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Challenging Times Require New Metrics - By Ted Ings, Auto University President
The 2008 Major League Baseball season is officially underway, and it is ironic
that an obscure statistician from Kansas is making the news, one who was
ridiculed for many years.
 Today
he is a chief decision-maker for the world champion Boston Red Sox, having
gaining notoriety throughout professional sports - and acceptance to his metrics
continues to grow.
On CBS 60 Minutes, Morley Safer interviewed Bill James, a baseball writer and
historian who has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball
statistics, highlighting his unique approach - known as Sabermetrics: the
science of why teams win or lose games.
A fair comparison can be made to the retail auto sales and service industry:
It’s the numbers, stupid.
Bill James helps the Boston Red Sox decide which players to keep, who and whey
they play and who gets traded-away in the off-season, in order to improve the
team’s statistical chances of having a winning year. He also helps them grow
champions. But it wasn’t always that way.
Working as a night security guard in Kansas during the late 1970’s, James began
studying box scores (arguably similar to an RO Analysis). He soon published “The
Bill James Baseball Abstract” in 1977, by challenging baseball’s typical metrics
of what determined a great player. He argued that it was not wins or losses (for
a pitcher), nor hits, home runs nor batting average.
Instead, he created statistical innovations (the new metrics) such as:
- Runs Created: Put simply, hits and walks divided by plate appearances.
- Range Factor: The defensive contribution of a player, assists and
putouts divided by games played.
- Defensive Efficiency Record: The percentage of balls in play that a
defense turns into an out.
- Win Shares: A comparison of players at different positions.
- Pythagorean Winning Percentage: The relationship of wins and losses to
runs scored and allowed.
- Major League Equivalency - A metric that uses minor league statistics to
determine how a player is likely to perform in the majors.
For most of his career, Bill James ideas were either been ignored or rejected
by major league baseball teams. Most teams preferred to follow the maxims that
were created decades ago, as well as their gut instincts.
The Red Sox hired James in 2004. Using his ideas, they have won two World
Championships.
In our constantly changing industry of customer counts and sales and dollars
made, perhaps we need to take a step back and look at new and innovative ways to
measure our success, and that of our people.
In these challenging times, it requires different thinking along with different
processes, to become a world champion.
Think about it.
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