The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport 
asked by maxmill on November 5, 2006 8:26 AM
"The Wages of Wins provides some of the most intelligent yet readable sports analysis I've seen in a long time. Call it Freakonomics meets ESPN."
—Alan Schwarz, author, The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics
—Alan Schwarz, author, The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics
"Buy this book if you never want to lose an office water cooler debate again."
—Darren Rovell, author, First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned The Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon
"Not just a book for thinking sports fans, but something more. A book that can turn any fan into a thinking sports fan."
—Allen Barra, Wall Street Journal, author of Brushbacks and Knockdowns : The Greatest Baseball Debates of Two Centuries
"It is impossible to properly evaluate the performance of professional sports teams today without examining the financial aspects of the business. In The Wages of Wins, authors David Berri, Martin Schmidt, and Stacey Brook take the reader behind the scenes and into the financial world that quite often determines the difference between success and failure. As the writers state, `Sports come with numbers.' And with dollar signs. This book provides an interesting perspective to what helps determine the story behind wins and losses." —Fred Claire, former L.A. Dodger General Manager, author of Fred Claire: My 30 Years in Dodger Blue
Arguing about sports is as old as the games people play. Over the years sports debates have become muddled by many myths that do not match the numbers generated by those playing the games. In The Wages of Wins, the authors use layman's language and easy to follow examples based on their own academic research to debunk many of the most commonly held beliefs about sports. In doing so they take on everything from the Yankee's ability - or inability - to buy a World Series title; the ability of Michael Jordan to raise his level of play when the games mattered most; the consistency of Brett Favre; and the value of Allen Iverson. The book names names, and makes it abundantly clear that much of the decision-making of coaches and general managers does not hold up to an analysis of the numbers. Whether you are a fantasy league fanatic or a casual weekend fan, much of what you believe about sports will change after reading this book.
Reviews
0%
0%
I really wanted to like this book. In the end however, reading it was strikingly similar to getting my younger sister to describe the latest Harry Potter book.
It is disjointed, unorganized and consistently confusing.
The authors of this book can't make up their minds what to focus on. The number of times they utilize the phrase "we'll get to that later", makes you want to scream to nobody in particular: WHY DON'T YOU GET TO IT NOW?!?!?!
This was a fantastically uneven and dissappointing read. Too bad.
It is disjointed, unorganized and consistently confusing.
The authors of this book can't make up their minds what to focus on. The number of times they utilize the phrase "we'll get to that later", makes you want to scream to nobody in particular: WHY DON'T YOU GET TO IT NOW?!?!?!
This was a fantastically uneven and dissappointing read. Too bad.
reviewed by jan1975 on November 20, 2006 9:41 PM
0%
0%
To enjoy this book, you have to like either statistics or sports. Preferably both: *The Wages of Wins* is a crash course in *Freakonomics* for the really, really motivated guys in your fantasy baseball league.
But even if you only like competition and not the numbers, *The Wages of Wins* (Stanford Business Books) lives up to its subtitle, "Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport."
It takes measure by using plenty of numbers -- authors David Berri, Martin Schmidt and Stacey Brook are economists, after all -- but also by relegating most of the statistics to the (lengthy) footnotes. And it keeps a sense of humor: There's a running joke about the NBA and its "short supply of tall people."
Economists are such cards. But they're also capable of exploding a few sporting myths: Can owners use giant payrolls to buy themselves championships? (No.) Don't fans prefer leagues that are competitively balanced? (Not really.) Does having a superstar lead to increased ticket sales? (Only for the other teams.)
Turns out that superstars don't help their teammates play better, don't perform better in crunch time, don't elevate their game during the playoffs. Oh, and NBA coaches and scouts basically don't know what they're doing: With draft prospects and veterans both, they overemphasize the value of scoring while greatly undervaluing things like shooting percentage, assists and rebounds -- you know, the stuff that wins games.
Quarterbacks, moreover, aren't anywhere near as essential to a team's won-loss record as the NFL's rating system implies. One of the book's funniest passages is the account of how the NFL came up with its convoluted, inaccurate quarterback rating.
Naturally, in among all the standard deviations and regression analyses and Gini Coefficients, the authors devise their own methods for rating quarterbacks and power forwards. The math isn't impossible to follow, and it's fun to watch Philadelphia 76ers guard Allan Iverson being used as a whipping boy. (Sure, he's a scoring machine, but only because he coughs up the rock a lot and shoots with no discernible conscience.)
Still, if you're "not the competitive type" and not a bean-counter, what does *The Wages of Wins* have to offer? The performance measures devised by Berri et al. aren't applicable to regular Joes, mostly because mid-level managers don't usually rate their employees in 17 separate statistical categories. But stats, the authors remind us, measure all the things that players are doing when we're not watching. Your wages for reading *Wins*? A healthy distrust of the conventional wisdom. Whatever we're sure about is probably wrong.
But even if you only like competition and not the numbers, *The Wages of Wins* (Stanford Business Books) lives up to its subtitle, "Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport."
It takes measure by using plenty of numbers -- authors David Berri, Martin Schmidt and Stacey Brook are economists, after all -- but also by relegating most of the statistics to the (lengthy) footnotes. And it keeps a sense of humor: There's a running joke about the NBA and its "short supply of tall people."
Economists are such cards. But they're also capable of exploding a few sporting myths: Can owners use giant payrolls to buy themselves championships? (No.) Don't fans prefer leagues that are competitively balanced? (Not really.) Does having a superstar lead to increased ticket sales? (Only for the other teams.)
Turns out that superstars don't help their teammates play better, don't perform better in crunch time, don't elevate their game during the playoffs. Oh, and NBA coaches and scouts basically don't know what they're doing: With draft prospects and veterans both, they overemphasize the value of scoring while greatly undervaluing things like shooting percentage, assists and rebounds -- you know, the stuff that wins games.
Quarterbacks, moreover, aren't anywhere near as essential to a team's won-loss record as the NFL's rating system implies. One of the book's funniest passages is the account of how the NFL came up with its convoluted, inaccurate quarterback rating.
Naturally, in among all the standard deviations and regression analyses and Gini Coefficients, the authors devise their own methods for rating quarterbacks and power forwards. The math isn't impossible to follow, and it's fun to watch Philadelphia 76ers guard Allan Iverson being used as a whipping boy. (Sure, he's a scoring machine, but only because he coughs up the rock a lot and shoots with no discernible conscience.)
Still, if you're "not the competitive type" and not a bean-counter, what does *The Wages of Wins* have to offer? The performance measures devised by Berri et al. aren't applicable to regular Joes, mostly because mid-level managers don't usually rate their employees in 17 separate statistical categories. But stats, the authors remind us, measure all the things that players are doing when we're not watching. Your wages for reading *Wins*? A healthy distrust of the conventional wisdom. Whatever we're sure about is probably wrong.
reviewed by ronmiller on November 24, 2006 1:34 AM
0%
0%
I had high hopes for this book but my expectations were not met. The authors are clearly eager to bear the Freakonomics mantle (they say as much in several places), but unfortunately they do not exhibit anything resembling the flair of Levitt and Dubner. Their cute comparison of quarterbacks and mutual funds just sounds like a cheap imitation of the comparison between teachers and sumo wrestlers (which, honestly, wasn't all that clever anyway). Much of the other writing also seems to imitate the conversational style of Bill James, but without as much wit. Overall the writing comes off as alternately condescending and self-congratulatory, and sometimes both.
Style aside, the book contains a number of substantive weaknesses. For example, the chapter on the effects of labor shortages on fan attendance shows clear signs of bias. The authors favorably cite plenty of evidence that supports their hypothesis; and when confronted with evidence to the contrary, they suddenly decide to pick it apart and explain it away. Sorry guys, it doesn't work that way. This clear example of "disconfirmation bias" causes the chapter to lose all credibility. It wouldn't hold up in a peer-reviwed journal.
Further, although the authors claim to be "taking measure of the many myths in modern sport" (the subtitle of the book), they actually devote a lot of effort to knocking down strawmen. Is there anyone alive who really thinks that "the best players in basketball score the most" or that "quarterbacks should be credited with wins and losses"? No one with more than a passing knowledge of sports actually believe these things, but the authors act awfully smug after debunking these nonexistent "myths." Yes, we're all aware that offense is at most half of football, and that the passing attack is only about half of that. Luckily no one attributes wins to quarterbacks, except maybe to point out that a team can win with a mediocre QB (e.g., pointing out Trent Dilfer's career winning percentage) -- which is a different issue altogether.
The book also spends a lot of time trying to analyze basketball using methods that are much better suited to baseball. Don't get me wrong, I admire their effort to subject basketball to some analytical rigor. But baseball is largely an amalgam of statistics and can be studied as such. Basketball simply cannot. There are too many events in basketball that clearly affect the game but are not quantified (a pick, a shot that is altered but not blocked, a team deciding not to drive against a particular player, a player drawing a double team and getting a teammate open, the second-to-last pass of a possession). One might conclude, based on the demonstrated strong correlation between wins and the conventional statistics employed in this book, that these events are all relatively unimportant. But this argument ultimately fails because the purpose of the analysis is to measure the contributions of individual players. A team might score two points but the model does not adequately break down individual contributions beyond who scores the points and, if applicable, who gets the assist. Similarly, most of what happens on defense isn't recorded, and the model only takes into account steals and blocked shots. The authors sweep these weaknesses under the rug and proceed to devote dozens of pages to comparing players based on their new, supposedly superior, measures of individual performance. This is an enormous flaw.
Further, I was also struck how a team of economists could write about the value of basketball players without paying attention to the supply curve. They do adjust some of their stats for league-average at the position, but not on a category-by-category basis. In the final chapter, where they purport to show that scorers are paid too much, they fail to examine the issue of scarcity. My wild guess is that the data would support their conclusion, but I was struck by the absence of real analysis here.
Of course, no book on sports statistics and/or economics is complete without the obligatory nod to the genius of Billy Beane and the claim that salary disparities do not lead to competitive imbalance. This version of the story is no more convincing than any of the others. They happily point to the 2003 Marlins as an example of a low-payroll team winning against the odds, but somehow ignore the fact that a number of those players (Derrek Lee, A.J. Burnett, Josh Beckett, Ivan Rodriguez, Alex Gonzalez, Mike Lowell) are now earning big salaries in big markets while the Marlins are under .500. Sure, a team can win with young players who haven't yet become eligible for free agency or arbitration, but is that any way to build a franchise for long-term success? Where is the analysis of that rather obvious question? And where is the point, made quite clear in Moneyball, that no inefficient market can last forever? What happens when the next Billy Beane is hired to run the Yankees?
I will grant that the book is thought-provoking. But ultimately there are many other books on sports statistics and economics that are much more readable and well-argued than this.
Style aside, the book contains a number of substantive weaknesses. For example, the chapter on the effects of labor shortages on fan attendance shows clear signs of bias. The authors favorably cite plenty of evidence that supports their hypothesis; and when confronted with evidence to the contrary, they suddenly decide to pick it apart and explain it away. Sorry guys, it doesn't work that way. This clear example of "disconfirmation bias" causes the chapter to lose all credibility. It wouldn't hold up in a peer-reviwed journal.
Further, although the authors claim to be "taking measure of the many myths in modern sport" (the subtitle of the book), they actually devote a lot of effort to knocking down strawmen. Is there anyone alive who really thinks that "the best players in basketball score the most" or that "quarterbacks should be credited with wins and losses"? No one with more than a passing knowledge of sports actually believe these things, but the authors act awfully smug after debunking these nonexistent "myths." Yes, we're all aware that offense is at most half of football, and that the passing attack is only about half of that. Luckily no one attributes wins to quarterbacks, except maybe to point out that a team can win with a mediocre QB (e.g., pointing out Trent Dilfer's career winning percentage) -- which is a different issue altogether.
The book also spends a lot of time trying to analyze basketball using methods that are much better suited to baseball. Don't get me wrong, I admire their effort to subject basketball to some analytical rigor. But baseball is largely an amalgam of statistics and can be studied as such. Basketball simply cannot. There are too many events in basketball that clearly affect the game but are not quantified (a pick, a shot that is altered but not blocked, a team deciding not to drive against a particular player, a player drawing a double team and getting a teammate open, the second-to-last pass of a possession). One might conclude, based on the demonstrated strong correlation between wins and the conventional statistics employed in this book, that these events are all relatively unimportant. But this argument ultimately fails because the purpose of the analysis is to measure the contributions of individual players. A team might score two points but the model does not adequately break down individual contributions beyond who scores the points and, if applicable, who gets the assist. Similarly, most of what happens on defense isn't recorded, and the model only takes into account steals and blocked shots. The authors sweep these weaknesses under the rug and proceed to devote dozens of pages to comparing players based on their new, supposedly superior, measures of individual performance. This is an enormous flaw.
Further, I was also struck how a team of economists could write about the value of basketball players without paying attention to the supply curve. They do adjust some of their stats for league-average at the position, but not on a category-by-category basis. In the final chapter, where they purport to show that scorers are paid too much, they fail to examine the issue of scarcity. My wild guess is that the data would support their conclusion, but I was struck by the absence of real analysis here.
Of course, no book on sports statistics and/or economics is complete without the obligatory nod to the genius of Billy Beane and the claim that salary disparities do not lead to competitive imbalance. This version of the story is no more convincing than any of the others. They happily point to the 2003 Marlins as an example of a low-payroll team winning against the odds, but somehow ignore the fact that a number of those players (Derrek Lee, A.J. Burnett, Josh Beckett, Ivan Rodriguez, Alex Gonzalez, Mike Lowell) are now earning big salaries in big markets while the Marlins are under .500. Sure, a team can win with young players who haven't yet become eligible for free agency or arbitration, but is that any way to build a franchise for long-term success? Where is the analysis of that rather obvious question? And where is the point, made quite clear in Moneyball, that no inefficient market can last forever? What happens when the next Billy Beane is hired to run the Yankees?
I will grant that the book is thought-provoking. But ultimately there are many other books on sports statistics and economics that are much more readable and well-argued than this.
reviewed by spiderman on November 27, 2006 3:25 AM
0%
0%
I really looked forward to this book after reading the review in The New Yorker. The reviewer's critical skills, evidently, do not extend to evaluating the merits of a logical argument.
There are so many logical problems with the analysis in this book, it is difficult to know where to begin.
I will limit myself to just a handful, among countless possibilities.
1) The authors find a correlation between the stability of a basketball team's roster and its winning percentage, and conclude that roster stability is a factor in producing wins! Classic problem of mistaking effect for cause. Clearly, winning teams are disinclined to make major roster changes, and losing teams are eager to. I was so amazed at this I reread it to see if I missed where they pointed this out. They didn't.
2) The authors show a correlation between more assists and winning percentage and conclude that assists help produce wins. Again, very silly. A team with a higher shooting percentage and fewer turnovers will of course get more wins and produce more assists. But the assists are not producing the wins - the shooting percentage is. Were these factors discounted? Not according to the text.
3) Most problematic, the authors define a way of measuring the value of players to a team, and then "prove" their method by summing these values, per player, across each team, and show that they do indeed predict the number of wins each team will get. What they fail to realize is that their method of apportioning value to a player necessarily sums back to team totals such as points per possession that we know correlate to wins per team. But this in no way proves that the apportioning is wrong. We could just as easily base each player's value "team's points while players is on the floor - opposing team's points while player is in the floor". Sum for all players on team, and you will find the team's points-per-game and the opposition's points per game, and you have just "proven" that your method of measuring a player's value is accurate.
4. In looking at rebounds, there is not even the slightest caveat that a player's rebounds per game are affected by who he shares rebounding responsibilities with. If you are in the front court with Shaq, you will get fewer rebounds, not because the other team gets them, but because your teammate does, so comparing rebounding stats between players across teams is highly questionable.
5. Ridiculously, they conclude that adding great players to your roster makes the other players worse not better (this is written as a great revelation, demythifying the common presumption that great players make teammates better). Adding great players indeed will make other players statistically less productive. They will take fewer shots, get fewer rebounds, fewer assists if a new ball-handler is added, etc. And so, according their evaluation method, the other players become worse. This should clearly tell them there is something wrong with their system, based so heavily on specific metrics of productivity. Instead, they simply accept the merit of their method as fact, and conclude that adding great players really makes other players worse!!!
The most frustrating thing about this book, however, for an analytically minded reader, is its smugness. They understand statistics. They have the answers. They are bringing them down from the mountains and explaining them to us idiot peons. All while their reasoning is so problematic.
I in no way am a supporter of the intuitive and nonsensical drivel one hears from so many sports coaches, players and commentators. I would have enjoyed a good, statistical, analytical study of the game of basketball. Unfortunately, this is not it.
There are so many logical problems with the analysis in this book, it is difficult to know where to begin.
I will limit myself to just a handful, among countless possibilities.
1) The authors find a correlation between the stability of a basketball team's roster and its winning percentage, and conclude that roster stability is a factor in producing wins! Classic problem of mistaking effect for cause. Clearly, winning teams are disinclined to make major roster changes, and losing teams are eager to. I was so amazed at this I reread it to see if I missed where they pointed this out. They didn't.
2) The authors show a correlation between more assists and winning percentage and conclude that assists help produce wins. Again, very silly. A team with a higher shooting percentage and fewer turnovers will of course get more wins and produce more assists. But the assists are not producing the wins - the shooting percentage is. Were these factors discounted? Not according to the text.
3) Most problematic, the authors define a way of measuring the value of players to a team, and then "prove" their method by summing these values, per player, across each team, and show that they do indeed predict the number of wins each team will get. What they fail to realize is that their method of apportioning value to a player necessarily sums back to team totals such as points per possession that we know correlate to wins per team. But this in no way proves that the apportioning is wrong. We could just as easily base each player's value "team's points while players is on the floor - opposing team's points while player is in the floor". Sum for all players on team, and you will find the team's points-per-game and the opposition's points per game, and you have just "proven" that your method of measuring a player's value is accurate.
4. In looking at rebounds, there is not even the slightest caveat that a player's rebounds per game are affected by who he shares rebounding responsibilities with. If you are in the front court with Shaq, you will get fewer rebounds, not because the other team gets them, but because your teammate does, so comparing rebounding stats between players across teams is highly questionable.
5. Ridiculously, they conclude that adding great players to your roster makes the other players worse not better (this is written as a great revelation, demythifying the common presumption that great players make teammates better). Adding great players indeed will make other players statistically less productive. They will take fewer shots, get fewer rebounds, fewer assists if a new ball-handler is added, etc. And so, according their evaluation method, the other players become worse. This should clearly tell them there is something wrong with their system, based so heavily on specific metrics of productivity. Instead, they simply accept the merit of their method as fact, and conclude that adding great players really makes other players worse!!!
The most frustrating thing about this book, however, for an analytically minded reader, is its smugness. They understand statistics. They have the answers. They are bringing them down from the mountains and explaining them to us idiot peons. All while their reasoning is so problematic.
I in no way am a supporter of the intuitive and nonsensical drivel one hears from so many sports coaches, players and commentators. I would have enjoyed a good, statistical, analytical study of the game of basketball. Unfortunately, this is not it.
reviewed by vicky123 on November 27, 2006 4:21 PM