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Originally posted by jcs:
"The name of the game is not finding the best players, as conventional wisdom says," according to Marathe. "The name of the game is finding the best possible players for the lowest price....It's just being smart about managing your money. It's what a financial adviser would do for a client."
http://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/offensive-line/Content?oid=2158707&storyPage=2
Don't forget this interview
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/san-francisco-49ers-paraag-marathe-how-launch-career-sports-management
What was the problem that you solved?
In 2001, Bill Walsh, the GM of the 49ers, hired Bain to work on a project with the NFL draft. He wanted us to evaluate draft picks — not the players, but the currency value of when you make trades. I put together an algorithm that gave us a better cut-up exchange rate and currency value, one that happened to be consistent with Bill's intuition already. Bill was known as a master of draft trades. And I didn't back into it. It just happened to actually verify his genius. The fact that we built something that matched that was what proved myself to him.
What's one innovation that's cutting-edge right now that's going to be commonplace in five years?
I think virtual reality, both in the scouting and playing side, but also on the fan-experience side. I think that's something that's underexplored right now.
From an analytics standpoint, something that's really underexplored is preventing injuries — soft-tissue injuries, ACLs, Achilles tears. Is there a way to better measure players' propensity for having those types of injuries? Because right now, those are just freak injuries. If a player tears his Achilles, he's out 14 months. It could be his career. But is there something about him that made him more susceptible to tearing his Achilles? Or was it, in fact, a complete fluke? I don't know. But I'd like to see more research in that area.