Weekly Sports Analytics News Roundup – October 9th, 2018

Football: Brian Burke introduces ESPN’s pass-rusher and pass-blocker stats. Zach Binney Untangles the NFL Injury Web. Football Perspective on Isaiah Crowell And The Best Single-Game YPC Averages Ever. Football Perspective’s Stats Battle: Completion Percentage vs. Passing First Down Percentage. Football Perspective points out Teams Are Rushing On Less Than 40% Of Plays In 2018.

College Football: Bill Connelly’s Week 6 Five Factors box scores. Fancy Stats writes that Alabama is still more likely to lose the national title than win it. Football Perspective’s Week Six (2018) College Football SRS Ratings: The SRS Is Back!

Baseball: FanGraphs: Small-Sample Theater Comes to the Postseason. Baseball Prospectus Baseball Therapy: Jacob deGrom is … Underrated? FanGraphs declares Mookie Betts the WAR Champion of 2018. FiveThirtyEight says Baseball’s Top Staffs Have Come Around On The High-Spin Fastball. Beyond the Box Score believes The Statcast broadcast was successful for reasons beyond advanced stats. FanGraphs asks Who Needs a Ring? Walk Like A Sabermetrician has End of Season Statistics, 2018 available on Google Spreadsheets. The Hardball Times on Building a Robot Umpire with Deep Learning Video Analysis (Part Two). Tom Tango’s Statcast Lab: xwOBA updated for 2018. Mark Simon lists 2018 Defensive Runs Saved Leaders. Ben Reiter’s SI article on Houston Astros’ hacker Chris Correa.

Basketball: Nylon Calculus looks at Projecting rookie passers. Justin Jacobs’ posts on Understanding Trends in the NBA: How NNMF Works and Second Chances and the Rebounding Specialist. Nylon Calculus works on answering these questions:

• How can we quantify the effect of injuries on expected future performance?
• What if each conference had its own MVP?
• How can an analytic approach be applied to rest and injury prevention?
• How does coaching affect a team’s performance and player development?

College Basketball: Jordan Sperber’s video explaining The Evolution of the NCAA Tournament Selection Process.

Soccer: StatsBomb says Possession Football Remains Alive and Well for Spain and Germany.

Conferences:  The Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference will be held October 19-20 in Pittsburgh. On October 26th in London is the UK Sports Analytics Conference 2018.