David McWater & His Moneyball-Like Tactics In Measuring Prospects

[HeadBodyBodyBody]

You can quantify anything. How right or wrong you are in doing so is up for ongoing discussion & reaccessing. And how you go about quantifying it is obviously important to.

Again I don't think this is an exact science as nothing involving probability, including those Moneyball guys theories, is ever going to be. Its only a means to improve your odds on success & intangibles will always have a say in that process. Go read Len Bias' or a million other prospects wiki pages for more on that.

There are some things that you can't quantify. Like a mother's love.

How can you quantify a man's desire to keep putting himself in the path of danger, to the point of potential death? Because that is a regular occurrence in boxing, and a core foundation of this beautiful sport... How do you quantify that? Do you class that level of heart at 'infinity' or something? It makes no sense to put a number on that, to my mind. I think a moneyball approach is very interesting, but boxing is not a sport that lends itself to this style of analysis... it belongs more to artists, musicians, writers

[tritium_arma]

I don't think this would work too well in boxing. A punch is not equal to a punch in many cases, due to power / speed / effect it has on an opponent, whereas a point is always worth a point in basketball or baseball. Even punches themselves are subjective since some people might think a punch landed while others wouldn't.

I think using stats to quantify tendencies and trends an opponent takes might be somewhat useful however.

[WBC WBA IBF WBO]

TR is an outlier with having 12% of their guys fight for a title.

LOL thanks to the warren bob organization.

[billeau2]

There are some things that you can't quantify. Like a mother's love.

How can you quantify a man's desire to keep putting himself in the path of danger, to the point of potential death? Because that is a regular occurrence in boxing, and a core foundation of this beautiful sport... How do you quantify that? Do you class that level of heart at 'infinity' or something? It makes no sense to put a number on that, to my mind. I think a moneyball approach is very interesting, but boxing is not a sport that lends itself to this style of analysis... it belongs more to artists, musicians, writers

There are just no good stats in boxing to really use like in baseball. In a moneyball kind of way at least. Fighting more often does allow for there to be better scouting applied no doubt and amateur fights are shorter. So looking at what a guy can do over 3 2 minute rounds sporting contest is a lot easier to make predictions on, as opposessed to 12 3 minutes rounds where one guy may be prepared to die that night but the other is looking at it a just another night another payday.

Now if they take it to where baseball scouting is now where they use crazy cameras to measure how much spin a dude puts on a curve ball or how much a dude can really barrel up the ball consistently. Still there were always scouts that could tell a killer curveball and just listen to a cat hitting a ball to know the kind of wood they can put on it. It would simplify it though and make gathering such info easier. I could see how filming a guy with those camera to measure torque, velocity, force, angles that they can punch at where that could help out.


Still if a guy can really do that stuff under pressure or when the going gets tough is not something that can be quantified. There is obviously some pressure in baseball, and hitting a baseball is called the hardest thing in sports for a reason but it it totally different where a fight has so many moving parts.


Boxing to me is just a really different kettle of fish, finding talent has never been a huge issue. Finding talent that can really get the job done in the ring mentally and have a long career is hard, because it is such a hard game to actually stay on top.

Both spot on! What I say next is not meant to insult, it is just real talk... Football and baseball have institutions that protect investments by treating people like property. the draft is a glorified Slave auction in many regards, both seek to deliver a human being as a means to an end, and assess the value of this human chattle, whether that individual be a quarterback, or was a very strong individual. These institutions are bankrolled. If one goes to a Stamford event, the most black tie, lavish, are those events attracting interest in the football program.

In Baseball more colleges are also becoming a farm system. Why not? kids in High School can throw over 80!

Boxing does not have the structure, as both posters indicate, to act as an insurance agent, welping bin, and talent builder that colleges have taken on in becoming surrogate professional grading systems.

Team sports have psychological dynamics that allow for support, as well as a shared interest in delivering the best individuals forward. In fact we seldom hear of abject failures on the part of athletes (it does happen) because of how good college and the sandlots have become.

Boxing relies has some similar elements...We have amateur teams, with coaches, and in the ammys, many great production models, like Cuba exist to develop young fighters. But as a professional fighter things change and it is recognized that the abilities a fighter may have had as an amateur may not carry over. for example, Tyrone Biggs versus Mike Tyson.

Part of the reason is the mental toughness required of a fighter. Also, a fighter has to be able to deal with being managed. There are so many examples of extremely talented fighters who simply cannot be managed...Like Oliver McCall, for example. Boxing has in fact always relied upon intuition and the ability to recognize talent in a variety of circumstances...

For example: Would anyone here have believed Galileo was not crazy? Probably not...Except the late great Charlie Goldman. Goldman was as crazy as Galileo, talking up a bowlegged, ex catcher, with two left feet, no reach, and no size to speak of. Rocky certainly was not going to make it as a catcher in the big leagues, no scout would pass him along, yet Goldman saw something in Marciano and history was made. And that is the qualitative, the "mothers love for her son", type logic that makes the statistical, the Quantitative data, such a nothing burger, in boxing. Boxing talent is brought along the old fashioned way... where intuition, skills, and personality all have to come together in a special way, to make a fighter.

[Eff Pandas]

There are some things that you can't quantify. Like a mother's love.

How can you quantify a man's desire to keep putting himself in the path of danger, to the point of potential death? Because that is a regular occurrence in boxing, and a core foundation of this beautiful sport... How do you quantify that? Do you class that level of heart at 'infinity' or something? It makes no sense to put a number on that, to my mind. I think a moneyball approach is very interesting, but boxing is not a sport that lends itself to this style of analysis... it belongs more to artists, musicians, writers

I bet you had trouble in algebra & beyond in school.

ANYTHING can be given a value.

[Eff Pandas]

2 more, signed to Golden Boy https://twitter.com/timmyvann/status...427929600?s=19

Thanks for bumping with this news. Completely forgot about this thread but I had seen those scouting reports.

I'd still like to see the stuff Tim & David aren't showing ppl.

Also of note Split T recently has brought in a guy who manages a lot of female boxers which makes me think they might be making a play into the womens side more where this info might not be as valuable but a high level female boxing monopoly could be made potentially if such a goal was what they had in mind in the mid to distant future.

[Eff Pandas]

I don't think this would work too well in boxing. A punch is not equal to a punch in many cases, due to power / speed / effect it has on an opponent, whereas a point is always worth a point in basketball or baseball. Even punches themselves are subjective since some people might think a punch landed while others wouldn't.

I think using stats to quantify tendencies and trends an opponent takes might be somewhat useful however.

I feel like you're talking about punch stats more than putting values on attributes.

But I mean think about it like this. If a knowledgeable boxing person is watching fighters & putting a value on their jab, their uppercut, their punch resistance, their defense, their toughness, their IQ in & out of the ring & various other attributes & intangibles to the best of their knowledge & ability how is that NOT gonna enhance the quality of fighters you sign if you use that as your system to sign fighters? To me this is just a simple equation of more info is better to make a imperfect decision than less info.

Does this mean every fighter they pick up is gonna fight for a title? Hell no. Does it mean they can do better than TR's 12% odds on moving a guy from debut to title shot? I guess we will find out.

[Eff Pandas]

LOL thanks to the warren bob organization.

I'm all for dogging Bob, but in fairness to Bob he has done great getting guys to a first belt or their only belt well before they were in whatever cahoots they are currently in with the WBO on.

[TheMyspaceDayz]

A knowledgeable person who understands the actual fighting part of the sport will always be more reliable than some Moneyballer. I can see it working as an upgrade for the uninitiated but it’d be a downgrade for me.

[WBC WBA IBF WBO]

I'm all for dogging Bob, but in fairness to Bob he has done great getting guys to a first belt or their only belt well before they were in whatever cahoots they are currently in with the WBO on.

You mean back when he confessed to bribing the IBF for years? Or do you mean back when he confessed to bribing the WBA for years?