Earlier this week, Tobias J. Moskowitz (a University of Chicago finance professor) and?L. Jon Wertheim (a Sports Illustrated writer) contributed a guest post on black NFL coaches, which was an adaptation of their new book Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won. You may recall this as the book Levitt described as?”[t]he closest thing to Freakonomics I’ve seen since the original,” much to his wife’s chagrin.
Now Moskowitz and Wertheim have agreed to answer your sports questions. So fire away in the comments section below and, as always, we’ll post their answers in due time.
To give you an idea of the ground they cover, here’s the Table of Contents from Scorecasting:
Whistle Swallowing: Why fans and leagues want officials to miss calls
Go For It: Why coaches make decisions that reduce their team’s chances of winning
How Competitive Are Competitive Sports?: Why are the Pittsburgh Steelers so successful and the Pittsburgh Pirates so unsuccessful? [For Steelers fans (like me), here's an unrelated post on the improbability of the Steelers' success.]
Tiger Woods is Human (and Not for the Reason You Think): How Tiger Woods is just like the rest of us, even when it comes to playing golf
Offense Wins Championships, Too: Is defense really more important than offense?
The Value of a Blocked Shot: Why Dwight Howard’s 232 blocked shots are worth less than Tim Duncan’s
Rounding First: Why .299 hitters are so much more rare (and maybe more valuable) than .300 hitters
Thanks, Mr. Rooney: Why black NFL coaches are doing worse than ever — and why this is a good thing
Comforts of Home: How do conventional explanations for the home field advantage stack up?
So, What Is Driving the Home Field Advantage?: Hint: Vocal fans matter, but not the way you might think
There’s No I in Team: But there is an m and an e
Off the Chart: How Mike McCoy came to dominate the NFL draft
How a Coin Toss Trumps All: Why American Idol is a fairer contest than NFL overtime
What Isn’t in the Mitchell Report?: Why Dominican baseball players are more likely to use steroids — and American players are more likely to smoke weed
Do Athletes Really Melt When Iced?: Does calling a time-out before a play actually work?
The Myth of the Hot Hand: Do players and teams ride the wave of momentum? Or are we (and they) fooled into thinking they do?
Damned Statistics: Why “four out of his last five” almost surely means four of six
Are the Chicago Cubs Cursed?: If not, then why are the Cubs so futile?
Update: Moskowitz and Wertheim respond to your questions.
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Which coach(es) have underachieved to the greatest degree.
Jimmy Johnson created (at least he claims it) a “value chart” for the NFL draft. Is there any independent investigation of these numbers and, if so, how valid are they in terms of long term player productivity, etc.
In Tennis, especially, players seem to switch coaches, or go coachless, pretty often. How much impact does the coach have on these players? How about in team sports; does changing coaches during a slump really pay-off?
Related to other coaching questions: The authors of Soccernomics claimed that soccer coaches matter very little for the success of their teams, and that to a greater extent it comes down to player quality. In other words, a great coach can’t lead a poor team to championship, but a great team can lead a poor coach to one. Do you agree with this claim? To what degree is this claim true in sports other than soccer?
Do you like the NFL’s new post-season OT setup? Do you feel that it’s significantly more equitable than the traditional “sudden death”? And how do you feel about this new NFL plan vs. college football’s OT rules?
Given the huge signing bonuses required to secure the top few picks of the NFL Draft, getting these picks wrong can damage a team quite badly (E.g JaMarcus Russell). My two questions are:
How do the draft positions rank in terms of expected value for the team?
If you were designing the Rookie Salary Scale that is possibly/probably coming in the new NFL CBA, what would it look like?
I just got the book but haven’t been able to start it. I’m really hoping it will touch on thing I’ve always wondered about.
In NHL games, it seems that the further ahead a team is (in points for that game) then the higher the chances are that penalties will be called on them. Once the score is closer it seems to go back to normal levels.
So I’ve wondered if this is the refs (with direction from the NHL) calling more aggressively or maybe the players on the winning team are just being a little more aggressive themselves.
What is the difference in psyche between Britain and the US?
We invented sports that we taught the whole empire (cricket), or all of Europe (rugger), or the whole world (soccer) so that they could feel good about beating us at them after the empire came to an end.
You invented sports that at played by just a handful of other nations, and then cover it up by calling it the “World Series” when only two countries take part. Just look at the table of contents in the book – what do you anticipate your international sales will be?
If it was just one or two sports, it might be a quirk, but it seems consistent across a whole lot of different winter and summer sports. Is there some deep psychological explanation?