Stats in the Wild

MLB Rankings – 7/2/2012

July 2, 2012

StatsInTheWild MLB rankings as of July 2, 2012 at 10:37am. SOS=strength of schedule

The last rankings came out on June 25, and since then the Dodgers have gone 1-6. Going back two weeks, to June 19, they are 2-11. As a result of this they fall 8 spots this week, landing them at number 18 in my rankings. TeamRankings.com has them even lower at 19, and, for some reason, ESPN has them ranked number 4 in their June 25 power rankings. (I’ll update the ESPN rankings as soon as they are posted.)

Team	Rank	Change	Record	ESPN	TeamRankings.com	SOS	Run Diff
Texas	1	–	50-30	1	2	13	+100
NYY	2	–	48-30	2	1	5	+61
Boston	3	↑2	42-37	10	6	6	+57
LA Angels	4	↑3	44-35	6	4	8	+44
Toronto	5	↓1	40-39	17	8	3	+29
ChiSox	6	↑2	42-37	13	10	14	+42
Washington	7	↑2	45-32	3	3	21	+48
TampaBay	8	↓5	41-38	7	9	2	-1
Baltimore	9	↓3	42-36	8	5	1	-26
Oakland	10	↑1	38-42	20	18	7	-2
Detroit	11	↑4	39-40	18	16	11	-7
Cincinnati	12	↑1	43-32	5	7	30	+33
NY Mets	13	↑3	43-37	11	12	17	+22
Atlanta	14	–	41-37	12	11	16	+21
St. Louis	15	↓3	41-38	16	17	28	+57
SF	16	↑3	45-35	9	14	29	+16
Cleveland	17	↑1	40-38	15	15	12	-37
LA Dodgers	18	↓8	44-36	4	19	26	+18
Pittsburgh	19	↑2	42-36	14	13	27	+6
Arizona	20	↓3	39-39	19	20	25	+13
Seattle	21	↓1	34-47	25	23	4	-30
Kansas City	22	–	35-42	24	21	10	-37
Miami	23	↑1	38-40	21	22	15	-58
Philadelphia	24	↓1	36-45	22	26	18	-15
Milwaukee	25	–	36-42	23	25	24	-11
Minnesota	26	–	33-45	27	24	9	-85
Houston	27	–	32-47	26	27	20	-53
Colorado	28	–	30-48	28	28	23	-56
Chic Cubs	29	–	29-49	29	29	19	-71
San Diego	30	–	30-50	30	30	22	-78

Past Rankings:

Cheers.

A comment on the LA Dodgers from May

July 2, 2012

Here is what I said about the LA Dodgers on May 28, 2012:

Some comments: ESPN ranking the Dodgers number 1 is an absolute joke. Yeah, they have the best record in baseball, but they also have the weakest schedule in baseball. 38 of their 47 games so far, almost 81%, have been against teams with a losing record. That is astonishing. Ranking the Dodgers number 1 is just one more reason why I don’t trust the “experts” at ESPN.

The Dodgers built the best record in baseball over the first part of the season by playing teams like Colorado and San Diego. They are currently 1-11 in their last 12 games in series against Oakland, LA Angels, San Francisco, and NY Mets. I guess it’s a lot harder to win when you not playing teams that are absolutely terrible.

Cheers.
Patents and Sampling

July 1, 2012

I was recently reading Gelman’s blog, and he wrote a post about this: Patents Aren’t Only for Engineers. Apparently, some actuary received a patent for statistical sampling. The author (is that what they are called?) of the patent, Jay Vadiveloo, is a mathematics professor in residence at the University of Connecticut, and he is quoted in the article as saying:

To me, the results were astounding: statistical sampling worked.

At this point, I thought I got the joke and I went to check the date that the article was published expecting to see April 1. Nope. May 12 actually. So, this is serious? If this is serious, this is — how can I say this nicely — astonishingly…..I have nothing nice to say here. So I will say nothing. Congratulations, professor Vadiveloo.

Gelman goes on to write:

P.S. Mendelssohn writes: “Yes, I felt it was a heartwarming story also. Perhaps we can get a patent for regression.”

I say, forget a patent for regression. I want a patent for the sample mean. That’s where the real money is. You can’t charge a lot for each use, but consider the volume!

This reminded of a conversation I had with a fellow graduate student in statistics who had done an internship at an insurance company over the course of a summer. They explained to me that someone in the insurance industry had either tried to patent or already had a patent for multiple regression for use in insurance. Now, I wasn’t sure how true the story was when I heard it, and I’m still not sure how true the story is, but if you can get a patent on sampling, I suppose anything is possible.

Question for a lawyer: If someone can get a patent on sampling after it has been around in the statistics literature for a very, very long time, can I just go through more recent statistics literature and just start filing patents on other people’s ideas?

I’m not actually going to do that, but that is a serious question. What is preventing me from doing that?

Cheers.

MLB rankings – 6/25/2012

June 25, 2012

StatsInTheWild MLB rankings as of June 25, 2012 at 4:37pm. SOS=strength of schedule

Team	Rank	Change	Record	ESPN	TeamRankings.com	SOS
Texas	1	↑1	45-28	1	2	13
NYY	2	↓1	43-28	2	1	4
Tampa Bay	3	–	40-32	7	4	3
Toronto	4	↑1	37-35	17	8	1
Boston	5	↑1	38-34	10	7	5
Baltimore	6	↓2	41-31	8	3	2
LA Angels	7	–	40-33	6	6	8
ChiSox	8	↑2	38-34	13	14	14
Washington	9	–	41-29	3	5	21
LA Dodgers	10	↓2	43-30	4	12	28
Oakland	11	↑1	35-38	20	18	7
St. Louis	12	↑3	38-35	16	17	29
Cincinnati	13	↓2	39-32	5	9	30
Atlanta	14	–	38-34	12	10	17
Detroit	15	↓2	35-37	18	20	11
NY Mets	16	↑1	39-34	11	11	16
Arizona	17	↑3	37-35	19	19	26
Cleveland	18	–	37-34	15	16	12
SF	19	↓3	40-33	9	15	25
Seattle	20	↓1	31-43	25	24	6
Pittsburgh	21	↑2	38-33	14	13	27
Kansas City	22	↓1	31-39	24	21	10
Philadelphia	23	↓1	34-40	22	23	18
Miami	24	–	34-38	21	22	15
Milwaukee	25	–	33-39	23	26	24
Minnesota	26	–	29-42	27	25	9
Houston	27	–	30-42	26	27	23
Colorado	28	–	27-44	28	28	22
Chic Cubs	29	–	24-48	29	30	20
San Diego	30	–	26-47	30	29	19