Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! is the sports blog for people who love sports — and for people who don’t. This appeared there first:
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Enough for a while about special teams; we all know that I’m right and they’re a neglected but significant part of football that NFL teams would do well to pay more attention to; just ask Minnesota, which nearly lost a game to the Saints because of special teams, and then saw special teams’ breakdowns last week contribute substantially to their losing to the Bears and dropping out of first place.
I say “enough about special teams” because it’s high time I instituted another award and also made a point that I’ve made before but which is driving me nuts more and more.
I proudly proclaim that this blog is not the blog for stats-nerds, and there’s a reason for that: stats are generally boring, and also stats are ALWAYS misunderstood in the world of sports. Every day, if you listen to sports broadcasters, you will hear ridiculous stats, things like “the Bears have lost 122 straight games in Kansas City,” or, worse yet, “starting out 0-3 means you can’t make the playoffs.“ Or stats like “This team is 14-0 when leading by 10 points or more.“
All meaningless. All useless. And all misunderstood.
Here’s the thing about statistics: They tell you as much about what’s going to happen as a photograph of your wedding tells you what 2013 will be like. Statistics are a snapshot of the past; they are a momentary measure of something that happened at a particular time in the past and they do not predict the future.
Nor do statistics affect the outcome of events; statistics tell you the outcome of past events, and do not affect what happens in the future.
Take that “0-3″ stat; it’s often said that starting 0-3 makes it impossible, or virtually so, for a team to go to the Superbowl. But does it? No! No no no no no!
When people say going 0-3 means you’re not going to get to the Superbowl, they are saying 3 losses is too many to overcome to get to a Superbowl. But how many losses have Superbowl winners of the past had? Last year’s Superbowl loser had none; the Superbowl winner had six.
If you can have six losses and still win a Superbowl, going 0-3 doesn’t make it impossible to win a Superbowl, or even more difficult. Saying that, saying that an 0-3 start makes it nearly impossible to win a Superbowl, is to misunderstand stats completely.
What is correct to say is that if a team is so bad that it loses its first 3 games, it is unlikely that team will suddenly become good enough to win a Superbowl that year. Because starting 0-3 is a measure of whether a team is good or bad, and it is the team’s good-ness or bad-osity that determines whether it will go to a Superbowl or not – -not that team’s record, a record that may be misleading because a team may rack up a lot of wins against weak opponents and then bomb out in the playoffs, or a team may play a tough schedule and end up a wild card because its record is lower than others teams, and that team may then storm through the playoffs knocking off teams with a better record, as the Steelers and the Giants have done in recent years.
Which brings up the second point about stats: they are incomplete and so are misleading. Saying a team started 0-3 doesn’t tell you much of anything, because it doesn’t tell you why the team is 0-3. Are they doing badly because, like Seattle, many of their starters have been injured? Are they doing badly because, like Cleveland, Houston, and Arizona, they are mismanaged teams with poor talent? Or are they starting off 0-3 because they played three high-caliber teams in the first three weeks?
0-3 doesn’t really tell you anything, does it? Consider these two scenarios: Your team starts off 0-3 because its first three games were against the two Superbowl teams from last year and the Dallas Cowboys, and it lost those games, each, by a field goal in overtime.
Or, your team started off 0-3, losing to the Cardinals 56-0, the Browns 33-3, and the Raiders 24-7.
Which team would you rather root? Which team, at 0-3, isn’t really that bad off?
See? 0-3 tells you nothing; STATS tell you nothing without context, which is how I got on this kick this morning and why I’m instituting a new award.
I got irritated about stats again because I listened to ESPN while I got ready for work, and I heard Mike Greenberg give this completely useless statistic. He said that Rays’ Pitcher Matt Garza has only given up 7 runs in his 11 wins.
Greenberg then added this completely nonsensical non-analysis of that statistic: When he’s on, he’s great, or something like that.
Leave aside the tautology of “when he’s on he’s great.” (Who isn’t?) Let’s focus on what that statistic — only given up 7 runs in his 11 wins– tells us.
Nothing.
What can you tell me about Matt Garza based on that statistic? Is he good? Is he bad? Is he great? Is he great when he’s on?
You can’t tell me anything about Matt Garza based on that statistic — because you don’t know who he pitched those games against, you don’t know when he pitched them, you don’t know who else played in those games, you don’t know how many runs the Rays scored in those games, and you don’t know how many games Matt Garza has lost.
Let’s try different variations of that statistic, adding in information that I just made up:
In his 11 wins, Garza has given up only 7 runs; but in his 33 losses, he’s given up 6 runs pr game.
In his 11 wins, all coming against the Kansas City Royals, Garza has given up only 7 runs. In all games against other teams, his ERA is 9.2.
In his 11 wins, all in April and May, Garza gave up only 7 runs; since then, he hasn’t won a game.
In his 11 wins, Garza gave up only 7 runs while the Rays jumped out to at least a 5-0 lead in the first inning in each of those games.
See how each of those changes the equation? In any of those possibilities, is Matt Garza anything remotely approaching a good pitcher?
(I don’t mean to pick on Matt Garza, who may or may not be a pretty good pitcher ;while he was 11-9 this year, he’s 19-22 in his career, but he pitched game 7 of the ALCS and got the win. He also has a stupid-looking goatee.)
So Mike Greenberg got me all riled up with a useless statistic followed by empty commentary — which summarizes much of sports broadcasting these days, and which prompted me to create a new award here on Nonsportsmanlike Conduct!. Herewith, I give you
The Tripper Harrison Award For Dumb Statistics and Analysis! (“The Trippie!”)
Tripper Harrison, as we all know, was the loveable goof of a camp counselor in Meatballs, who made the single most awe-inspiring speech in all of sports movies. Forget “win one for the gipper” and “let him play” and that moment in [MARKY MARK SPOILERY SPOILER ALERTY ALERT!] Invincible when the coach roughs up Marky Mark and then Marky Mark goes out and makes a tackle; in all of moviedom, there is no more rousing and inspirational moment than this:
I have goosebumps.
As Tripper points out, It just doesn’t matter! which could be said not just about sports statistics, but about most sports “commentary” and analysis these days.
And, having already won a coveted Homer No Function award, Mike Greenberg is a fitting person to be awarded the inaugural Tripper Harrison Award For Dumb Statistics and Analysis!.
Congratulations, Mike! Keep up the good… that is, well, anyway, at least you fill some airtime between commercials!
See other awards I’ve given out:
The First-Ever Scott Norwood Award.
The “Homer No Function” Award Winners:
Marcellus Wiley, for his Superbowl commentary.
John Clayton, for explaining the meaning of “50/50.“
Mike Greenberg, for getting inside Kobe’s head, or someone’s head.
Right:
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It's not written by a jock or jock-wanna-be; it's written by a guy (me) whose sole athletic experience amounts to a season of flag football in 8th grade, and being terrible at golf. And yet it's the best sports column around.
