Analytics in Baseball: Retention of Sport Specific Analytic Information Based on Various Presentation Methods

Analytics are being collected on a day to day basis on just about anything that you can think of. Sports is one of the recent fields that has started implementing the tool into their game. Analytics can be described as an abundance of statistical information that show situational tendencies of other teams and players. It is hypothesized that analytics provide anticipatory information that allows athletes to know what is coming; therefore, allowing them to perform better in real game scenarios. However, it is unclear how this information should be presented to athletes and whether athletes can actually retain the abundance of information given to them. Two different types of presentation methods (Numeric and Numeric plus Graph) and two different amounts of analytic information (High and Low) were compared for baseball players in an online based baseball specific retention survey: High Numeric (excess information shown in spreadsheet format), Low Numeric (key information shown in spreadsheet format), High Numeric plus Graph (excess information shown as a spreadsheet with hitting zone maps), and Low Numeric plus Graph (key information shown as a spreadsheet with hitting zone maps). Athletes produced different retention scores for the type of presentation method given across the whole study. Athletes presented analytic as Numeric plus Graph performed better than athletes in just Numeric condition. Additionally, playing experience had a significant effect on an athlete’s ability to retain analytic information. Athletes with 10 plus years of baseball experience performed better in every condition other than High Numeric plus Graph compared to athletes with less than 10 years of experience. Amount and experience also had an interaction effect that produced statistical significance; those with less experience performed better in conditions with less baseball information given whereas those with more experience were able to handle more baseball information at once. Providing analytic information gives athletes, especially baseball batters, a significant advantage over their opponent; however, ability to retain analytic information depends on how the information is presented and to whom the information is being presented.