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I’ll admit I was once a non-believer. A little less than a decade ago after reading Michael Lewis’ Moneyball and watching the 2003 Boston Red Sox –- with noted statistician Bill James as part of their front office team -– collapse in the playoffs against the New York Yankees, I questioned why there was a contingent of people who follow baseball that were so insistent on moving away from the traditional models we used to judge quality. What was wrong with home runs, RBIs and batting average as the be-all, end-all metric? Don’t even get me started on basketball. How was it possible to take a team game like basketball and develop new metrics to determine who’s better than who?

But I’ve since seen the light, and I firmly believe if others did, rather than focusing on antiquated criteria like points or rebounds per game, or silly perceived intangibles like past reputation, Brook Lopez would have been named an All-Star last night. ... MORE →

Mark Ginocchio

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