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Annotated Bibliography
Research Question:
How can the implementation of Sabermetric practices in a college baseball clubhouse optimize
decision making?

Berri, David J., and John Charles Bradbury. "Working in the Land of the Metricians." Journal of
Sports Economics11, no. 1 (January 13, 2010): 29-47. Accessed November 8, 2018. doi:
10.1177/1527002509354891.

Throughout my readings on sports analytics, Berri and Bradbury have

been respected as knowledgable sources by many of their colleagues in the
community. In this article they focus on differences between NBA and MLB
metricians, those who “…evolved outside the typical parameters of an expert
peer-review system”(30), and academic scholars in Sports Economics who
provide commentary in response to their empirical research. While the authors
note that the use of new-era metrics (i.e OPS) has aided the “explanatory
power” (32) of academics and enthusiasts alike, it is made clear that in arguments
posed by nonacademics are made by folk who tend to overvalue their
qualifications. Concluding with the example of blogs as a common platform for
metricians to discuss ideas, the authors shed light on the “ease of access” (41) by
which assertions can be made without having to be properly audited.

Ibáñez, Sergio J., Jaime Sampaio, Sebastian Feu, Alberto Lorenzo, Miguel A. Gómez, and
Enrique Ortega. "Basketball Game-related Statistics That Discriminate between Teams’
Season-long Success." European Journal of Sport Science8, no. 6 (November 2008):
369-72. Accessed November 8, 2018. doi:10.1080/17461390802261470.

Ibanez, Sampaio, Feu, Lorenzo, Gomez, and Orgeta sought out to fill the
gap that existed in existing research so as to determine game-related statistics that
could translate to prolonged success. They preformed their research using a
sample from the premier Spanish Basketball League (a total of 145 average
records) and believed that the results could help coaches, management, as well as
players determine what aspects of the game could be regarded as highly important
and, thus, implemented in such strategies as player recruitment, practice planning,
execution, and control (370). Their methods included several statistical analyses
including one-way variance analysis, discriminant analysis and cross validation
analysis. These statistical processes allowed the researchers to discriminate
between those statistics that proved to be statistically significant in determining
success, not just in a “given instant” (370), but, as stated, over the course of
several seasons. The group of scholars came to the conclusion that with 95%
certainty (P≤ .05) a combination of steals, blocks and assists correlates to
continued success.
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McHugh, Patrick P. "“Batter Up, Student On Deck”." Journal of Management Education33, no.
2 (November 21, 2007). Accessed November 8, 2018. doi:10.1177/1052562908321712.

Being an undergraduate professor on Human Resource Management,

Professor Patrick McHugh was keenly interested on how he could get his students
to become more engaged. A friend suggested he read the book Moneyball by
Michael Lewis, which prompted him to evaluate the potential utility of it as a
supplementary teaching material. The article provided the framework by which
Prof. McHugh used the text to enlighten students on various real world
management topics such as organizational change and innovation, leadership,
recruiting and selection, performance management (1). The sport of baseball,
through McHugh’s lens, takes the form of a firm, as he refers several times to
baseball being “big business” (2), in which daily tasks such as recruiting and
innovation are constantly transpiring. In order to prove the effectiveness of the
book as a complement to textbook reading material, he concluded with a survey
from students citing that they found they book to be a valuable classroom asset.

Muehlheusser, Gerd, Sandra Schneemann, Dirk Sliwka, and Niklas Wallmeier. “The
Contribution of Managers to Organizational Success." Journal of Sports Economics19,
no. 6 (December 05, 2016): 786-819. Accessed November 8, 2018. doi:
10.1177
Muehlheusser, Schneemann, Sliwka, and Wallmeier, all German scholars,
directed their research in sports economics towards the efficiency of human
capital, in particular the effect of managers on team outcome. They predicted that
prominent figures at the top of an organization should behold qualities that causes
a “trickle down” (787) of success throughout the organization as a whole. They
sampled the German Bundesliga due to the frequency by which managers float
among teams, and used econometric algorithms, such as cross-validation
exercises in order to properly reach their conclusion. They excluded managers
that lacked a condition defined footprint”(789), that discriminated against
managers who were with the organization for only a short period of games, while
other points of emphasis focused on categorizing managers as movers vs. non-
movers. The conclusion reached was somewhat unclear; the researchers found
large variations in the data due to the high turnover (808) rates in the league,
however they were able to conclude that managers with previous playing
experienced faired better than those without.
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Treme, Julianne, and Robert T. Burrus. "NCAA Basketball: When Does Recruiting Talent
Translate into Wins for Power Conferences?" Journal of Economics and Finance40, no. 4
(May 21, 2015): 735-53. Accessed November 8, 2018. doi:10.1007/s12197-015-9323-9.

In this article, the scholars attempted to determine how recruiting talent

correlates with success on the court for top-tier institutions. There was formerly a
plethora of research suggesting that the addition of elite freshmen guards heavily
impacted the wins of a particular team, however there lacked insight as to how
those same players fare throughout the course of their college career. The
researchers used a general model (742) to calculate the current year wins which
included factors and dummy variables such as the average number of stars
(measure of talent), average points (separated by position), talent quality and
conference membership. The researchers concluded that highly regarded freshman
guards did indeed positively impact their team in their first year, however over the
course of four years the play of forwards and centers was greater to to their team
commitment (guards tend to leave for the NBA earlier on in their college career.
The results from this experiment can be used to help coaches and recruiters
develop strategies to acquire talent and be successful, given the gap in recruiting
expenditures.