The Bernstein Brief: Blackhawks Lead City's Teams In Analytics
By Dan Bernstein-
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) A fascinating new story by ESPN has attempted to rank every team in major pro sports by how eagerly and how well each has integrated the use of advanced statistical analytics into player evaluation and scouting. The results were shown relative to each league and overall -- listing the top and bottom 10 of the 113 total franchises.
Here's how the locals fared:
The lowest score goes to the Bulls, classified as "skeptics." The old-school front office that descended from Jerry Krause is well behind the curve, despite employing a nominal stats director.
Both the White Sox and Bears were placed in the "one foot in" group, with the former still moving out of the Ken Williams philosophy and the latter's future unclear under the new regime after Phil Emery's efforts to increase the use of data.
Count the Cubs among those "all in," as we know, complimented as the "Midwestern version of the Red Sox."
But tops in sports per this assessment are the Blackhawks, not just No. 1 in the NHL for their embrace of Corsi and Fenwick metrics to measure puck possession and scoring chances, but No. 10 in all of pro sports and called a "pioneer."
And yes, it would be nice if the data could point to a clear way out of a three-game losing streak.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.
