Interesting deep dive into the recent innovations towards player development in baseball. It was a total surprise to me that, basically, no one in proInteresting deep dive into the recent innovations towards player development in baseball. It was a total surprise to me that, basically, no one in pro baseball knew how to utilize practice time until like 2009? Turns out it's a terribly insular world, bogged down by decades-old wisdom that was rarely questioned. Everyone just thought players "were who they were" and deep analysis or development wasn't worth doing. Recent advances in technology and analytics have now reached a level of maturity where everything from a player's swing mechanics to nutrition to attitude becomes fair game for fixes, and players who might've washed out in the past can work themselves into all-stars today.
(I understand that we know more now than we did in 1979 or 1879, or even 2009, but seriously, what have coaches even been doing for the last 150 years? Weren't players ever wondering how they might improve at their craft? Or were they all just having the same resigned Bull Durham conversations over and over about how if just one more bloop single happened to drop fair every week they'd have stayed in the pros.)
So, worthwhile info for baseball nerds, but as an overall reading experience, however, just OK. (Ben's other book remains highly recommended.) For one thing, it's about 30% too long. After a while I didn't need another chapter about a struggling player who looked at the data and/or the video and figured out a fix, or another organization who realized it would be maybe good if they helped their players do that. I feel like maybe the authors did a lot of work and talked to a lot of people and we were going to have to listen to every quote and anecdote in their notebooks. The bigger difficulty is that one of the central figures in the development revolution is the largely repulsive Trevor Bauer. Even when offset by much more likable figures, I didn't especially care to get invested in his story....more
A scattershot and snarky schooling in statistical concepts like random variation and expected values, disguised as a sort of philosophical musing on lA scattershot and snarky schooling in statistical concepts like random variation and expected values, disguised as a sort of philosophical musing on life working in financial markets. Humans are all flawed and crammed with biases, and this affects how we see the world much more than cold, dispassionate logic. One of Taleb's favorites is survivorship bias, highly relevant in the business world. They only write articles in Forbes about the survivors, the traders on fantastic hot streaks or entrepreneurs whose startups are blowing up. But these survivors are way, way more likely to have been lucky than good (*someone* has to come out on top), and as such, that luck can dissipate at any time. It often arrives in the form of a "black swan," that rare worst case scenario that no one thought could happen until it did. Everyone thinks they're skilled geniuses on the way up, but victims of cruel circumstance on the way down.
Aside from my hopefully-safe work IRAs, I don't play the market, because I am smart enough to know that I definitely wouldn't know what I was doing. But I do a lot of low- or no-stakes fantasy sports and pools, and the same lessons apply. I stopped doing March Madness pools some years ago because I thought too much about the math. Making predictions when everyone has more or less the same data is silly. It is ludicrous to pick underdogs, but if everyone picks favorites, everyone will tie. So everyone looks for “good” underdogs (or just picks their alma mater or who has the best mascot), the ones that might shake things up, and you hope your particular combination of shaking things up will be the one that happens. But you have no idea, and are deluding yourself if you do. The very large pool winners like on ESPN and such generally have insane strategies. Essentially you need to introduce variance, and the right kind of variance that particular year. You will probably always lose, but you are also a candidate to win, unlike all the chalky brackets.
This is the kind of stuff I think a lot about, so I found a long read on it interesting and enjoyable, though Taleb's attitude and writing style is both a help and hindrance. He has found some brilliant ways of explaining some of these concepts, and can devilishly funny (e.g., he takes a lot of good digs at MBAs, which he feels is his right as someone who has one). But he can also come across as disdainful and arrogant, and the writing is hit and miss. It's a good book to read and think on casually, more than a tight, cohesive page-turner. He repeats himself a lot and tries out a lot of metaphors for the same few concepts, so it could've been maybe half as long. He also frequently starts down various theoretical roads only to peter out without solidifying any real point. Like he put every shower thought he had to paper while he was writing the book, but frequently didn’t go back to develop much of it. (I was already thinking that before I got to the end chapter literally called "Three Afterthoughts in the Shower.")
P.S. Discussion of Herbert Simon and his concept of “satisficing” brought me hard back to library school....more
Baseball has had a long time to build up a substantial encyclopedia of conventional wisdom about strategy and player analysis: when to bunt, for exampBaseball has had a long time to build up a substantial encyclopedia of conventional wisdom about strategy and player analysis: when to bunt, for example, or what to make of a player on a hot streak, or how to set a lineup. Sit through any broadcast for a (usually overbearing) sample of it. But most of this stuff is just anecdotal. Managers or influential writers in the past felt like they'd gained some insight, and it stuck. But the brain plays tricks on your perceptions. Maybe you saw a player only once, and he made a great play. So is he awesome or did you catch him on a good day? That's why we keep statistics. So you can look back and see what he did over time, even when you weren't watching, to remove your biases. But with enough data, you can also tease out broader trends and actually prove or disprove all that conventional wisdom. That's what The Book is all about. It's a huge deep dive into the data to see what pops out.
I loved it. I learned a ton. Some of the data is a little dry, but not usually, and anyway when you get to feeling that way, skim to that section's conclusion, helpfully set apart in a box to illustrate in plain English what The Book Says.
Absolutely required reading for baseball nerds. Highly recommended for all baseball fans, though....more
Seems like it will be useful. I'll review it again after I've been at my analytics job for longer and see how it holds up!Seems like it will be useful. I'll review it again after I've been at my analytics job for longer and see how it holds up!...more
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