Joelestra
Jun 08, 2009 May 22, 2012 14 44
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All of the Hoos
by Joelestra on Dec 16, 2011 8:51 AM EST
on Track Em Tigers
Check out "All of the Hoos" for a great UVa-made video for the Chick-Fil-A Bowl that you'll in no way want to make fun of.
10 comments
A message from a VT fan...
by Joelestra on Nov 5, 2010 11:25 AM EDT
on From The Rumble Seat
Just thought I would stop in for a couple of thoughts following an exciting game last night...
What if CC were a Mariner and Felix a Yankee?
by Joelestra on Sep 24, 2010 1:33 PM EDT
on Beyond the Box Score
Most readers of this blog (hopefully ALL readers) are well aware of the shortcomings of Wins as a stat, and despite such obvious reasons why it should not be used to compare pitchers we have all seen countless articles in the Cy Young debate that say things along the lines of "I know wins are helped by your offense, but you can't ignore how many wins CC Sabathia has gotten for his team compared to Felix Hernandez".
So for fun I thought I would present a new way to make the case for not using wins by posing the question: What would this debate look like if CC Sabathia and Felix Hernandez were in each other's shoes this season?
Most Frequently Overrated/Underrated ACC Teams
by Joelestra on Jul 30, 2010 3:06 PM EDT
on Gobbler Country
This week's Bourbon Shots included a link to an article from the GT blog called Margin of Hype vs. Margin of Excellence (From The Rumble Seat) that examined which teams tend to get overrated and underrated by the media following ACC Media Days. A good idea, but in the spirit of ACC academic rivalry I thought I'd post my own analysis, which unlike the GT blog is based in "theory" and "mathematical correctness" and other useful things that come along with a degree from the finest "Tech" in the ACC!
VT/UT Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Dec 31, 2009 12:29 PM EST
on Gobbler Country
Last edition for the season - expanded for the bowl!
Bryan Stinespring to Richmond?
by Joelestra on Dec 11, 2009 2:37 PM EST
on Gobbler Country
Could it be true? Could a respectable program really be interested in Bryan Stinespring as a head coach?
VT/UVa Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Nov 23, 2009 11:20 AM EST
on Gobbler Country
An almost exact repeat of last week's ratings for us and our opponent...
VT/NC State Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Nov 18, 2009 3:45 PM EST
on Gobbler Country
What do the geeks expect this weekend?
The odds of 10 lost coin tosses
by Joelestra on Nov 17, 2009 1:46 PM EST
on Gobbler Country
[Ed. note: Bumped.]
The Hokies have had the incredible misfortune of losing all 10 coin tosses thus far this season...just how unlikely of an event is that?
The chances of losing all 10 coin tosses is 0.0977% for any one season.
The same odds would go for winning all 10 coin tosses as well but sadly that really has nothing to do with VT this year.
How often should we expect a team to have such poor luck? Once in every 1023 team-seasons; or with an average of about 120 teams per year in D-1A, about every 8.5 years.
VT/GT Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Oct 13, 2009 10:46 AM EDT
on Gobbler Country
VT versus Georgia Tech: What do statisticians think?
VT/BC Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Oct 8, 2009 1:20 PM EDT
on Gobbler Country
What do the numbers say will happen this weekend?
VT/Miami Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Sep 22, 2009 9:07 AM EDT
on Gobbler Country
Back for Miami by popular demand (okay, only three of you wrote but I'll take it...
VT/Nebraska Statistical Comparison
by Joelestra on Sep 15, 2009 5:40 PM EDT
on Gobbler Country
It's still early in 2009 to read much into performance to date, but to settle our anxiety let's take a look at some statistical comparisons of the two teams. While we all are familiar with basics such as yards of offense per game or yards allowed per game, these fail to take into consideration how good the opponent was - while Nebraska may have put up better numbers thus far, their opponents were relatively weak.
As football fans we like to lump everyone who is not a top team into one bucket, but by breaking this habit we can start to discern which team has actually played better to this point in the season...after all, you wouldn't argue that Florida and Kansas are equal teams so why do you allow yourself to believe that New Mexico State and Troy are?
Fortunately for us, statisticians have great ways to separate all teams by their strength. The BCS <insert your own sarcastic/cynical/frustrated BCS acronym here> uses computers as part of it's rankings, but unfortunately refuses to take into account score differences even though it is trivial for a statistician to insert diminishing returns to make running up the score of little consequence. There are a huge number of rankings out there that fit the BCS requirements and those that do not - without listing them, let's just say that they are for the most part consistent which is a testament to their accuracy (keeping in mind they are only as accurate as the result of games and do not account for unusual occurences such as a bad call by a ref that results in an undeserved win).
On to this week's game...
Measuring Swing Effectiveness
by Joelestra on Jul 24, 2009 1:41 PM EDT
on Beyond the Box Score
Hand-eye coordination and reflexes are imperitive to a hitter's effectiveness. As metrics such as BABIP take note of, there is a significant amount of luck involved with whether or not a hit ball goes foul, is a grounder, flies out, turns into a triple, etc. The batter's essential job is to not swing at bad pitches (unhittable balls) and to make contact with good pitches (strikes).
In an attempt to determine who was good at discerning pitches to swing at as well as ability to hit those pitches, I took a stab at making a "Good Swing":"Bad Swing" ratio as a metric.
What is classified as a "Good Swing" or a "Bad Swing" I am sure is up for debate and I hope to get some discussion around the subject. For this initial look I considered the following as "good":
1. A ball that was not swung at
2. A foul ball, including those taken on bunts and pitchouts - this was a limitation of my data...obviously a ball that is swung at and hit foul was a worse outcome than taking the ball, and you would hope once someone goes for the bunt they are successful
3. The swing put the ball into play
I considered these outcomes as "bad":
1. A strike
2. A missed bunt
For the 2008 season I summed the "good" and "bad" swings for every player and determined the ratio of good swings to bad swings. I then removed anyone with less than 502 PA's, the cutoff for a batting title.
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