stats Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Infographics: Every NFL Offense's Production, Visualized By Position
Instinctively, you know every team has strengths and weaknesses. You see it in the box scores and the advanced metrics, but when the teams line up, a shitty running back doesn't look impossibly different from Adrian Peterson. So, here's a visual aid. Every NFL offense, visualized by how each of the ...
How To Pitch A Perfect Ninth In A One-Run Game And Not Get A Save
In the same game that brought you this bibelot, Mariano Rivera entered the ninth inning with the Yankees up one run. He retired the Orioles 1-2-3. He did not get the save—but he did get a win. Huh?...
Kill #killthewin: The Fight Over Stats In Baseball Has Gotten Stupid
Television is the worst. Look at what's happened to the MLB Network's house numbers guy, Brian Kenny, who's spent the season preaching to the choir by beating horses to death right in front of them. It's fucking awful....
Yesterday's White Sox-Mariners Game Was Historically Crazy
We alerted you to the wackiness that was going on in the White Sox-Mariners game last night, but we feel it's necessary to mention it again today, because it really was one of the craziest games history. How crazy was it? Let's count the ways:...
Mariners Manager Says Sabermetrics Made Dustin Ackley Suck
The Seattle Mariners optioned once-promising second baseman Dustin Ackley to Triple A yesterday because Ackley has been having a miserable season at the plate. But what's to blame for Ackley's .205 average and .266 on-base percentage? Mariners coach Eric Wedge has a theory, and it has to do with all...
This Wonderful Graphic Proves That In The NHL, Puck Possession Is All
The hockey internet is fawning over this graphic from Chris Boyle at Canadiens blog Eyes on the Prize, and it's easy to see why. The chart takes a second to understand, but when you do, it's hard to come away thinking there's any stat more telling than Fenwick....
Wanna Know What Happens In A March Madness Game Slightly Before It Airs On TV? Use This Password
Sure, it's the most boring way to watch the year's most exciting sporting event. But it might help you win money from dopes at the bar....
Finally, An Advanced Stat To Measure Hockey Fighters
The statistical revolution has officially arrived, upside your head....
Finally, Someone Has Created Dynamic NBA Box Scores
This is for all the basketbloggers out there: you will never need another box score again....
Four Things You Can Learn About The NBA By Skimming Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Research Papers
The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is under way in Boston and, though we sent no intrepid reporters to Dorkapalooza this year, the conference happily made its research paper finalists publicly available on its website. Let's blearily page through and see if we can't learn a few things. (We're foc...
The 15 Or So Most Watchable Teams In College Basketball: An Occasional Ranking
A weekly (or so) ranking of college basketball teams on the basis of watchability and with very little regard to how good they might be. ...
Score One For The Stat Nerds: Milwaukee Bucks Press Release Cites J.J. Redick's PER
The only trade of note to take place on the NBA's trade deadline day was the one that sent shooting guard J.J. Redick from the Orlando Magic to the Milwaukee Bucks. As is standard practice, the Bucks put out a triumphant, post-trade press release that includes all kinds of boring statistics and PR-...
God Bless The Brooklyn Nets' PR Staff
Numbers are all the rage in sports today. Basketball's no exception. Every well-intentioned team has snapped up a stathead or several and stuck 'em in the front office. But we assume they don't fraternize too much with the public relations types. If they did, we wouldn't get nuggets like this....
What Was The Best Super Bowl Ever? Ranking All 47 Games According To Watchability
Sunday's Super Bowl was undoubtedly awesome. Big comeback. Dramatic finish. Weird NFL rules. Beyoncé. The question on everyone's mind: Was it the best Super Bowl ever? ...
The 15 Or So Most Watchable Teams In College Basketball: An Occasional Ranking
A weekly (or so) ranking of college basketball teams on the basis of watchability and with very little regard to how good they might be. ...
The Ravens Won The "Fuck" Bowl, Too: An Analysis Of Twitter Profanity During The Super Bowl
Twitter reports that the Super Bowl generated 24 million tweets last night. Most of them were terrible, so I just looked at the ones that said "fuck." ...
The Deadspin 2012-2013 Fantasy Football Awards
A few months ago, we compiled a Fantasy Football Almanac of results from 1970 to 2011. Now we're ready to update the almanac for the 2012 season, with awards for the best players and some new data as well. Take a look, then add your comments, analyses, quibbles, and rants in the discussion below....
Tell It To Your Analyst: The Raging Genius Of Earl Weaver
The first and obvious thing about Earl Weaver, for me, was that he was terrifying. I lived about seven blocks from Memorial Stadium, depending on how you walked it, and Junior Orioles packages were cheap, so my parents took my older brother and me to games all the time, from our youngest days. This ...
NFL 2012: Which Teams Actually Had Injuries, And Which Teams Just Lied?
Football injuries are random but inevitable. Every year, some teams will spend the season in an MRI machine, and others will end up pretty much unharmed (outside of thousands of micro-concussions). Just as predictably, some coaches will try to obfuscate their team's health to screw with their oppone...
H, Y, and Z Are Your Money Letters: How To Beat Scrabble's Flawed Points System, Using Google-Powered Math
This week the director of research at Google, a fellow named Peter Norvig, published on his blog the results of a fascinating deep-dive into the English language. If you're at all interested in letter frequency or word frequency, you owe it to yourself to at least skim Norvig's post. Essentially the...