As the Mets have learned over the past few weeks, baseball is unpredictable. Until the games are played you are never quite sure what will happen. To an even larger extent unpredictability rules the National Football League. Four games into the season and supposed Super Bowl contenders like the Saints and Chargers are struggling while […]
Here is a blog post that kind of got away from me. It’s Saturday night and I had a few thoughts about what to write about. Rather than choose, though, I decided to just cram all my ideas into one column. So the following will start with a conversation I had with Darren Rovell on […]
Can statistical analysis best human judgment? This is one of the arguments that we make in The Wages of Wins. And we have seen that this one argument has been greeted by a bit of skepticism from some of our readers (and others who have never read our book). Typically, the sentiment expressed is as […]
At some point in this post I am going to get to the Clippers and Chris Kaman. But let me start someplace else – and yes, I think it’s relevant – before getting to the Clippers-Kaman story. Why Statistics are Tracked? This is how The Wages of Wins begins: Sports are entertainment. Sports do not […]
For twelve seasons, beginning in 1986-87 and ending in 1997-98, the Chicago Bulls boasted a positive efficiency differential (offensive efficiency – defensive efficiency) every year. And not surprisingly, this team was quite successful, winning 69% of its regular season contests. Then in 1998 we saw the great exodus. Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, and […]
Week Three QB Score Rankings Overall QB Score Rankings Week Three RB Score Rankings Overall RB Score Rankings The Quarterback Stories The big quarterback story from Week Three was the return of Donovan McNabb. In terms of QB Score per play, McNabb was the second best quarterback in 2006. In Week One and Week Two […]
This morning I was notified via e-mail that The Wages of Wins has been listed by CurrencyTrading.Net as one of the “Top 100 Academic Blogs Every Professional Investor Should Read.” If you click on the above link you will see that 5. The Wages of Wins 11. The Sports Economist (I write there once in […]
This is from Mike Kurylo of Knickerblogger.net. Mike’s post is called: Do Stats Lie? Yes, I didn’t write this. And yes, I am cheating here. Normally the WoW Journal only posts stuff written for the WoW Journal (not much re-posting here). But I thought this was a good explanation of offensive efficiency and it relates […]
When we last left our story I was comparing the Blazers of today to the Nuggets from the early 1990s. Just to review… the Nuggets from the early 1990s were built around a dominant big man – Dikembe Mutombo. The Nuggets surrounded Mutombo with a collection of young talent that was believed to be endowed […]
The big story of the summer – after the Celtics acquisitions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett – is the Portland Trail Blazers acquisition and subsequent loss of Greg Oden. One reaction I have noticed to Oden’s injury is the sentiment that ultimately Portland is going to be fine. The thinking is that Oden will […]
Wages of Wins Journal 
September 30, 2007 by dberri
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