that takes place during player evaluation consists of the guy either doing a "good job" or a "bad job". At one point a player is considered a spot on the roster because he's a "hitter" (i.e. he made a great hit in a kickoff coverage situation in the previous pre-season game). I mean, it's incredible to think that those "multi-million dollar" decisions are being made by a bunch of guys sitting around in a locker room and (virtually) putting a wet finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

Secondly, we really are talking about multi-million dollar decisions. I'm not joking, the total salary for the Jets for the 2010 season is reported to be $116,910,097. These guys are sitting around in a concrete block room on what look to be folding chairs around what looks to be a folding table discussing $100 million freaking dollars!!!

Third, most of the decisions really seem to be about whether a certain position coach "likes" the player being discussed. I mean, I always suspected that a portion of the decision on whether or not to sign a guy to the squad was based on "gut instinct", "feel", "intangibles", etc - what I didn't realize was that it make up close to 100 % of the decision making process. I will give them credit, sometimes they look at film so at least 20th century technology is involved. But analyzing a player by the different skill sets they are looking for and putting something MEASURABLE around that? Not once.

That last one really floors me. This is a BIG business and it's obvious to me you can tell the teams that really care about player performance measurement and those that don't. Coach Ryan, I gave you props a moment ago regarding your knowledge on the game of football, but it's silly to think about doing this same type of player evaluation/selection over and over again each year and expecting different results (a common definition for insanity).

What I also find interesting (count this as #4 above) is that the Jets ownership thinks they can really "buy" themselves into contention this year. If you watch the show, coach Ryan talks a lot about putting together a "superbowl" team and how all of the "pieces are in place". Well, I'll only make one observation on that... Ask Dan Snyder down in Washington how that worked out for him the last few years. Last I checked the Miami Dolphins spend much more on their team salary - what's their record the last few years?

My 3rd person perspective on this? Individual players are not enough - you've got to find, evaluate and field a good TEAM. You've got to put all of the necessary components in place to make your team successful and you can't do that without measuring what you NEED. Blindly buying the "most expensive" guy out there isn't necessarily the right thing to do if he doesn't grade out well with what your TEAM is trying to do. Spending $46 million on a guy for four years of service doesn't help if he's out with a hamstring injury (get well soon Mr. Revis). Might it have been better to have found THREE guys at say $14 million a piece that work more cohesively as a UNIT?

My advice to the audience? Watch closely, there are certain teams that are really starting to get this concept and you can tell who they are. Ironically, in all of my discussions with professional sports teams I've only received ONE distinct "NO" (as in don't call back, we're not interested, don't contact us again). Yep, folks in Cleveland, you're in for another long, long season.

Hindsight is 20/20. Having a unique, third person perspective on your day-to-day evaluation processes can be priceless (hint: there's a team up in Boston that does just this).

It's called Real Sports Analytics.

Enterprise Performance “M” (NOT statistics)

I’m on my way back from the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference in Boston.  I’ll post a review and thoughts on the conference later on when I have a chance to compile my notes.

Something that came up in conversation during the conference and during the reception afterwards was the definition of EPM.  Basically, EPM is something that I’ve heard tossed around in the last few years and is a term that has been defined and redefined by just about every services firm, software company, industry analyst and talking head on the planet.  I’ve personally heard it defined as “Enterprise Performance Management” and equally as much as “Enterprise Performance Measurement”.

Now, here’s a disclaimer.  There are numerous wonderful books out there that try to help people define and establish EPM practices for their business.  These books are fantastic in that if you’re ever having a problem sleeping at night pick up one of these.  Problem solved.  (I would especially recommend the Norton/Kaplan books.)

What I also find comical about these books is that you would really trust your knowledge (and your organizations health) to the concepts presented in a book!  I would compare that to having your teenager read the owner’s manual of your car to learn how to drive.

Here’s what I can add to the already muddied waters though.  This is based purely on experience as I myself have fallen asleep on many of the above-mentioned book.

Performance measurement is the process by which you define measures to help you analyze the effectiveness of your business.  This “effectiveness” ratio can be financial, operational, managerial or any other “ial” that you feel is of value to your business (I’ll provide a simplistic example below).

Performance management on the other hand, is taking the information provided by performance metrics (as defined in the previous paragraph) and doing something that then (hopefully) has a positive impact.

One of the most common examples is a simple inventory management example.  Let’s say a major retailer has 50 white t-shirts on the shelves at a local store.  Based on what someone can see in the inventory management system the quantitative observation can be made that the inventory level is 50.  But, WHAT DOES 50 MEAN?  Is 50 good, bad or about right?

This is one of the main elements of a performance measurement system – the difference between quantitative data and qualitative information.

Back to our example.  If the “ideal” inventory level for those white shirts is 50 then we’re right where we should be.  If the ideal level is 10 then we are 5x in an overstock condition (not tragic, but not good).  If the ideal level is 200, then we are woefully under stocked which could potentially end up in a dreaded “out of stock” condition which results in a direct loss of revenue – which is obviously a bad thing.

A scoring possibility in this scenario and one that is commonly employed in the retail space is a scale of –10 to 10 with zero being a neutral middle ground.  -10 would report a dangerous understock condition and 10 would report an overstock, very high level.  Now we have a qualitative analysis that qualifies as a performance measurement and can be subsequently used in performance management.

Advanced performance measurement systems (like what Real Sports Analytics is based on) can take the inventory levels for all of the these t-shirts and for that matter everything in the store, compare them against their ideal levels and produce usable information on the inventory health of the product, the department, the store, a region of stores, a distribution center, etc, etc, etc.

Now, let’s explore how this concept fits into sports.  Let’s say a very talented wide receiver makes a 10 yard catch.  Great, we have quantitative data similar to the 50 t-shirt example above.  But, what does that 10 yards mean?  Was the play supposed to go for 15 yards and the receiver ran an improper route?  Was the play only supposed to go for 5 yards and he picked up extra yards on effort?  Was this near the end of the game and it was 3 and 8 and they needed the ten yards for a first down and the possibility of running out the clock?  Or did he need to get out of bounds to stop the clock and didn’t make it?

These are all factors that allow us to take this simple 10 yard catch and, usually with the help of coaches or scouts, put a qualitative value on this action.

When you observe this activity over hundreds or (hopefully) over thousands of observations you can readily pick out the noise and put a quality metric on the performance of any player, set of players, offensive, defensive or complete team.  This is valid whether it’s a wide receiver, quarterback, offensive linemen or defensive player.   You just need to define the right metrics for YOUR organization.

When these metrics are defined correctly and adjusted over time you can create a very, very effective performance management systems that can have direct, measurable results on the playing field.

So, what metrics are of the most value to your organization?

Metrics for the sporting world

Recently I was approached by someone looking for a system to track instance-based metrics for a soccer organization.  Soccer is a fantastic sport and (obviously) has a huge global audience.  While soccer hasn’t quite “caught on” here in the states, I’ve traveled enough overseas to see first-hand how passionate soccer fans can be.  I also realized that my past postings have mostly been focused on American football – my apologies to all soccer, hockey, basketball, etc fans that may be reading this.  Performance, instance-based metrics are alive and well and extremely valid in the world on what I call “continuous” sports.

Let me explain that last part very quickly.  American football, baseball, even rugby can be considered what I call “play” based sports.  A play is initiated, certain actions are taken, results occur, play stops and then the process is repeated.  For something like soccer or basketball the game is much more of a “possession” based event with continuous action (with the exception of events like out-of-bounds or injuries). 

There are exceptions to these classifications of course.  Take for example a soccer match with a corner kick.  A player kicks the ball from the corner position, usually to the middle of the field where several, dynamic things may occur.  Players from different teams can be interacting with the ball through a series of actions – headers, kicks, catching (goalie only of course), etc.  So how do you differentiate a “possession” or a “play” in a so-called continuous sport?

Well, it’s quite easy actually.  Every single player on the field, regardless of whether or not they are interacting with the ball, is performing some action for almost every second of the game.  Players are jockeying for position, the goalie is setting up his defense and positioning himself (or herself), the kicker is setting up the offensive players, etc.  There are some cases (again exceptions) where this is not valid.  For example, the opposing goalie may not be doing a whole heck of a lot during a corner kick on the other end of the field.  But, for the most part everyone is doing something.  Each of these actions is measurable.  Just like in the business world where top-tier organizations examine each and every transaction for actionable metrics, every action during a game can be observed and graded.

To put it mildly, what might seem “normal” or even “boring” to the untrained eye is anything but (baseball is another great example, but we’ll save that discussion for another day).

As you can also imagine, watching every single player involved in the action, over tens or possibly hundreds of skills needed to perform at the top level and doing that for an entire match is going to generate a very, very large amount of raw data.  Now, imagine that same raw data being gathered for both teams for every game they play.

Well, I’ve already talked a lot about the capabilities of Real Sports Analytics and its expansive data handling capabilities.

Is YOUR organization ready to take performance to the next level?