Sports Analytics: A Science — Ch. 3: Function of Performance vs. Measure of Ability

If you were to wake up in the morning and check the box-score of a game you missed the night before, what would you be trying to figure out? What would you be looking for? I’d bet you’d ask yourself questions like “how did they do last night?” or “oh, did they stay hot?” orContinue reading “Sports Analytics: A Science — Ch. 3: Function of Performance vs. Measure of Ability”

Estimating Major League Baseball Team Quality through Simulation: An Analysis of an Alternative Pythagorean Expected Wins Model

Authors: Justin Ehrlich, Christopher Boudreaux, James Boudreau, and Shane Sanders Abstract Contests are games in which the players compete for a prize and exert effort to increase their probability of winning. For sport contests, analysts often use the Pythagorean expected wins model to estimate teams’ expected wins (quality). We ask if there are alternative contestContinue reading “Estimating Major League Baseball Team Quality through Simulation: An Analysis of an Alternative Pythagorean Expected Wins Model”

Analysis of Passing Networks in Soccer

Authors: John Laschober, Amanda Harsy Abstract The study of the passing networks formed during soccer matches is an area of mathematics that has exploded within the past decade as both modern technology and new-found motivation in notable organizations have provided the public with better datasets. Through the analysis of players’ positioning and their passes throughoutContinue reading “Analysis of Passing Networks in Soccer”

Applying Network Analysis to Analyzing Box Lacrosse

The following is taken from Eddy Tabone’s senior research paper from his undergraduate at St. John Fisher College in the fall of 2018. Networks and Their Application in Sports While typically thought of in their most common form of modeling the relationship between two variables, the concept of a graph can be expanded to describeContinue reading “Applying Network Analysis to Analyzing Box Lacrosse”

A Critique of fWAR: Inferential and Sensitivity Studies of the Baseball Wins Above Replacement Metric

Section 1: Introduction Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an estimation of the number of wins a baseball player brings his team, more so than a designated replacement level player. Any given WAR equation is composed of dozens of different calculations that incorporate dozens of different existing baseball metrics. WAR gained popularity on fangraphs.com as aContinue reading “A Critique of fWAR: Inferential and Sensitivity Studies of the Baseball Wins Above Replacement Metric”

Why the NBA Draft System has Failed and Why They Should Adopt a Youth-Academy System

By Rob Weber SECTION I: The NBA Draft System has Failed             The generally agreed upon problem with the current NBA draft system is that too many teams are not trying to win so that they stay at the bottom of the standings and get better draft-picks, a process commonlyContinue reading “Why the NBA Draft System has Failed and Why They Should Adopt a Youth-Academy System”