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Math behind Moneyball

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University of Houston System

Math behind Moneyball

41 ratings

Learn how probability, math, and statistics can be used to help baseball, football and basketball teams improve, player and lineup selection as well as in game strategy.

From the lesson

Before you start...

All you will learn2:18

Meet the Instructors

Professor Wayne Winston
Visiting Professor
Bauer College of Business

[MUSIC]

Hi. My name's Wayne Winston.

I'm a professor of Decision and

Information Sciences at the Bower College of Business at the University of Houston.

So if you're here, you probably read Michael Lewis' great book Moneyball or

saw the movie.

So what does Moneyball mean?

Essentially using math or the term now I guess is analytics or

sports analytics to basically improve the performance of a team.

So we'll focus in this course on football, basketball and baseball teams.

So what are some topics that we'll talk about in this course?

Some interesting topics.

Well, we'll talk about bunting.

Why is bunting usually a bad idea?

The Moneyball book makes a big point about this, but

you'll understand the math behind that idea.

If you've been watching Major League Baseball, you've seen a lot of teams

shift their fielders to the right side of the infield and

even the outfield when left hand hitters are up.

Why is that a good idea?

We'll learn more about that.

You probably have heard of pundits say NFL coaches are too conservative.

They field goal too often and don't go for it enough on fourth down.

The pundits are exactly right and

we'll show you the math that proves that NFL coaches are way, way too conservative.

We'll also use Excel in our course to help you set NFL point spreads and

fill out your NCAA bracket, which I know all of you are interested in.

So let's return to basketball for a moment.

The 2015 season was not a good one for the Knicks or Lakers.

So you might think it's because they couldn't shoot very well.

To be honest, it's because they had horrible shot selection.

So we'll detail that horrible shot selection of the Knicks and

Lakers in the 2015 season.

So maybe you're interested in sports gambling.

We'll talk about point spreads, we'll talk about the money line,

we'll tak about Props bets.

You may even be interested in daily fantasy sports where every night you

pick a baseball team or a basketball team and you see that night whether your team

scored more fantasy points than your opponents.

So those are some of the topics that we'll cover in this course.

So our emphasis will be practical even though it's a math course.

We will use Excel for every example.

We'll use real life data for every example.

So I hope you'll join me on this exciting journey to learn more about the math

behind Moneyball.

[MUSIC]

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