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Welcome to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics here on
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the Wharton podcast network. This is Kade Massie hosting today with the whole crew. It feels like it's been a while
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and rare lately that we have everybody in here, but today we do. Shane Jensen is in wearing his Phillies red. Audi
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Winer is in wearing his Yankees blue, I'm assuming. Eric Bradlo is in wearing
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something baseball related. Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame. And I'm in here wearing a just a normal button-down
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shirt because, you know, it's not college football day yet. It's only Tuesday. This is Tuesday afternoon.
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We're going to we're going to record as we usually do this afternoon here at the
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very end of the Cleveland Guardians Detroit Tigers first wild card game kicking off the playoffs this afternoon
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in the ninth inning. We'll probably have an update here in the next few minutes
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as that game wraps up or not or goes into extra innings. But otherwise, we're
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going to run um a regular show in that we'll have a guest here in the first half hour. We'll have open topics in the
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second half hour. And then we are going to have an overtime guest in a third half hour. If you want to stick around,
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if you want a little more conversation, we're going to have uh uh talking a little writer cup in the last in the
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last overtime segment. You want to stick around. We got analytics. We have a a wonderful conversation lined up. We'd
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like to welcome back to Wharton Moneyball, Jamie Smoliga. Jamie has even more letters than we have after our
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names, guys. He's got a DVM name. That's Oh, I don't even know. Is that Well,
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he's going to tell us what I can imagine what it might be. He's got PhD out of
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his name. We know that he has FACSM after his name. Um but his title which is a cool one professor department of
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rehabilitation sciences and director of research doctor of physical therapy program in Seattle Washington at the tus
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university school of medicine. So Jamie uh welcome back to Wharton Moneyball. >> Thanks so much for having me again. I
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really appreciate it. So it's clear, you know, from reviewing your academic work,
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you do work, let's call it, broadly in translational medicine, athletic performance, injuries. Um, you also
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write about these topics. Um, I did not know, but uh I will be the abstract and you're a lifelong Olympic sports fan. We
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could ask you about so many things, but I think one of the topics you've been
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working on lately is I'll probably mispronounce her name, but Faith Kipiggon
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um and her attempt to break the 4-minute mile. So, could you please give us a status? Maybe this would be good for our
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listeners. Obviously, Dr. Roger Banister broke the 4-minute mile for men years and years ago. You'll probably even know
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the date. probably sometime I don't even know the 60s 50s I don't know >> 50s I think it was 19 late 50s right
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>> y >> and so just you're gonna give us uh Jamie the history like how close are
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women to breaking the 4-minute mile will it actually happen you know we'd love to
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start there and there's lots of stuff we want to talk to you about >> sure that sounds great
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yeah I mean as far as uh you know track and field you know it's it's definitely
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a passion of mine um I got into it in high school and have been hooked ever since. So, yeah, Faith Kipon, she is a
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three-time gold medalist uh in uh in track and field uh from Kenya and she is the she's gotten the closest uh as to
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breaking the sub4minute barrier as any female has right now. She is the current world record holder in the mile and that
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is uh her time is 407.64. So, she's about 7 and a half seconds away from a sub4-minute mile. And let's
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just stop by saying that's really fast. I mean that's that's really really
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really fast. And I think that's that's one of the first things I really want to
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acknowledge is whether you're a man, whether you're a woman, it's a fast
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time. Now if if you are an NCAA Division One men's track and field competitor,
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then you're surrounded by a bunch of other fast people. 407 doesn't seem
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fast, but trust me, it's really fast whether you're a man or a woman. And so
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she's about seven and a half seconds away. But the thing is seven and a half
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seconds away from a mile world record in the grand scheme or sorry seven and a half seconds away from a sub4minute
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mile. There's a lot of ground there. I mean that's you know it it could be um
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despite what Nike told us in the breaking four attempt it could be decades before we see somebody go under
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four or maybe it could happen in the next few years but but there's still a lot of round to go uh before somebody
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breaks four. >> Let me ask you a question. I've always thought about this. Okay. One of my
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former colleagues when I worked at ETSS, AI and Shane know him well. His name's
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Howard Wner, studied this issue a lot, which is trajectories of records. And there's lots of neat graphics.
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How far back would we have to go in time? Like when was the women's record roughly 4:15 and how long has it taken?
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And I imagine whatever number you give me, let's say you tell me 10 years ago,
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20 years ago, 30 years, I don't know what it was. I guess your point is it's going to take
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potentially longer to get the next seven and a half seconds than it took to get the last seven and a half. But that I
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could be wrong, but yeah, you know, that that's what I would say. I I I think all
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these we we get to this point where there's you know uh we start getting to this threshold where you know we've got
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diminishing returns where people start just chipping away at the world record and it's measured in ten of seconds you
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know or maybe even seconds. Now, Faith Kipon, you know, to her credit, she took the world record down from uh I believe
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it was 412 to 407, you know, which is which is, you know, really uh you know, impressive, you know, in itself
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that translation. So, it's possible somebody could come up, you know, somebody could have a
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really breakthrough performance, but a breakthrough performance would be two or three seconds. Seven and a half seconds
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is going to be is going to be a lot >> quickly. Yeah, I'm looking at the record
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charts. Uh so it stayed very for over 20 years pretty much right around that time
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412 or so and then Faith did drop but uh anything any of that drop have to do with technology shoes or something? I
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mean how I mean because that's always the wild card in all these things, >> right? And I I would say definitely
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pretty much all the world records in track and field have something to do with shoes. Again, anytime we talk about
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any of these world records, I think we need to start off by saying that number one's the athlete is putting in the hard
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work. You know, if we we go to some random person on the street or even a really good runner and we give them a
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pair of shoes that are spectacular, they're not going to become a world record holder because the shoes. Faith
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Cape Bon, it's a combination of incredible hard work, incredible coaching, you know, just motivation,
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drive, and then you add a pair of super shoes onto that. And these super shoes that have been around since 2017, those
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are going to improve in performance by maybe up to five five percent, which is gigantic. And this is why we've seen
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since 2017, we've seen all these distance running world records fall and the entire field has gotten fast. And so
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the shoes are definitely a big part of her world record and everybody's world
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record. >> Just if you took the the world record from 1995 and put them in the shoes,
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they'd be running 4072 is roughly. >> Yeah. I mean, I I think that's I think
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that's fair to say. I I think they would be maybe if not 407, it would be close
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to that. These shoes, the super shoes have changed everything in distance running,
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>> right? Because it it puts in perspective the forecasting. So, the forecasting is
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really really hard when you are when you are assuming or don't assume there's
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some sort of human limit and it changes the entire way you do the mathematics. Um, and shoes just really break through
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that kind of barrier because it it's it's not a human limit. It's all of a
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sudden finding a technological advantage. All right. >> Right. Right. Yeah. So if we look back,
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you know, again, you know, Kipun broke the world record, you know, in um in 2023
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and you know, before that, you know, in 2019 had been down to to 412, but before
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that, you mentioned 1996 that that was uh Satlana Masterova had the world record in 1996. And you know, could she
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have run 5 seconds faster with Super Shoes? You know, per perhaps. Um, and so again, we think about like the cinder
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track versus rubberized track versus now the really fantastic track surfaces that
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we have, even indoor records, banking, things like that. You know, it's a completely different game.
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>> Jamie, let me ask you, is there >> is there an ideal size for a track and
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field person that's trying to run a mile? Have you I mean, because you're
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both obviously a doctor of well, physiology. I mean you I assume you you're actually just correct me you're a
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real doctor right now we're like we're PhD doctors but you you got some sort of
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medical degree no >> yeah I I've got a doctor of veterary medicine degree now now how I went from
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veterary medicine >> that's what I thought DM was but I didn't want to okay
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>> but how I went from veterary medicine to a PhD in sports medicine that that those
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are that's a story for another day but um but as as one of my colleagues put it
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I'm qualified to treat the horse and the jockey I guess although I I really can't
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treat the jockey I could just analyze their performance I'm not a medical doctor.
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>> Could you give us a sense though? What size is Faith? And like is there an
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optimal size? Like you could argue I could argue both ways. Like if she were maybe a little bit taller, she'd have a
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longer stride length. Maybe it wouldn't slow down the speed of her movement and
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she could still get as many I'll call them RPMs and therefore she could run faster. Is there any like is there an
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optimal size? Well, you know, this is a this is such a loaded question and I I I
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think if if we think back to the pre-susain bolt era, there is some actual research done to show what the
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optimal size is for running 100 meter uh dash and about predictions of the future
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world record holder, what they would be. And then 6'5, Usain Bolt comes along and
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just demolishes these these expectations that the tallest any successful sprinter
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would be I think would be something like 6'1. Um so I think you know it's hard to
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say. Now Faith Kipon she's she's listed as uh being five feet tall you know 5
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feet on the dot and you know some you read 93 to 97 pounds. Again, these these numbers vary, but you know, she she's
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pretty short, but again, it's within the normal realm of female distance runners.
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Um, somebody like Paula Radcliffe, who was the former world record holder on Marathon, I think she was around 5'6.
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Uh, I think in the mile and the 1500 for both men and for women, we see a variety
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of um body heights. You know, we see guys that are are right around Faith Kipan's height, you know, maybe 5'2, 53
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to men that are over six feet tall running sub4minute miles and at the worldass level. Uh, and also too, we
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also see a range in um, you know, by dimensions. You'll see some really really lanky people and then you'll see
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some that are a lot more muscular. So, I I think it's hard to say, you know, is
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there an ideal size? I I think the one thing within track and field where there seems to be one specific body type, one
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specific phenotype is the high jump. Every single high jumper is tall and lanky, but other than that, there really
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does seem to be a lot of body, >> you know, Mondo Delantis, he he's he's the best that's ever been.
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I don't know. I I feel like if you saw him in, you know, t-shirt and shirts at
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Walmart, you wouldn't know that he's the best Paul Walter that's that's ever
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been. I think he's pretty non-escript. I think he's right around six foot tall.
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Yeah, he looks muscular, but you know, I think there's been some more muscular
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ones, some some leaner ones, maybe Paul Vault, but yeah, >> please. >> Yeah. Well, I know I know it's
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impossible to satisfy uh Eric's curiosity. He loves to learn about everything, but there's a big event that
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happened in with Nike and Faith that that that I I did some reading. Um it's
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extremely interesting and so can you tell us about that event and and what happened?
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>> Right. So, I I think it's important to get to the backstory of the event. Um,
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and that's what made the event happen. So, back in June, um, Nike staged the
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Breaking Four event in which Faith Kipan was going to become the first woman to attempt to run a sub4-minute mile. And
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so the backstory behind this is in February of this year, February 2025, um there was uh some a research paper that
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came out um proposing that Faith Capagon's world record of 407 in the mile if she had proper pacing throughout
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and proper aerodynamics throughout meant if she drafted just as NASCAR drivers draft. if she used like the most perfect
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of the perfect drafting techniques, maybe, just maybe, she could run a sub4-minute mile. In other words, her
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407.64 mile was equivalent to a sub4minute mile under the absolute perfect ideal conditions. So, this
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paper, >> would that qualify as a world record under those conditions or would it not?
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>> It would depend how it was run. Um, you know, I would I would say probably no.
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like uh if if if this happened organically during a race or even if it was an actual race with actual
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competitors and all of her competitors said, "You know what? We're going to go
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around you. We're going to try to support you, then then it could qualify as a world record." But the only way
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they could really do this proper drafting was by having a bunch of people who could run faster than the sub4minute
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mile pace support her, and that's men. Um, you know, men biologically have many
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different advantages uh that happen physiologically and as a result they're capable of running sub4-minute miles a
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lot easier. So she needed a team of men to surround her to >> or you have a team or you have a team of
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women who support her for short stretches of course. >> For short stretches. Yeah. So you rotate
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in and out but that would not count for a >> so so yeah this paper came out in
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February and it generated a lot of buzz and the way I got I got into it is um yeah somebody at uh NPR had reached out
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to me Jonathan Lambert uh from their science desk had reached out to me he and I had been in touch with some other
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things and he asked me to review the paper and just provide some expert commentary for NPR on it and it was
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really fun. I looked at the paper and I really want to state the researchers behind this paper they did a great job.
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There's nothing wrong with what they did. There's, you know, I actually I've
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gotten in the field of research integrity and and and I could be a research skeptic with something
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sometimes. These people, these researchers, Roger Cra, Shayla Kip, and and her team, their team, they they did
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fine. There's nothing wrong with the study. They were very transparent about
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all the limitations in the study. Study is great. But the study kind of feels like a bunch of people saying, you know,
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well, what if we did this? You know what? If what if instead of running 1.3 meters apart for wind resistance, what
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if they ran 1.2 meters? And they they they looked at all the literature and they developed a mathematical a series
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of mathematical models to predict if you gave her the ideal conditions, what would she be able to run? And if in
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certain conditions, maybe she could run sub4. And so now what happened is we took this this theory, this interesting
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science story, this interesting paper got translated from maybe this could possibly happen with
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perfect conditions to headlines say Faith Keepon's, you know, mile record is
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equivalent to a sub4minute mile. She's capable of doing it. It's just a matter
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of time. She'll be the first to break it. And in April of this year, Nike announced they're going to actually have
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Faith Kagun try to do this um and put together a team of male pacers and use Nike technology to make this happen. So
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that's kind of the backstory of how the Sub4 started. It started with a research
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paper and again a good research paper that Nike tried to translate into history.
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>> Jamie, before you tell us what happened, because I know you're going to tell us
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what happened here and obviously it didn't happen, but you'll tell us what
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happened in all of this. Were they not worried about let's even say all the math is correct, the paper had been done
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correctly, everything else. Um, part of it may have been there might have been some extrapolation issues, but ignoring
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that for just a second, let's just ignore that for just one second. What about just intra interday variation?
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Like, how do they even know? Maybe she like that 407 under what she actually ran tomorrow. It could be 412,
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411. Like, how about that? Barry, I know I just want >> They're making a bet. They were kind of
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making a bet on both the kind of environmental conditions being ideal as well as kind of best day.
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>> No, no, I know. So, Shane, what I'm trying to get Jaime's thoughts on I
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agree with you. What I'm trying to get Jaime's thoughts on is how much interday
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variation is there and like what a better quote unquote study design is. you know, let's have her run 20
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independent days and let's promise that maybe on one of those days she might be
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able to do it. But isn't there just massive interday variation? >> There's going to be absolutely there's
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going to be there's going to be interday variation. I, you know, as far as how
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massive it is, I I wouldn't expect somebody at her level to if if she times it right, I I would expect her to run a
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407 one day and, you know, a 412 the next day given everything the same, you know, as far as, you know, she's timed
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her schedule with her workouts and her previous routine. But, you know, I I don't think it's outside the realm of
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possibilities for her to run, you know, somewhere between a 407 and maybe a 409 just in day variability. you know, one
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or two seconds and exactly as you say, maybe that 407.64, every world record, everybody's personal best at some point
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that is the best they're going to do. And maybe for her it's 407.64. Maybe
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that's the best she could ever do. It's the extreme outlier value for her. The
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>> See, the paper didn't try to didn't try to propose what Nike did. That was
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Nike's decision to try to run this off. The paper had nothing to do with interday variance. It said if she ran
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the same race she ran and they got the 4.7 with the essentially the drafting conditions that they estimated in that
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race which is roughly 30 30 for the four laps. They they said what if it it gets
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to 71% which is the kind of what they essentially estimated you could do. What would she run then? And they estimated
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that at almost exactly four minutes flat. >> You know I I wasn't asking what the
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paper did. I was just asking did anybody even realize that even if all the math were correct there's interday variation
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and that you know I and and also I think Jaime's point is great obviously AI
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you've brought up the idea of the maximum of a distribution many times like I'll call it observed equals true
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plus error so you know that implies that this may well be the place where she got
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the I'll call it negative residual like her true strength is 409 n today just
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happened to be a minus two second day and that ain't going to happen again or
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it can't you just can't make it happen on demand. >> Yeah. A and so like the research in this
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the researchers in the study like Shala Kip she's an Olympian like she would
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know that. Roger Crown he's he's you know worldleading biomechanics and sports uh sports performance modeling
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researcher. He would know that too. But this is what makes me question how did Nike get themselves into this? Did did
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Nike not conserve this? Listen, there have to be people at Nike. I'm sure they
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had to have known this. And and that's kind of some of my point. I did Nike realize what they were setting
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themselves up for or did they did they not care? Um, and that's kind of where
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I'm going with this. >> Well, maybe they didn't care. >> Why don't you tell us what happened?
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>> Yeah, tell us what happened. >> So, well, going back to the paper again,
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as as Audi and Eric, you've both alluded to, there's a lot of factors that are
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going into here. There's extrapolations, there's there's modeling, assumptions
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built upon assumptions built upon assumptions and which model you use. And even in this paper, they come up with
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multiple different results depending on on how you tweak the parameters. Any kind of mathematical model, there's lots
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of parameters and you could tweak them one one way or the other and you you could get lots of different results. And
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so again, the paper's really transparent. But somehow so Nike decided to do this and and to have and to create
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this this event where she's going to run in this perfect formation. But here's
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here's what happened. If you watch the it was about a one-hour broadcast essentially. It was more of a
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coronation. It was more of, you know, she's decided that she's going to be the
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first or they've decided that this is going to be the first time anybody's
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even going to attempt to to break four minutes or any woman's going to attempt
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to break four minutes. Which again I had an issue with because it's it's as if
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she she just it never even occurred to her like, "Oh, well maybe I could run
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maybe I could run faster." like that. That's what everybody's trying to do.
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They're trying to run faster. Nobody's, you know, she never set out to say,
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"Today, I'm going to try to run a 406. I'm not going to try to run four
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minutes." Now, Mando Deontis can do that in the pole vault where he could set the
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bar and and at how high he wants to put it. But, but no runner is is just trying
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to hold back or anything that. So, so that whole thing was an issue. But Nike really emphasized the technology and
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basically they they've got these special super shoes for her. And again, if super
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shoes were new, if nobody had ever done super shoes before, well, maybe there'd
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be a gigantic leap in performance, but we've already had that gigantic leap in
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performance. We're at that point of diminishing returns. And so these super shoes they had for her and they had all
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these pacers that were going to surround her just right. And then they had the 3D
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printed sports bra. And this 3D printed sports bra was going to be more aerodynamic and and and support her
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better. And yes, that's all important. Like good sports bra like is is important for female runners. But was
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this going to really make the difference? Was this going to help shave seven and a half seconds off her mile
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time? And so, long story short, they made this big hype machine and it was this kind of coronation. We're here to
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celebrate history. She's going to do it. Nobody's been brave enough to do this
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before. And and really the emphasis was all on Nike's technology. And and they
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really did even mention the scientific paper that started all. They didn't mention the researchers. Nike kind of
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put it on themselves like she's gonna break it because of her technology and
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she didn't run under four minutes. And this was the thing. >> Was that
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>> what did she run? >> Well, it depends what time you count. So when she crossed I see the confused look
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on your face. When she crossed the finish line, the clock read 406.91. So she took her her 407.64
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down to 406.91. So she saved about 7/10 of a second or so off, but the official time was furough 6.42.
00:22:45
So after the race, her time actually got faster. A half a second came off. And that was because normally when a race
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happens, the gun goes off, the sound of the gun triggers the start of the race, and then when you cross the finish line,
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that's your time. Well, to just try to get the squeeze the last little bit of
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juice out of this, her 406.42 42 time was based on on uh motion on high resolution uh motion. So when her body
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crossed the start line versus her body cross the finish line that that's not
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consistent with any race. It's when the >> ridiculous that's that's that just makes
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her completely uncomparable even without the drafting. >> Right. So so but here's the thing.
00:23:29
>> Let me ask a question just just quickly Jamie. So um if this were me and so I'll
00:23:35
put on my marketing hat for a second. am a marketing professor. What the hell? I'll put on my marketing hat, but I'll
00:23:39
also put on my uh sampling hat. I might have had her try to do this before doing
00:23:46
it on the air and then we would have seen that it's she's going to run 406.9
00:23:52
something and I'm like, huh, maybe we shouldn't hype this event. >> Was there any discussion of like was
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this the first time she ever tried it under these conditions, too? >> Um, yeah. I don't know the details. It
00:24:04
they did they definitely did practice. They they practiced having this formation of these 12ers.
00:24:10
>> There was a lot of practice, but I don't think anybody tried going all out and
00:24:13
it's a lot to ask an athlete to go all out in, you know, given maximal effort.
00:24:18
You know, you could get injured. It could it's going to disrupt your training and especially she's got bigger
00:24:23
fish to fry. You know, she did have world championships this year where, you know, she did actually win a gold medal
00:24:28
um and a silver medal as well. Um, so I I don't think they actually tried an
00:24:33
all-out version, but I think that, you know, um I think it it would have been good to at least do some 100% maximum
00:24:40
efforts with, you know, uh at least halfway through or something like that or at least 95% and I don't know what.
00:24:46
>> So Audi, let me give you the one second, let me give you Audi the last question
00:24:50
before we just ask you Jamie, what you're working on next and now. So Audi, please go ahead.
00:24:54
>> Yeah. So um I I mean my immediate response is I don't think Nike really
00:24:58
cares. Uh maybe they do. That would be a question for you, Eric, as a marketing professor. But, you know, I read I read
00:25:03
an article you wrote um which pointed to another article which was written um also before the race that said that that
00:25:10
didn't really come to a conclusion in a formal way, but it did say that physiologically women are way way far
00:25:18
away from being able to hit four minute miles. And that should have given Nike a lot of
00:25:23
pause that this is a lot resting on a draft estimate that seems to be really really extremal. Um to squeeze out seven
00:25:33
and a half seconds based on essentially drafting which is that was the point of the the first paper that drafting can do
00:25:39
that. Um and and so that that that was another piece of evidence that sort of stands out in front of them going
00:25:44
wondering. But you know I but you talked about the mathematics and I want to respond as a statistician. They built a
00:25:50
mathematical model to estimate the drafting effect which is probably fine right you know aerodynamics etc but
00:25:57
there there's a huge difference between in the field and on the paper and I would have proposed an actual experiment
00:26:04
where we would have done a designed experiment to see >> my point what the percentage that you
00:26:08
could squeeze out of short distances with different drafting formulations and that would have been the way to really
00:26:14
figured out and they would have learned ahead of time that their on paper calculation was just way out of bounds
00:26:21
for >> just for the record for people on Wharton Moneyball. This is the damn
00:26:25
question I just asked Jamie a few seconds ago, but go ahead Jamie. I'd like to get your last words on this
00:26:30
race, how you're thinking about it, and also what you're working on now.
00:26:34
>> Well, what I think I I what's really important, what I think that the
00:26:37
interesting message here combining marketing and sports analytics is this that basically Nike set themselves up to
00:26:44
fail. And did they realize this or not? I I'm not sure but essentially they focus so much on the technology that
00:26:50
basically we have very few times in life where a a company has hyped technology and and also created an objective
00:26:59
standard. They didn't say it was going to improve her. They didn't say it was
00:27:02
going to help her get slightly faster. They said, you know, yes, it's a moonshot, but we think she's going to be
00:27:06
able to break four minutes. And you can't say that the three-time gold medalist in in the Olympics, who also
00:27:12
won a gold medal this year, who also almost broke the 10,00 meter world record just, you know, a few months
00:27:18
before this. You can't blame her and say, "Well, she's not, you know, it's
00:27:21
her fault." The only thing we had left to say is the technology didn't live up
00:27:25
to the hype. This technology was going to save seven and a half seconds off her time. It didn't live up to the hype. And
00:27:30
and we live in a world of wearables that promise, you know, oh, this is going to
00:27:34
make you healthier. This is going to help you run faster. And we do. We live this world of attribution bias where oh
00:27:39
you know I didn't get injured when I I played today where you know I read a new
00:27:44
PR it must be the tech it must be the tech and the super shoes I think are an exception the super shoes
00:27:48
biomechanically really and laws of physics do support that super shoes do work but most of this other tech we just
00:27:56
kind of buy it and we assume it's going to work and I think that's what Nike was
00:27:58
going for with this 3D printed bra and and all these other things like she's
00:28:03
going to break this barrier and we're going to all celebrate and it was the tech that made a difference and it was
00:28:08
this rare moment where I think the tech failed in front of everybody and that's
00:28:13
why we haven't talked about the sub four-minute project or the the breaking four project since because it was just
00:28:18
kind of all right nothing to see here let's uh let's move on >> so Jamie maybe in the last minute or so
00:28:23
um if we had you on next year which we will again what will you be talk what what are you likely to be talking to us
00:28:28
about a year from now >> man that could be anything uh that's kind of the way I roll uh you know
00:28:33
there's there's all types of different things I work on um My guess is it would
00:28:37
be sports concussions and some of the technology behind sports concussions and howto like uh a 3D printed sports bra.
00:28:46
It might not live up to expectations. That would be my guess. >> H well we like to thank Professor Jamie
00:28:52
Smoliga for joining us here on Wharton Moneyball. He's a professor department
00:28:55
of rehabilitation sciences director of research doctor of physical therapy program Tus University School of
00:29:01
Medicine. Um it sounds like uh he writes about these topics in his newsletter. So
00:29:05
Jamie, where can people find Beyond the Abstract? >> It's on Substack. So you could just uh
00:29:10
search for beyond theabstract, all one word. Sububstack.com. You'll find me there. Or my last name uh which I'll
00:29:19
spell s m o l i ga. If you search for that in substack, you'll find me because
00:29:22
there's only one smolstack. >> Well, Jamie, thank you for joining us here on Wharton Moneyball.
00:29:28
>> Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. Welcome back to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to the second half of
00:29:34
this week's show. We've got open line segment coming up for the next 20 minutes or so and then an overtime guest
00:29:40
on Ryder Cup. So, we can talk a little bit of Ryder Cup and we're gonna have
00:29:44
Joseph Lmana in here in a few minutes to talk Ryder Cup in the overtime segment.
00:29:48
Guys, baseball kicked off a few hours ago. The Tigers just knocked off the end the Guardians in the first first game of
00:29:57
that wild card series. We've got Yankees Red Sox going off later today. We've got
00:30:02
the other two uh wild card games as well. I'm assuming that's what's on your
00:30:06
mind and I would love to hear your thought going into it. Um and then let's after we collect a little bit of that,
00:30:11
let's go around to me and Shane and see what's on our mind as well. Let's see if
00:30:15
we can get a a quick round of what caught your eye. Let's open with Audi Winer.
00:30:20
>> Well, come on guys. I mean, uh lots of Yankees in my life right now. Lots of uh
00:30:26
thoughts that the Yankees were not able to overtake Toronto. And reflectively thinking back at years past when ties
00:30:32
for the division lead were settled with a one-game playoff. Can't remember. Yeah, obviously can remember games in
00:30:39
the past where that happened and I wish we were doing that again. Um the fact that the the stakes are monumental um
00:30:45
the difference between having to survive a a three-game wild card as we know coin
00:30:49
toss Jensen um tells us all is so >> Wait, but but but in the old days it would be a oneame
00:30:56
flip instead of a three-game coin flip. you favor in the old days. >> Yeah, but the the idea is
00:31:01
>> it was still a playoff. It was just a shorter one. >> No, no, but the idea is that that's to
00:31:06
decide who wins the division. It's a tie and we're going to have an extra game.
00:31:08
>> But the only value to wins in the division is to get the buy and avoid the
00:31:12
one. >> Now, now there's only a buy for >> game playoff, right? >> Back in the old day, it was you're out,
00:31:16
right? You didn't win that. You don't go out. >> You're out. >> Um, you know, you play 162 games to
00:31:21
decide who wins the division and it goes in a tie and then they decide it by the
00:31:24
internal record. That sounds very football. Anyway, that's just my way of saying it's the the the uh the
00:31:30
techniques of the other sports are are are leeching into our our history. Um so that was my obvious thing. And then I I
00:31:37
have to reflect. I think I was probably feeling a little bit um Cal Rileyish couple weeks ago in terms of my MVP. Um,
00:31:47
I wasn't settled on that, but I think five home runs and a 10-point leap in batting average and a 215 um WRC plus
00:31:55
makes it really hard not to throw my my uh modest little weight behind Aaron Judge.
00:32:01
>> Just comment a couple things that you said, Audi. First, what's interesting
00:32:04
about the Yankees uh Blue Jays situation is that they're just swap they would
00:32:09
have just swapped places the one on the four, but they play each other if if they don't recede in baseball. So, if
00:32:16
the Yankees were to beat the Red Sox, which I I'll get to that in a second, they would play the Blue Jays. If they
00:32:21
had been the other way around, if the Blue Jays had beaten the Red Sox, they would have played the Yankees. So all
00:32:26
that matters is in some sense the first round which as we know using the Shane Jensen rule, it at least doubles the
00:32:34
probability cuz I I don't know how anyone could argue the Yankees are much better than 50% to beat the Red Sox
00:32:39
here. There wasn't that much win percentage difference. They got this guy uh Crochet pitching tonight. I
00:32:44
understand we have Max Freed. That's a titanic war. Let me just tell you that's
00:32:49
a coin flip. The whole series is a coin flip. So the Yankees win probability for
00:32:54
the World Series in my view at best is cut in half. I was also wondering how much loss there was for home field. This
00:33:01
was not the simulation I was talking about off air, but I asked chat GPT5 um after I was very clear in what I
00:33:09
asked it. I asked it after controlling for the fact that the home team has a better record,
00:33:18
how much is the home field advantage in a series worth in baseball? That's what I asked it cuz remember the home
00:33:28
team should have some advantage cuz they had the better record of the two. So it
00:33:33
showed me the mathematical model that it built. It controlled for strength of team and it gave an answer of 1.25%.
00:33:43
That's the answer it gave. You know, I could have asked for the empirical distribution or just
00:33:49
>> you could just ask me and I could have made up an answer, Eric. Two 2%.
00:33:55
>> Yeah. Why are we dehumanizing this process? No, but I I don't know that, you know, I
00:34:02
think it was, you know, you're not interested at all, Shane, in its answer and how it did it. Even if you don't
00:34:07
agree with it, you're not interested in how it did. So, I'm interested in your
00:34:12
answer or Audi's answer or Kad's answer. >> Not necessarily, Chad.
00:34:18
>> I mean, I I can tell you that historically the baseball advantage hovers around two and a half%. for home
00:34:24
field two two to two and a half >> for a single game or for a series. >> No, for that would be a sing that would
00:34:32
be a single game. >> Yeah. So now I have to think about it. Well, it's not hard to think about in
00:34:39
the sense that I would say if you want intuition, think in the limits. If you played an infinite number of games, then
00:34:45
the advantage would be 2 and a half%. Right? So the uh longer the number I have to think about this now maybe I
00:34:52
don't have the good intuition for a series I have a 2 and a half% advantage I'm adding stochastic
00:35:00
>> 52 versus 48 a pre noticeably >> is is that noticeable over a four uh
00:35:06
seven best of three or best of five or best of seven so it's not it is not important probabilistically
00:35:14
and uh for the range of series that we tend to in baseball. >> No, I mean it should add if it's a three
00:35:21
or five game series, maybe it adds in total 10%. Um, but you so you'd have to
00:35:27
So what chat GBT hopefully tried to adjust for the fact that the home team is usually a bit better and then tries
00:35:33
to see if there's any residual um advantage based on that and uh and maybe maybe it found something. I haven't done
00:35:41
that. U did it did it do it? I mean what what did it do? That's what it did. It controlled it fit
00:35:49
actually it fit a mathematical model for um you know uh the probability of team A
00:35:57
beating team B as a function it actually estimated strength parameters for the two teams. It controlled for those and
00:36:06
then it said given that what residual variation is there? there. Now, there could be lots of other factors that it
00:36:12
didn't control for, but it did control for the differential win loss record.
00:36:16
>> Well, why don't we why don't we move on? We that's worthy of a lot of conversation
00:36:23
actually, but at least it's an answer. It's an empirical answer. Y'all got real
00:36:27
baseball going on right now. So, what what else besides the Yankees Red Sox series has most interest for you?
00:36:36
Well, I think Seattle's trajectory, Seattle has won the division for the first time since 2001 when I ro was a
00:36:43
rookie. So, I think that is notable. And so, you know, they're kind of new blood
00:36:47
in the playoffs after um, you know, having the Astros as kind of the AL West, you know, representative for so
00:36:54
many years. So, I think that's really exciting. >> But, moreover, they've never made the
00:36:57
World Series, right? Aren't they the only team in Major League Baseball who's
00:37:00
never made the World Series? They may be the only team in Major League Baseball that's never made the
00:37:05
World Series now that I am thinking about it. Yeah, >> that's going to lead me to be the one
00:37:10
person on this video who is pulling for the American League representative to be
00:37:14
the Mariners. Y'all are pulling y'all have your hometown teams, but I think
00:37:18
that's a good cause in the American League. Um, okay. on the >> and on the National League I think it's
00:37:25
kind of interesting just kind of based on our previous discussion you don't need chat GPT to sim that the Dodgers by
00:37:31
again playing in the wildard round should have half the probability of uh you know say the for example the
00:37:38
Phillies uh that have got to buy from the wildard round >> well then there would also be the
00:37:43
disadvantage to not having the home field they will not have the home field in the second round
00:37:47
>> regardless the Dodgers I think are I at least in the odds that somebody posted a
00:37:51
rundown are like the second highest uh team to win the World Series. >> Yeah, I have no other post that wasn't
00:37:57
>> What's that all about? What is that all about? And we wait, let's just let's not
00:38:01
ask >> preseason roster. I mean, that's a heck of a bracket. The Dodgers Phillies
00:38:06
bracket is the strongest bracket on on the board, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean they they would
00:38:12
play each other because there's no receding. So, the the Phillies are the two, the Dodgers are the three.
00:38:16
>> That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's that's the toughest
00:38:19
regional. This is the if this is the NCAA, we're talking about which regional
00:38:22
is toughest. That's the toughest regional by far. >> Now, you're pointing out, Kade, what an
00:38:26
advantage it was. Deservedly so that the Brewers ended up number one. >> They avoid the, you know, they have to
00:38:32
play one of, if they make it, they have to play one of the Phillies and Dodgers.
00:38:35
>> Okay, we talked about >> they have to go through potentially the Padres's who, again, by argue, by by
00:38:40
rational them being there, won the division over the Dodgers. You know, just to point out, there's extraordinary
00:38:46
parody in in the Major League Baseball, at least at the top 12 right now. I mean, there's there is Yeah, the the
00:38:53
Dodgers, Phillies, Brewers are a bit better, but there's no 112 game winner this year. There's no even 100 game
00:38:59
winner this year. Yep. >> First time in 11 seasons. >> And so, frankly, and and everything kind
00:39:05
of changes in these short series with the way they use their arms. Um, it is hard just to to imagine that everybody's
00:39:13
not in it. It's just some >> Yeah, look how different the the marquee of the World Series matchup could vary.
00:39:20
I mean, it could be two complete blueb bloodoods or complete two complete like nowhere nowhere.
00:39:26
>> Um, I mean, we'd be excited about a nowhere nowhere'sville Mariners,
00:39:30
Brewers. We'd love that, but most of the country is not going to show up for
00:39:34
that, right? Or it could be Dodgers, Yankees. I mean, come on. Mhm. >> So, it's it is it is going to be
00:39:39
interesting to see play out. Okay, fellas. Outside, let me let me jump in. Since y'all have been talking baseball,
00:39:44
let me give you one caught my eye. Let me give you one caught my eye. College football. We're rolling into week five.
00:39:50
And I talked last time about um some Andrew Persal ensembling for power rankings in college football. And
00:39:59
something that caught my eye, he posted just I think today his latest he threw some data visualizations up there. And
00:40:06
let you know remember he he's he's ensembling power rankings like 11 or 12
00:40:11
systems and he's reporting it he's reporting power rankings in standard deviations. What do you think? Here's
00:40:17
something that's amazing. Compare the SEC versus the the ACC. So the ACC is still a power four conference and what
00:40:26
he's finding is that the ACC is really kind of dropping and and the Big 12 actually looks a fair bit stronger than
00:40:31
the ACC which is interesting. But one of the biggest stories of the year, this is
00:40:34
this is also a way of me giving you kind of a big story of the year is how flat the SEC is. Like it is anybody's game
00:40:41
and one and it's interesting contrast to the ACC. So the ACC has Miami head and
00:40:47
shoulders above everyone else. You can drop twothirds of a standard deviation before you get the second best team in
00:40:54
the ACC. Twothirds of a standard deviation between the best ACC team and the rest. If you go to the SEC and I I
00:41:02
forget right now who's number one in the ensemble. Probably Alabama. Alabama or
00:41:06
Georgia. >> The fact that you forget right now who's number one is already telling.
00:41:09
>> Exactly. That's already fun. If you drop twothirds of a standard deviation in the
00:41:13
SEC, what number in the SEC do you think you land on? What out of 16 teams? What
00:41:19
number do you think you land on? Remember that got you to number two in the ACC. It's going to get you to what
00:41:25
in the SEC? >> Six. 11. >> It gets you to the 11th. They have they have whatever that is, nine teams
00:41:35
squeezed in where there exists none. >> None is more than half the lead. Now,
00:41:41
what's interesting about that, Kate, I would imagine then that in any sim that
00:41:45
looks at the probability that an SEC team wins the championship >> would have to be quite high because you
00:41:53
don't I didn't say which team is going to win, but it but you know, one of
00:41:57
those teams and it also would suggest that you know if the committee and I know you guys Massie Peabody have built
00:42:03
models of the committee at some point there's going to have to be a large number of SE teams potentially in there.
00:42:10
Assuming the mean level of those is high. Um, you know, could there be a scenario, kid? I don't even know how
00:42:16
many. Could there be six or seven SEC teams now in there? >> Yeah, there's like there's not is there
00:42:21
an actual limit on any one conference or just kind of convention there? >> There is a limit because
00:42:28
>> there is a limit because each of the conference champions make it and then
00:42:32
the best of the group of five makes it. Um, so that's at least five teams, at
00:42:37
least four teams that are not from a conference. So theoretically be the rest filling out the field from total. There
00:42:43
could be eight SEC teams. There won't be, but there could be. >> That's right. But but Eric, you're
00:42:48
assuming something that you shouldn't assume. And that's also an interesting
00:42:50
story here that the Big 10 is not doesn't have teams that are higher. So just because the SEC is the most
00:42:58
compressed doesn't mean that it has the highest top end. And in fact, according
00:43:03
according to Persal's ensemble, the Big 10 has a higher top end. and a much lower bottom end. And that higher top
00:43:11
end has three teams above the best at the SEC. This is the world is different. Now, this is me updating you on college
00:43:17
football this year. The top of the Big 10 looks stronger. Ohio State, Oregon. Oregon, who had a huge win in Happy
00:43:25
Valley this past weekend. And um and I think Indiana of all things, I think Indiana's looking up really high, but at
00:43:32
least Ohio State and Penn State, I Ohio State and Oregon are looking stronger right now than the SEC. So that's going
00:43:39
to get a little bit in the way of that, Eric. All right, that's my quick college
00:43:41
football update. Back to you guys, Shane. You haven't had a time at the floor here. What's caught your eye?
00:43:47
Oh, I I think uh I I guess since we haven't discussed any kind of NFL uh type of thing, the thing that caught my
00:43:55
eye, the Jets. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, the the Patriots finally looking dominant in a week kind
00:44:00
of caught my eye, but I I I I did want to just sort of point out kind of numerically how interesting that Cowboys
00:44:06
Packers game was. Not only is it it's the highest scoring tie in NFL history,
00:44:13
and it was also a scorami. I'm sure you all know what a score origami is. It's
00:44:16
kind of a unique score. I wouldn't have expected 4040 to be a unique score, but
00:44:21
it was. So, that that was kind of that's something that certainly caught my eye.
00:44:24
>> I also and sort of something we could discuss more. Uh maybe you don't want to
00:44:29
talk about Kade, but I I'm so disappointed in the Ravens. I really I wanted them to be
00:44:35
>> one of the one of those teams that could knock off the Chiefs this year, and it
00:44:38
does not look like it's uh >> in the cards. >> They're gonna they're gonna have to dig
00:44:42
out of a big hole. Um, it led Lamar's going to be out for a couple of weeks.
00:44:46
It looks like it led to an interesting analysis of what that should do to the point spread. And if you talk to
00:44:52
bookies, they'll say, you know, on average, the average NFL quarterback, if he goes out, it's going to cost about
00:44:58
three points. But we know quarterbacks vary in their ability and in their backups. And so the biggest gap is much
00:45:04
bigger than seven. And there was a study done um not a study, a survey done of bookies before the season and they rated
00:45:12
all 32 teams on the impact on the average starting line if this team lost his quarterback. And the very best is
00:45:21
like the Bills being knocked down seven points or so if Josh Allen goes out. But
00:45:26
the Ravens are right there at the top number three and I think preseason they said it's something like six and 6.6 or
00:45:31
something. That's a big hit. That's a big hit to take with a quarter with him
00:45:35
going out and they're already >> that's basically that that analysis also
00:45:39
is essentially a prior analysis of the MVP >> because it's bookie basically you know
00:45:46
>> because there's no way >> basically being like you know what is
00:45:48
the most impact you >> that's whose loss would lead to the biggest change in line as proxy for a most
00:45:56
valuable player that's interesting >> that's how you elicit a prior for the
00:45:58
MVP if you were to do it I think >> well by the way I'm missing Pat Mcomes
00:46:02
is the one Josh Allen number one Pat Mahomes right there. I mean, dead even with Josh really and then Lamar about.3
00:46:08
below them. >> Eric was going to >> let me just ask you a question. I would think that, you know, one of the
00:46:16
things I've been looking at, Kate, obviously you've built models for power
00:46:18
rankings. On what basis are the Eagles number one in people's power rankings?
00:46:23
Like it's apparently it's the first time in history, by the way, just so you
00:46:27
know, that a team is 4-0, but in terms of total yardage, they're 0 and4. They haven't beaten one team they've
00:46:38
played in terms of total yards gained. Not yet. >> What about the momentum argument, Eric?
00:46:43
When was the last time they lost in a nonjalen started game? I mean, >> momentum, but I'm just commenting that
00:46:49
they obviously have scored through. They've blocked kicks. if you know, etc.
00:46:54
But at some point, like I'm just asking Cade, what model? Forget the record for
00:47:00
a second. I don't show you the record. I asked you to build an offensive and
00:47:04
defensive power ranking and now I asked you to come up with an overall team strength. It's just hard for me to
00:47:11
believe that the Eagles would come up as number one using that method. But maybe
00:47:16
I've got it wrong. No, I mean it's it's reasonable, but it does goes to show you
00:47:20
that that not all yards are equal and situational football matters a great deal and yards can be quite cheap
00:47:26
between the 20s, for example. Um, we also used to have a stat one of we only had four stats like I mean our original
00:47:33
it got fancier over time but our original model was really simple just you know basically passing efficiency
00:47:39
rushing offensive offens efficiency and um one of the one of the four was what might be doing some work here which was
00:47:49
points per yard and we picked it up off of a telecast and we turned out to find that it was predictive and it c it's
00:47:56
kind of a residual it says something about special teams. It says something about turnovers and apparently
00:48:02
apparently the Eagles are doing well in it this year because to be behind on all
00:48:06
the yards but ahead in the win column in all games says something about points per yard.
00:48:10
>> And this is selection bias here though. I have to be you have to be careful with
00:48:14
this because you watch this. You know, Eagles will they get a fumble or interceptionally run it back. You got to
00:48:21
give the ball up after you do that. you you just you don't have the opportunities to generate the yards when
00:48:26
you when you score on these special teams plays. It it takes the it takes your time and possession away. It's not
00:48:31
saying that they wouldn't have done it. They they did it right. Oops. So, it's
00:48:35
it's it's not necessarily an indictment of their play to have got a whole bunch
00:48:39
of special teams scoring. Um and uh you really have to look at the yards per per
00:48:45
play and some of those measurements um rather than the fact that they you know because if you don't have the ball you
00:48:52
can't score yards right so you can't get yards so I I think it's a little less um
00:48:56
as shocking that statistic Eric then you immediately comes to mind although it is
00:49:02
>> important this whole discussion is kind of reminding me about the Chiefs last
00:49:06
year kind of had a similar type season where it was hard to move them down to the rankings because they kept winning.
00:49:11
>> Mhm. >> Like like in sort of at least the subjective rankings, they kept winning
00:49:15
so it was hard to move them down, but they weren't looking as imp, you know,
00:49:18
they're kind of winning a lot on essentially like Mojo or like kind of like kind of chance of Vance block. They
00:49:25
had a block kick win just like the Eagles did uh more re this season. And so, you know, I I think so, you know,
00:49:32
that that's perhaps, you know, uh something where maybe maybe it will kind of catch up with the Eagles once or
00:49:38
twice this season. I don't think they're going to go undefeated, but it is also,
00:49:41
I think, evidence of a strong team that they keep have at least they're in a
00:49:45
position to win every week. >> Yeah, it's it's uh we're talking about
00:49:50
asking the question whether there's something you can put in the model. This
00:49:53
is really the heart of what Eric originally asked. Is there something you could put in a model that captures this
00:49:58
mojo that Shane just referred to? Is there something objective and predictive that you could put in there? And it's a
00:50:05
it's a very fair question, guys. While while we're in the NFL real quickly, let
00:50:08
me just let me just stay on this one just for one more second. I just want to ask my question that I always frame it
00:50:12
in this way. So, Audi, Shane, Kade, I give you the stats. I I ask you to predict who the Eagles are going to be
00:50:20
play next week. Okay. I think they're playing the uh Broncos, by the way. >> Yeah.
00:50:24
>> And I think let's say they're favored by whatever two and a half, three and a
00:50:27
half, whatever the number is. And I said, "No, no, no. I'm sorry, guys. I
00:50:30
forgot to tell you that they've won 18 straight games or whatever the number
00:50:34
is. How much are you changing your prediction? I asked this question on I always love to frame it this way. I now
00:50:40
reveal this other piece of information. How much are you changing your win probability? AI, I'm going to start with
00:50:45
you because you always keep it you always keep it real. Yeah. You mean it's interesting because I think football 18
00:50:50
straight wins is more meaningful than in and really in many other sports because
00:50:55
of the well the team kind of component of it. And and here's the thing that I
00:51:00
would follow up with a question to all you experts in football, which is how much does high leverage performance um
00:51:09
disparities between low leverage performance inform? Like the the classic baseball line, which is transformed
00:51:15
baseball, is that we don't care about high leverage versus low leverage performance. It's all randomness in
00:51:20
football. Is it? And and I would imagine that it's not. and 18 W wins tells me
00:51:26
quite a bit about high leverage versus low leverage performance diff throwing it out.
00:51:32
>> We've been talking about the Eagles and Eagles Broncos. I I highlighted what
00:51:37
looked to me like the most interesting games this weekend and other than San Francisco LA which one has become one of
00:51:42
the great rivalries in the NFL in recent years. The other four have an interesting quality guys. Look at the
00:51:47
other four that I have up there. Dallas at New York Jets, Broncos at Philly, Tampa Bay at Seattle, and Washington at
00:51:53
Los Los Angeles Chargers. I started thinking about those as all games we don't see that very often. How many
00:51:59
times do you think those teams have played? And in fact, one of them, the one that most jumped out to me was Tampa
00:52:05
Bay, Seattle, because I know this, this is like the classic old guy thing to say, that's an expansion team game,
00:52:11
right? That's an expansion game between the 1976 Seattle Seahawks and 1976 Tampa
00:52:16
Bay Buccaneers. It's kind of fun to see those guys going at it. But in fact,
00:52:20
those two teams of these four matchups, those two teams have played the most. They played 15 times. The the others
00:52:26
have played 12, 13, and 14 times. So these are not match up. You see these matchups every three or four years. Like
00:52:31
the Cowboys and Jets, that's kind of fun. We don't see that many Cowboys at
00:52:35
Jets. That's not that common. Audi, you're just might have a chance against
00:52:38
that team. But the um God >> but also you point out you talk about leverage for the season just like Tampa
00:52:45
Bay and Philly was a high leverage game because now one has an advantage over the other both in record and in
00:52:50
tiebreaker. It's not our it's not impossible to believe that Tampa Bay and Seattle will
00:52:55
be battling for some sort of tiebreaker at the playoffs and this is a huge game therefore in that respect because
00:53:01
they're both three and one at the moment. Well, that that that's a funny
00:53:05
one. That used to be interconference. That's not conference anymore. >> Get all technical, but isn't Tampa of
00:53:09
all teams the most resistance to tiebreers because it's basically locked into winning division
00:53:16
>> and like of like of like I understand it's a playoff team and all playoff
00:53:21
teams should be cognizant of tiebreaking scenarios and and these games do impact
00:53:25
that, but I feel like like the division winner that's kind of locked into it is
00:53:29
the most robust to that. Yeah, I I think the Falcons may still have something to
00:53:34
say about it in the end, but we'll see. >> I saw some odds on that this week, the
00:53:38
betting markets. I think those are some of the better odds to win the division. The Bills are by far the best.
00:53:44
>> Oh, yeah. No, for sure. We can we can we can pencil that in. >> The other thing I just want to observe
00:53:50
is the the 0 and3 Giants beating the 3 and 0 Chargers is one of the most NFL things. I mean, every year this happens,
00:53:56
right? Every year week four, some 0 and3 team beats a 3-0 team. You think could couldn't win. There's no way this is
00:54:01
going to win. But it's also signs of life. Jackson Dart, signs of life. I mean, it's folly to bet too much on a
00:54:08
rookie quarterback, but still signs of life for the Giants, maybe. Okay, fellas. Why don't we leave it
00:54:14
there? I know y'all have some baseball to watch. That has been the first hour
00:54:18
of Wharton Moneyball. Usually one hour show these days, but every now and then we do an overtime segment, and we're
00:54:24
going to do one. We're going to talk Ryder Cup, a topic we didn't hit because
00:54:26
we have Joseph Lammana joining us shortly to talk RDER Cup, the big tournament over this past weekend.
00:54:32
Welcome to an overtime segment in this week's show. Every now and then, we have
00:54:36
too much to cover, too much we want to cover to limit ourselves to the one-hour show. And this is one of those weeks we
00:54:42
didn't have a chance to talk Ryder Cup and we could do a whole show on the Ryder Cup. Certainly lots of people
00:54:47
doing lots of analysis on the Ryder Cup just after the US. You know, it would have been disaster if not for a major
00:54:54
comeback on Sunday. Still, many people think an embarrassing showing at Beth Paige. And we thought we'd do a little
00:55:01
conversation on that with Joseph Lmana. Joseph is first time visitor to this show. I'm I'm going to tell you, I came
00:55:09
across him in two ways. One, he's done the show Bet the Process with our friends Rufus Peabody and Jeff Ma a
00:55:15
couple of times. In fact, I think Rufus always makes a fuss over how much Jeff Maul loves Joseph Lammana, one of his
00:55:22
favorite guests, I believe. But then also, if you start asking around about an organization called used to be called
00:55:27
the 15th Club, now it's like the 21st Club. Maybe maybe Joseph can remind us
00:55:33
of this. This is an organization longtime listeners might remember. This is an analytics organization that came
00:55:38
out of the UK. They they were first like the 21st club because they were the 21st
00:55:44
club in the Premier League. providing soccer analytics and then they started doing golf and then the European writer
00:55:51
cup team glombmed on to them and started using analytics and we had conversations
00:55:55
over the years with multiple people in that organization. Turns out Lmana part of his gigs over the years was
00:56:03
working for that organization. So Joseph is a resident here in Austin, Texas. He
00:56:07
is a Longhorn fan which is not the reason I brought him on I promise. He is a writer and contributor analyst at the
00:56:14
fried egg which is a fantastic organization looking at golf from a lot of different angles. Joseph has his own
00:56:20
practice, his own consulting. He has caddied for multiple years. He is a bit of a course kind of a course
00:56:26
afficionado. He can talk designers and pros and cons. So he is the perfect guy to talk Rder Cup. Joseph, welcome to
00:56:34
Wharton Moneyball. >> Well, thanks so much for having me. I am a listener. I I love the Wharton
00:56:38
podcast, the Wharton Moneyball podcast. So, uh, it's I'm a longtime listener,
00:56:42
first- time guest, but I really respect what you guys do, and I think this is the perfect audience to be talking about
00:56:47
the RDER Cup with. Very analytically driven audience. So, I'm really excited.
00:56:50
>> Well, that's that's good to hear. And the only worry is that we we all of us
00:56:54
have to go do something at some point, otherwise we could stay here for a long time. Eric is going to have to leave
00:56:58
first. And I know Eric is going to have some kind of question. Eric, you watched
00:57:02
the tournament. I know you have strong feelings about the tournament. Hypothesize a little bit with with
00:57:08
Joseph. Ask Joseph some questions about whatever you're curious about. I'm
00:57:12
curious where you go, Eric, after having watched three days of golf. >> Yeah. So, Joseph, is there a science
00:57:19
like I I can't remember the last time the US won in four sums? Maybe they have
00:57:28
um four ball. So is there something analytically that can be said about pairing people together that kind of you
00:57:36
know you know could explain why or or another way to frame it is is it obvious that a mistake was made by the US team
00:57:45
in pairing people together. Real quickly, you said forsomes and four ball. Let's take foresomes just as a
00:57:50
sensation. >> Let's start with forsomes, which the lay person might know as alternate shot.
00:57:54
>> Alternate shot. And so this, you know, the US famously loses Friday, the Friday
00:57:59
morning is the first, they always play forsomes. They got crushed this one. And so that that's the that's the context
00:58:04
here. Joseph, >> I feel like there's there are a lot of different directions to to take that
00:58:09
question, right? There's why does the US struggle historically in forsomes? there
00:58:14
is what is the strategy in pairing people in forsomes and there's so many different threads you could pull on with
00:58:21
that question right I think overarching there is a truth to Americans struggling
00:58:27
in forsomes and you could do an entire podcast episode on why that might be I think there's credence too that that
00:58:34
Europeans play a lot more alternate shot growing up it's part of the culture
00:58:38
there that's part of the way they play at clubs in Europe it's part of competition that elite junior golfers
00:58:45
play. So, I think there is more of a comfort level for Europeans playing alternate shot. How much is that worth?
00:58:52
Like, I don't have a great answer for you on that, but I think there's something to it. And then in terms of
00:58:56
pairing people together in in alternate shot, absolutely, there's a lot that
00:59:00
goes into that. You want to pair people with complimentary skill sets. You want to be conscious on who should be teeing
00:59:07
off on the odd holes versus the even holes because that's the way that it works at the RDER Cup. I mean, true true
00:59:14
alternate shot. Sometimes it's just whoever finishes the putt, the next person te's off. But in at the RDER Cup,
00:59:20
it's odds and even. So, there's strategy involved in that. There's strategy
00:59:24
involved in the golf ball that you play, right? Because if you're playing with
00:59:28
two totally different makes and models of golf ball, you're going to have golfers adjusting on the fly, which they
00:59:34
may not be comfortable with for good reason. I mean, spin control on your wedges is a huge part of of professional
00:59:41
golf. So, if you're playing a golf, >> Joseph, just a clarification, I didn't I
00:59:45
hadn't even thought about asking this. Because of the rain, they were playing
00:59:48
preferred lie uh for at least for the first couple days. Does that mean if you shoot and now I shoot when I lift your
00:59:55
ball, I can't replace it with my ball? >> It is correct that you're not allowed to
01:00:00
replace the ball on the hole. But and this part I actually don't like about the RDER Cup. You can change the golf
01:00:07
ball on each hole. They no longer have the one ball rule in effect. So you can change on the T- box. I think you should
01:00:14
you should have to play one ball the whole time. But to answer your question, no, you cannot pick up the ball as part
01:00:20
of the preferred lie and then put back down a different golf ball. >> Got it.
01:00:23
>> Joseph and Eric, you'll you'll be you'll be impressed by this and Joseph probably
01:00:27
knows this, but so um Molinari, Edward Molinari, former player, right? And he's
01:00:32
went big into analytics and he's been consulting to the right >> current player. Yes.
01:00:37
>> Current current player. Okay. Current player. Uh and he's been consulting to
01:00:40
the European team for years now. I just saw a clip of a longer interview he did.
01:00:45
I haven't seen the whole interview so and I can't even make a proper attribution but it's out there. I'm sure
01:00:49
it's getting a lot of attention where he talked about the analytics they do and
01:00:53
figuring out their forome pairings. And you'll get a kick out of this Eric. My
01:00:58
what I gathered in this one minute clip is that they put guys they they they put
01:01:02
guys on simulators. So they're going to simulate the course and then they run
01:01:07
them through the course as it will be played and they run them at different combinations. For example, you know, you
01:01:14
put Fleetwood and and Rory together and you'd say, "Okay, Rory, you're going to
01:01:17
tee off on the one on the odds and Fleetwood will take the evens and then we're going to flip it and we're going
01:01:22
to do enough of those to get some sense there's an advantage on this course for
01:01:26
the strengths and weaknesses of those two players." They literally simulate in
01:01:29
that way with the guys to figure out something about their pairings. And that my big picture take so far, this is just
01:01:37
Tuesday or whatever and I'm not the most informed, but I've tried to gather as
01:01:40
much as I can for a couple days. We probably gave up something the US and not being as analytically oriented. But
01:01:47
I think the fact that we're not as analytically oriented shows that we're
01:01:51
just not looking for edges in the way the Europeans are looking for edges. It's it's like it's like it's like the
01:01:56
Philadelphia Eagles playing the Cincinnati Bengals. You know, it's like, yeah, some some years the Bengals are
01:02:01
going to have enough talent that they're going to be able to compete with the
01:02:03
Eagles, but year in year out the Eagles are looking for every last edge possible. They got a cap guy in there
01:02:10
playing with the cap, running the team now and figuring out other things. They've got player development. They're
01:02:14
doing everything possible. The fact that the US let Scotty and who was he playing
01:02:19
with? They just decided to flip the order of their >> Well, they played with the Shambo on one
01:02:24
set. I maybe that was some >> But Eric, they made a flip on tea off order on their own Saturday and it just
01:02:30
kind of flippantly did this as opposed to the way the Europeans have studied this, practiced it. It just reveals the
01:02:37
the lack of diligence. That's my current hypothesis. Joseph, >> look, you're absolutely right. The the
01:02:42
Americans are always behind on this type of stuff. And I think there are real questions starting to be asked about how
01:02:50
well the analytics team is performing on the American side. And because as as you
01:02:56
guys talk about this all the time on on the podcast, using data doesn't mean
01:03:01
you're using data correctly. And I think that there's now this like now both
01:03:05
teams are using data. That does not mean that they're making intell intelligent
01:03:10
decisions. And so I do think that's a big question that's coming out of this
01:03:14
Ryder Cup. Hey, who was making decisions? Was Keegan Bradley overriding some of the advice that he was being
01:03:20
given. But and I I think one maybe the most underrated part of the RDER Cup is some
01:03:27
of the communication. h how important communication is. I I think the the best example would be something like to use a
01:03:36
football analogy, John Harbaugh going for it on fourth and two to have the model built and then to have the
01:03:42
communication to him in real time to have the confidence in the model with John Harbaugh. How strong of a
01:03:49
recommendation is it? All of those pieces of the process are crucially important and I think Europe has really
01:03:55
nailed that down. I can't tell you where the United States is exactly failing on
01:04:00
that, but they are clearly failing on that repeatedly, whether it's the model
01:04:04
building itself, which I think there's there are clearly some issues there, but
01:04:07
also getting the appropriate buyin all the way down to Keegan Bradley so that he's making good decisions in real time.
01:04:13
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that it deserves scrutiny from top
01:04:17
to bottom all of that process. >> Joseph, since I have to run this, let me
01:04:20
ask you two more questions. Um the first one is let's imagine do you ever see a
01:04:26
world I we all know Scotty Sheffller is the number one player in the world and matter of fact he's played like it it's
01:04:32
not even been close I mean he is the number one player in the world is there ever a way where let's say he's 0 and3
01:04:41
where you say okay look he's the number one player in the world but there is
01:04:45
intraday and intraday variation I'm not going to put a tired Scotty sheffller
01:04:51
out there for the four sums on day two. He's 0 and3 already. You know what? Maybe I just sit him for the singles. Is
01:05:00
there any like would that ever enter the analysis that's I have another question,
01:05:04
but would that ever enter the analysis that someone would actually sit the number one player in the world?
01:05:11
>> Would it ever enter the analysis? It better be in the analysis. You're you're
01:05:15
hitting on two things there. One is how much do you weigh long-term form versus short-term form? What level of
01:05:21
information are you getting from what you see in the first session, the first three sessions? Like abs, if that's not
01:05:27
baked into what you're doing, then that's a problem. You're also asking
01:05:30
about energy conservation, which I think is a very important part of the Rder Cup
01:05:34
that maybe became more obvious this time around, but the golfers who go all five
01:05:39
sessions had a really hard time in their singles match. And sometimes we've seen
01:05:43
historically with Europe like the at the last RDER Cup in 2023, they did sit John
01:05:49
Rom out in the afternoon session with the knowledge that he was going off first in the morning on Sunday and
01:05:54
wanted him to be ready for it. Do I think that generally you're going to run
01:05:57
the number one player five sessions? Yeah. Is there a world where I would leave Scotty Sheffller out of a session?
01:06:02
There is, but I think more than likely you're probably going to need to ride
01:06:06
him for five sessions. But absolutely, you should be looking at that kind of stuff. and you're hitting on some of the
01:06:10
intricacies that team Europe handles much better than the United States does historically. Right? That's another
01:06:15
clear example where you could be using data to determine something, but you might not be using it correctly of how
01:06:21
much that first session actually is in is predictive of how they're going to
01:06:24
play in the next. I think Ben Griffin is Ben Griffin's the example there that I
01:06:28
would I would say I think they clearly yanked him after what they saw from the first round, but per perhaps that was an
01:06:33
overreaction. >> I I I that was I had a lot of questions about Ben Griffin, but let me given my
01:06:38
time. Let me ask one more question. Forget what actually happened. If I had I want you to give me a probability of
01:06:45
the following. If I had told you that the singles matches were over. I'm not
01:06:50
going to tell you anything else, >> but the only win by the European team is
01:06:55
Louvig Oberg against Patrick Kentlay. That's the only win. >> What probability would you have told me
01:07:02
that Europe would win the cup? Zero, right? >> Whoa. I can't say zero, right? But uh
01:07:09
yeah I don't know 5% something really low >> I think it was% >> yeah and also if I had told you also
01:07:16
similarly on the beginning of Sunday that the US would be alive very alive by the time it got to Shane Lowry
01:07:26
you would have said to me how's that going to happen in a similar way right >> yeah and again people could say that if
01:07:35
it weren't a blowout going into Sunday Sunday might have played out differently. I I don't know exactly
01:07:40
where I land on that. But I do think one advantage that the United States clearly
01:07:45
had on Sunday was how worn down the Europeans were in particular. I don't know how much people are, you
01:07:51
know, the fan abuse that was a big storyline coming out of it. I was with the group where all that was mainly
01:07:57
happening. I cannot believe Shane Lowry was able to to play as well as he did on
01:08:02
Sunday after what some of the stuff that he and Rory endured. So, I do think a big part of the Sunday performance by
01:08:08
the Americans was they caught some tired golfers. Rory had very little in the tank. And if you saw what he was
01:08:14
subjected to out there, I think it is completely understandable that he was spent going into Sunday.
01:08:20
>> Wow. Wow. Wow. I did not realize until just then that you were out there. So,
01:08:25
you were in New York for the tournament. >> Yes, I was there. Yep. On on site. So, a
01:08:31
little different experience that sometimes you don't always have the best feel for everything that's going on. So,
01:08:36
you'll have to pardon me if I can't get into the specifics of every shot in
01:08:40
every match, but at least for the ones I was with should have some insight. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, start with what you
01:08:44
just said, which was the crowd, which received so much attention. And I've heard I had one buddy who was there who
01:08:51
who talked about what a how much fun it was, what a great crowd, how interesting
01:08:55
it was. And, you know, that's very different from a lot of the reports you get. And then you have the commissioner,
01:09:00
whoever it was that came out say, I didn't see anything untored and that doesn't seem to fit with what you're
01:09:06
reporting. Like what what would you say about what you saw from the crowd there?
01:09:12
>> You know, I I feel like when people when golf media is reporting about how ugly
01:09:17
it is, there's sort of this backlash that that thinks people are pearl clutching and being uptight. I am a
01:09:23
massive sports fan. I go to UFC fights, NFL games, like I have a very high tolerance for what should be acceptable
01:09:31
at a sporting event. The RDER Cup was completely out of line, completely over the top. You're talking about personal
01:09:40
insults about people's marriages, about their physiques, about what their wives
01:09:44
look like. And it's happening, you know, not because it's all loud and rockous.
01:09:49
It was loud and rockous, but then it would quiet down and Rory Mroy'd be standing over the ball and somebody from
01:09:55
10 rows deep was yelling something about his marriage that forced him to step back off of the ball while his family is
01:10:02
inside the ropes hearing the entire thing. It is not People are not going overboard talking about how gross the
01:10:09
crowd was. To be clear, these are bad actors. It's not like the crowd in mass
01:10:13
was chanting things that were inappropriate, but what was being yelled was completely inappropriate. Calling
01:10:20
golfers fat, you know, again, going after their wives appearances, rumors. It was really, really ugly. And it it's
01:10:27
appropriate to characterize it that way without, you know, pearl clutching. >> Okay, that's helpful to hear from you
01:10:32
and helpful context that you're accustomed to some pretty rough sporting environments. What do you think? We we
01:10:37
this isn't why we brought you on here, but but it does make you wonder. Do you
01:10:41
think it's an do you think it's policable? Do you think it's in do you
01:10:44
think better standards are enforcable in the future if an organization wanted you know it's really difficult where my
01:10:52
head goes immediately is um most of those comments came from areas where there are collection points on the golf
01:11:00
course where somebody's 10 rows deep and doesn't have the courage to yell it from
01:11:04
the front row. So I think that is something you could think about how you uh you know control where there are a
01:11:10
bunch of crowds organized and think about grandstands and there's clearly something there. I've seen some people
01:11:17
talk about hard liquor, right? You know, if a beer crowd's different than a hard
01:11:21
liquor crowd there. There's a lot of different ways you can go. It's very
01:11:24
difficult to enforce, but I do think the PJ of America is getting a lot of backlash and needs to consider what the
01:11:30
next event would look like. Again, people aren't aren't being over the top
01:11:34
here saying it was ugly. It was absolutely ugly. Something should be done about it, but I I don't think this
01:11:40
is just a problem in golf. We've seen bad fan encounters in a number of ways.
01:11:44
I think gambling is involved here, right? I think that has kind of heightened people's propensity to to go
01:11:51
after athletes when they're mad and they just spent $1,000 on a ticket. They've
01:11:54
been sitting there all day. Team USA is losing. They could have a couple thousand dollars on the Americans to win
01:11:58
the RDER Cup. So, a lot there. It's difficult to solve, but it does need to be solved.
01:12:02
>> Okay, coming back to the golf, um I've seen a range of responses, you know, Dan
01:12:09
Rapapore is someone who's been on the show a number of years, and we always enjoy Dan and he right on the heels of
01:12:14
the tournament, he went to the mat saying, you know, it's not Keegan's fault. Coaches don't hit the ball. I'd
01:12:20
rather him be a player than a coach. It's all on the players. It's on the
01:12:23
players on the players. Okay. Um true to it some extent. Of course, the players have to play. Okay.
01:12:30
But then we have some people are blaming managerial decisions and we can talk about analytics and you know we can get
01:12:38
worked up about you know this there's all this stuff about data golf said that
01:12:41
Morocawa's pairing on Friday and Saturday was 132nd out of 132 possible pairings. That's so bad. And people are
01:12:48
like you know don't take the analytics too far. There's uncertainty on those
01:12:51
things and the differences are small and let's not make too big a fuss out of it.
01:12:56
And I am curious your perspective. I mean you I think you you see the golf you've played golf at high levels you've
01:13:01
caddy golf at high levels you analyze golf so you kind of see it from all these perspectives what is the relative
01:13:06
importance of all of these analytics that we're talking about the edges because you know usually analytics make
01:13:13
a difference but they're not huge differences we're talking about getting
01:13:16
every little edge you can but they're not huge differences relative to you know chefer playing well or poorly.
01:13:21
Yeah, and that's the million-dollar question, right? And I think there are so many different pieces of what you're
01:13:27
talking about. All of it matters and all of it stacks up. And you hear Luke Donald talk about his level of
01:13:33
preparation on the European side down to changing the betting because he wanted the players to get better sleep. And you
01:13:39
know, if you look at his pairings at the BMW PGA Championship a couple weeks ago,
01:13:44
Europe gets to have input on on who gets paired together. and a lot of the golfers that were grouped together ended
01:13:50
up being partners in the RDER Cup. That's not a coincidence. They are actively preparing. To Keegan's credit,
01:13:57
he did the same thing. And at the Procore Championship in Napa, those golfers were playing practice rounds
01:14:02
with each other, got grouped together. And so, I think we have to take a step back when evaluating Keegan Bradley's
01:14:09
captaincy and not only focus on the fact that Colin Morawa and Harris English were paired together twice in Forsomes,
01:14:16
which was a bad pairing. I do I do not want to defend that pairing. But to your point,
01:14:21
>> I think Rory and Tommy were priced I want to say minus 200 minus 210 in that
01:14:27
matchup when they got paired with Harris English and Colin Morawa. So call it a 65% chance that
01:14:34
>> Rory and Fleetwood were going to win. if you tossed a better pairing out at them
01:14:37
like you know maybe it goes to to 60%ish >> and I do not mean to downplay a 5%
01:14:45
>> difference on a match but >> no >> I think it's important to keep in in
01:14:49
check the totality of all of the decisions Keegan made were 2018 the Americans used to do the dumbest most
01:14:57
thoughtless stuff I still don't like some of the decisions that Keegan made but they've come a long way so I think
01:15:02
he was getting kind of butchered you know, crucified for for some of the decisions he made that was maybe a
01:15:08
little out of scale. I I didn't think he was a great captain, but I also think
01:15:12
some of the comments are way overboard and people had started writing those when the US was way down early versus
01:15:17
waiting to watch things play all the way up. >> Right. I I think it's important for
01:15:21
those of us who do practice analytics and um advocate analytics that we keep analytics in perspective and they do
01:15:27
provide edges, but they're relatively small edges typically and the trick is
01:15:31
to stack a bunch of these edges and to practice them consistently. Not that any one thing is gonna make that big a
01:15:37
difference, but also they do reveal a little bit. You know, we um Kevin Cole is an analyst that we have on the show
01:15:42
sometimes focuses on football and he does great um like front office evaluations and we don't know everything
01:15:49
that happens in front offices, but the decisions we do get to see are revealing of a broader philosophy. And I think
01:15:56
that's something analogous here with the writer cup. like some of the decisions
01:16:00
they make reveal on the European side a care for all this detail and analysis and maybe not as much care on the US
01:16:07
side. Um I have two other general questions to ask you. One of them is the course he's
01:16:14
the the US side. I'm not sure who makes that decision whether it's strictly
01:16:17
Keegan or not, but you know a lot about courses and course setups and how course
01:16:21
setups interact with players. Apparently they took the bite out of Beth Bates. They they took the rough down. That's
01:16:27
not the way the course usually plays and there's a lot of criticism for the people who made that decision. What's
01:16:33
your position on the role the course played? >> The teams coming in, their skill sets
01:16:37
were relatively balanced, at least compared to historical RDER cups. Like in 2021 at Whistling Straits, Team USA
01:16:44
had a massive distance advantage and they were on a big golf course and you want to set it up as distance friendly
01:16:50
as possible. Europe's playing from way behind. That was not the case coming into this Ryder Cup. the skill sets were
01:16:56
much more balanced. Depends how you want to look at that just the rosters top to
01:17:00
bottom or if you want to start to weight it. And I think where Team USA potentially regrets some of the setup
01:17:07
decisions is that you think about waiting it, you know, Scotty Sheffller is going to go four to five matches,
01:17:13
probably five matches. And I do believe that setting up the golf course the way they did, chopping the rough down
01:17:19
entirely, muted one of their best players strength in Scotty Sheffller. is a very accurate driver of the golf ball.
01:17:26
Bryson de Shambo isn't. So if you're you know if you it's not like chopping down
01:17:31
the rough changed the the win probability of this thing by 10%. Like I I think people are going a little
01:17:37
overboard on the core setup stuff in this particular case. This is not Paris. This is not Whistling Straits where the
01:17:43
skill sets were radically different. They also range which you can't control.
01:17:46
So that was part of it. But yes, if I were to set the golf course up, especially with the benefit of
01:17:51
hindsight, I think some thicker rough would have benefit the US team, especially given that, you know, Scotty
01:17:56
Sheffler, Russell Henley, JJ Spawn. They had some very accurate drivers of the golf ball. But again, people aren't
01:18:02
talking about Cameron Young. Cameron Young bowled out for the United States, played a lot from the rough.
01:18:07
>> Yeah, >> the setup benefit him. So, it's it is important to keep some of that in
01:18:11
perspective. >> Okay, that's great. That's great. The the last thing that I've heard from a
01:18:15
few places that I I find compelling is that the owner of the Ryder Cup, the PG of America, the the decision makers
01:18:23
bigger than the manager have to have some questions answered. Like it's not just on the players and the manager.
01:18:30
It's like this institutional question. And the fact that the Europeans have so
01:18:34
much more continuity and institutionalization and training programs for their coaches and all these
01:18:39
kinds of things, they're practicing the same things year over year or cycle over
01:18:46
cycle and the US doesn't. The US started this back in the 2010s and then it seems
01:18:52
to been kind of abandoned. What do you have and this is maybe a little far from your expertise but I'm
01:18:58
curious I mean this is I think it's a great way to push the dialogue. It's
01:19:01
like let's go beyond the obvious things. Yeah, they petted poorly and yeah, maybe
01:19:05
Keegan had a few questions he some decisions he missed, but what's behind the scenes year over year, like years
01:19:11
long in the making that what in what way does the US suffer by by that comparison?
01:19:18
>> Well, yeah, I think you're getting at is there's not a lot of stability and
01:19:21
consistency year-over-year with the RDER Cup, who the captain, how they get chosen, their relationship with
01:19:29
whoever's consulting them, getting information. And there's not a lot of
01:19:32
consistency there. Versus on the European side, they kind of have this thing down and there are consistent
01:19:37
voices in the room. >> The most you this past RDER Cup had 11 of the same 12 players in the same
01:19:43
captain. >> It's incredible. >> Some of the overlap in the vice cast
01:19:46
like you can't have more continuity than they just had. So you almost took it to
01:19:51
an extreme and I think that's absolutely beneficial. A lot of the listeners of
01:19:55
this podcast will understand that better than I will with, for example, like changes in offensive coordinators and
01:20:00
defensive coordinators in the NFL and some of the uncertainty that that that can, you know, create. So, I absolutely
01:20:08
think there is something to the US needing to have some more continuity. I don't know who on the American side
01:20:14
knows golf well enough, honestly, to be that voice. And I think that's what they're struggling with. And the other
01:20:21
fascinating point I've heard kind of brought up for the first time over the last couple days that I never really
01:20:25
thought about is that the President's Cup, you know, that's the United States
01:20:28
versus the international team, which happens every other year, whichever year the Ryder Cup isn't, might be hurting
01:20:35
the United States in in the way that they prepare for the Ryder Cup. And that they do this thing every year. It takes
01:20:44
a little bit of the, you know, it's h this thing again, this thing again versus, you know, a little more scarcity
01:20:49
and really getting themselves prepared for it, really taking a lot of pride in it. Okay, the record since the
01:20:54
President's Cup started, the United States isn't very good. I don't I don't
01:20:58
know exactly how much credence there could be to that, but it's an interesting angle to explore that team
01:21:02
Europe just takes this thing a little more seriously. >> Okay. Okay. Now, let me ask you a couple
01:21:07
of cheaper, you know, superficial questions, just fun questions. You can just riff, do as little or as much as
01:21:12
you want of this. Um, one is as as long as we're talking about ownership and
01:21:16
captainship, the name everyone's kicking around now is Tiger Woods and and he he apparently
01:21:22
passed on this time, but like how do you from you from your being around golf and
01:21:26
from your having been around some RDER Cups, how do you think Tiger would do as a captain? Now, that's only one factor,
01:21:32
but it's an important factor. How do you think Tiger would do as a >> Yeah, if I had to guess, Tiger
01:21:38
understands how there how there are much fewer responsibilities when you're an
01:21:42
away captain, so he probably did not want to be the home captain, but I I don't know that for sure. Uh I I'm
01:21:47
skeptical of a Tiger Woods captaincy. I think if you believe a ton in the emotional side and guys getting up for
01:21:55
their captain, then that is a very strong reason that you pick Tiger Woods. Who wouldn't want to play for Tiger
01:22:01
Woods? and who wouldn't be differential to him and trust him on decision. So
01:22:05
that's the the pros of picking Tiger. I think there are a lot of cons of picking
01:22:09
Tiger. One, he never cared about the RDER Cup. He didn't play well in the Ryder Cup. He was pretty vocal about it
01:22:15
not being everything to him. So, you know, is he going to put his heart and soul into it the way that we'd watched
01:22:20
Luke Donald do it and tap every edge and, you know, give everything he has to it? I don't know. Does Tiger Woods
01:22:27
will will he have put out optimal pairings or will he go a little bit more with like you know what I trust Jordan
01:22:32
Speed in this situation and look at his record from eight years ago? Like I I am
01:22:36
very skeptical of any Rder Cup captain until we actually see the decisions that they make. So sure could Tiger be good?
01:22:43
He could be. But I kind of like this angle of Luke Donald. Like the player, they were talking about it on our pod
01:22:50
today. Like the player who got everything out of their game and was very analytical about their game could
01:22:55
be the type of captain you want that, you know, is just a little bit more intelligent about the sport.
01:23:00
>> Okay. When you think about that next generation of players moving into the
01:23:04
age where they might become a captain, Keegan got there pretty early, obviously. Who might fit that profile
01:23:09
that you just described? It's a great question. In thinking about it, I could see somebody like Web
01:23:19
Simpson who, you know, he never hit the ball particularly far. He was pretty good RDER cut player, got a lot out of
01:23:25
his game, probably pretty intelligent about the game, but I don't know that for sure, right? You'd love to interview
01:23:29
them and actually get a feel for their relationship with data, how much they understand this stuff, you know, how
01:23:34
open-minded they are. I think those are important questions to ask. Webb Simpson
01:23:38
comes to mind. I think Xander Schoffley is actually really intelligent about the
01:23:41
sport in in a way that I don't know how well he could command a locker room and
01:23:46
some of that, but I I think he could potentially down the line be an interesting captain. So, I don't know
01:23:51
that I have great some people have some confidence in Bran Snedker. I'd be eager
01:23:55
to see how he talks about it, but uh those are a couple names. Xander is a random one, but I think Sneder and Web
01:24:02
Simpson you will see in the rotation in some capacity. So, I guess I'm somewhat
01:24:06
optimistic about what they would do, but again, I want to caution that we haven't
01:24:09
actually heard from them. >> Yeah. Right. Well, you said the same thing. You said what's their
01:24:13
relationship to data, how open-minded they are. I would like to emphasize the latter. Of course, you know, being data
01:24:19
friendly or data literate would be a plus. But the most important thing is that people are open-minded and they're
01:24:25
interested in edges from anywhere. This is the best organizations, the best leaders are open to edges from anywhere
01:24:32
because they realize what we're doing is tough here. It's going to be a close
01:24:36
thing. We need to find any edge we can take and that means listening to some people that might be coming at it from
01:24:40
an orthodox perspective. So, I love what you said. Open-mindedness. It seems it seems important in lots of other sports.
01:24:46
All right, last question. This could go a little technical. We'll try not to go
01:24:50
too technical, especially without Audi because it's an Audi question, but I want I do want to hear your take on
01:24:54
putting. I I haven't seen the exact breakdown on the first two days, but I and or even
01:25:01
into Sunday, but I I gather that the Europe the Europeans certainly seem to putt better than the Americans. So, if
01:25:08
the stats bore that out, what would you need to see to believe that that was more than just chance? And I guess it
01:25:18
comes down to your beliefs about putting. You know, it's it's one of these events, just stochcastic events in
01:25:24
sports that we know make a big difference in the outcome, but we have a hard time
01:25:31
seeing persistence over time. So, they're not super predictive of like next period. And when those kinds of
01:25:35
that's like fumbles recovered, fumbles recovered greatly determined football
01:25:38
games, but they they are pretty much chance. So, there's some thinking. I mean, the the nihilists among us will
01:25:46
say, you know, these guys all are pretty similar putters um except maybe at the edges and some are going to drop some
01:25:52
bombs and some are going to miss and that's just chance and that's just what
01:25:55
happened. So, I'm curious your take as a as a someone who's been around the
01:25:59
sport. Where are you on the nihilistic scale when it comes to putting that how persistent or luck based is it at that
01:26:06
level on days like >> Much less nihilistic? >> You are okay. >> I'd say much less nihilistic than I used
01:26:12
to be. Uh I think there's it is a very unpredictable stat. It is not completely
01:26:20
unpredictable. It is not you know blindfold and and throw a dart like it is there. You can a I'm also a huge
01:26:29
believer in pressure. Putting under pressure and playing under pressure is a different sport than you know what your
01:26:35
make percentage from 5 to 10 feet when you know you're 10 shots out of the lead
01:26:39
at the Sanderson Farms Championship. No disrespect to the Sanderson, but you you
01:26:44
know Justin Rose is an excellent putter. He putt out of his mind again at Beth Page. Is that predicted? Can could we
01:26:52
have predicted that? Like not necessarily, but I I don't think it's just completely random. I will also say
01:26:58
that those greens at Beth Page were extremely easy to putt on and dead flat. Not a lot of break in them. The
01:27:05
conditions were easy. Like if you were missing a lot of putts, you're probably
01:27:09
not a great putter. I I know Sam Burns didn't have his best putting week and
01:27:12
he's a great putter. So, sure, there it's still a noisy statistic, but no, I
01:27:16
would not say that this championship just came down to putting, therefore, the outcome was random. I'm not on that.
01:27:23
>> Okay. >> On that, too. >> Okay. Um, you said this thing about
01:27:26
pressure, which I think we now people like yourself who do golf analytics have established this, and I've heard Rufus
01:27:33
talk about like guys do perform worse with the lead. That's the single best I
01:27:38
think example of pressure in golf. like we know this now. To what extent is there heterog heterogeneity and to what
01:27:44
extent in these teams these US and European teams do you think there is heterogeneity in ability to perform
01:27:51
under pressure or have they already gone out and got kind of the cream of the crop on guys who can perform under
01:27:56
pressure or is it conversely the Europeans are so much more experienced bringing back the same guys and we had
01:28:02
some newcomers that experience alone might have been a differentiator in terms of per
01:28:09
Yeah, my very unsatisfying answer is that I think performance under pressure is absolutely a real thing, but it is
01:28:16
also not necessarily predictive. And we see a lot of golfers who were once thought to not be able to play under
01:28:25
pressure who then go on to win a major championship and then the entire narrative changes about them over two
01:28:31
putting strokes. Right. Alexander Schoffley, that was kind of >> a pervasive narrative around him. We've
01:28:37
seen it with other golfers, too. I mean, Cameron Young to a lesser extent. So, do
01:28:42
I think there are certain golfers who cannot perform under pressure? Yes. Can they figure it out? Maybe. But like
01:28:49
team Europe believes that rookies perform poorly on the road and that that that is significantly due to playing in
01:28:57
a more high pressure, high intensity environment. So, >> interesting. I think there's there's
01:29:02
absolutely something to that. And they took a bunch of veterans to play on the road. It'd be an interesting thing to
01:29:06
look at. The data is kind of hard. It's small sample size and you want to look
01:29:09
at strokes gain. You don't want to necessarily look at records. And that makes looking at RDER Cup, you know,
01:29:14
historical data very difficult, but um I think it's really hard to nail down
01:29:19
who's good under pressure and who isn't. And I wouldn't hold it against somebody
01:29:22
too much if they haven't been good under pressure historically. But again, these
01:29:27
these captains have insight we don't have. They're talking to these people.
01:29:30
Sometimes guys are a little timid about some of this stuff. And I know some names of of golfers who people don't
01:29:35
don't really believe that they believe in themselves. And I think there is something to it.
01:29:39
>> Interesting. Okay. Great. All right. Great fun. Joseph, thanks for jumping on
01:29:44
here with us for the first time. Thanks for slipping away from the tournament you're covering there in Dallas. Thank
01:29:49
you for um making time for us on a relatively short notice to talk about a topic that is on everybody's mind right
01:29:55
now in the sports world. Joseph, tell us where people can find your work before you go.
01:30:02
Yeah, I appreciate you having me. I do really enjoy the show. You can read the Friday golf newsletter uh or all Friday
01:30:10
golf channels. Like that's the main place to find us. So, I think that's the
01:30:14
only thing that I have to plug and hook them. >> Hook them. All right. Big game back to
01:30:18
SEC play this weekend. Let's let's get it going. Joseph, >> thanks for having us and thank you
01:30:22
listeners for being with us through this overtime segment. Many thanks for the whole team here. Eric Bradlo especially
01:30:28
for jumping in and running point in that first half. Audi Winer, Shane Jensen, the whole crew here for the whole time.
01:30:33
Dion Simpkins making things happen. Deep Patel and Marissa Raina, the full team.
01:30:38
Many thanks to you guys and thanks to you listeners. Come back and join us next time. Between now and then, enjoy
01:30:44
your sports. [Music]