9781422285237 - Analytics: Sports Stats & More

Kaplan regarding baseball. “This [2015] season it is expected that Major League Baseball is going to provide an immense amount of defensive data, and teams will need to tackle that. What is the value of a plus-defensive shortstop? Is it a million dollars? Two million? How does it affect how you position players? How does that change your game strategy?” College baseball is an unknown because some Division I schools have the technology at their ballparks, “but most smaller schools do not,” says Kaplan. “They are getting some funding and looking to grow.” That would allow teams to blend scouts and analytics when looking at college players for the upcoming draft. Eventually, the more fields that have the data cameras in place will provide much more information that needs to be dissected and analyzed. If a lot of colleges end up with cameras to track information, it will further encourage big-league teams to evaluate amateur players with the technology used to dissect the professionals. Dean Oliver, who used to work for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and is now ESPN’s director of production analytics, points out that with SportVU, “the data will be there for every team to use however it wants—including making mistakes.

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