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Wednesday, January 14, 1998
Fans have endless stats to compare: but which
really matter?
By SIMON GONZALEZ / Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Ken Hitchcock believes in statistics.
Stats are his friends. They are tools that help him coach his
hockey team.
"We use a lot of stats now, much more than we used to
before," the Stars' man behind the bench said.
So it follows that Hitchcock should be pleased that the statistics
explosion in sports has reached hockey, and that the league is
beginning to keep track of such specialized things as faceoffs
won and lost, blocked shots and hits, right?
Well, not really.
"I don't even look at those things," Hitchcock said
of the new cumulative stats that don't reflect an individual situation.
"To me, they're irrelevant. They don't help me win a hockey
game. I think you can get overrun with stats."
Such is the state of sports -- and society in general -- in
the late 1990s. There are reams of statistics available, but the
trick is to find the ones that are relevant.
Statistics of sizes, shapes, flavors and usefulness are available
as never before on various types of media, from the Internet,
newspapers and magazines to game broadcasts and radio talk shows.
"Statistics have a more pervasive use throughout society,"
said Steve Hirdt, executive vice president of Elias Sports Bureau,
the official statistician for Major League Baseball, the NFL and
the NBA, and a consultant for the NHL. "There's a much more
broad acceptance of statistics in all areas than there was before.
I think there's more interest in professional sports in general
than there ever has been before. And there's so much programming
to fill, and I mean newspapers and magazines as well as television.
There's more space to fill, more columns to fill."
Fans demand stats to obtain as much information as possible
about their favorite teams.
"It's the information age," said Steve Byrd, vice
president of marketing for STATS Inc. "People have more information
in their work and things they do, and they expect it in the games
they follow and watch."
Agents and players use stats as hammers against management
when it's time to deal.
"The only good thing statistics are for is negotiating
contracts," Stars defenseman Craig Ludwig said.
Managers and coaches use them to determine team strengths and
weaknesses, as well as individual matchups.
"The teams use statistics as a basis for their judgments
more than ever before," Hirdt said. "It used to be a
badge of honor for baseball managers to disdain statistics. Sparky
Anderson was one. 'I've got it all right here in the old noodle,
buddy.' That's now a thing of the past. People ignore statistics
at their own peril."
And statistics are the drugs that fantasy-league geeks use
to feed their habit. "Consumers are another part of the business,
and that's because of fantasy sports to a large degree,"
Byrd said. "People want to know everything they can about
the players so they can get the best value in those fantasy teams,
put together the best team and win the league. That's leading
to a new generation of products."
Byrd's company plays a sizable role in the numbers glut. STATS
(it stands for Sports Team Analysis and Tracking Systems) started
providing statistical analyses for baseball teams in 1989, and
publishes eight statistical-rich tomes on the sport. In the past
four years the company has added two football books and one each
on the NHL and NBA.
STATS provides numbers for ESPN and Fox Sports, and dispenses
updates for real-time scoreboards on the Internet, as well as
putting out statistics on its web site.
"The teams are still customers, but it's grown far beyond
the teams wanting data," Byrd said. "Now the consumers
-- the fans -- want data."
STATS provides some rather esoteric data.
Want to know which batters excel when the game's on the line
in the late innings? STATS has the breakdown.
Want to know which linemen allow the most sacks, or which receivers
drop the most passes? STATS can provide that information.
"We've been behind creating a lot of those," Byrd
said. "It tells a story when you do that. It makes it more
interesting, and it explains why teams are good and who's on the
way up and the way down when you look at more than the standard
package of statistics."
The tricky part is separating the wheat from the chaff, the
meat from the gristle.
There are a lot of numbers out there, but if statistics are
designed to measure a team or player's effectiveness, there's
a disparity between the gold and the garbage.
For every touchdown pass or goal scored, there's a passing
efficiency rating (does anyone really understand it?) and a driving
accuracy rating (Allen Doyle led the PGA in that all-important
stat in 1997, by the way).
"There's a clothing store that uses the slogan, 'An educated
consumer is our best customer,' " Hirdt said. "That's
the way it is with statistics. I could tell you an RBI is the
most valuable statistic, but it's not if you're trying to determine
Kenny Lofton's value."
That's why, although Hitchcock believes in the intrinsic value
of stats, he isn't enamored with the NHL's growing stats package.
"I don't look at league stats," Hitchcock said. "We
keep our own stats, which are called chances for and chances against.
"That's a great gauge of the control you had of the hockey
game. We really rely on it a lot. During the game, if we're saying
we've got a lot of chances in the offensive zone, it means we're
controlling the puck down low and we'll talk about hang onto it,
be strong in these areas. Conversely, if we're giving up a lot
of chances in some areas, then we'll talk to the players about
that and we'll make the proper adjustments."
Chances for and against aren't numbers that show up on the
NHL's official stats package, and neither does ice time, another
of Hitchcock's favorites.
Nor do faceoffs, at least not the way Hitchcock uses them.
"I carry a worksheet on the bench, and I will put down
who wins faceoffs against which player," Hitchcock said.
"When the game's on the line in the third period, I know
who's been able to take advantage of which player and on what
dot."
In much the same way, Rangers general manager Doug Melvin has
to do a little math to arrive at his favorite statistic.
"The thing I use is on-base plus slugging percentage,"
Melvin said. "If it totals .800, I like to think that player
is a productive player."
National League MVP Larry Walker was a productive player last
season, with a .366 batting average, 49 homers and 130 RBI. He
also led the majors in Melvin's favorite stat at 1.172. AL MVP
Ken Griffey Jr. was at 1.028. Babe Ruth, perhaps the best player
ever, produced a career number of 1.164.
So that's a good stat, right? Sure, unless you're a slick-fielding
shortstop whose primary value is to stop runs, not get on base
and score them.
And that brings up something else about stats. They have to
be applied to different players in different ways.
Stars center Mike Modano has 15 goals. Guy Carbonneau, also
a center, has one. That doesn't mean Modano is 15 times as good.
"My job is to score," Modano said. "Guy Carbonneau's
is penalty killing and faceoffs. Each individual has a different
job to do."
In the final analysis, Ludwig said there are only two stats
that count.
"Wins and rings, those are the only stats I care about,"
he said. "That's all that really matters."
------
Distributed by The Associated Press
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