Jim Pagels
Jim is a part-time data journalist using statistics to cover sports, news, business, and entertainment. He was formerly a regular contributor at Forbes' SportsMoney blog, and his writing has also appeared in FiveThirtyEight, The Atlantic, Slate, Deadspin, and Bloomberg, among other national media outlets.
How To Fix Fantasy Football Scoring With Simple Advanced Stats
With only one touchdown in Week 16, Aaron Rodgers ranked 15th in fantasy points among quarterbacks during fantasy football championship week, likely costing many a Rodgers owner a fantasy title. However, Rodgers' performance was much more valuable on the real football field, where his contributi...
August Sucks—The NBA Or NHL Playoffs Should Move There
In non-Olympic years, there's no wider chasm of utter sports emptiness than late July and August. NBA and NHL free agency have pretty much wrapped up, and most NFL "news" involves players describing the best shape of their lives. Thankfully, football and European soccer are just about back, but for ...
Double Fault! A Recent History Of Tennis's Most Humiliating Finish
Rafael Nadal won his ninth French Open Sunday, and he did it in the most unbecoming way possible. The decisive moment was a double fault from Novak Djokovic, provoking an awkward "fall to your knees in euphoria after winning a point literally anyone with a pulse could have won themselves" celebratio...
How Bad Did The NCAA Committee Mess Up This Year's Seeding, Exactly?
Journalists, Vegas oddsmakers, and that one college friend who you only hear from this time of year all agree: The NCAA tournament selection committee did a god-awful job of seeding the tournament teams this year. But, did it really?...
Redesigning The Madness: Is there A Better Format For The NCAA Tourney?
March Madness is surely the most exhilarating playoff system in American sports. We love the tournament—but it also isn't perfect. Which got us to thinking: Is there a better way to organize March Madness?...
A Better Way Of Ranking The Most Dominant Tennis Players
"Who has the most rings" has always been a brainless exercise in absolutism, but at least within team sports, we're forced to consider some context when applying it to individual players. Why, then, do we still universally use this methodology when ranking tennis players?...