Statistics and spatial analytics for the present day
It’s been clear since even before the twelve breakaway clubs announced the European Super League that European football doesn’t quite work. The biggest clubs on the continent are unhappy since they don’t play the other biggest clubs enough. Big clubs from small countries seem unhappy because the playing field isn’t level. Medium-sized clubs from big …
Continue reading “Improving European football through a simple incentive change”
5.6 billion Aussie rules games, simulated on an off-the-shelf laptop. In the work on leverage I’ve done over the past couple of months, I figured there’s a fixed winning percentage given the minute, the margin, and a team’s initial (estimated) winning percentage. I also figured this could be easily achieved through simulation. I simulated 10,000 …
Continue reading “AFL: The complete winning percentage lookup table”
Even though only my extreme partisanship completely explains why, I greatly enjoyed the first live footy match I watched in 2019. Most neutrals – if they were watching at all – had turned off the North Melbourne-Carlton game after watching the Kangas kick the opening seven goals to lead 10.6.66 to 1.7.13 at halftime. We …
Continue reading “AFL: When has a team definitively won the game?”
I’m excited about the article you’re currently reading in part because I get to advertise a couple new developments in footy statistics. First is The Arc AFL’s complete AFL history. Using ELO (which admittedly isn’t my favourite way to determine winners and losers, but it serves its purpose well here) you can easily determine the …
Continue reading “AFL: 1990 and 1999 grand final in-game winning percentages”
Recently I put my AFL leverage simulator through its paces, generating both winning percentages and leverage for the entire 2019 season. The leverage simulator simulates the remainder of each AFL game from any given minute to determine how often a team wins from that point. More importantly, it also determines the game’s leverage, or how …
Continue reading “AFL: The most important goals of 2019, ranked by math”
As I sat with my friend in the second deck of Dodger Stadium on September 4, 2017, we began to contemplate the impossible. Heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, Robbie Ray had retired the first 15 batters he faced without allowing a baserunner. The Diamondbacks were up 2-0, J.D. Martinez having hit a …
The historically boring 2019 grand final and the analytical press demonstrating most grand finals historically haven’t been the most exciting games led me to wonder if games could be ranked based on how exciting they were. The last few minutes of a close game are one of the many appeals of Aussie rules. In terms …
Continue reading “AFL: Using leverage as a proxy for excitement”
I don’t quite remember which player statistics the Hillsboro Hops had up on their right field scoreboard during the Northwest League minor league game. One for sure was batting average, and one for sure was OPS. OPS, of course, stands for On-base Plus Slugging, or, put mildly, the sum of a player’s on-base percentage (how …
While bathed in controversy, the GWS-Collingwood 2019 preliminary final was a clear case of “next goal wins.” The Pies had the last nine scoring shots, kicking 4.5 to 0.0 after the 5:30 mark of the 4th quarter. From 27:57 to the sound of the siren at 34:57, GWS held a 4-point lead. Even with Collingwood’s …
Continue reading “AFL: It’s only a 50-50 game in the last couple minutes if it’s tied”