Last year I ran some comparisons of a few projection systems for major league baseball, comparing several projection systems against 2011 data. So I thought it would be interesting to run a similar comparison of the five sets of projections I made visible for 2012 on RotoValue: CAIRO – from S B of the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog.… Continue reading Reviewing Five 2012 MLB Projection Systems
More "Make-it, take-it" Data
At the suggestion of Tom Tango, I ran my basketball simulator with many different inputs to see what impact different scoring levels and game lengths might have on the change to a “make-it, take-it” rule for basketball replacing alternating possessions after scoring. The short summary is that I find overtime games are much less likely… Continue reading More "Make-it, take-it" Data
"Make it, take it" Simulations
In a discussion on Tom Tango’s blog, Phil Birnbaum was speculating about whether switching basketball to “make it, take it” might change the balance of the game, and he thought it might help the underdog win more often. After reading his comment, I thought of a rather simple simulation I could hack up to test… Continue reading "Make it, take it" Simulations
Astros to the American League – Revisiting the Impact
The Houston Astros are moving to the American league for 2013. This is hardly news – it was announced after the 2011 season, and I did a post about the impact it might have back then. I’ve now updated the RotoValue engine so that the Astros are indeed considered an AL team for 2013 and into… Continue reading Astros to the American League – Revisiting the Impact
kwERA and FIP – A discussion and comparison
At the Inside the Book blog there has been a lot of discussion of FIP and kwERA recently. These are two alternate pitching metrics, developed by Tom Tango, both scaled so that values are similar to earned run average, but which only focus on certain parts of pitching. FIP is “Fielding Independent Pitching”, a metric… Continue reading kwERA and FIP – A discussion and comparison
NL Top 10 RotoValue 2012
Giants’ catcher Buster Posey was a clear winner of the NL MVP voting, but he was not the most valuable player in standard rotisserie formats. In both traditional 4×4 and 5×5 leagues, last year’s NL MVP Ryan Braun was the clear best player. Ironically, Braun won the MVP balloting last year, while being clearly behind Matt… Continue reading NL Top 10 RotoValue 2012
No Power!
Like many on the east cost, we’re without power in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. But at least the hosting provider for rotovalue stayed up throughout the storm, and is now handling the start of the NBA season! So in my limited bandwith (thank you to my neighbor for opening his generator-powered WiFi), I’m now… Continue reading No Power!
Projected Standings
One fun feature of RotoValue is Projected Standings. While we don’t know what the future will hold, we can guess about it, and the page lets you do exactly that. My long-time NBA league had its draft last weekend, and now all the rosters are loaded, so we can see which teams look strongest. So… Continue reading Projected Standings
Peering into the Crystal (basket)Ball
RotoValue computes prices for players given some set of statistics, and using past data, it can tell you how much players were worth last year, or in other time frames. But what matters most is how players will perform in the future. To try to estimate that, I’ve worked on a regression-based projection model. I’ve… Continue reading Peering into the Crystal (basket)Ball
Hybrid Auction/Draft
Fantasy sports leagues typically use either an auction or a draft to allocate players at the start of the season. Drafts are usually faster and simpler, but especially for the NBA right now, where two players stand out far above the rest, they mean that the draft order determines who can own LeBron James or… Continue reading Hybrid Auction/Draft