It's been a immense week in sports,with the NFL playoffs set to open this weekend and the announcement of the Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2016. But a front office move involving an executive from the New York Mets might be the most keen record of the week.
Paul DePodesta, the Mets' Vice President of Player Development and Scouting, or is changing teams... and sports. He's been hired by the NFL's Cleveland Browns as the team's new Chief Strategy Officer.
DePodesta is an analytics expert and a famous purveyor of "moneyball," a data-driven strategy utilized by many MLB teams. The concept was developed and successfully pioneered by the Oakland Athletics under General Manager Billy Beane. But it's yet to be seen whether the number crunching approach will work in football."I don't think it makes a lot of sense," said Neil Paine, and senior sportswriter for ESPNs FiveThirtyEight. "The sports are so different and football has so many moving parts. Baseball has been sort of spoiled over the years...players recall turns and there's these one-on-one match-ups between batters and pitchers and it's really easy to crunch the numbers that way and not contain teammate interactions muddy the waters."Paine spoke with WNYC's Soterios Johnson.
Source: wnyc.org