#85 A Brief History of Sports Analytics, with Jim Albert

In this episode, I am honored to talk with a legend of sports analytics in general, and baseball analytics in particular. I am of course talking about Jim Albert.

Jim grew up in the Philadelphia area and studied statistics at Purdue University. He then spent his entire 41-year academic career at Bowling Green State University, which gave him a wide diversity of classes to teach – from intro statistics through doctoral level.

As you’ll hear, he’s always had a passion for Bayesian education, Bayesian modeling and learning about statistics through sports. I find that passion fascinating about Jim, and I suspect that’s one of the main reasons for his prolific career — really, the list of his writings and teachings is impressive; just go take a look at the show notes.

Now an Emeritus Professor of Bowling Green, Jim is retired, but still an active tennis player and writer on sports analytics — his blog, “Exploring Baseball with R”, is nearing 400 posts!

Our theme music is « Good Bayesian », by Baba Brinkman (feat MC Lars and Mega Ran). Check out his awesome work at https://bababrinkman.com/ !

Thank you to my Patrons for making this episode possible!

Yusuke Saito, Avi Bryant, Ero Carrera, Giuliano Cruz, Tim Gasser, James Wade, Tradd Salvo, William Benton, James Ahloy, Robin Taylor,, Chad Scherrer, Nathaniel Neitzke, Zwelithini Tunyiswa, Bertrand Wilden, James Thompson, Stephen Oates, Gian Luca Di Tanna, Jack Wells, Matthew Maldonado, Ian Costley, Ally Salim, Larry Gill, Ian Moran, Paul Oreto, Colin Caprani, Colin Carroll, Nathaniel Burbank, Michael Osthege, Rémi Louf, Clive Edelsten, Henri Wallen, Hugo Botha, Vinh Nguyen, Raul Maldonado, Marcin Elantkowski, Adam C. Smith, Will Kurt, Andrew Moskowitz, Hector Munoz, Marco Gorelli, Simon Kessell, Bradley Rode, Patrick Kelley, Rick Anderson, Casper de Bruin, Philippe Labonde, Michael Hankin, Cameron Smith, Tomáš Frýda, Ryan Wesslen, Andreas Netti, Riley King, Yoshiyuki Hamajima, Sven De Maeyer, Michael DeCrescenzo, Fergal M, Mason Yahr, Naoya Kanai, Steven Rowland, Aubrey Clayton, Jeannine Sue, Omri Har Shemesh, Scott Anthony Robson, Robert Yolken, Or Duek, Pavel Dusek, Paul Cox, Trey Causey, Andreas Kröpelin, Raphaël R, Nicolas Rode, Gabriel Stechschulte, Arkady, Kurt TeKolste, Gergely Juhasz, Marcus Nölke, Maggi Mackintosh, Grant Pezzolesi, Avram Aelony and Joshua Meehl.

Visit https://www.patreon.com/learnbayesstats to unlock exclusive Bayesian swag ;)

Links from the show:

Jim’s website: https://bayesball.github.io/
Jim’s baseball blog: https://baseballwithr.wordpress.com/
Jim on...