Information Builders Predicts Major League Baseball’s 2009 World Series Champion
WebFOCUS RStat’s crunches 40 years of MLB statistics; Congratulations are in order for The Los Angeles Dodgers
NEW YORK, NY (October 12, 2009) –
Following a review of 40 years of baseball statistics (since 1969), Information Builders, the leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, has predicted the winner of this year’s Major League Baseball World Series.
“Congratulations are in order for The Los Angeles Dodgers; start planning the parade route and stocking up on those party streamers,” said Kevin Quinn, vice president of product marketing at Information Builders. “Although I’m from New York, I’m not a Yankee fan. I’m actually a Met fan, so I’m happy to congratulate a National League team.”
Using key cumulative team statistics such as winning percentage, runs scored, batting average, total extra base hits, earned run average, and fielding percentage, Information Builders was able to predict the Los Angeles Dodgers will defeat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the 2009 Fall Classic.
To come up with their prediction, Information Builders analyzed 40 years of baseball statistics from all of the teams that made the playoffs. RStat determined which combination of statistics was most significant in determining a winner. The company then created the scoring routine and applied it to the same statistics for the eight teams that made the playoffs this year.
The final predictive model that was used showed that the Dodgers, Angels, and Yankees had the highest probability of winning. Although the probabilities were close, the Dodgers did have a slight edge over the Angels and Yankees. These three were nearly twice as likely to win than the remaining five teams.
“Baseball is a game rooted in statistics, and we thought we’d leverage that, along with America’s interest in baseball, to illustrate the forecasting power of predictive analytics when coupled with a robust business intelligence platform like WebFOCUS,” continued Quinn. “This exercise proves you don’t have to be an expert statistician to capitalize on the benefits of predictive analytics with WebFOCUS RStat; anyone can use the solution to make better informed decisions.”
This is not the first time Information Builders has used its WebFOCUS solution to demonstrate how easy it is to provide non-technical users with access to critical information. In 1999, the company launched statswizard.com, an online portal that allowed Fantasy Baseball enthusiasts to sort, calculate, filter, and visualize baseball stats in hundreds of different ways. The micro site demonstrated how WebFOCUS could provide a view of information to multiple users with consistent performance.
Today’s World Series prediction reveals how businesses (or baseball fans) have the ability to make decisions based on high probability rates and not on gut-feeling alone, as companies have been known to do. With WebFOCUS RStat, every decision-maker at any level within an organization is able to benefit from direct access to predictive modeling applications.
About Information Builders
Information Builders’ award-winning combination of business intelligence and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers for the past 30 years. WebFOCUS is the world’s most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides the security, scalability, and flexibility needed at every level of global extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical, and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users. Information Builders’ iWay Software suite provides state of the art, multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA , application, data and information management requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading software platform providers. Information Builders also offers solutions in the performance management , business activity monitoring , and enterprise search markets. The company’s comprehensive enterprise product offerings give Information Builders’ customers the ability to grow and innovate according to their needs.
Information Builders’ customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S. federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners.
Source: Information Builders