Tomahawk Nation, a Florida State Seminoles community

Fangraphs article by Dave Cameron

Thought I'd post a link to the hockey portion of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. The Burke-Milbury etc panel isn't up yet, but given the following idiotic quote, it's primary value is probably entertainment: "Stats are like a lamp post to a drunk, useful for support but not illumination". – Brian Burke

James wrote what I thought was a great piece on the application of "Moneyball-thinking" to basketball in which he wrote, "Stats are best used when casting light on dark areas, when the numbers reveal not answers, but questions." Andrew Berkshire of SB Nation's Montreal Canadiens' site Habs Eyes On The Prize framed the use of stats what could be a complementary way: "So you start looking into different things to see if your perception reflects reality." It's an interesting article that's worth a read in terms of how stats can challenge us to more deeply understand sports rather than merely reinforcing what we already believe.

Jason Fry of the National Sports Journalism Institute does an outstanding job of examining the role advanced statistics at the link above in response to an article by Jonah Lehrer at Grantland. The following is an excerpt that summarizes his central point: Lesson learned, at least for me: If nothing else, sabermetrics is a useful check on very human flaws in how we look for patterns and construct stories. More fundamentally, I simply can’t fathom why any fan of any sport would reject new tools offering a deeper understanding and appreciation of that sport. This shouldn't really be a "war" at all, as his headline suggests: I don't know of any evangelical statheads. But the "I know what I see" argument is as absurd as not watching a game and only looking at stats - qualitative and quantitative analyses can actually be complementary, which is why both can be valuable in sports writing.