The Red Sox also apply analytics to decide what to do on the field. In 2003, the Red Sox hired this guy Bill James who is the god of baseball statisticians. The new owners were more analytically focused than previous ownership. Bill James developed this idea of on-base percentage and slugging percentage as a method of success instead of batting average -- and the Red Sox have applied this aggressively. The A's were the pioneers. Not all (baseball) teams are that analytical. The (Chicago) White Sox aren't that analytical. The (St. Louis) Cardinals are somewhere in the middle. The (Atlanta) Braves are historically quite intuitive.

Harris: We're seeing this across professional sports. AC Milan (a professional soccer team) has a little bit different focus, getting players who are not injury prone. There are 200 data points they look at. There's been a transformation occurring throughout professional sports. The New England Patriots have also applied analytics successfully.

So are the Yankees using analytics? Davenport: There's not much evidence that they have. They haven't hired any big statisticians. The players that they have do have good numbers in the traditional sense. A guy like [Alex Rodriguez] does, but that hasn't helped his team produce. They would be incredibly powerful if they had that, too.

Let's switch gears. Can a public sector agency use analytics to 'compete' either against public or private sector 'rivals'? Davenport: New York City was one of the earlier adopters with the CompStat (Comparative Statistics) program, one of the reasons why Rudy Giuliani can say they reduced crime so much when he was mayor.

Harris: Very early in my career, I worked in the public sector and we used analytics at the IRS for fraud detection. Some government agencies have some very sophisticated capabilities.