The search for the Greatest of all Goats continues - slowly but surely.
As you may recall from this blog, I set some lofty goals for myself right from the start. From what I can tell, nobody's really been able to say definitively who the greatest athlete of all time is - so setting out to do so has been difficult. I've been reading everything I can about the data-driven player analysis methods for a TON of sports, which is exhausting. Especially for sports I don't particularly care about. So, instead of continuing my head-on assault on Pro Football Reference, I decided that I'll ask other people what they think, and build a new approach from there. I already did one screencast (that's the word for it, right?), but get in touch if you want to take part. I'll ask questions like: who you suspect GOGOATs might be, what factors I might look into (outside of the raw numbers), and even how I might approach the question differently. That last one is an interesting point. I think I've been going about my research all wrong.
In a conversation I had with my dad this morning, we discussed the difference between comparing athletes based on dominance - how much better they are than everyone around them - and their athletic ability. Both contribute to their greatness, but making that distinction has added an interesting wrinkle to my process.
Imagine that there's one person that's the undisputed champion at, like, darts. Easily the best in the world, year in and year out. The GOAT. I'd imagine that the stats might speak for themselves, putting them many standard deviations above the mean in things like scoring, career longevity, and whatever else darts nerds talk about. However, who's to say that the world's greatest dart thrower is even that good of an athlete? Of course, they have to have pretty good hand-eye coordination, focus, etc. to be that good at any sport, but what happens when you put a basketball in their hands? There, we have an example of a dominant dart thrower, but perhaps not the greatest athlete - and a sport that might not require peak athleticism to be great. Also, What happens when you hand Michael Jordan - or any other world-class athlete - some darts? What does that say about darts?
By the same token, guys like Bo Jackson exist. Bo played baseball and football at the highest level, but he was not especially dominant in either. Those few years he spent as an NFL and MLB player were nothing special - his career OPS was just .787, and he never lead the NFL in any categories except longest rush attempt. For as average as Bo was on paper, we all know and remember him to be one of the biggest freak athletes of all time. Why? because he was pretty average at two things at the same time. Those two things require almost superhuman athleticism - strength, speed, coordination, etc. And, if you've seen his highlights, you'd know he wasn't a below-average athlete. He was a big, fast, strong fella - in many ways, a perfect athlete. But not dominant. Superhuman (see below), but not an all-time great.
So, there is clearly a need to measure dominance and athleticism separately, because both matter. And not only the ability of each athlete individually, but also the athleticism required to compete at a professional level in each athlete's sport - I can't possibly say that darts guy is the GOGOATs when guys like Bo Jackson exist. That would be misrepresentative of them as athletes, not just players of their own sport(s).
But measuring dominance is pretty easy. That's precisely what stats are for - comparing the contribution of athletes by using math. It's getting easier still, with constant advancements in AI and player-tracking data. But how am I going to quantify raw athletic ability? Well, I might not have to. There's a handful of companies that have been turning ability into comparable and simple numerical ratings for a long time. It's all readily available, and they employ probably hundreds of people to do this stuff full-time.
Yeah, I'm gonna leave it to the 'experts' at EA Sports. The yearly rankings for video games like Madden, FIFA, the Show, and 'chel aren't without controversy (Lamar Jackson>Russell Wilson), but they do exactly what I need for this analysis to really work. They pump out video games every year that break down each athlete's ability by categories like speed, strength, and acceleration. As I'm writing this, I have no idea how they come up with this stuff (since I don't play video games), but they're doing it consistently for the major sports - and they even include all-time greats from the past. From there, I could calculate the league-average ratings per category, find the outstanding players, and rank them by ability above average. But this method is limited to the sports that video games are made for - which isn't all of them. Sports like darts and swimming might require a little elbow grease and imagination on my part, but I think I can make do.
Also worth mentioning are other greatness factors like career longevity, intelligence, and the impact players had on the sport, and on the world at large. Barry Bonds was the definition of a gamebreaker, both because of his notoriously balanced diet and his outright ability with a bat in his hands. People forget: he was an all-star before he started eating his veggies. Wayne Gretzky grew the NHL's popularity in the States singlehandedly when he was traded to the LA Kings. Nolan Ryan played baseball for 27 seasons, and was great literally the whole time. I think these factors, and probably more that I'm forgetting, can be quantified and weighted appropriately. Maybe not, but I'll try regardless.
So, that's update number 1. I'll try and be more consistent about keeping all of my rabid fans up to date, so here's my promise. The next time you see an update about my search for the GOGOATs, I'll have created my Greatness Matrix: a preliminary list of the categories by which athletes will be measured. I mentioned some, but the next step is to figure out how to accurately assign weight values to each one. Guess we'll see.
Have any guesses? Want to help? Drop a comment, reply to this post on social media, or just text me.
Comments