Weekly Sports Analytics News Roundup – January 8th, 2019
Football: Josh Hermsmeyer: Can NFL Coaches Overuse Play-Action? They Haven’t Yet. Football Perspective’s 2018 Team Efficiency Ratings: The Bears Were The NFL’s Best Team. FiveThirtyEight writes that Kirk Cousins Is Not Better Than Joe Montana. So Let’s Fix Passer Rating. Football Perspective lists The 10 Most Heartbreaking Postseason Missed Field Goals Since 1990. The Sports Info Solutions blog on What to do on 2nd-and-10? Let’s look at the numbers. Football Outsiders’ Quick Reads: 2018 in Review. FiveThirtyEight notes that The Draw Play Is Dying In The NFL — But It Shouldn’t Be.
College Football: FiveThirtyEight says Someday, We’ll Appreciate Alabama And Clemson’s Historic Dominance.
Baseball: FanGraphs writes about The Missing Free Agents. Baseball Prospectus offers An Introduction to the Korea Baseball Organization. The Hardball Times examines whether Batters Learn to Narrow Their Splits. Beyond the Box Score Finds the biggest ‘sprint speed’ outliers. Tom Tango’s Quick WAR. The Hardball Times writes about The Physics of a Bad Hop. FanGraphs on how Zach Britton Turned One Simple Pitch Into $39 Million.
Basketball: Nylon Calculus ponders What’s the best advanced stat? Nylon Calculus looks at James Harden and True Shooting Charts.
College Basketball: Jordan Sperber’s latest podcast.
Soccer: American Sports Analysis on Why the new MLS Playoff format doesn’t create a more meaningful regular season. The Harvard Sports Analysis Collective identifies The Ultimate FA Cup Specialists. StatsBomb’s Loan Watch: How Are Premier League Prospects Across Europe Faring?. American Sports Analysis’ Player Value Recap 2018: Refining a System for Ranking MLS Players.
Hockey: Hockey Graphs with How Much Do NHL Players Really Make? Part 2: Taxes.
Tennis: Heavy Topspin on Identifying Underrated Players With Minor League Elo. Heavy Topspin looks at The Effect of Tiebreak Luck and Measures the Impact of Break Points.
Your moment of R: Jake Flancer announces the first release of “bigballR“, an R package created to work with NCAA data. The most exciting new feature is the ability to view players on the court in play by play.
Conferences: OptaPro’s focused North American soccer analytics conference, is taking place in Chicago on January 9th.