Category Archives: Sports
Which sport?
I went the the Cubs game today against the Dodgers. I got to see Clayton Kershaw pitch (Awesome) and watch the Cubs get destroyed (Expected). It was 14-3 going into the 9th inning and some people were joking that a touchdown would get the Cubs right back in the game. (The Cubs “rallied” for two in the 9th to ultimately lose 14-5.)
But, this got me thinking. 14-3 does look like a football score, but 14-5 is clearly not. On the train back to school, I came up with this question: If all you knew about a game was the score, which sport would you guess generated that score?
To answer this question, I scraped the scores of (almost) all of the baseball and hockey games from 2000-2014, and I found a table of all NFL scores all-time. (I haven’t exhaustively scraped every single NHL and MLB game ever because 1) I don’t think the results will change much and 2) what I did was good enough for Friday night.) I then counted how often a specific score occurred each of the three sports (I did consider basketball, but it’s not really that interesting here) and converted that count to a percentage. Then for each score, I assigned the sport with the highest percentage of that score. The graphic below shows the results of this. If you click on the image, you can zoom in on it for more detail. 
Some interesting things:
- If the winner scores 4 or fewer goals, those games belong to hockey.
- Additionally hockey gets 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, and 5-5. 5-0 and 5-4 are baseball scores though.
- If the winner scores between 6 and 9 runs, those games all belong to baseball. (With 6-6 and 7-7 ties belonging to football.
- Every shut out where the winner scores 12 or more (12-0, 13-0, etc.) belongs to football. Football also gets 10-0, but 11-0 belongs to baseball.
- In fact, any game where the winner scores 11 belongs to baseball.
- 18-8 is the lowest score combination to not be in my data set. This means that this score has never occurred in the NFL and has (likely) not occurred in the NHL or MLB since 2000.
- If the losing team score 10 points, the game belongs to football EXCEPT if the score is 11-10.
- If the losing team scores 12 or more points, it’s always football.
Cheers!
NFL Picks Week 1
Week 1 – SU: 10-6-0 ATS: 8-8-0 O/U: 13-3-0
Green Bay at Seattle
Prediction: Seahawks 24-21 (57.9%)
Pick: Packers +6 (59.1%)
Total: Over 45
New Orleans at Atlanta
Prediction: New Orleans 25-24 (51.3%)
Pick: Saints +1 (54.2%)
Total: Under 52
Buffalo at Chicago
Prediction: Chicago 24-19 (64.3%)
Pick: Bills +6.5 (53.9%)
Total: Under 48.5
Washington at Houston
Prediction: Texans 24-20 (59.6%)
Pick: Texans -2.5 (52.5%)
Total: Under 45.5
Tennessee at Kansas City
Prediction: Chiefs 23-19 (61.0%)
Pick: Titans +6 (55.9%)
Total: Under 44
New England at Miami
Prediction: Patriots 26-22 (61.7%)
Pick: Patriots -4 (50.5%)
Total: Over 47
Oakland at NY Jets
Prediction: Jets 22-18 (59.2%)
Pick: Raiders +5.5 (56.3%)
Total: Over 39.5
Jacksonville at Philadelphia
Prediction: Eagles 28-18 (76.5%)
Pick: Jaguars +11 (52.6%)
Total: Under 52
Cleveland at Pittsburgh
Prediction: Pittsburgh 24-19 (64.6%)
Pick: Browns +6 (52.2%)
Total: Over 41
Minnesota at St. Louis
Prediction: Rams 22-20 (54.1%)
Pick: Vikings +6 (62.8%)
Total: Under 45
Cincinnati at Baltimore
Prediction: Ravens 22-20 (54.7%)
Pick: Bengals +2.5 (52.4%)
Total: Under 43.5
San Francisco at Dallas
Prediction: 49ers 22-21 (54.2%)
Pick: Cowboys +5 (59.9%)
Total: Under 49
Carolina at Tampa Bay
Prediction: Panthers 21-20 (53.8%)
Pick: Buccaneers +2 (51.9%)
Total: Over 40
Indianapolis at Denver
Prediction: Broncos 29-21 (71.4%)
Pick: Broncos -7.5 (51.1%)
Total: Under 55.5
San Diego at Arizona
Prediction: Chargers 22-21 (50.2%)
Pick: Chargers +3.5 (59.6%)
Total: Under 44.5
NY Giants at Detroit
Prediction: Lions 25-21 (60.2%)
Pick: Giants +4 (51.1%)
Total: Over 45.5
Fully open-source, transparent implementation of Wins Above Replacement: Results from 2013
Over the past year, I’ve been involved in a project with Ben Baumer (buy his book!) and Shane Jensen in developing an open source, completely transparent version of the (rather opaque) baseball statistic Wins Above Replacement that we’re calling openWAR. We presented our preliminary results this past summer in a talk at JSM and this fall in a poster at NESSIS, but now our full paper is available on ArXiV. (Below you can see the chalkboard that resulted from our initial discussion….I assume this will be historic someday.)
As part of our open source proposal, we’ve also developed an R package, also called openWAR, that allows the user to scrape play by play data from the web and then, if they choose, compute our version of openWAR. The package is currently available on Ben’s github and should be available on CRAN soon. (Jim Albert (!) mentioned this package in his recent book , which you should probably buy even if it didn’t have my name in it. You should buy it twice, since my name is in it.)
Quick story about Jim Albert: When I was deciding where to go to grad school I applied to Bowling Green specifically because Jim Albert was there. I got in and even had an email address and was all set to go, but they couldn’t give me an answer about funding. UConn came along and offered me full funding, and the rest is history. So it’s a pretty big honor for me to be mentioned in Jim Albert’s book.
So what are our results? Below you’ll find out top 20 players for 2013. One interesting thing to note is that according to our openWAR, Trout actually had a better year in 2013 than in 2012 and he still didn’t win the MVP award.
Here is a comparison of our top 10 players from 2013 versus Fangraph’s top 10 players. Both methods agree that Mike Trout was the best player in 2013, and both methods had Josh Donaldson, Miguel Cabrera, Chris Davis, and Paul Goldschmidt in the top 10.
Next is a table of the ten best and worst fielders of 2013. What you should notice about this is that Miguel Cabrera, according to openWAR, was the worst fielder in baseball in 2013. It’s really incredible that his offensive numbers are so good that they more than compensate for his poor fielding.
The best base runner of 2013 was Ian Kinsler with a RAA of 10.64 and the worst base runner was Victor Martinez. The ninth worst base runner in 2013 was….Miguel Cabrera. Again, think about how good Cabrera has to be as a hitter to overcome his weaknesses as a fielder AND a baserunner to have won TWO AL MVP awards in a row. 
Cheers.
NFL Picks – Week 1
Overall Records
SU: (1-0)
ATS: (0-1)
O/U: (1-0)
Week 1 (1-0 SU, 0-1 ATS, 1-0 O/U)
September 5, 2013 – 8:30pm
Baltimore Ravens at Denver Broncos
Prediction: Broncos win 24-23
Pick: Ravens +8.5
OU: Over 47.5
September 8, 2013 – 1pm
New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills
Prediction: Patriots win 38-21
Pick: Patriots -7
OU: Over 51
Tennessee Titans at Pittsburgh Steelers
Prediction: Steelers win 25-17
Pick: Steelers -7
OU: Over 42
Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints
Prediction: Falcons win 30-24
Pick: Falcons +3
OU: Over 53.5
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New York Jets
Prediction: Buccaneers win 24-20
Pick: Buccaneers -2.5
OU: Over 40.5
Kansas City Chiefs at Jacksonville Jaguars
Prediction: Chiefs win 23-20
Pick: Jaguars +3.5
OU: Over 41
Cincinnati Bengals at Chicago Bears
Prediction: Bears win 21-17
Pick: Bengals +3.5
OU: Under 43.5
Miami Dolphins at Cleveland Browns
Prediction: Dolphins 20-19
Pick: Browns +1.5
OU: Under 41
Seattle Seahawks at Carolina Panthers
Prediction: Seahawks win 26-17
Pick: Seahawks -2.5
OU: Under 45.5
Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions
Prediction: Vikings win 27-24
Pick: Vikings +3.5
OU: Over 46
Oakland Raiders at Indianapolis Colts
Prediction: Colts win 27-22
Pick: Raiders +7
OU: over 47.5
September 8, 2013 – 4:25pm
St. Louis Rams at Arizona Cardinals
Rams win 21-16
Pick: Cardinals +6
OU: Under 41.5
Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers
Prediction: 49ers win 26-20
Pick: 49ers -4
OU: Under 48
September 8, 2013 – 8:30pm
New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys
Prediction: Giants win 27-21
Pick: Giants +2.5
OU: Over 47.5
September 9, 2013 – 7:10pm
Philadelphia Eagles at Washington Redskins
Prediction: Redskins win 31-21
Pick: Redskins -4.5
OU: Over 47.5
September 9, 2013 – 10:20pm
Houston Texans at San Diego Chargers
Prediction: Texans win 25-19
Pick: Texans -3
OU: Over 44.5
MLB Rankings – 8/30/2013
StatsInTheWild MLB rankings as of August 30, 2013 at 2pm. SOS=strength of schedule
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | ESPN | TeamRankings.com | SOS | Run Diff |
| Detroit | 1 | – | 78-56 | 2 | 3 | 14 | +159 |
| Boston | 2 | – | 80-56 | 6 | 2 | 10 | +133 |
| St. Louis | 3 | – | 78-56 | 4 | 5 | 25 | +146 |
| Atlanta | 4 | ↑1 | 81-52 | 3 | 1 | 19 | +131 |
| Texas | 5 | ↑4 | 78-55 | 8 | 6 | 19 | +88 |
| Tampa Bay | 6 | ↓2 | 75-57 | 5 | 7 | 6 | +52 |
| Cincinnati | 7 | ↑3 | 75-59 | 9 | 10 | 22 | +92 |
| Baltimore | 8 | ↓1 | 71-62 | 12 | 11 | 4 | +39 |
| Oakland | 9 | ↓1 | 75-58 | 10 | 9 | 17 | +71 |
| Pittsburgh | 10 | ↓4 | 78-56 | 7 | 8 | 23 | +51 |
| LA Dodgers | 11 | ↑2 | 78-55 | 1 | 4 | 29 | +59 |
| Cleveland | 12 | ↓1 | 71-62 | 11 | 12 | 11 | +36 |
| Kansas City | 13 | ↓1 | 69-65 | 16 | 14 | 8 | +39 |
| NY Yankees | 14 | – | 71-63 | 13 | 13 | 3 | -6 |
| Arizona | 15 | ↑1 | 68-64 | 14 | 15 | 24 | +15 |
| Washington | 16 | ↑4 | 68-66 | 15 | 16 | 28 | -9 |
| Toronto | 17 | ↓2 | 61-74 | 24 | 17 | 1 | -54 |
| LA Angels | 18 | ↓1 | 60-72 | 22 | 18 | 12 | -32 |
| Colorado | 19 | ↑4 | 63-72 | 19 | 21 | 26 | -14 |
| NY Mets | 20 | ↑2 | 61-72 | 17 | 19 | 27 | -34 |
| Milwaukee | 21 | ↑6 | 59-74 | 26 | 20 | 15 | -57 |
| Chi WSox | 22 | ↑6 | 56-77 | 27 | 26 | 9 | -64 |
| Seattle | 23 | ↓5 | 60-73 | 18 | 22 | 7 | -107 |
| Minnesota | 24 | ↓5 | 57-75 | 23 | 25 | 5 | -92 |
| Chi Cubs | 25 | ↓4 | 58-78 | 28 | 28 | 13 | -56 |
| SF | 26 | ↓2 | 59-74 | 25 | 27 | 16 | -87 |
| San Diego | 27 | ↓1 | 60-73 | 21 | 24 | 20 | -85 |
| Philadelphia | 28 | ↓3 | 62-73 | 20 | 23 | 18 | -111 |
| Miami | 29 | – | 49-83 | 29 | 29 | 21 | -120 |
| Houston | 30 | – | 44-89 | 30 | 30 | 2 | -183 |
Past Rankings:
Top 25 MLB Pitchers – August 30, 2013
Updated August 30, 2013 at 12:34am
Total Prevention is a measure of runs prevented weighted by the number of batters they have faced (Higher is better).
Yearly Expected ER is approximately the expected number of runs that a team would allow is that pitcher pitched every inning of every game for a team (Lower is better).
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NCAA Football Picks – Week 1
August 29, 2013
Akron at Central Florida
Prediction: Central Florida 38-20
Illinois State at Ball State
Prediction: Ball State 34-24
Kentucky at Western Kentucky
Prediction: Western Kentucky 25-23
Liberty at Kent State
Prediction: Kent State 28-21
North Carolina at South Carolina
Prediction: South Carolina 24-22
Rutgers at Fresno State
Prediction: Rutgers 21-20
Sacramento State at San Jose State
Prediction: San Jose State 35-19
Samford at Georgia State
Prediction: Georgia State 26-23
USC at Hawaii
Prediction: USC 36-13
Southern Utah at South Alabama
Prediction: South Alabama 27-21
Towson at UConn
Prediction: UConn 24-17
Tulsa at Bowling Green
Prediction: Tulsa 27-17
Utah State at Utah
Prediction: Utah State 24-19
Western Carolina at Middle Tennessee State
Prediction: Middle Tennessee State 36-21
August 30, 2013
Southern at Houston
Prediction: Houston 42-23
Texas Tech at SMU
Prediction: Texas Tech 30-23
August 31, 2013
UAB at Troy
Prediction: Troy 38-29
Austin Peay at Tennessee
Prediction: Tennessee 47-16
Boise State at Washington
Boise State 23-16
BYU at Virginia
Prediction: BYU 26-14
Buffalo at Ohio State
Prediction: Ohio State 34-14
Central Michigan at Michigan
Prediction: Michigan 35-19
Eastern Illinois at San Diego State
Prediction: San Diego State 40-17
Eastern Washington at Oregon State
Prediction: Oregon State 33-16
Elon at Georgia Tech
Prediction: Georgia Tech 44-14
FIU at Maryland
Prediction: Maryland 23-20
Georgia at Clemson
Prediction: Georgia 28-27
Howard at Eastern Michigan
Prediction: Eastern Michigan 27-25
Idaho at North Texas
Prediction: North Texas 34-22
Indiana at Indiana State
Prediction: Indiana 35-24
Jackson State at Tulane
Prediction: Jackson State 29-27
Louisiana Tech at NC State
Prediction: Louisiana Tech 37-33
Louisiana-Lafayette at Arkansas
Prediction: Arkansas 33-27
Louisiana-Monroe at Oklahoma
Prediction: Oklahoma 38-20
LSU at TCU
Prediction: TCU 17-16
Massachusetts at Wisconsin
Prediction: Wisconsin wins 43-7
McNeese State at South Florida
Prediction: South Florida 31-23
Mississippi at Vanderbilt
Prediction: Vanderbilt 24-23
Mississippi State at Oklahoma
Prediction: Oklahoma State 34-21
Morgan State at Army
Prediction: Army 54-17
Murray State at Missouri
Prediction: Missouri 40-10
Nevada at UCLA
Prediction: MUCL 37-33
UNLV at Minnesota
Prediction: Minnesota 30-19
New Mexico State at Texas
Prediction: Texas 41-13
Nicholls State at Oregon
Prediction: Oregon 58-10
North Carolina Central at Duke
Prediction: Duke 38-20
North Dakota State at Kansas State
Prediction: Kansas State 17-14
Northern Arizona at Arizona
Prediction: Arizona 43-19
Northern Illinois at Iowa
Prediction: Northern Illinois 23-19
Northern Iowa at Iowa State
Prediction: Iowa State 27-19
Northwestern at California
Prediction: Northwestern 31-23
Oklahoma State at Mississippi State
Prediction: Oklahoma State 34-33
Penn State at Syracuse
Prediction: Penn State 27-22
Presbyterian at Wake Forest
Prediction: Wake Forest 34-12
Purdue at Cincinnati
Prediction: Cincinnati 30-23
Rice at Texas A&M
Prediction: Texas A&M 48-20
Southern Illinois at Illinois
Prediction: Illinois 27-19
Temple at Notre Dame
Prediction: Notre Dame 30-12
Texas State at Southern Mississippi
Prediction: Southern Mississippi 28-27
Texas-San Antonio at New Mexico
Prediction: New Mexico 30-28
Toledo at Florida
Prediction: Florida 31-14
Villanova at Boston College
Prediction: Boston College 27-21
Virginia Tech at Alabama
Prediction: Alabama 26-9
Washington State at Auburn
Prediction: Auburn 28-19
Western Michigan at Michigan State
Prediction: Michigan State 28-17
William & Mary at West Virginia
West Virginia 35-17
Wofford at Baylor
Prediction: Baylor 45-27
Wyoming at Nebraska
Prediction: Nebraska 40-17
Top 25 Pitchers – 6/27/2013
Updated June 27, 2013 at 12:34am
Total Prevention is a measure of runs prevented weighted by the number of batters they have faced (Higher is better).
Yearly Expected ER is approximately the expected number of runs that a team would allow is that pitcher pitched every inning of every game for a team (Lower is better).
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MLB Rankings – 6/26/2013
StatsInTheWild MLB rankings as of June 26, 2012 at 2pm. SOS=strength of schedule
| Team | Rank | Change | Record | ESPN | TeamRankings.com | SOS | Run Diff |
| St. Louis | 1 | – | 48-29 | 1 | 2 | 25 | +114 |
| Boston | 2 | ↑1 | 46-33 | 2 | 1 | 6 | +76 |
| Detroit | 3 | ↑3 | 42-33 | 3 | 4 | 16 | +76 |
| Pittsburgh | 4 | ↑1 | 47-30 | 7 | 3 | 21 | +34 |
| Cincinnati | 5 | ↓3 | 45-33 | 4 | 10 | 20 | +52 |
| Oakland | 6 | ↑2 | 45-34 | 6 | 8 | 17 | +49 |
| Tampa Bay | 7 | – | 41-37 | 14 | 7 | 4 | +21 |
| Baltimore | 8 | ↑1 | 43-35 | 8 | 5 | 2 | +14 |
| Texas | 9 | ↓5 | 44-33 | 9 | 6 | 15 | +25 |
| Atlanta | 10 | – | 45-33 | 5 | 11 | 30 | +56 |
| NY Yankees | 11 | ↑1 | 42-33 | 11 | 9 | 3 | 0 |
| Toronto | 12 | ↑6 | 38-38 | 12 | 12 | 1 | -1 |
| Cleveland | 13 | ↑1 | 39-37 | 16 | 13 | 9 | +16 |
| Arizona | 14 | ↓3 | 41-35 | 10 | 14 | 22 | +20 |
| Colorado | 15 | ↓2 | 39-39 | 18 | 15 | 24 | +28 |
| Kansas City | 16 | – | 35-39 | 20 | 16 | 8 | +7 |
| SF | 17 | ↓2 | 38-39 | 13 | 18 | 19 | -18 |
| LA Angels | 18 | ↑3 | 34-43 | 21 | 22 | 11 | -8 |
| Minnesota | 19 | ↓2 | 34-49 | 22 | 20 | 10 | -25 |
| San Diego | 20 | – | 39-39 | 17 | 19 | 23 | -21 |
| Washington | 21 | ↑1 |
38-38 | 15 | 17 | 28 | -28 |
| Chi Cubs | 22 | ↓3 | 31-44 | 24 | 27 | 14 | -18 |
| Chi WSox | 23 | – | 32-42 | 26 | 26 | 12 | -34 |
| Milwaukee | 24 | ↑2 | 32-43 | 27 | 25 | 13 | -41 |
| LA Dodgers | 25 | ↑2 | 34-42 | 23 | 24 | 18 | -41 |
| Seattle | 26 | ↓2 | 34-44 | 25 | 23 | 7 | -62 |
| Philadelphia | 27 | ↓2 | 37-41 | 19 | 21 | 29 | -55 |
| NY Mets | 28 | ↑1 | 30-43 | 28 | 28 | 27 | -44 |
| Houston | 29 | ↓1 | 29-49 | 29 | 29 | 5 | -104 |
| Miami | 30 | – | 26-50 | 30 | 30 | 26 | -88 |
Past Rankings:
Stats in the Wild 
