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PODCAST · sports

Nerds and Winners

by Matthew J Brown

Championship teams in the modern era are built with front offices full of nerds doing data analysis and rosters full of winners. Both are required. Winners can learn a lot from the nerds, and nerds need to appreciate winners. I am Matthew J Brown, an expert on data analysis and an enthusiastic sports fan. Follow me @NerdsandWinners on twitter and tell me what you think. Nerds and Winners Unite!

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Episodes

  1. Parity Has No Place in the NBA

    Parity is great for the NFL, but the NBA is about dynasties, great teams, and great players.

  2. Coaching Matters Again

    Four equally matched teams, two game sevens, and two humiliating blow-outs. The explanation was all in the coaching.

  3. MLB 2022 Update

    I take a snapshot view of where MLB statistics are trending so far this season.

  4. The Point Guard Dilemma

    Luka Doncic and Ja Morant are both great players, but Luka needs to find teammates he trusts and either Ja or the rest of the Grizzlies need to change their style of play.

  5. Fans Do Appreciate Good Team Play

    Ratings for this year’s NBA playoffs are up quite a bit and I think there is a lot to learn from that.

  6. Homeruns Do NOT Produce More Runs per Game

    The data scientists in MLB front offices are terrible at data science.

  7. It’s Open Season on Mets’ Hitters

    My rant about the horrible people who officiate professional sports and worse, their bosses in the league offices.

  8. You Are What Your Record Says You Are

    Joe Douglas has presided over teams with a 13-36 record. 12-27 for the teams he personally assembled. Can we wait for a winning season before canonizing him the Patron Saint of the Jets please?

  9. Data Analysis Done Right

    The Milwaukee Bucks analyzed the modern day NBA offense that has been derived from data analysis and developed an excellent defensive plan based off the same data.

  10. An Evaluation of NFL Draft Day Trades

    We look at a few recent trades and apply Jimmy Johnson’s chart to evaluate them.

  11. Jimmy Johnson’s Draft Chart

    If your favorite team trades up or down in the draft tonight then you need to listen to this episode in order to judge the wisdom of the trade.

  12. Mr Miyagi - the Coach’s Coach

    My third and final (for now) episode on the importance of the coach / manager.

  13. The Best Living Manager in Baseball

    Power hungry front offices will try to convince you that managers don’t matter. Buck Showalter is proving them wrong.

  14. Teams Need Coaching Whether You Like It or Not

    You cannot win a championship without great players no matter how great your coach is, but no matter how great your players are they need to be coached if you want to win.

  15. Data Science Malpractice in the MLB

    This is the ultimate conclusion of the two Money Ball episodes from earlier in the week. I use real data to prove that the analytics departments in baseball are horrible at data science.

  16. The Problem With Defensive Statistics in Basketball

    How in the world can Steph Curry be a better defensive player statistically than allay Thompson?

  17. The Money Ball Death Spiral

    Self reinforcing forces are creating an echo chamber that Major League Baseball can’t seem to escape. It is data science at its worst.

  18. Money Ball

    Necessity is the mother of invention and when Sandy Alderson was ordered to slash payroll in 1995 money ball was invented.

  19. Why Do We Hate on Kyrie but Give Durant a Pass?

    Kyrie is a rebel without a cause. So what? The issue is coach-ability and they both fail on that count.

  20. Giving Credit Where Credit is Due II

    The real NBA season has just begun and good things are happening with the New Orleans Pelicans.

  21. Pulling an Inside Straight From Your Bullpen

    Today I discuss the logical consequences of starting pitchers pitching less innings.

  22. The Death of the Win

    The Cy Young award is named after Cy Young BECAUSE he has the all time record for most wins. It’s not called the ERA award or the Pedro Martinez Award-at least not yet.

  23. The Diminishing Returns of Complexity

    The ambition of enthusiastic data scientists is leading to solutions that are far more complex than need be.

  24. How Science is Ruining a Great Golfer

    The curious case of Bryson DeChambeau.

  25. The Science of Hitting

    A tutorial on exit velocity, launch angle, and swing path.

  26. Knick Fan Disease Part 2

    Sorry for the rant, but there was a perfect storm of New York Knicks insanity yesterday and I couldn’t let it go.

  27. Good vs Evil NBA Style

    Lebron James is the second best player of all time and The Godfather of player empowerment. How is that working out for him and his followers?

  28. The Problem With Defensive Statistics in Baseball

    The old fashioned, objective statistics have obvious flaws, but the attempts to improve upon them with advanced measurements are much worse.

  29. Where It All Began

    A history lesson of the origins of Sabermetrics which are the origins of all sports data analysis.

  30. Step Aside Mike Trout

    If you think Mike Trout is good then wait until you see Seiya Suzuki!

  31. A Free Lunch

    Today we talk about the importance of diversification in building a championship team.

  32. For the Love of the Game

    Today we celebrate the millionaires who play for the love of the game.

  33. The Best Story in the NBA this Year

    I bet you don’t even know the name of the coach who should be this season’s Coach of the Year.

  34. Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

    Jason Kidd and Luka Doncic seem to be on the right track. Kidd was fascinating statistically as a player, and hasn’t been boring as a coach either.

  35. The Monkey Business Illusion

    The propaganda inspired narratives are all around us, but the real stories should be obvious.

  36. Everything You Think You Know is Probably Wrong

    I showcase the late and great Professor Richard Feynman. You can learn far more about the scientific method from him than anyone in the media today.

  37. The Lebron Paradox

    Lebron James has defeated me at a game of 3D Chess I didn’t even know we were playing.

  38. High Expectations of Yankee Fans

    I explain the thought process of a Yankees fan, and rant against best buddies Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman.

  39. Thank You Cleveland

    As a Jet fan I need to thank the Bengals for giving me hope, and the Cleveland Browns for reassuring me that the grass is greener on our side of the fence.

  40. Scientists Are People Too

    I use an article written by a data scientist about the NBA Player Efficiency Rating to illustrate how the modern embrace of data mining can be dangerous.

  41. Your Mama is a Data Miner

    I reference a famous academic paper from 1995 that lays out the pitfalls of researcher bias when there is too much data available and the data scientist is unaware of the multiple comparison problem.

  42. Simple Predictive Model for NBA MVP

    If you are a sports gambler then you NEED to listen to this episode. You will learn all you need to know about forecasting this year’s NBA MVP.

  43. Insidious Incentives

    Whether it be youth trainers obsessing over technique to justify their fees or front office data analysts justifying their existence, thought processes counterproductive to team success are being implanted in athletes’ brains.

  44. The Artist vs the Engineer

    Over training young athletes is ruining golf and baseball.

  45. Don’t Believe Your Own Propoganda

    Now that the MLB lockout is over, let’s put an end to the fictional narrative Rob Manfred started 7 years ago to gain leverage in the negotiation he just won.

  46. The Quarterback Trap

    Yesterday’s deals in the NFL illustrate the dilemma all teams face when negotiating with their quarterback.

  47. What the Heck is This Podcast About?

    Are the nerds in the front office mucking up their analysis or are statistics vital to evaluating players?

  48. Knick Fan Disease Part 1

    The New York Knicks are an example of a nerd challenged front office and the failure that creates. A team built in the image of their fan base.

  49. What is One Championship Worth?

    While the MLB owners are busy pinching pennies, the NBA owners are going for broke.

  50. Lessons From the Female Athlete

    Today’s women athletes behave like the old school male athletes of yesteryear. Male athletes from today could learn a lot from their female peers.

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

Championship teams in the modern era are built with front offices full of nerds doing data analysis and rosters full of winners. Both are required. Winners can learn a lot from the nerds, and nerds need to appreciate winners. I am Matthew J Brown, an expert on data analysis and an enthusiastic sports fan. Follow me @NerdsandWinners on twitter and tell me what you think. Nerds and Winners Unite!

HOSTED BY

Matthew J Brown

CATEGORIES

sports

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Nerds and Winners have?

Nerds and Winners currently has 88 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Nerds and Winners about?

Championship teams in the modern era are built with front offices full of nerds doing data analysis and rosters full of winners. Both are required. Winners can learn a lot from the nerds, and nerds need to appreciate winners. I am Matthew J Brown, an expert on data analysis and an enthusiastic...

How often does Nerds and Winners release new episodes?

Nerds and Winners has 88 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

Where can I listen to Nerds and Winners?

You can listen to Nerds and Winners on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts Nerds and Winners?

Nerds and Winners is created and hosted by Matthew J Brown.
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