Jeff Sagarin: the human sports rating system

Jeff Sagarin is unconventional. While most mathematicians use C++ and Microsoft Excel to work with algorithms, the Bloomington resident still uses Fortran, an MS-DOS based computer program he first learned in the fall of 1966 as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But don't let the ancient computer program fool you -- what Sagarin creates within it is on the cutting edge of math in the sports world.\n"Real old guys like me -- we like Fortran and we're not going to change," said Sagarin, whose love for sports statistics started when he was a kid growing up in New York. \nSince 1985, the 57-year-old's NCAA football and basketball rankings have graced the pages of USA Today. His football rankings are one of six in the nation used by the Bowl Championship Series to compute its standings each week. \nSagarin also has developed ratings systems for a host of other sports, including boys' and girls' Indiana high school basketball, NASCAR, MLB, individual baseball players, men's and women's college golf and MLS. Sagarin has also teamed up with fellow MIT grad and IU business professor Wayne Winston to create Winval, an individual basketball player rating system used exclusively by IU business school graduate and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.\nThe story of Winval goes back to spring 2000, when Winston took his son, Gregory, an Indiana Pacers fan, to see the team play in Dallas during spring break. He ran into Cuban, a former student of his in the business school, in the stands and Cuban asked if there was any way Winston could help the team through mathematics. After Winston and Sagarin bounced ideas back and forth, they came up with Winval, short for "winning \nvalue."\nSagarin said Winval evaluates players based on the "rows" they play in during a basketball game. A row consists of a time frame a player participates in within a game -- his time on the court in between timeouts, a break at half time, or player substitutions during free throws. Play-by-play data is supplied to Winston and Sagarin by the Elias Sports Bureau.\n"Each one of these rows is a little mini-game," Sagarin said. "A typical NBA game has about 30 rows."\nSagarin said during the first year of Winval, Cuban would be up at 2 or 3 in the morning e-mailing back and forth with him on specific features of the program.\n"We've evolved towards a better routine," Sagarin said in regards to the duo's relationship with the Mavericks. "We understand what they want now and what's useful to them. We didn't know that when we started because they're coaches and we're math guys."\n"Jeff is your typical eccentric genius," Cuban said via e-mail. "He locks himself away for months at a time with no human contact just to come up with great formulas for evaluating sports. It's fun to work with him, and his stuff is amazing."\nCurrently, Winval rates Lebron James as the best overall player in the league, with Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady and Andre Iguodala rounding out the top five. Although he ranks first offensively, Kobe Bryant ranks a surprising 27th in the overall category.\n"A lot of people think Kobe Bryant is good defensively, but he's really not," Winston said. "When's he's in the game, they give up a lot of points, so that's why he isn't higher.\nIn addition to providing Cuban and the Mavericks coaching staff with Winval, Winston gives them scouting reports of opposing teams as well as which lineups and player combinations have worked best and worst for the Mavericks during the year. He can easily mix and match player names in Microsoft Excel to see point-margin differentials and ratings when a certain lineup is on the court.\nThe Seattle Supersonics and Toronto Raptors have both used Sagarin and Winston's services for a short period of time, but Winston says they would rather not help out another Western Conference team because it creates a conflict of interest with the Mavericks. The New Jersey Nets is one Eastern Conference team that has expressed interest in Winval. Winston added that both he and Sagarin would like to help out the IU basketball team, but because Big Ten stat sheets don't supply substitutions, the key ingredient to their system, they are unable to do so.\nSagarin's newest endeavor involves using simulation to predict the percent chance a baseball team has of winning a game. The percentage changes depending upon the numerous factors within a baseball game such as the current batter's count, the inning and who is pitching. The program assumes average play and takes into account the ballpark in which the game is taking place. The idea behind the system is similar to the system used to determine winning a Texas hold 'em hand seen during the World Series of Poker on ESPN. Sagarin said he hopes this summer to see the percentage on TV amongst other commonly used statistics like the graphics of runners on base, pitch count and score.\n"In a sense, it's a completion for me," Sagarin said. "It's something I first started when I was 21 years old as a senior \nat MIT."\nSagarin credits Eldon and Harlan Mills, the authors of one of his favorite books, "Player Win Averages," as his inspiration for the idea.\n"Those guys are my idols. Their book inspired me," Sagarin said. "You recognize the people who gave you thoughts.\n"About 20 years ago, I was complaining to my mother about taxes and she said to me, 'You ought to be on your knees every day thanking God you live in a country that lets you make a living doing what you did for free when you were 11 years old.' And I thought about it, and those are words of greatness to me. I never thought I'd make a living doing this"