An Assortment of Links on Football, Baseball, the Top Sports Economist, and a Wikipedia Page

Today’s post is simple an assortment of items and links that I wished to briefly mention, but previously forgot to throw into a post someplace.

Football Links

The football assortment begins with the quarterback and running back rankings for Week Fourteen.  The few people who follow this feature might have noticed that I skipped Week Thirteen.  This is primarily due to the play of the Detroit Lions, who seem determined to sap my interest in the NFL this season.  Despite this lack of interest, I was able to take a few moments today to construct the rankings for this week.

Table One: Quarterback Rankings for Week Fourteen

Table Two: Running Back Rankings for Week Fourteen

As for a story these rankings inspire… well, not sure I have much to say. 

• I was going to note that Daunte Culpepper — who hasn’t played enough to be ranked – is not playing very well for the Detroit Lions. Of course, Culpepper was signed in mid-season, so we should not be surprised that a player who doesn’t know the playbook (or his teammates) would have trouble making plays. On the other hand, Chauncey Billups and Allen Iverson are pretty much the same players in their respective new homes as they were last year. And one can’t expect that either of these players knew “the playbook” after they were traded. This suggests that basketball players do not depend on their coaches and teammates as much as football players. Not sure this is much of an original story, but it’s all I could come up with this week (did I mention my interest in the NFL is fading with each Detroit loss?).
• For more football stories, let’s turn to the work of Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats. Brian has recently offered two wonderful stories. The first — 4th Down Trend? – looks at the tendency of NFL coaches to go for it on fourth down (and how this has changed over time). In a related post, No Man’s Land reports where on the football field coaches tend to be the most indecisive.
• Although not entirely on the subject of football, Malcolm Gladwell’s latest for the New Yorker — Most Likely to Succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job? – looks briefly at the process by which quarterbacks are selected in the NFL draft. The larger story, though, is not about football. Gladwell is actually interested in how schools select and evaluate teachers. Yes, there is a connection. And yes, you should read the article to see how Gladwell puts these two ideas together (and yes, Rob Simmons and I are briefly mentioned, although that’s not why you should read the article).
• Finally, my sister-in-law sent me the following link from MSN.com last night: Do pretty-boy quarterbacks take home bigger paychecks? This story is about research I have done (with Rob Simmons and Jennifer Van Gilder) that was previously mentioned in The New York Times Play Magazine and at Darren Rovell’s Sports Biz blog at CNBC.com.

One Baseball Link

Okay, enough football.  Let’s talk baseball for a moment.  A few weeks ago I came across the following from Rob Neyer (at ESPN.com): Mauer was the better choice for AL MVP

In this column was the following.

What I’m not willing to say — what I’ll probably never be willing to say — is that Joe Mauer deserved to finish behind Justin Morneau in the MVP balloting again. Two years ago, there was virtually no evidence that Morneau was more valuable than Mauer, yet Morneau finished first and Mauer finished sixth. This year, there is virtually no evidence that Morneau was more valuable than Mauer, and yet Morneau finished second and Mauer finished fourth.

Maybe that’s a sign of progress. But for as long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve been told that I don’t see enough games, that I don’t know what it really takes to win, that I don’t appreciate the little things that don’t show up in the box scores.

And for as long as I’ve been doing this, every time the MVP voters have a choice between the guy with the power stats and the guy who does the little things, they pick the guy with the big numbers.

Essentially, Neyer is noting that baseball can suffer from the same problem we observe in basketball. The most dramatic events get the most attention.  One might think baseball – a sport where numbers are more likely to be examined and understood –would not suffer from this problem.  But apparently, that’s not the case.

The Foremost Expert on Sports Economics and a Wikipedia Page

At the end of October, I wrote a brief comment on the following book by Steve Ross and Stefan Szymanski: Fans of the World Unite! A (Capitalist) Manifesto for the Sports Consumers.

Steve Ross recently hosted a conference at the Penn State Institute for Sports Law, Policy, and Research to discuss the general story told in this book.  A video of this conference — How Sports Leagues Should be Designed for the Good of the Sport and for the Fans – is now available. 

Not surprisingly, one of the speakers was Stefan Szymanski.  Stefan is introduced as “the foremost expert on sports economics”.  Given Stefan’s list of publications, such an argument certainly can be made.  I should note, though, that despite Stefan’s stature in the sports economics community (and I have to admit my friend is probably the foremost expert), he still doesn’t have his own Wikipedia page. 

And why is this important?  Recently I noticed that someone took the trouble to create a David Berri page at Wikipedia. 

As often happens at Wikipedia, the initial entry on the subject contains information that’s not entirely accurate.  For example (and this is but one example), the entry asserts that “Berri has not engaged in any intellectual discussions with the APBRmetrics community…”.

This is an odd assertion, since one of the “principal leaders” of the APBRmetrics community is my friend Dean Oliver (and check out the APBRmetrics Wikipedia page if you doubt the assertion that Oliver is one of the “principal leaders”).  As I have mentioned in the past (at least, I think I have mentioned this), Dean and I have exchanged hundreds of e-mails across the past decade.  And some of these e-mails could be thought of as “intellectual discussions.” In addition, I often speak with Wayne Winston, who is the creator of the adjusted plus-minus approach.  My sense is that this page was created by an APRRmetrician (is that really a word?) who hasn’t gotten my attention. 

I should note that although my Wikipedia page has some issues, it’s interesting that someone went to the trouble to create a page about a somewhat obscure economist at Southern Utah University.

One Last Link

Let’s close with one last link.  Kelly Kilpatrick has created a list of 100 blogs that will make you smarter.  And on that list is an obscure blog called The Wages of Wins Journal.  Let me note that there is no guarantee – either explicit or implicit – that reading this blog will make you smarter.  It’s nice, though, to see that someone thinks it might.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

For more on the Wages of Wins football metrics see

The New QB Score

Consistent Inconsistency in Football

Football Outsiders and QB Score

The Value of Player Statistics in the NFL