stats Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Chart: How Sabermetric MLB Forecasts Stacked Up Against Vegas
From Skidmore College statistics professor Michael Lopez comes the handy chart you see above, plotting the 2014 win totals of all 30 MLB teams against preseason predictions from Vegas and what Lopez calls his "Statsheads Prediction."...
Come Correct To P.K. Subban About His Corsi Or Don't Come At All
The NHL is holding its annual player tour, in which it drags many of its top stars to New York for days of interviews and appearances. ESPN's Craig Custance took advantage of the opportunity (Insider link) to ask players what they thought of their own unconventional analytics, aka fancystats. ...
Luck Is Hockey's "Bullshit Dump"
That up there is Bruce Bennett's photo for Getty, zoomed in to unsustainable resolution, but still clearly showing the millimeters of shaved ice that brought the loose, potentially game-tying puck to a halt with 1:11 left. The notoriously shitty surface at MSG tends to increasingly make itself known...
Take The Sports Knowledge Test Given To Wannabe ESPN Employees
The brain—and maybe the soul—of the world's largest sports media company is the ESPN Stats & Information Group, the behind-the-scenes crew of impossibly dedicated experts responsible for every stat, trend, and non-stupid talking point that makes it onto an ESPN platform. Here's your chance to see if...
The Maple Leafs' Collapse Is A Victory For Rationality
Statistics, like any science, are functionally useless unless they can be tested. The 2013-14 Toronto Maple Leafs season may have been the single best test case so far for the first wave of hockey's advanced metrics—and it resulted in a rousing defeat for both the Leafs and those pundits stubbornly ...
This New NBA Stat Is A Huge Step Forward For Basketball Analysis
This morning on Grantland, Kirk Goldsberry introduced the stat Expected Possession Value Added (EPVA), which he developed with some colleagues as part of a Sloan Conference paper. EPVA still needs some work, but it may represent an enormous development in NBA analysis. Here's why....
How Creighton Created The Craziest, Deadliest Offense In The Country
The box score from last night's Creighton-Villanova game—a game that ended with Creighton upsetting the No. 4 team in the country behind 21 made three-pointers—looks like a fluke. No team is supposed to heave 35 three-pointers in 40 minutes, let alone connect on 60 percent of them, right? Wrong. The...
Shane, Come Back: The No-Stats All-Star
From Michael Lewis' 2009 New York Times Magazine profile of Shane Battier:...
Cherrypick Your Way Through 143 Years Of Baseball Stats
Did you know that Curt Schilling led the league in complete games from 1992-2001? That Tim Raines led the league in hits from 1981-87? That Fred McGriff led the league in home runs from 1987-95? All great stats to argue for your favorite player's HOF admission, made possible by the magic of cherrypi...
Which NBA Coaches Are Best At Designing Plays During Timeouts?
There is something impossibly satisfying about watching a team come out of a timeout and run an ornately designed play that springs someone for a wide-open look or an easy layup. A gorgeous play there, a nonsense turnover here, the very best reputations might be well won over years, but overall, our...
Advanced NFL Stats has made some significant tweaks to its win probability model, which now incorporates team strength and the value of second half kickoffs while adjusting the likelihood that trailing teams will attempt fourth-down and 2-point conversions late in the game. It's good stuff. [Advance...
Do Tough Calls Favor The Home Team? One Explanation For Pats-Panthers
What do the following plays have in common?...
Where Does David Ortiz Rank Among The Best World Series Hitters Ever?
Over the last five games, David Ortiz has hit .733/.750/1.267. This would be a crazy line for any stretch of the season, much less the fucking World Series, and it's brought his career line in the Fall Classic up to .465/.556/.814, which is good enough—the best of any hitter with at least 50 plate a...
How Statistically Unlikely Was The Lions' Comeback Against The Cowboys?
Maybe gawking at the convergence of unlikely comebacks and predictable collapses will get old someday, but by god, that day isn't today. So let's look at how the Cowboys went from a 99 percent chance of winning to a Matt Stafford impromptu Marino in less than 90 seconds. ...
Why Are NFL Statheads Struggling So Much With Their Picks This Year?
It's still relatively early in the NFL season, but signs point to this being one of the worst seasons ever for simulation & statistics based predictors of game results. In fact, having followed several websites for the last few years, this is by far the worst I can remember each one doing as far as ...
How Statistically Unlikely Was The Patriots Comeback? (Spoiler: Very)
How unlikely was Tom Brady's game-winning pass to Kenbrell Thompkins? Unlikely enough to make this Win Probability chart for the Saints look like it got stabbed in the heart with a spear. ...
The Liter Bowl: The First NCAA Football Game To Use The Metric System
On September 17, 1977, Carleton College and St. Olaf College played the Liter Bowl, the first NCAA-sanctioned game to use metric measurements, and probably the dorkiest piece of football ever put together....
When Should Dallas Have Allowed Denver To Score A Touchdown?
Once Demaryius Thomas crossed the line to gain at the Dallas 14 yard line with 1:50 to play, the Dallas defense should have intentionally allowed the TD. With 2 timeouts and 1:40+ to play, they would have had a better chance of winning than allowing Denver to choke the life out of them and kick an e...