The perfect game?

First: let me apologize for the long time I have not posted anything here on my blog, but I've been busy with a recent research project you will hopefully read a lot about here in a few month...


A lot has happened since, mostly related to the activities before the upcoming NFL draft and the New Orleans Saints "bounty scandal". I am already on records on this topic and it is amazing how the NFL (in person of the Commissioner) is destroying the NFL feelgood story of the last 5 years. More on this soon. As it looks now we might even have a second spygate.

But something else happened this weekend. We saw the 21st perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball. It belongs to Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox. First let me say this: I am not taking away anything Humber has achieved on this day. I saw the game and he had a magnificent pitching performance, completely dominating the Seattle Mariners. But was his game really perfect? His last pitch, to me, was a clear ball and I have not seen a swing by his last batter. This final out came on a check-swing strikeout of Brendan Ryan, where be barely swung and obviously thought he earned himself a walk.

Statistics in sports are important and I have use them regularly to study human behavior and economics. But baseball really takes statistics to the limit. I really love the sport and it is an amazing setting to study decision making under pressure conditions. On Saturday I had the feeling that on his last at bat Philip Humber, who by the way has never even pitched a complete game before Saturday, was awarded the perfect game rather then really earning it. And here decision making comes into play: What did Humber do on this all important pitch with a 3-2 count, facing a probably once-in-a-lifetime chance? He throws a ball down and away. Does this make any sense? Why would somebody who wants to get the batter out at any price throw an obvious ball when it counted most? I think it is obvious: He wanted to save his no-hitter. If he throws a ball over the strike zone and he gives up a hit, his complete game, as well as his no-hit bid are gone. So instead of rolling the dice, he threw an awful (and it was clearly visible that the ball did not get away from him) ball and was lucky (or just had the right umpire) to get the strikeout. Arguably a perfectly rational decision.

In the 9th inning, when Humber was about to make history, the game was all about one thing: "will he do it, or not?" So a personal achievement becomes more important then the actual win of the White Sox. And I think that Humber decided to protect the second-best outcome with his final pitch rather than going for the perfect game. The officials still handed him his part in history.

I argue that Philip Humber had an amazing performance, even if he had walked this batter. Even if he had given up a hit on that pitch. Putting away all that perfect-game no-hitter craze he still had a historic performance. Congratulations!

Single Entity?

The NFL, as well as other professional sports leagues in the US, have repeatedly been suspected of violating antitrust regulations. NFL v. American Needle  case was only the most recent in a row of cases dating back to the Oakland Raiders  case (consult Lehn and Sykuta, 1997) in the 1980s. The NFL has often come forward using the "single entity" defense, arguing that the league is basically one big enterprise not a trust formed by a number of teams as individual business entities.

In the wake of last year's lockout and the result that last year's NFL season is an uncapped (i.e. meaning that no salary cap would limit player salaries) two teams reportedly have tried to benefit from the situation. The Washington Redskins as well as the Dallas Cowboys have structured some contracts of their players to make the front-loaded in a way to shift substantial parts of the salaries into the 2010/2011 season. This would certainly create a competitive advantage in coming years as they will have an advantage in terms of salary cap space.

It has now surfaced that the NFL has taken away salary cap space from these two teams: $36 million in cap space from the Redskins and $10 million from the Cowboys. The league split this sum and handed it to 28 remaining teams, who receive an additional $1.6 million in cap space. Both teams argue that the NFL has no point in doing so, especially as 2010/2011 was an un-capped season. Some other teams who were obviously affected by what the Redskins and Cowboys did complained and the Washington Post cites the saying:

All the clubs were warned not to do anything to create a competitive advantage when the salary cap came back, and that's what [the Redskins] did [...].

So what do we have here: We have an organization, which is per constitution of the league the group of all team owners, telling teams not to take advantage of the lack of regulations. We have two individual organizations operating within this league who sought (which is only rational) an advantage and did nothing wrong because the regulations were missing. The Redskins and Cowboys acted like individual entities and are defending themselves as single entities now. The Cowboys issued the following statement:

The Dallas Cowboys were in compliance with all league salary cap rules during the uncapped year. We look forward to the start of the free agency period, where our commitment to improving our team remains unchanged.

As far as I am concerned they are perfectly right. And this recent events should really make antitrust officials even more suspicious. In the American Needle case (consult Brad Humphreys' excellent resource page for details)  the NFL actively sought antitrust immunity. The final ruling denied this. The way the NFL handled this recent salary cap issues is another strong argument against the single entity defense. Should the Cowboys and Redskins be willing to go to court I think they might have a good chance to win this case. Does not sound like a single entity to me...

 

Bounty hunters?

Quite recently a potentially big scandal shook up the "pre-Draft" NFL. Accusations surfaced that now Ex-New Orleans Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams used to run illegal (under NFL rules) pay for performance schemes when he was with the Saints (2009-11), the Redskins and probably the Tennessee Titans and Buffalo Bills earlier in his career. Some former players came forward and described Williams' system as some sort of "bounty program" where hard hits and injuries of opponents where awarded extra money.

Former Titans and 49ers Safety Lance Schulters is cited by the Tennesseasn newspaper as follows:

“Guys would throw out there, ‘Hey, knock this guy out and it’s worth $1,000,’ ” Schulters said. “Let’s say when we played the Steelers, and Hines Ward was always trying to knock guys out. So if you knocked (him) out, there might be something in the pot, $100 or whatever, for a big hit on Hines — a legal, big hit."

He went on saying:

"A player scoring a touchdown might receive $500 from a pool, a defensive lineman with a sack might get $200 and a 100-yard rusher might be handed $1,000. Special teams players would get a bonus for a downing a punt inside the 10, and offensive linemen could expect to be handed extra cash for not giving up a sack. Sometimes the bonuses could be as much as $5,000." 

So we have two essentially different things: One is a clear incentive to injure and harm opponents and the other is basically extra financial compensation for making perfectly legal plays and performing well.

So let us turn our intention to the incentives to get opponents injured. Is this really something new or illegal? Every defender in the NFL or in other levels of football knows that knocking out any starter on the offense of the opponent will substantially increase the probability to win the game. Of course defenders will try to hit the opposing Quarterback as hard as possible and if he is on the sideline nobody will feel bad about it. And as long as the hits were legal it will (and should not) have any negative consequences. When Jay Cuttler (Chicago Bears) went down in the NFC Championship game last year against Green Bay, the chances of the Packers to win the game increase dramatically. I doubt that it needed any extra incentives for Green Bay defenders to go after Cuttler as hard as possible. So why make too much out of this new story?

But let us turn to the second Schulters quote. What he is saying is that there was systematic extra compensation for making plays on defense and offense.  $1.000 for a 100-yards rusher, $500 for a TD catch and a mere $200 for a sack. Should we really care for this at all? When we talk about  $1.000 for a 100 yards rusher we usually talk about an athlete earning a million dollars base salary, having a contract usually involving performances bonuses anyway and (more often than not) being a multi millionaire. The same is true for Wide Receivers who catch TDs and defenders who get to the QB. Performance will always be rewarded in professional sports. So what is an extra $200 for a linemen who earns thousands of dollars for each game anyway? What kind of an extra incentive is that? I say it is pretty much irrelevant. And as long as performance incentives are part of regular NFL contracts it just another way of rewarding (perfectly legal) performances.

We are either seeing just the tip of an iceberg right now, or this story is blown out of proportion already. Even if we condemn Gregg Williams' ways of coaching we could still say that it probably has not worked out anyway. The New Orleans Saints' defense has not really done well in recent years, culminating in a rather bad 2011 season. This ultimately got Williams fired. His approach failed, but was it really that "bad" after all? We will probably have to think about this as soon as the NFL has issued the penalty...

 

Market Po(e)wer

As reported earlier here on my blog the NFL Scouting Combine is on the way. Yesterday one player might have earned himself a small fortune by posting unbelievable numbers at the workouts. Dontari Poe, a Defensive Tackle from the University of Kentucky, weighted in at the Combine at  at 346 lbs, standing tall at 6-4.

At that size Poe is literally a giant, being only 21 years old. Even though he has a massive body, he had an amazing workout yesterday in Indianapolis and ran the 40 yards dash in 4.87 seconds. But he was not only fast, but also demonstrated a lot of power:  he  bench-pressed 225 pounds 44 times.

With this performance he might have lifted his draft stock a lot. Probably into the first 15 picks overall. He now might lead the market for Defensive Tackles in the Draft. And this translates directly into a lot of money in terms of salary and signing bonus. Poe earned himself a substantial amount of money yesterday without ever stepping on the field in the NFL. We will see how his career turns out... 

Science or just Guessing?

Soon we will see the 2012 edition of the NFL Scouting Combine (starts today). In this meeting top college prospects come together in one dome (the home of the Indianapolis Colts in Indianapolis) and work out in front of cameras. Why? Because team officials, GMs and coaches want to see the players they will likely draft in April's NFL Draft.

But how much should we make of what we see at the Combine? Recently Stephen J. Dubner dedicated a section of his Football Freakonomics blog to the science of drafting and player evaluation. He more or less concludes that "scouting", as sports insiders call it, is actually nothing more than just guessing and when it comes to the draft luck is probably more important than the work you put into player evaluation. Dubner also mentions one all-time bust when it comes to the NFL draft: Ryan Leaf. As he mentions, Leaf once was labeled a "can't miss Quarterback" from the PAC-10 division. A prospect nobody would have considered a mistake-prone player, who never managed to establish himself in the NFL and soon ended up finding himself out of professional football. This year another PAC-10 QB will probably end up getting drafted 1st overall. His name is Andrew Luck. Will he be another Ryan Leaf, or are scouts right and he will have a career like Peyton Manning, the other QN drafted in Leaf's draft class?

My guess is that it is more about the signals than about luck. NFL scouts always look at the size, weight, wingspan and other variables that should indicate how good a prospect a certain player is. Just look at the number 1 passer in terms of yardage in 2011: Drew Brees. He is just 6-0 tall and still is one of the most prolific passers. Two of the top Running Backs of 2011, Maurice Jones Drew and Ray Rice, might have failed to catch the eye of many scouts, as they are really small compared to the average RB in the NFL. That is probably why they were not drafted in the first round.

The NFL Scouting Combine involves a great deal of measuring players. They have to run 40s, broad jump, do tests and participate in position drills. But what really might tell something about the players are the interviews and the attitude they bring to the table. That, along with the tape of their play in the NCAA, should tell more about their talent and potential than their size, weight or 40 time. To evaluate how much luck is involved in the draft and player evaluation one would have to look at the success of different teams over a long period of time. I think there are huge differences between teams over time. The final word on the Economics of drafting is far from being said...

Next one please!

Just days after Alberto Contador was found guilty of doping abuse by the CAS, Jan Ullrich shared his fate. He was found guilty of having business relations with famous doping medic Fuentes.

Ullrich was the brightest star of all German cyclists and won the 1997 Tour de France when his captain, Bjarne Riis (also a doper), struggled. Back then he was only 23 years old and all the hopes of German fans were on his shoulders. It seemed as if a future perennial winner of the Tour was born. However, things turned out differently. Ullrich never returned to the top of the Peloton and was often defeated by his nemesis Lance Armstrong. All of Ullrichs results since 2005 will be lost but he might not even care, as he failed to deliver what the public vehemently demanded: a second win of the Tour de France.

This could be a great chance to finally come clean and open up to the media and the prosecutors of the ongoing system of doping in pro cycling. Ullrich, however, only admits that he made "some big mistakes" under tremendous pressure. Whatever it is that keeps him quiet, I guess it is somewhat related to the only thing that is left: his win in 1997. Ullrich was a part of the doping machinery Team Telekom. He was cycling under Riis, who admitted having used performance enhancing substances when he won the Tour in 1996. Ullrich performed at the same (or at a better) level as well known dopers. So it is only logic that one might assume he was also involved in the doping system before 2005.

I wonder who will be next in line to be found guilty. Some winners of recent Tour de Frances are still perceived as clean...at least before the law.

There is education...and then there is education.

In a recent article my colleague René Böheim and me show that playing football in the NCAA does have positive returns in terms of later starting salaries of NFL professionals. We find that forgoing to declare for the draft and staying in collegiate football does increase rookie salaries considerably by about 12 %, amounting in about $130,000.

We interpreted the training, coaching and in-game experience that athletes receive in college as a form of education. The returns to this specific type of education are strikingly close to those that were measured for formal education, i.e. years of schooling. In the 2010 NFL draft one player made headlines because he, in contrast to most NFL professionals, has amounted substantially more formal education compared to "football-specific education". The name of this player is Myron Rolle. Rolle played three good seasons at the Florida State University as a Defensive Back and was a solid prospect as a Safety in the NFL. However, prior to the 2008/9 NCAA season, Rolle was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and studied  MSc in Medical Anthropology at Oxford University for the 2009/10 academic. He earned a MSc in Medical Anthropology and was even chosen as the second smartest professional athlete by the Sporting News.

Well, was he that smart after all? By losing a season in college, staying away from football-specific activities and forgoing to maximize his amount of football education in favor of formal education, he might have cost himself a lot in terms of later returns. Soon after being drafted by the Tennessee Titans in round 6 (207th overall)  Rolle's NFL career went south. He spent one entire season on the Titans’ practice squad and was released from the team in September 2011. He made the headlines again just a few days ago as he was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers to a reserve/future contract. So maybe he gets a final chance to make it to the pros. My guess is, however, that he will never realize the returns to his football potential. He definitely has the talent (his play at FSU shows that) and he had good size and was a above-average athlete (4.54 s on the 40 in the NFL Scouting Combine). But he could not make it at a team that was really in need of a good secondary defender. So he will probably struggle to make one of the best defensive team in the NFL now. And this second chance comes at a point where he is even further away from football than in 2010, where he never saw the field of play.

The results clearly show that education (in various forms) has positive returns. However, it is crucial to chose the adequate education for the career one pursues. Arguably Myron Rolle made the wrong decisions as the overall potential income in the NFL might have been higher than the life-time income of any neurosurgeon. If his football career indeed finally fails I hope he will have a tremendous career outside of the NFL as a surgeon. My guess is that he is better educated for that. As a football player, Rolle outsmarted himself.