Category Archives: Uncategorized
Donald Trump and Agrabah
Public Policy Polling published the results of a recent poll of 532 Republican primary voters. Among other results, Trump is polling around 40% and 26% of respondents believe Islam should be illegal in the United States.
Now, I’m not a Trump supporter, but supporting him is a matter of personal preference. If you want to support him, go nuts. I think he’s terrible (because he’s actually terrible). Also, I’ll just leave this right here:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
But what really caught my attention was the final question in the poll (which is being written about all over the place right now here, here, and here, for instance):
Q38 Would you support or oppose bombing Agrabah?
The thing to note here is that Agrabah isn’t areal place. It’s the fictional kingdom in Disney’s Aladdin. Even so, 30% of the Republican respondents responded that they would be in support of this, while only 13% opposed this (57% were “not sure”). PPP also broke down this question by which candidate they supported, and I’ve made a nice little mosaic plot to display it. 
Green is support, red is opposed, and gray is not sure. The largest green rectangle are Trump supporter who supported this question. To re-iterate those are people who support xenophobic sweet potato Donald Trump for president AND support bombing a fictional Disney kingdom.
On the other hand, I think asking question like this isn’t helpful. No one likes to be made to feel stupid and asking a question like this seems to have the intention of pointing out how stupid people are. Then we can all collectively laugh at how stupid people are. But what good does that do anyone? It makes these people feel like they are being talked down and condescended to. And that’s kind of shitty. Is there a legitimate reason to ask question like this?
Cheers.
NFL Picks – Week 15
Total (weeks 1-15) – SU: 128-79 ATS: 103-98-1 O/U: 114-88-1
Week 1 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 10-6 O/U: 11-5
Week 2 – SU: 8-8 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 9-7
Week 3 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 2-14 O/U: 7-8-1
Week 4 – SU: 10-5 ATS: 9-6 O/U: 9-6
Week 5 – SU: 7-7 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 6-8
Week 6 – SU: 12-2 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 8-6
Week 7 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-8 O/U: 10-4
Week 8 – SU: 9-5 ATS: 7-5-2 O/U: 7-7
Week 9 – SU: 8-5 ATS: 5-8 O/U: 8-5
Week 10 – SU: 5-9 ATS: 8-6 O/U: 9-3-2
Week 11 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-7-1 O/U: 7-7
Week 12 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 8-8
Week 13 – SU: 9-6 ATS: 7-8 O/U: 9-6
Week 14 – SU: 8-4 ATS: 7-5 O/U: 8-4
Week 15 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 7-8-1 O/U: 7-8-1
Tampa Bay at St. Louis
Prediction: Rams 21-19
Pick: Rams -1
Total: Under 41
NY Jets at Dallas
Prediction: Cowboys 22-19
Pick: Cowboys +3 PUSH
Total: Under 41.5
Chicago at Minnesota
Prediction: Vikings 22-21
Pick: Bears +6
Total: Over 43
Atlanta at Jacksonville
Prediction: Falcons 24-22
Pick: Falcons +3
Total: Under 49
Houston at Indianapolis
Prediction: Colts 23-22
Pick: Colts -1
Total: Over 41
Kansas City at Baltimore
Prediction: Ravens 22-21
Pick: Ravens +7
Total: Over 41
Buffalo at Washington
Prediction: Washington Football Team 22-21
Pick: Washington Football Team +1.5
Total: Under 44
Tennessee at New England
Prediction: Patriots 28-19
Pick: Titans +14
Total: Over 47
Arizona at Philadelphia
Prediction: Eagles 25-23
Pick: Eagles +3.5
Total: Under 51
Carolina at NY Giants
Prediction: Panthers 23-22
Pick: Giants +4.5
Total: Under 48
Cleveland at Seattle
Prediction: Seahawks 26-16
Pick: Browns +15
Total: Under 43 PUSH
Green Bay at Oakland
Prediction: Packers 25-20
Pick: Packers -3
Total: Under 47.5
Miami at San Diego
Prediction: Chargers 24-22
Pick: Chargers -1.5
Total: Over 45.5
Denver at Pittsburgh
Prediction: Broncos 24-23
Pick: Broncos +6
Total: Over 44.5
Cincinnati at San Francisco
Prediction: 49ers 22-19
Pick: 49ers +5.5
Total: Over 40.5
Detroit at New Orleans
Prediction: Saints 27-24
Pick: Saints -2.5
Total: Over 50
Erdős is still publishing
My Erdos number is 4.
Paul Erdős is still publishing. His newest paper, with Ron Graham and Steve Butler,shows that any natural number can be written as a sum $latex sum_1^ell 1/a_i$ with $latex a_1 < ldots < a_ell$, where each denominator is the product of three distinct primes. A footnote, on the obvious generalization to expressing rational numbers in such a form, reads:
“One of the authors believes that all rational numbers can be expressed in this form, another author has doubts that every rational number can be expressed in this form, and the third author, already having looked in The BOOK at the answer, remains silent on this issue.” For more of the context on this paper, see Siobhan Roberts writing for the Simons Foundation.
“The BOOK”, of course, refers to Erdős’ frequent claim that God (who he did not believe in) had a book in heaven that had the best proof…
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NFL Picks – Week 14
Total (weeks 1-13) – SU: 129-79 ATS: 105-98-5 O/U: 115-89-3
Week 1 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 10-6 O/U: 11-5
Week 2 – SU: 8-8 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 9-7
Week 3 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 2-14 O/U: 7-8-1
Week 4 – SU: 10-5 ATS: 9-6 O/U: 9-6
Week 5 – SU: 7-7 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 6-8
Week 6 – SU: 12-2 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 8-6
Week 7 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-8 O/U: 10-4
Week 8 – SU: 9-5 ATS: 7-5-2 O/U: 7-7
Week 9 – SU: 8-5 ATS: 5-8 O/U: 8-5
Week 10 – SU: 5-9 ATS: 8-6 O/U: 9-3-2
Week 11 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-7-1 O/U: 7-7
Week 12 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 8-8
Week 13 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 8-8 O/U: 9-7
Week 14 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 8-8 O/U: 8-8
Minnesota at Arizona
Prediction: Cardinals 23-20
Pick: Vikings +10.5
Total: Under 46.5
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati
Prediction: Bengals 24-22
Pick: Steelers +2.5
Total: Under 47
Buffalo at Philadelphia
Prediction: Eagles 25-22
Pick: Eagles EVEN
Total: Under 47
Atlanta at Carolina
Prediction: Panthers 25-21
Pick: Falcons +8.5
Total: Under 47
San Francisco at Cleveland
Prediction: 49ers 21-20
Pick: 49ers +1
Total: Under 41.5
Washington at Chicago
Prediction: Bears 23-21
Pick: Washington Football Team +4
Total: Over 43.5
Detroit at St. Louis
Prediction: Rams 21-20
Pick: Rams +3
Total: Over 41
San Diego at Kansas City
Prediction: Chiefs 24-21
Pick: Chargers +10.5
Total: Over 44.5
New Orleans at Tampa Bay
Prediction: Saints 25-24
Pick: Saints +4.5
Total: Under 50.5
Indianapolis at Jacksonville
Prediction: Colts 24-21
Pick: Colts +1.5
Total: Under 46
Tennessee at NY Jets
Prediction: Jets 22-18
Pick: Titans +7
Total: Under 43
New England at Houston
Prediction: Patriots 25-23
Pick: Texans +3.5
Total: Over 45
Oakland at Denver
Prediction: Broncos 27-19
Pick: Broncos -6.5
Total: Over 43.5
Dallas at Green Bay
Prediction: Packers 26-20
Pick: Packers -5
Total: Over 42.5
Seattle at Baltimore
Prediction: Seahawks 23-19
Pick: Ravens +12
Total: Over 40.5
NY Giants at Miami
Prediction: Dolphins 24-22
Pick: Dolphins +1.5
Total: Under 47
MARCEL the Matrix
MARCEL!
One of the best known player forecasting systems is Tom Tango’s MARCEL. One of MARCEL’s primary benefits is that it is relatively simple to understand. The basic idea is to take a time-weighted three-year average of past performance and adjust for age. This simple projection system has proven to be relatively robust, in that many others have tried and failed to best MARCEL’s projections. Today, we’ll calculate MARCEL in R.
Being a relatively simple projection system, MARCEL does not require play-by-play data. Thus, we can compute in R using the venerable Lahman Database, which is packaged into R by Michael Friendly. The Lahman Database contains seasonal totals for all major league players going all the way back to 1871.
Part of this exercise will involve confirming that we have done the calculations correctly by comparing our results to Tango’s. In his original instructions, Tango computes MARCEL for…
View original post 1,092 more words
Michigan State gets the “3” seed; Oklahoma gets the “4” seed
The college football playoff bracket has been announced: Alabama will play Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl and Clemson will play Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. The teams were ranked as follows:
- Clemson
- Alabama
- Michigan State
- Oklahoma
The committee basically has to rank Clemson number 1 because they haven’t lost a game yet, Alabama is, I think, clearly the best of the one loss teams (and arguably the best overall team), but Michigan State being ranked higher than Oklahoma seems a bit odd to me.
Sagarin (as of today) has Alabama number 1, Oklahoma number 2, Clemson number 3 and Michigan State all the way down at number 9. Now I’m not going to fault the selection committee for putting Clemson at number 1 seed, they are the only undefeated team (even if they believe Alabama is better). I have no problem with Alabama at number 2 either (best 1 loss team), but Michigan State seems to clearly be the 4 seed here.
But wait! Here’s my theory on this. Look at the Vegas odds as of November 30th (I’m guessing these haven’t changed too much since conference championship games):
The committee has it’s hands tied with ranking Clemson number 1 even if they believe that Alabama is the better team, as Vegas believes. So I think the committee wanted to avoid putting arguably the two best teams (Alabama and Oklahoma) in a semi-final match-up even if it means rankings Oklahoma 4th below a, what I believe to be, clearly inferior team on paper (Remember Michigan State is here thanks to a botched punt).
If a bracket were created with seeds based on the Vegas betting odds OR Sagarin’s ratings (OR most ratings collected here by Massey), you’d get (1)Alabama vs (4) Michigan State and (2 (or 3)) Oklahoma vs (2 (or 3)) Clemson. Which is exactly the same bracket that we actually have!
So I don’t think that the committee actually believe Michigan State is better than Oklahoma, I think they sneakily made Oklahoma the 4 seed to get better semi-final match-ups since they were stuck with Clemson as the 1 seed.
Cheers.
NFL Picks – Week 13
Total (weeks 1-13) – SU: 119-73 ATS: 97-90-5 O/U: 107-81-3
Week 1 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 10-6 O/U: 11-5
Week 2 – SU: 8-8 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 9-7
Week 3 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 2-14 O/U: 7-8-1
Week 4 – SU: 10-5 ATS: 9-6 O/U: 9-6
Week 5 – SU: 7-7 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 6-8
Week 6 – SU: 12-2 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 8-6
Week 7 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-8 O/U: 10-4
Week 8 – SU: 9-5 ATS: 7-5-2 O/U: 7-7
Week 9 – SU: 8-5 ATS: 5-8 O/U: 8-5
Week 10 – SU: 5-9 ATS: 8-6 O/U: 9-3-2
Week 11 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-7-1 O/U: 7-7
Week 12 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 8-8
Week 13 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 8-8 O/U: 9-7
Green Bay at Detroit
Prediction: Packers 25-22
Pick: Packers -2.5
Total: Over 46.5
San Francisco at Chicago
Prediction: Bears 21-20
Pick: 49ers +7
Total: Under 43
Cincinnati at Cleveland
Prediction: Bengals 23-20
Pick: Browns +9.5
Total: Under 43.5
Jacksonville at Tennessee
Prediction: Titans 22-19
Pick: Titans -2.5
Total: Under 43.5
Houston at Buffalo
Prediction: Bills 22-20
Pick: Texans +3
Total: Over 41.5
Baltimore at Miami
Prediction: Ravens 22-21
Pick: Ravens +3.5
Total: Under 43.5
Carolina at New Orleans
Prediction: Saints 25-24
Pick: Saints +7
Total: Under 49.5
Seattle at Minnesota
Prediction: Seahawks 23-19
Pick: Seahawks EVEN
Total: Under 42
Arizona at St. Louis
Prediction: Cardinals 21-20
Pick: Rams +6
Total: Under 43
Atlanta at Tampa Bay
Prediction: Falcons 24-22
Pick: Falcons +1
Total: Under 46
NY Jets at NY Giants
Prediction: Giants 22-20
Pick: Giants +2
Total: Under 45
Denver at San Diego
Prediction: Broncos 25-23
Pick: Chargers +4
Total: Over 43.5
Kansas City at Oakland
Prediction: Chiefs 23-20
Pick: Raiders +3
Total: Under 44
Philadelphia at New England
Prediction: Patriots 29-24
Pick: Eagles +10
Total: Over 49
Indianapolis at Pittsburgh
Prediction: Steelers 26-23
Pick: Colts +7
Total: Over 48
Dallas at Washington
Prediction: Cowboys 22-21
Pick: Cowboys +4.5
Total: Over 42
NFL Picks – Week 12
Total (weeks 1-12) – SU: 109-67 ATS: 89-82-5 O/U: 98-74-3
Week 1 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 10-6 O/U: 11-5
Week 2 – SU: 8-8 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 9-7
Week 3 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 2-14 O/U: 7-8-1
Week 4 – SU: 10-5 ATS: 9-6 O/U: 9-6
Week 5 – SU: 7-7 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 6-8
Week 6 – SU: 12-2 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 8-6
Week 7 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-8 O/U: 10-4
Week 8 – SU: 9-5 ATS: 7-5-2 O/U: 7-7
Week 9 – SU: 8-5 ATS: 5-8 O/U: 8-5
Week 10 – SU: 5-9 ATS: 8-6 O/U: 9-3-2
Week 11 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-7-1 O/U: 7-7
Week 12 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 8-8
Philadelphia at Detroit
Prediction: Lions 25-24
Pick: Lions +1.5
Total: Over 45.5
Carolina at Dallas
Prediction: Cowboys 22-21
Pick: Cowboys -1
Total: Under 45.5
Chicago at Green Bay
Prediction: Packers 27-20
Pick: Bears +8.5
Total: Over 45
New Orleans at Houston
Prediction: Texans 26-25
Pick: Saints +3
Total: Over 47.5
Minnesota at Atlanta
Prediction: Falcons 24-21
Pick: Falcons -1
Total: Under 45.5
St. Louis at Cincinnati
Prediction: Bengals 22-18
Pick: Rams +9
Total: Under 42
Tampa Bay at Indianapolis
Prediction: Colts 25-20
Pick: Colts -3
Total: Under 46.5
NY Giants at Washington
Prediction: Giants 23-22
Pick: Washington Football Team +2.5
Total: Under 47
Oakland at Tennessee
Prediction: Titans 22-20
Pick: Titans +2
Total: Under 44
Buffalo at Kansas City
Prediction: Chiefs 22-19
Pick: Bills +6.5
Total: Under 42.5
Miami at NY Jets
Prediction: Jets 21-20
Pick: Dolphins +3.5
Total: Under 42.5
San Diego at Jacksonville
Prediction: Chargers 24-21
Pick: Chargers +4
Total: Under 46.5
Arizona at San Francisco
Prediction: 49ers 21-20
Pick: 49ers +10.5
Total: Under 44.5
Pittsburgh at Seattle
Prediction: Seahawks 25-19
Pick: Seahawks -4
Total: Under 45.5
New England at Denver
Prediction: Broncos 26-25
Pick: Broncos +3
Total: Over 43.5
Baltimore at Cleveland
Prediction: Ravens 23-21
Pick: Ravens +2.5
Total: Over 41
NFL 2015: Just slightly below average or the year of the right skew
My friend sent me an email today commenting that there were a lot of mediocre NFL teams this year, and I think I read something somewhere that said there are more teams at or below .500 at this point in the season than in any year since 1990. So this got me thinking about some posts that I had written in like 2009 about entropy in the NFL (here and here).
I don’t really like the way I did them back then, so I did them differently today. What I did today was take the counts of wins for each team and did a goodness of fit test or a contingency table with probability 1/# of NFL teams for each cell. This is assuming that the the counts of the wins for NFL teams are randomly distributed across teams across the league. Below is a Manhattan style plot (like those used in GWAS) displaying the -log(p-value) for the league for each year from 2000 through 2015. Since, we are currently in the middle of 2015, I extrapolated win totals based on current win percentages (I don’t think this is great, but I’ll update it at the end of the season with the full results). What you can see is that 2015 is the only year with a p-value below the magical 0.05 level. (Of course, correcting for multiple tests with Bonferroni renders all of these tests insignificant).
The next closest year was 2005, which was a very strange year. Only one team finished 8-8 (3.8 teams on average) and the distribution of wins for teams was essentially bimodal. You were either a pretty good team or a pretty bad team, but mediocrity was hard to come by in 2005. What’s so different about 2015 is that the rejection of the null hypothesis this year seems to be being driven by the large number of slightly below average teams (Dolphins, Colts, Texans, Chiefs, Raiders, Giants, Washington Football Team, Eagles, Bears, Buccaneers, Saints, Seahawks, and Rams) and a few teams that are very, very good (Bengals, Patriots and of course the 9-1 Panthers.) On the other end of spectrum was 2002 when it seemed like every team in the league was 9-7, no team won 13 or more games (only other time that has happened since 2000 was last year in 2014), and every team won at least 2 games.
The plot below shows histograms for the distribution of win totals. Orange boxes indicate a higher count in that bin and blue indicates a lower count. (Note: 2015 win totals are extrapolated). Just take a look at the distribution of 2015! So many teams are just slightly below .500, which is distinctly different from any other year since 2000. I suspect that as the season finished, this shape we are seeing will diminish somewhat, but I think the general trend is interesting (I mean we are in week 11 right now).
Finally, I made some side by side boxplots (because I love them) to look at the distribution of team wins across season. Orange boxes are related to small p-values (i.e. significantly different than the null hypothesis) and blue boxes correspond to large p-values. Here the win totals for 2015 are not extrapolated and……
I re-created the boxplots with 2015 win totals extrapolated.
In conclusion, 2015 is a weird year in the NFL.
Cheers.
NFL Picks – Week 11
Total (weeks 1-11) – SU: 99-61 ATS: 80-75-5 O/U: 91-66-3
Week 1 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 10-6 O/U: 11-5
Week 2 – SU: 8-8 ATS: 9-7 O/U: 9-7
Week 3 – SU: 10-6 ATS: 2-14 O/U: 7-8-1
Week 4 – SU: 10-5 ATS: 9-6 O/U: 9-6
Week 5 – SU: 7-7 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 6-8
Week 6 – SU: 12-2 ATS: 9-4-1 O/U: 8-6
Week 7 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-8 O/U: 10-4
Week 8 – SU: 9-5 ATS: 7-5-2 O/U: 7-7
Week 9 – SU: 8-5 ATS: 5-8 O/U: 8-5
Week 10 – SU: 5-9 ATS: 8-6 O/U: 9-3-2
Week 11 – SU: 10-4 ATS: 6-7-1 O/U: 7-7
Tennessee at Jacksonville
Prediction: Jaguars 21-20
Pick: Titans +3.5
Total: Under 42.5
Washington at Carolina
Prediction: Panthers 24-19
Pick: Washington Football Team +7
Total: Under 45
Oakland at Detroit
Prediction: Lions 25-20
Pick: Lions +1
Total: Under 49.5
Dallas at Miami
Prediction: Dolphins 23-22
Pick: Dolphins +1
Total: Under 47
Indianapolis at Atlanta
Prediction: Falcons 26-24
Pick: Colts +5.5
Total: Over 47.5
St. Louis at Baltimore
Prediction: Ravens 22-19
Pick: Ravens -2.5
Total: Under 41.5
NY Jets at Houston
Prediction: Texans 22-19
Pick: Texans +2.5
Total: Under 41.5
Green Bay at Minnesota
Prediction: Packers 24-21
Pick: Packers +1
Total: Over 44.5
Tampa Bay at Philadelphia
Prediction: Eagles 26-20
Pick: Eagles -5.5
Total: Over 45
Denver at Chicago
Prediction: Broncos 24-21
Pick: Broncos +1
Total: Over 41
Cincinnati at Arizona
Prediction: Cardinals 22-21
Pick: Bengals +5
Total: Under 48.5
San Francisco at Seattle
Prediction: Seahawks 23-16
Pick: 49ers +12.5
Total: Under 40
Kansas City at San Diego
Prediction: Chargers 23-22
Pick: Chargers +3
Total: Over 45
Buffalo at New England
Prediction: Patriots 27-21
Pick: Bills +7 PUSH
Total: Under 48.5
Stats in the Wild 
