Star Tribune · May 19, 2023
The one big advantage NFL's statistics revolution has over NBA, MLB
The success of teams like the Eagles has increased others’ willingness to play more aggressively.Baseball, with its ability to isolate individual events, has always been a numbers game. And given how well the sport lends itself to statistics, it shouldn't be a surprise that baseball was the first sport in which teams embraced and tried to gain edges with advanced data.
Billy Beane's "Moneyball" A's were among the first stories told, and that was two decades ago. Influenced not only by cost-saving moves but the efficiencies they revealed, teams started copying the A's pursuit of on-base percentage and home runs.
The NBA arguably was the league that next followed MLB in the data revolution.
