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Looks like I was wrong. I was so sure he would only respond in academic circles. He writes of Hollinger:
And finally, Hollinger doesn’t respond much to criticism. Back in 2006 he responded to something I said once. But that was it.
Holinger simply doesn’t spend much time addressing the problems with his model. And I think that might be an effective strategy. Addressing your critics is something we encourage in academia. At least, at our academic meetings, discussants are assigned to each paper and these discussants are supposed to critique your work. This process is supposed to make the work better. But outsider of academia, I am not convinced addressing critics has the effect academics suspect.
Paul Krugman, for example, frequently addresses his critics. But he clearly is not well-loved by these same critics. The problem is that although Krugman addresses his critics, he clearly doesn’t agree with these people. And that is the problem for these critics. People don’t want their criticisms addressed. They want people to agree with these criticisms. When that doesn’t happen, well… these critics get very angry.
So I think Hollinger has probably taken the correct path. By essentially ignoring his critics he has defused a great deal of hostility. And that might have had a small impact on the popularity of PER.
So, it’s time for all those basketball analysts to write their criticisms of Wins Produced, since Berri will respond to them.
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I love the work that Winston did here:
We found that
45.75*(Points/Minute) +22.55*(Rebounds/Minute) +32.8*(Assists/Minute) +58.2*(Steals/Minute) -48.65*(Turnovers/Minute) -39.73*(Missed FG’s per minute) -20.6*(Missed FT per minute) +38.37*(Blocked Shots Per Miute) -18.68*(Personal Fouls Per Minute)
explains over 99% of the variation in this season’s PER rankings and is off by an average of .37 in estimating the PER of the top 200 NBA players whose stats are on Yahoo.com. So basically our simple formula virtually duplicates the PER rating without a lot of mumbo jumbo.
I call it mathematical gyrations, but yes, running a regression on some very complex equation is a wonderful way to figure out what that thing is doing, if you get r=.99. Indeed, this is exactly what I (first) did with DIPS, when I ran a regression to get FIP. Voros went out of his way to do what he did (and it was mathematically correct, not mathematical gyrations in his case), but FIP got you almost all the way there.
You can do this with many things, when you see a bunch of components being added, multiplied, divided, raised to the power, and it’s not obvious what it’s doing, and why it’s doing it. Getting an r=.99 basically shines a bright light as to what it’s doing.
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I only follow basketball analysis on the periphery, so feel free to provide comments on PER, Wins Produced, and whatever else you want to talk about.
Almost always, the lower leagues look to the NHL for guidance of rule changes. But, they’re not waiting on Bettman for this one.
Viewing fighting as a safety issue in light of increasing concussion research, and unwilling to wait for the National Hockey League to propose changes, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are seriously considering rules that would effectively end fighting in nonprofessional leagues as soon as next season.
It would be very very hard for the NHL to be the last league left standing that did not eject fighters.
Ah, the old Dave Berri conclusion just won’t die, will it?
As you’d expect, the early draft choices got a lot more playing time than the later ones. Even disregarding seasons where they didn’t play at all, and even *games* where they didn’t play at all, the late choices were only involved in 1/4 as many plays as the early choices. Berri and Simmons don’t think that’s a problem. They argue—as does Gladwell—that we should just assume the guys who played less, or didn’t play at all, are just as good as the guys who did play. We should just disregard the opinions of the coaches, who decided they weren’t good enough.
That’s silly, isn’ t it? I mean, it’s not logically impossible, but it defies common sense. At least you should need some evidence for it, instead of just blithely accepting it as a given.
That’s the difference between a subject matter expert and someone who is given data and doesn’t understand the selection bias of the data. (And so, shockingly, presumes there is no selection bias in the data.)
Here’s the punch in the face to Gladwell, Berri, and anyone who keeps spouting their nonsense:
As best as I can tell, the most valuable draft pick in MLB is whoever drafts the #1390th pick as a position player. That’s because the AVERAGE number of HR hit by ALL position players that made it to MLB is 427. 427 HR as the average? Yes, it’s true. Did I forget to mention that only ONE position player who was drafted #1390th has made it to MLB? That’s irrelevant. Because, we must assume that the player who DID make it MUST be representative of those that did NOT make it. So, the difference between Mike Piazza playing and Tim Casper, Damon Lembi, and Brad Smith NOT playing in MLB is… I dunno… luck? Maybe it is. But, the chances that Casper, Lembi and Smith were equals of Piazza? The chance of that is close to zero. Maybe at the time they were drafted, with the imperfect information available, they were equals. But, either there was a gross misvaluation, or, shockingly, Piazza, as a human being, developed. He learned. He improved. These guys are not automatons.
Piazza is not representative. He’s an exception, not only in terms of opportunity to play, but then in terms of performance of his play.
To argue that the average QB in the 1st round has the same performance, per play, as the QB in the nth round is ridiculous, if we limit ourselves only to those who ended up playing in the NFL. It presumes that the QB who did not play in the NFL is equal to those who did play in the round they were selected in.
It’s an embarrassing argument to make, and if it takes one million bloggers to get it through the heads of those who don’t want to listen, then so be it.
A swimmer shaved herself onsite, which is apparently a no-no. The reasons are not clear as to why this rule applies only to swimmers and not to other athletes. It seems that the sharing of water would be the deciding factor, as opposed to say a contact sport like wrestling or basketball.
In any case, the coach responded:
To set the record straight a swimmer from another team reported to her coach that my swimmer had shaved her armpits. I ran to my swimmer said “why were you shaving, you could be disqualified!?” She asked, ‘Why?’ Right then I was sick with the realization that I had forgotten to tell my entire 40 person swim teams not to shave before, during, or after onsite at a swim meet. Instead of disqualifying my swimmer, I did not because I felt that I had done a huge disservice to her and the team by not informing them of the rule. I reported myself after the end of the meet to the Athletic Directors . So by throwing a life-ring to my swimmer, I sank my ship. Lesson learned by my team and me. Follow the rules to the letter and the outcome will be far better. Unfortunately, the press release didn’t go out until over a week after the violation, so what has been listed as retroactive was actually done prior to regions so this became bigger news than it should have been. I apologized to all of my team, parents, and administrators. And I am sorry to my swimming community as this is a sport I love to coach and teach. Sincerely, Coach Winans
Poz says it can’t just be beating 5:1 odds. We’d have major upset dozens of times each day.
Seems to me then, we’re talking 100:1 odds or something. If that’s the case, would the Americans beating the Russians in hockey actually qualify? I don’t know what the odds were then, but 10:1 at worst? If someone wants to run it through Poisson, get an expected goals scored and allowed, and report back the results. I gotta run…
Poz made the point that Tiger only cares about being the best. That simply being #11 is the same thing as being #10: nothing.
I was reminded of when Team Canada lost the semi finals, and so, were relegated to the Bronze medal game. And they lost that game. To Team Canada, if you don’t win Gold, then it doesn’t matter if you get Silver, Bronze, or nothing. That was the narrative that was built-up anyway.
When Canada’s Donovan Bailey and company won the 1996 track-relay ahead of the heavy favorite Americans, it wasn’t that Canada won Gold and USA won Silver, but that USA LOST the Gold. It’s as if being second-best for heavy favorites is tantamount to being a loser.
I’ve never liked that point of view. It’s insulting to your competition, and it ignores the reality that you can’t control your environment, and all the random variation that comes with it. Gisele says hi.
By reflecting a résumé, BPI was not explicitly built to make predictions. But, in tests, its ability to predict appears to be as good or better than Sagarin or RPI at predicting results in the NCAA tournament and NIT.
Between the 2007 and 2011 NCAA tournaments, it picked 74.4 percent of the matchups correctly, whereas Sagarin picked 73.2 percent and RPI picked 71.9 percent. (Kenpom is more difficult to evaluate because its pre-tournament rankings are not available.) The average ranking of the NIT finalists was better in BPI than in Sagarin or RPI. Notice, of course, that many of these differences are small. The BPI is not a guaranteed way to pick a perfect bracket, but we do think it is the best power ranking available.
Again, if Dean used in-sample data to test his system, it won’t be a fair test. Now, he did say he didn’t create the system against future data, but still, there’s going to be some doubt.
Andy also has a system, but I can’t tell if he provides historical data, or how he fares against the fellows above. I’ll ping him later and ask…
Basically, there are a number of people who contend that it is better for statistics to come directly from the leagues themselves, since it makes them “official”. This is of course coming from hockey fans, who seem oddly unaware that private individuals/entities have been generating “unofficial” baseball stats for decades, and that no one is waiting for the league to put its stamp of approval on any of that. Football and basketball are the same. I just found it odd that people would want this kind of central planning - seems like it stifles innovation.
Anyways, I just thought this might be an interesting idea for a post for you. Maybe someone will have a useful counterpoint.
As someone once said: official does not mean right. And I don’t think official means better either. Retrosheet has provided the model of what an independent site owner can do.
This kid out of nowhere – out of Harvard University, out of the Reno Bighorns and Erie Bayhawks – had done it again, done it with a devastating 38 points, seven assists, four rebounds and two steals in the Knicks’ 92-85 victory over the Lakers.
“Players don’t come out of nowhere,” Bryant said.
What he was trying to say was this: The talent’s there, but sometimes the opportunity isn’t. It takes the right circumstances and timing, the right coach, right system. And sometimes, it takes desperation to try anything. And for these New York Knicks, well, Jeremy Lin constituted anything.
...
Twenty-four hours earlier, Bryant had been bemused over this Lin story. He wanted details, wanted to know the fuss. “Well, he’s got to deal with me now,” Bryant said.
...
No one in the history of the NBA has scored as much in his first three starts, but this has nothing to do with the statistics. It’s the feel, the touch, the spirit and the purity of it all. No Amar’e Stoudemire. No Carmelo Anthony. And it doesn’t matter what spare parts are thrown together with Lin because he’s elevated everyone, transformed five fingers into a fist.
“It’s a completely different team,” center Tyson Chandler said. “You can’t look at this team the same.”
...
Before D’Antoni had run out of players to try for these Knicks a week ago, before he had thrown Lin into a game with the New Jersey Nets, the Knicks’ front office had a decision to make: Do we guarantee Lin’s contract for the rest of the season, or release him with Tuesday’s deadline?
Knicks executive Mark Warkentien had been calling trusted associates in the NBA’s D-League, league sources told Yahoo! Sports, and asking them: Who does Lin play like? Who’s a good comparison? The Knicks had to make a decision based on old information, old scouting reports. And then, finally, D’Antoni dispatched Lin into the game against the Nets. Here was the answer, the unfolding of a week that has made Lin a sporting and cultural spectacle.
“A great story,” Bryant said. “It’s a testament to perseverance and hard work. A good example for kids everywhere.”
Those who worked with Lin in the D-League a year ago will tell you: He’s so grounded, so smart, so savvy, that he’s the perfect person to keep his bearings within a world exploding around him. Lin shrugs and simply says, “I am not really too worried about proving anything to anybody.”
And his wiki page reads as someone with steak and little sizzle, and recruiters prefer the sizzle.
Some familiar names, notably Sagarin and Wayne Winston. Football, more than baseball, is a great sport for using win expectancy charts. Whereas in baseball the pitcher has a large set of pitches and locations to choose from (and won’t even necessarily hit the target), and the batter has to choose to swing or not, and game theory and randomization will play a huge role here, in football you have a much more finite set of choices, and the play is over after the play (as opposed to baseball because of the count). The clock, penalties, the turnovers, etc, all add great variables that make the win expectancy really valuable for football.
According to the incomparable Brian Burke, the Pats should have given up the go-ahead TD at the two-minute warning.
The smartest play of all would’ve been for Belichick to have allowed the touchdown even earlier. The Patriots certainly could have done so on the play prior to Bradshaw’s touchdown run, when he was stopped for a one-yard gain, forcing New England to burn its second timeout. In fact, they probably should have allowed a touchdown as early as the two-minute warning. That’s the point at which the Win Probability of receiving a kickoff down by four or six points (0.23) exceeds the Win Probability of trying to stop the Giants from bleeding the clock dry (0.2). The Patriots would have had almost two minutes, two timeouts, and all four downs available to get a touchdown and steal the win.
Basically, every time out has a certain win value, every second lost has a certain win value, every yard lost has a certain win value. And Brian is saying that the Pats would have maximized their chances of winning by allowing the TD to happen at the two minute warning.
This is exactly what win expectancy charts (and to a lesser extent, run or point expectancy charts) should be used for.
Poz has an interesting game. It’s clear that if you pick baseball, you should pick a pitcher. That’s because, for one game, a pitcher has far more impact than any other player. That makes the choice quite simple: Pedro Martinez, 1999 or 2000. Or does it? After all, Pedro did not pitch the full season, and do you want to go into a winner-take-all game with a chance that this guy won’t pitch? So, Dwight Gooden 1985 might be the better choice.
For hockey, goalies don’t have the same one-game impact like pitchers do. Gretzky is the obvious choice, the Devil will counter with the Broad Street Bullies, naturally. But again, it’s a player in a team sport, and as we know they are just one part of the game. Basketball would be better of course, but still not enough.
So, you have no choice but to go with a one-on-one situation. And that means choosing Tiger at his peak.
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