Baseballs Amazing Statistical Innovator
Guest Author: Shawn Ryder

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.

Who's Hot:

Chipper Jones is batting .444 with a .611 slugging percentage so far.
Rich Harden in his two starts has a 0.81 ERA with 15 strikeouts in 11 innings

Who's Not:

Jason Giambi is 0-8 with 2 walks
Barry Zito has given up 8 hits in 5 innings with a 7.2 ERA

Team Notes:

A's
Injured Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez (back/shoulders) needs more time to rehabilitate his various injuries. The veteran had surgery on both shoulders and his back this offseason and will be out until at least early May

Blue Jays
Closer B.J. Ryan threw 21 pitches to a group of minor leaguers on Wednesday. The big lefty, who is 11 months removed from Tommy John surgery, is now throwing every other day

Mets
Pedro Martinez will reportedly be sidelined for four to six weeks with a strained hamstring

Padres
Scott Hairston continues to swing a hot stick, as he picked up three hits in three at-bats to go along with a walk on Thursday against the Astros.

Reds
Rookie Johnny Cueto did something on Thursday afternoon against the Diamondbacks that no other Reds pitcher in the modern era (since 1900) was able to do in their major league debut. Cueto fanned 10 batters in his first big-league start, allowing only one hit, a solo home run to Justin Upton

Red Sox
Boston's opening day starter Daisuke Matsuzaka bounced back from a shaky performance in Japan against the Athletics to shut down the bats in Oakland in the rematch on Tuesday. Dice-K likely had some huge butterflies pitching in front of his countrymen and was a bit shaky all evening long. That was not the case in Oakland, as he struck out nine batters in a dominant performance to pick up his first win.

Royals
Floyd's son Brian Bannister dominated the Tigers on Wednesday, allowing just two hits over seven shutout innings in a 4-0 win showing that last seasons 12-9 was no fluke

Tigers
Center fielder Curtis Granderson will reportedly have X-rays taken of his broken hand on the weekend.

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Information provided in MLB Roundup has been gathered from A.P. reports, ESPN.com, Sportsline.com, MLB.com and numerous other e-sources. Opinions expressed are obviously solely the opinions of the authors and do not reflect those of source material.

About this week's guest author:  Shawn is affiliated with http://www.autouniversity.com, http://www.autouniversity.com/scn/sales_process, http://www.autouniversity.com/scn/service_process