Who the Greatest Athletes are with Statistics

One of my favorite ways to explore sports statistics is by looking at the greatest athletes. With so many numbers available, athletes can be compared easily. This makes for an exciting topic. It is especially interesting when discussing who the top athletes are in each sport or overall. Imagine how much time sports analysts spend creating these lists! They rank the top 100 athletes of all time or from the last century. In this blog, I’ll break down how to analyze athlete performances across various sports.

Team Sports: The Complexities of Evaluating Great Athletes

Team sports like baseball, basketball, hockey, and football add complexity. They need assessing individual performance within the context of teamwork.

• Characteristics: Success in these sports relies heavily on cooperation, strategy, and how players interact with one another. Individual performances can significantly impact a team’s success, but statistics often show both personal contributions and overall team results.
• Implications for Greatness: Evaluating greatness in team sports can be tricky. In football, for example, it is challenging to compare quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers. Each position has different responsibilities and metrics. Defensive players also have their own stats to consider, making direct comparisons complicated. This complexity highlights the need for a thorough approach. It acknowledges the different contributions of athletes in various roles.

The Unique Nature of Baseball: Individual Stats in a Team Context

Baseball holds a special place in the sports world. Baseball is a team sport. But individual statistics are very important. There is direct competition between the batter and the pitcher.

• Characteristics: In baseball, pitchers and batters have distinct roles, leading to various statistics. Pitchers are judged on earned run average (ERA), strikeouts, and wins. Batters are evaluated based on batting average, home runs, and on-base percentage.
• Implications for Greatness: This split allows for both individual and team achievements, making comparisons with other sports more complicated. A player’s greatness can be measured by their individual stats, but their contributions to the team’s success also matter.
• Advanced Statistics: With tools like Statcast, baseball has entered a new era of analytics. We can now measure the velocity of the ball off the bat. We can also figure out its launch angle. These measurements give insights into how well a batter connects with the ball. For pitchers, we can track the ball’s drop before it reaches the plate. This helps evaluate pitch effectiveness and movement. These advanced metrics add depth to our understanding of each player’s performance and highlight their impact on the game.

Here’s another blog about how the baseball season could be improved: Reimagining Baseball: A Statistician’s Vision for a Better Season

Direct Competition Sports: Head-to-Head Showdowns

Direct competition sports involve athletes facing off against each other in a more immediate way. Examples include boxing, tennis, and arm wrestling.

• Characteristics: Here, the outcome is determined by direct interaction between competitors. Each athlete must execute well while also trying to outdo their opponent.
• Implications for Greatness: This format makes it simple to assess greatness through head-to-head matches. Winning against top competitors in important matches is a strong indicator of an athlete’s skill and dominance.

Individual Sports: Measuring Success Through Personal Achievement

In individual sports, athletes compete alone without direct competition affecting their performance. Examples include golf, swimming, and track and field.

• Characteristics: Success in these sports is mostly measured by times, distances, or scores achieved independently. For example, a swimmer’s speed is timed, and a runner’s performance is based on their finish time.
• Implications for Greatness: The greatness of athletes in these areas is often judged through records, personal bests, and championship titles. It’s easier to compare these athletes since their performances are not influenced by opponents during the event. But hey, if we did add defense, at least we’d have more entertaining highlights!
• Humorous Twist: Imagine if we added a defensive element to these sports! Picture a golfer racing to the tee box. They try to tee off before their opponent throws up a net to block the shot. Consider bowling. The opponent stands in the next lane. They can make as much noise as possible to distract the bowler. Now that would make for some entertaining competitions!

The Challenges of Judge-Scored Sports: Unclear Scores and Personal Opinions

In judged sports—like gymnastics, figure skating, or surfing—the way greatness is measured can be less clear.

• Characteristics: These sports depend on judges to evaluate performance based on execution, difficulty, and artistic impression. This dependence can lead to subjective outcomes.
• Implications for Greatness: Athletes in these sports show amazing skill and creativity. Nonetheless, the subjectivity involved makes it hard to measure greatness against sports with clear performance metrics. Using head-to-head competition or factual measures provides a better framework for evaluating athletic excellence.

System for Creating a List of the Top 100 Greatest Athletes

To create a list of the greatest athletes, I use these criteria:

1. Focusing on Team Sports: I give lower priority to athletes in individual sports unless they face significant competition.
2. Excluding Judge-Scored Sports: While entertaining, the subjectivity in judging makes it less reliable. Thus, I focus on sports with clear performance metrics.
3. Emphasizing Popularity and Competition: Athletes from popular sports like football, basketball, and baseball get more weight in rankings. This is because these sports have a higher level of competition.
4. Navigating Historical Bias: There’s often a bias toward athletes we remember from recent years. Recognizing the limitations of historical footage and the competitiveness of different eras is important in these evaluations.
5. Highlighting Rising Sports: Sports like MMA (mixed martial arts) and arm wrestling are growing in popularity. It’s crucial to include these fields in the evaluation. Although both need pay-per-view events, their rising fan bases mean more athletes from these sports deserve recognition among the greatest.

Conclusion: The Quest for the Greatest Athletes

Sports sparks passion and debate around the world. Analyzing athlete performances through statistics gives us a valuable way to rank greatness. We examine the unique aspects of different sports. We also set clear evaluation criteria. This way, we can create a balanced and informed list of the top 100 athletes. This approach honors the achievements of both past and current athletes. It enriches our understanding of what it means to be truly great in the sports world. As we continue this journey for excellence, the conversation about athletic greatness will evolve. It will be driven by data and passionate discussion alike.

For more insights, check out my other blogs on baseball, football, and arm wrestling.