Baseball projection crosses over
DMZ · May 30, 2008 at 9:25 am · Filed Under Cool stuff
If you’re like me and a political junkie outside your baseball fandom, you may have seen the rise of FiveThirtyEight, this crazy… I don’t know, meta-poll? Political projection system? It’s made a lot of waves by being particularly accurate in figuring out which way contests will go based on weighting, regression analysis, most similar districts… yeah, it’s Nate Silver, of Baseball Prospectus, the guy behind PECOTA.
Pretty awesome. I didn’t see that coming, though in retrospect I should have at least suspected. I didn’t.
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I am said junkie and didn’t know about this. Thanks.
I was thinking about posting this to the last thread but it was off topic. Very cool, especially because he’s been doing better than a lot of professional pollsters.
That is a great site. Going to be a close one!
Wow. That site is even more awesome now, for some reason.
I’ve given short mention of it in a different thread, but this seems pretty poignant so I guess I’ll expound: I’m managing a campaign for Washington House of Legislatures. Going into it, I’d done a lot of work for campaigns, but never as a leader. While the former was often a lot of people interaction, the latter has become very data driven. Where before I was driving to locations and doorbelling, or putting up yardsigns, now I’m analyzing voter turnouts, percentages of votes cast on certain initiatives and candidates, and directing people to which houses specifically to hit on a block and which locations are best served with yard signs.
I had no idea on the amount of data I would be analyzing going into this, and the most I started analyzing, the more I wanted. There are never enough numbers to tell the story of politics, especially when you’re in a lower race such as my own. If I had scores of people working for me, I’d definitely just be culling numbers left and right.
It’s definitely an interesting job and gets more and more fascinating every day (he’s a teacher that retires June 13th, I’m a student who gets out of school June 11th, so we’re both side-tracked), but it’s actually one of the most important races in the state so we have a lot of outside help. There’s a voter database that is almost frightening in the amount of data collected.
[sorry, no political pitches]
I just read that this morning. Talk about worlds colliding.
I kind of expected that and meant to suggest the snip. Totally understandable.
Very cool, though I wish I had time to catch up on all of it.
That’s incredibly cool. I’ve been following poblano’s analysis since before he had his own site, and it’s only too appropriate that he’s a trend setter in baseball stats as well.
Thank you Derek. Very cool. Good find.
Yeah, learning that Poblano was Silver was a real forehead slapping moment. The methological similarities between PECOTA and his method didn’t occur to me at all for some reason.
Interesting how many people on this site follow and are involved in politics as well as baseball. Although my wife teased me that both pursuits bring out my obsessiveness, I was also delighted to learn this. In fact Poblano/Silver’s analysis of potential turnout impact is driving some projects I’m working on with the hope of benefitting Obama in November.
Maybe Bavasi needs to read this story too…
Paul Loeb
Author Soul of a Citizen & The Impossible Will Take a Little While
http://www.paulloeb.org
Wow, and I stumble on a link on the same day.
Too scary. Today, baseball. Tomorrow THE WORLD. BWAAHAHAHA.
Actually, that article doesn’t link to fivethirtyeight.com, it cites. But still, it’s pretty cool.
Well, I think it’s safe to say that if DMZ and Dave never caught the connection between the two, then his cover was likely never blown.
Very cool fact.
538 is a great site, DMZ. You should also check out Al Giordano’s “The Field” over on rural votes, it’s helped me get this far (halfway!).
Didn’t you mention that you were a delegate awhile back?
Oh my God. I didn’t even realize that Silver was Poblano. I knew that 538 is Poblano’s site but I assumed Silver was just a guest or something.
“And that’s why you’re always supposed to open the link…”
I visit http://electoral-vote.com/ for my election info. I’d seen 538, but was overwhelmed by the data presentation. Now that it’s Silver I guess it’s time to look a little closer.
I can’t wait for the new statheads vs. luddites war to break out. Talking heads vs. regression analysis…brilliant!
Small worlds! I have glanced at 538 a few times, and seen it quoted/linked a few dozen more. I had no idea it was Nate. No wonder it is so well done, and so accurate.
Ugh, politics. The only thing that has inspired more idiotic bar arguments than sports.
It’s like the sewage treatment plant: it’s necessary for the functioning of society, but I want to think about it as little as possible and I certainly don’t want to get my nose up to poke and prod and examaine all the little details.