Weekly Sports Analytics News Roundup – October 1st, 2019
Football: Ron Yurko’s slides NESSIS: Models for Continuous-Time Within-Play Valuation of Game Outcomes in American Football with Tracking Data. Kevin Cole’s PFF Data Study Compares time-to-throw distributions for top quarterbacks in the NFL. Michael Lopez presents his paper about the challenges of analyzing traditional NFL data, and where player tracking data can help. Josh Hermsmeyer points out The Cleveland Browns Made History — By Bungling A Fourth-And-9 Play. Football Perspective’s Interceptions By Win Probability, Part 2. FiveThirtyEight: QBs Usually Regress After Historic Seasons. Not Patrick Mahomes.
College Football: FiveThirtyEight finds College Football Is The True Home Of The Play-Action Pass. Football Outsiders’ FEI Week 4 Ratings.
Baseball: Baseball ProGUESTus: A Potential Alternative for Public Pitch Classification. FanGraphs tries to answer When Is the Ideal Time to Start Your Ace? Tom Tango looks at Run Values… and productive outs. FanGraphs on How Félix Hernández Redefined the Modern Changeup. The Hardball Times on The Challenge of Explaining the Home Run Explosion. Baseball Prospectus Flu-Like Symptoms: The Year On-Base Percentage Didn’t Matter. Travis Sawchik at FiveThirtyEight says The Cardinals Develop Young Pitchers. The Cubs Don’t. Which Team Is Going To The Playoffs? FanGraphs finds Maximum Launch Angle is a Blast. FiveThirtyEight’s Neil Paine writes that The Twins’ Magical Run Will Likely Go Through The Yankees. (Because Of Course.). The SIS blog’s Stat of the Week: 2019 MLB Defensive Runs Saved Leaders.
Basketball: Neil Johnson’s slides from his NESSIS presentation on Extracting Player Tracking Data from Video Using Non-Stationary Cameras & a Combination of Computer Vision Techniques. Ben Taylor’s Part 3 of the Thinking Basketball stats series is up, looking at the “advancements” of the early 2000s & the instrumental work of
Dean Oliver. Nylon Calculus: How will the new G League free throw rule change scoring? FiveThirtyEight on The MVP And Her Campaign Manager Have Fueled One Of The Best WNBA Teams Ever.
College Basketball: Jordan Sperber’s Hoop Vision Weekly: A new season, with big Hoop Vision news.
Hockey: Material from Asmae Toumi’s NESSIS presentation. FiveThirtyEight analyzes Will The Blues Be Stanley Cup Champions Again?
Soccer: Sam Gregory’s slides from his NESSIS presentation on Off ball run identification and classification. StatsBomb analyzes whether any of these Champions League underdogs shock the big boys. American Soccer Analysis with Trapp Game: How Caleb Porter has changed the Crew. FiveThirtyEight says The Newly Promoted Premier League Teams Are Playing Like They Belong.
General: David Berri and Tony Krautmann’s paper discusses how marginal revenue product is traditionally measured in sports and why that approach doesn’t work. WSJ article on The Renegade Executives (Morey and Luhnow) of Houston Who Shook Up Sports Management.
For your listening pleasure: Wharton Moneyball (Andrew Thomas) Steve Palazzolo, Chilling with Charlie (Paul Wu), Measurables (Mike Treacy), Expected Value (Jared Hughes) and Off The Charts podcasts.
Conferences: The Great Lakes Analytics Conference is October 3rd and 4th in Stevens Point, WI. On October 4th in Dallas is the Texas Sports Analytics Conference and the UConn Sports Analytics Conference is October 5th in Storrs. The Japan Sports Analytics Conference will be held on October 10th in Japan.