Vegas Watch

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 9

2009-11-03T12:44:00.011-05:00

Last week:
SD: W, 24-16
CHI: W, 30-6
ARI: L, 34-21
DAL: W, 38-17
IND: W, 18-14
DET: L, 17-10
NO: W, 35-27

OFP had 10.4% of entries knocked out last week; the Yahoo! entrants were a bit more bullish on Arizona, which caused 13.9% of them to go down. There are 60,648 entries left in the Yahoo! pool.

Teams used (DAVE rank): New England (1st), Philadelphia (2nd), New Orleans (3rd), Green Bay (6th), Dallas (9th), Houston (17th), San Diego (19th), Washington (21st).

This week's consensus numbers from OFP and Yahoo!:

Atlanta (vs. Washington)

For most of this season, there's been a choice: either take the most popular team, or sacrifice some win probability. Not this week though, as there are three other teams favored at least as much as the Falcons (-10, 81.3%). Throw in the fact that they still face the Bucs twice, and there's really no reason to waste Atlanta this week.

Seattle (vs. Detroit)

The Seahawks are favored by the exact same amount as the Falcons, but are dramatically less popular; this probably has something to do with Seattle only having won one more game this season than Detroit. They do travel to St. Louis and host Tampa Bay later in the season, but it doesn't get any better than the Lions -- who have been noticeably worse than those other two teams -- at home. Those lines will probably be in single digits, and I don't think there are going to be many weeks the rest of the year where taking a team favored by less than 10 points is necessary.

Green Bay (at Tampa Bay)

I have already used the Packers, but I don't think I'd take them over Seattle even if I hadn't, since they're extremely public at -9.5 (79.6%) on the road, and still face the 49ers, Lions, and, well, Seahawks down the stretch.

New Orleans (vs. Carolina)

You know, when I took the Saints in Week 1 against the Lions, I really had no idea I'd be using the third best team in the league right off the bat. That's how it worked out though, so I obviously can't take New Orleans this week.

If you do still have the Saints available, it's an interesting debate between them and the Seahawks:

Win probability: NO 85.4%, SEA 81.3%
Popularity: SEA 18.1%, NO 11.7%
Future value: The Saints will be large road favorites against the Rams (-14.5 at SBET), Bucs (-17.5), and Redskins (-14), and will be laying a huge number against the Bucs in Week 16 at home (-17.5 right now; I realize this makes no sense). The Seahawks are favored by nine against TB in Week 15, but there are plenty of options that week; Seattle has essentially zero future value.
Future popularity: If they win, the Saints will have been used by 53% of OFP survivors after this week; the Seahawks will be at 30%.

New Orleans comes out on top in three of the four categories, but they have such a ridiculous amount of future value that I think I'd probably still go with Seattle.

New England (vs. Miami)

The Pats are actually the second biggest favorite of the week at -10.5 (82.8%). They have more value going forward (-10.5 vs NYJ, -13 vs CAR, -16 vs JAX) than the Seahawks, but are less popular this week; I'd probably stick with Seattle and save New England for later if I hadn't used either team.

The lack of available options made my choice unusually simple this week: the Seahawks are the pick.

Evaluating April MLB Predictions (2005-2009)

2009-11-03T08:27:00.001-05:00

First off, here are the final 2009 standings:

Not much has changed since we last checked in. Most of these got a bit lower, as you'd expect with the slightly larger sample size; CAIRO ended up gaining a decent amount of separation from the pack.

Of course, there's all sorts of noise when we're just looking at one season of projections. Below are the systems I have win totals from for each year since 2005, plus CHONE, which I have for '06-'09:

It's essentially a dead heat between CHONE and MGL over the last four years, with MGL holding the five-year crown on the strength of his '05 performance. PECOTA was the clear leader before 2009, but because of both its terrible showing this season and questions about the system's current methodology, I'd have a hard time relying on its 2010 projections too heavily. Considering that MGL doesn't make his win projections public prior to the season, that means we should probably be focusing on CHONE when analyzing the preseason divisional odds next March.

2010 College Hoops Previews: The Pac-10

2009-10-31T17:33:00.008-04:00

Here's the fifth installment of the mammoth 2010 College Hoops Previews series. This time I'm joined by JP, ML, and RTC. For more details on what's going on with the ratings, go here and here; the new regression ratings for the Pac-10 are here. All team ratings from kenpom.com, recruiting info was taken from Scout.

1. California
2009 rating: .886
Returning 91% of minutes, 93% of points
Lost Jordan Wilkes ("pursuing academic opportunities")
Incoming freshmen: Brandon Smith (5'11, 170; 3*), Markuri Sanders-Frison (6'8, 265; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .945, VW .930, JP .935, RM .935

VW: Pretty incredible that the Bears are the favorite in this conference, but they're legitimately good in a down year out west. My main concern is that, while you'd expect a team with all five starts coming back to progress, it'd tough to improve on 42.7% from three (first in the nation). That's bound to go down; Randle and Robertson shot 46% and 49% last year after hitting at 40% and 37% clips in their prior years, respectively.

Their hope for improvement is on the defensive end, where they were ranked just 101st a year ago. Cal had particular issues forcing turnovers; maybe they'll be more adept in that department this season with Seeley and Gutierrez getting a bit more time as sophomores.

ML: I went a bit overboard here. My rating suggests that I think they are only a smidgen worse than Purdue/UK, and I highly doubt that is the case. Cal's struggles forcing turnovers are not exactly a new development either. They were bad in this department long before Mike Montgomery arrived on campus. I do agree that they should be considered favorites to win the league, but that says more about the Pac 10 then it does about them.

Final rating: .928

2. Washington
2009 rating: .940
Returning 69% of minutes, 61% of points
Lost Justin Dentmon (senior), Jon Brockman (draft), Joe Wolfinger (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Abdul Gaddy (6'3, 170; 5*), Clarence Trent (6'7, 230; 3*), Charles Garcia (6'10, 220; 3*), C.J. Wilcox (6'5, 180; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .900, VW .915, JP .910, RM .920

RM: The quartet of Isaiah Thomas, Abdul Gaddy, Quincy Pondexter and Venoy Overton could be the best backcourt in America. Unfortunately, the frontcourt could be the worst (ok, not really). But it's pretty bad. The loss of Jon Brockman will be felt if UW gets into games where they're walking the ball upcourt. The good news is that there's very little skilled size in the Pac-10 this year, so that weakness may not be exploited too frequently.

ML: The one area where they won't miss Jon Brockman is shot blocking. He was about as deficient as the 5 foot 8 Thomas in this regard last year, which is pretty amazing.

VW: They were third in the nation in OR% last year, and a lot of that was attributed to Brockman. They were only 84th on the defensive glass, and if you take the 6'11 senior out of the equation they really weren't very impressive at all. It's going to be key for Pondexter, Bryan-Amaning, and one or two of the freshman to fill that void; they'll still fall off in those two categories, but progression in other areas (particularly from Thomas in his sophomore season) will minimize the damage.

Final rating: .908

3. UCLA
2009 rating: .949
Returning 38% of minutes, 43% of points
Lost Josh Shipp, Alfred Aboya (seniors), Jrue Holliday, Darren Collison (draft)
Incoming freshmen: Tyler Honeycutt (6'8, 190; 5*), Mike Moser (6'7, 185; 4*), Anthony Stover (6'10, 207; 4*), Brendan Lane (6'9, 200; 4*), Reeves Nelson (6'7, 215; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .905, VW .910, JP .905, RM .875

RM: It's really hard to project this UCLA team because the majority of its players haven't seen much action, yet we know from their recruiting rankings that they're all blue chippers. How will Jerime Anderson, Malcolm Lee, Drew Gordon and J'Mison Morgan adjust to playing heavy minutes in their sophomore seasons? Howland won't let this team fall too far, but they're going to take some licks this year.

VW: Yeah, this is a situation where last year's rating is nearly irrelevant. The defense will likely be alright, since they have plenty of athletes and their coach didn't change, but the thing about UCLA last year was that it wasn't the defense that carried them, it was their offense, which was the third most efficient unit in the nation. Dragovic is back, and he was quite good on offense last year, but who knows how much of that was because of all the talent around him. With all the sophomores and freshmen, UCLA has the chance to be pretty strong, especially once conference season rolls around, but there's really no way of knowing at this point.

Final rating: .907

4. Arizona St.
2009 rating: .941
Returning 66% of minutes, 50% of points
Lost James Harden, Jeff Pendergraph (draft), Kraidon Woods (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Trent Lockett (6'5, 185; 4*), Demetrius Walker (6'4, 185; 3*), Victor Rudd (6'8, 200; 3*), Ruslan Pateev (6'11, 235; 3*), Brandon Thompson (6'2, 185; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .850, VW .872, JP .886, RM .840

JP: They were 2nd in the country last year in eFG% (56.4), but losing Pendergraph's 66% is going to bring that back down to earth a little bit, and I heard that Harden guy could score occasionally as well. I also don't see a single player on this team getting a rebound next year beyond Boateng, which could be an issue.

VW: They shot a ton of threes last year, and without Pendergraph that tendency may become even more dramatic. That's fine if you're hitting them, but Glasser and Kuksiks both saw huge rises in their 3P% last year, so some regression there is almost inevitable. Fortunately Abbott's 29% from deep has nowhere to go but up. I'm guessing they'll score enough, but the defense and rebounding could get ugly.

ML: Without Harden the quality of those 3PAs figures to go down as well. He created a lot of open looks for the likes of Glasser and Kuksiks with his ability to get into the lane. They won't be as bad on the whole, but I won't be shocked if the Sun Devils resemble their borderline unwatchable 2007 outfit at times offensively.

Final rating: .868

5. Arizona
2009 rating: .871
Returning 52% of minutes, 43% of points
Lost Fendi Onobun (senior), Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger (draft), Zane Johnson (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Kyryl Natyazhko (6'10, 240; 4*), Solomon Hill (6'6, 215; 4*), Kevin Parrom (6'5, 185; 4*), Derrick Williams (6'7, 195; 4*), Lamont Jones (6'0, 175; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .855, VW .850, JP .865, RM .860

RM: Arizona's defense was appallingly bad for a team in the NCAA Tourney last year, but Sean Miller won't stand for that level of effort on his team -- his last two Xavier squads were top 35 defensive teams. On the other hand, who other than Nic Wise will score? When he's not handing games away, Jamelle Horne shows promise -- as does Kyle Fogg - but Miller is going to have to lean heavily on his recruits, most notably Solomon Hill, for production. The NCAA streak stands at 25, but an awful lot of things need to go well to get to 26.

VW: The defense should actually get better, with the loss of Budinger, the new coach, the recruits, and some regression balancing out Hill's departure. The offense will take a big step back from #7 in the country though, since Budinger was actually effective at that end of the floor. Overall, a small step back seems about right; I bet they still stumble into the tournament, deservedly or not.

Final rating: .858

6. Oregon St.
2009 rating: .677
Returning 83% of minutes, 88% of points
Lost Rickey Claitt (senior)
Incoming freshmen: Angus Brandt (6'9, 220; 4*), Roberto Nelson (6'3, 180; 4*), Joe Burton (6'7, 270; 3*), Jared Cunningham (6'3, 165; 3*), Rhys Murphy (6'7, 180; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .820, VW .805, JP .812, RM .830

RM: Craig Robinson has done a nice job here, taking one of the worst teams I've ever seen two years ago and turning it into a competitive program overnight using his methodical (read: slow) style of play. Most everyone returns and they add a good recruiting class; I think they actually have a shot at the tournament this year.

VW: They should improve once again, but I'm not completely sold -- while they have a lot of volume coming back, it's not like we're they're returning a bunch of four- and five-star recruits. Claitt was also their most efficient player on offense, although he was very low-usage. Brandt and Burton are going to have to improve the interior defense, which was horrible last year.

Final rating: .802

7. Stanford
2009 rating: .860
Returning 45% of minutes, 41% of points
Lost Anthony Goods, Lawrence Hill, Kenny Brown, Mitch Johnson (seniors), Will Paul (suspended)
Incoming freshmen: Andy Brown (6'8, 200; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .800, VW .785, JP .782, RM .770

JP: Owens and Fields, already very efficient offensive players, are going to need someone else to step up. Hopefully Jeremy Green, who shot 46% from three last year, can take this role and fill the shoes of Goods and Johnson, or else this team may be in trouble.

VW: What is going on with the recruiting in Palo Alto? They've lost a ton of talent (and Mitch Johnson) over the last couple years, and have replaced it with neither quantity nor quality. Aside from the Lopez brothers, there hasn't been much of interest in this program in the last five years, and it looks like that's going to continue for at least the near future.

Final rating: .786

8. Southern Cal
2009 rating: .908
Returning 40% of minutes, 37% of points
Lost Keith Wilkinson (senior), DeMar DeRozan, Taj Gibson (draft), Donte Smith (transfer), Daniel Hackett (Italy)
Incoming freshmen: None of note.
Initial ratings: ML .800, VW .775, JP .765, RM .800

JP: This team loses A LOT, including three of their top four scorers from last year. Lewis is going to have to be more efficient offensively in order for them to compete. They also lose their beast in the middle, Taj Gibson, so I expect their defense to suffer. One of the reasons they were so efficient defensively was their ability to block shots on the interior and contest shots, but that could be a problem this year as their only players above 6'7 are transfer Alex Stephenson, a rarely used forward (Vucecic) and a 215-pound seven footer from Europe who wasn't even rated by Scout (Davis Rozitis).

Final rating: .780

9. Washington St.
2009 rating: .882
Returning 46% of minutes, 39% of points
Lost Taylor Rochestie, Aron Baynes, Caleb Forrest, Daven Harmeling (seniors)
Incoming freshmen: Xavier Thames (6'3, 177; 3*), Steven Bjornstad (6'10, 215; 3*), Brock Motum (6'9, 215; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .760, VW .750, JP .762, RM .765

RM: Ken Bone takes over at Wazzu. His Portland St. teams were more offensive-minded and uptempo than Tony Bennett's were, so it'll take some adjustment before the players get used to it. Klay Thompson is really the only significant piece remaining, so this looks to be a transition year in Pullman.

Final rating: .757

10. Oregon
2009 rating: .522
Returning 85% of minutes, 89% of points
Lost Churchill Odia (senior), Kamyron Brown (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Jamil Wilson (6'6, 200; 4*), E.J. Singler (6'6, 200; 3*), Jeremy Jacob (6'7, 210; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .770, VW .695, JP .682, RM .625

RM: Someone remind me how Ernie Kent still has a job? UO gave up buckets to anybody who wanted one last year, ranking in the bottom 15 in both 2-pt and 3-pt defense (Brown and Longwood should be proud). I think the four of us could team up with a blind cripple and still get 2 against this team. Bad coaching is still bad coaching and I don't expect much improvement in Eugene.

ML: This is a situation where I went WAY too far with my whole "unlucky on defense" theory . As pointed out above, the Ducks were beyond bad defensively last season, and if their history under Kent is any indication, they probably won't improve all that much even with some regression in their defensive 3P% and FT%.

Final rating: .690

I'll have a full recap next Monday when we're done with the Big East and our list of assorted teams*, but if it seems like the Pac-10 lost a ton of talent:

It's because they did. It's particularly ugly when you look at points, with the conference returning just seven of its top 20 scorers.

*- We have Memphis, Gonzaga, Xavier, BYU, Utah, Butler, Dayton, Siena, and Tulsa thus far, and are taking suggestions on other deserving programs.

This Week's Links (10/26-10/30)

2009-10-31T17:13:00.002-04:00

I don't want to look at them before we finish our previews, but the preseason college hoops rankings were released.

Heck, I'm nervous writing this links post.

Basketball Prospectus projects the 2009-10 NBA season.

"Is Ryan Howard really that bad versus LHP?"

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 8

2009-10-28T17:50:00.007-04:00

Apologies for the delay, (hopefully) won't happen again.

Last week:
IND: W, 42-6
NE: 35-7

OFP had 5.8% of entries knocked out last week, while that figure was slightly lower in the Yahoo! pool, at 3.9%. There are 71,270 entries left in the Yahoo! pool.

Teams used (DAVE rank): New England (2nd), New Orleans (3rd), Green Bay (4th), Philadelphia (5th), Dallas (10th), Houston (20th), Washington (22nd)

This week's consensus numbers from OFP and Yahoo!:

San Diego (vs. Oakland)

Yet another big favorite (-16.5, 91.4% to win) that is ridiculously popular in both pools. Even with the huge consensus figures, after considering those two factors I have the Chargers as the most attractive option when considering value this week alone.

Looking ahead to their upcoming schedule, San Diego plays the Chiefs and Redskins at home and travels to Cleveland; all three of those games have prospective lines at SportsBetting between 10 and 14, so it'd be nice to keep them around, particularly since I'm running pretty low on elite teams. However, there are multiple better options available to me in each of those weeks, so future value shouldn't be a huge deterrent here.

Chicago (vs. Cleveland)

The second biggest spread of the week is also the second most popular pick, quite a coincidence there. The problem in comparison to SD is that you're given up a ton of value by dropping down to -13.5 (84.9%), and not gaining a whole lot by getting the consensus down 17% (obviously gaining one percent of win probability is worth more than losing one percent of consensus).

The Bears will be huge favorites in Week 13 when they host the Rams, and SBET has them at -10 in their W17 matchup at Detroit, so while they don't have as much future value as the Chargers I'm not anxious to get rid of them either.

Arizona (vs. Carolina)

The Cardinals are -10 (81.3%) this week, and are comparable to the Bears in the main two criteria, giving up some win probability but trading a good amount of consensus. They have a pretty ridiculous second half schedule, with games in various locations against the Seahawks, Rams (twice), Titans, and Lions, so I think I'd rather save Arizona than Chicago.

Dallas (vs. Seattle)

I've already used the Cowboys; if you have not we can discuss that in the comments.

Indianapolis (vs. San Francisco)

At under 6% in Yahoo! and OFP, the Colts (-11.5, 83.0%) are trumped only by San Diego in attractiveness for this week alone against the mighty 49ers. Since they are #1 in DAVE though, and are favored by at least 8.5 at SBET in six of their final nine games, Indy would definitely be missed in the future if I used them this week.

One other thing that is worth thinking about is that coming into this week, 58.6% of OFP survivors had used the Colts. After this SF game they will be around 64%. That means even if every single person that still has them available takes Indianapolis next week, they still won't be as popular as the Chargers are right now. This has to be considered a positive attribute, since it means even in games where they are favored by a ton of points (W13 vs. TEN is at -17 at SBET right now), their consensus numbers won't be that much of a drawback.

The list of how many users have used each team in OFP through the first seven weeks of the season can be found here; I excluded the percentages for weeks teams lost, since we don't care which teams those eliminated users still have available. So a team being really popular one week makes them both less attractive in that week and more useful in the future.

Detroit (vs. St. Louis)

This line has (finally) been released at DET -4.5. The Lions are 32nd in DAVE. Out of 32. Go Rams.

New Orleans (vs. Atlanta)

See: Dallas.

Always good to throw an additional variable in the mix mid-post to complicate things as much as possible. To recap:

SD: Extremely popular this week. Similarly likely to win. Favored by 10-14 in three future games, but never even the second best available option according to SBET. Will have been taken by 61.1% of OFP survivors after this week if they win.

CHI: Second most likely to win but also second most popular. Possible pick in two future weeks. Will have been taken by 51.5% of OFP survivors after this week if they win.

ARI: Least likely to win of four possible options, third most popular. Possible pick in five future weeks. Will have been taken by 9.8% of OFP survivors if they win.

IND: Third most likely to win, and not very popular at all. Possible pick in six future weeks, although to be fair only one of those lines (vs. TEN) is over -10. Will have been taken by 64.2% of OFP survivors if they win.

I think we can eliminate the Cardinals, since they are not doing too well in any of the four categories. The Bears are next, since their popularity greatly outweighs them being slightly more likely to win that IND. Beyond that, I think Indy's overall team strength and future value (obviously related factors) carry the day, so after all that I'm going with the most obvious option-- the Chargers are the pick this week.

This Week's Links (10/19-10/23)

2009-10-23T09:23:00.002-04:00

There will be a Basketball Prospectus 2010 Major-Conference Preview this year. Also, Gasaway talked to UMHoops.com.

Safe!

USS Mariner's DMZ put together a cool iPhone app.

An interview with Cardinals AGM John Abbamondi.

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 7

2009-10-19T16:27:00.006-04:00

Last week:
PIT: W, 27-14
PHI: L, 13-9
GB: W, 26-0
JAC: W, 23-20 (OT)
NYJ: L, 16-13 (OT)
NE: W, 59-0

We finally had some people knocked out in the late games on Sunday; 44.4% of the Yahoo! pool was eliminated, nearly as high a percentage as the first four weeks combined (47.1%). There are now 75,742 entries remaining in the Yahoo! pool, and 38 left in the VW ESPN group.

Teams used (DAVE rank): New Orleans (2nd), Philadelphia (4th), Green Bay (9th), Dallas (12th), Houston (20th), Washington (22nd)

This week's consensus numbers from OFP and Yahoo!:

The consensus this week is pretty astounding, if understandable. The Colts and Patriots are both very obvious huge favorites, and no other team is laying more than a touchdown. As much as I'd love to come up with something clever, it's not worth sacrificing that much likelihood of advancing just for the sake of being different, and I have already used two of the three seven point favorites (GB and PHI, with NYG being the third) anyway.

Indianapolis (at St. Louis)

Coming off a bye, the Colts are favored by 13 on the road against the Rams, and are -700/+570 (85.4%) to win at Pinnacle. I would certainly expect them to come away with the win in St. Louis, but it's hard to imagine that the line isn't at least slightly inflated. Indianapolis is on pace to be the most popular NFL side in the history of Wagerline this week, receiving an insane 87% of the action thus far. The numbers are pretty ridiculous at the other consensus sites as well; 96% at SIA, and 100% (!) at Sportsbook. So that is definitely something worth taking into consideration when thinking about how likely the Colts are to win.

The Colts are certainly a popular Survivor pick, but so is their only competition; I'd say that's pretty much a wash. In terms of future value, that Week 13 game against Tennessee jumps out after the Titans' showing last Sunday (which dropped them to 29th in DAVE); home games against the 49ers, Texans, and Jets are potential options as well. Indy has about as much future value as you'd expect from DAVE's #1 ranked team.

New England (vs. Tampa Bay in London)

The Patriots are favored by a bit more (14.5) than the Colts, with the odds giving them an 89.0% chance of emerging from London victorious. That figure should be take with a grain of salt as well, since the Pats are rather popular ATS themselves at the consensus sites (78%/94%/97% at WL/SIA/SB), but the action on NE isn't quite as lopsided as the action on IND. Either way, just from an advancing to Week 8 standpoint, the Patriots are a more attractive pick.

Since we have established that for our purposes the teams are equally popular in Survivor, that leaves only New England's future value to consider. The Pats don't have anything that stands out as much as Indy's game against the Titans, although they do face the Dolphins, Jets, and Panthers at home. It'd be nice to be able to save them, but since they are favored by more and not as popular ATS, and the Colts have a more favorable schedule down the stretch while appearing to be the stronger team, New England is the pick this week.

2010 College Hoops Previews: The SEC

2009-10-18T11:37:00.007-04:00

Here's the fourth installment of the mammoth 2010 College Hoops Previews series. This time I'm joined by JP, ML, and RTC; no commentary from JP but he did manage to submit ratings. For more details on what's going on with the ratings, go here and here; the new regression ratings for the SEC are here. All team ratings from kenpom.com, recruiting info was taken from Scout.

1. Kentucky
2009 rating: .857
Returning 62% of minutes, 57% of points
Lost Jodie Meeks (draft), Landon Slone, A.J. Stewart, Donald Williams (transfers)
Incoming freshmen: John Wall (6'4, 175; 5*), DeMarcus Cousins (6'10, 245; 5*), Daniel Orton (6'9, 260; 5*), Eric Bledsoe (6'0, 185; 4*), Jon Hood (6'6, 180; 4*), Darnell Dodson (6'8, 180, 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .949, VW .960, JP .950, RM .955

ML: I basically just took Purdue's rating and subtracted .001. Sophisticated I know, but I really had no clue here. If Meeks had come back I'd have had no problem labeling them as 1B to Kansas' 1A, but I think they are really going to struggle to score with him out of the mix.

VW: There's no way to know, really. Here's how the top recruiting classes, according to Scout.com, have fared each of the last four years:

UNC is the only team that completely lived up to the hype (that was the year they blew the lead to Georgetown in the E8), but all four teams ended up being pretty strong. I'd say UK has an average returning core compared to those four -- inferior to UCLA and UNC -- which is how I got to my rating of .960, just below the average of the teams above (.962). There's certainly an unusually large amount of uncertainty around whatever number you give them, especially considering how hyped they are coming into the season.

Final rating: .955

2. Tennessee
2009 rating: .889
Returning 99.8% of minutes, 99.7% of points
Lost Philip Jurick, Daniel West (transfers)
Incoming freshmen: Kenny Hall (6'9, 215; 4*)
Initial ratings: ML .960, VW .945, JP .967, RM .930

RM: Last year their defense was just 73rd in the country, and adding a year of experience to a terrible defensive team won't change bad habits. The point position also remains a serious problem, as Bobby Maze would make for a nice C-USA lead guard, but regularly gets outclassed in the SEC. What kind of team is Pearl trying to build in Knoxville -- every one of his players is a 6'7 athlete with questionable shot selection?

ML: This is Pearl's best team yet, and I do think there is a pretty good chance they'll win the league, but their upside clearly isn't as high as Kentucky's. I echo Randy's concerns about the defense. What exactly is the plan? There is one, right?

VW: I had about the same thought process when looking at the Vols. It's great that everybody is coming back, but they've had a top 50 defense just once in the last six years, and that '08 team was the beneficiary of some horrid 3P shooting by their opponents. You'd think they could get back to turning people over at a decent clip like they did a couple years ago, but we'll have to wait and see.

The other thing limiting their ceiling is that they just can't shoot from the outside -- 286th in the nation last season, at 31.5%. Smith should improve (he was decent in '08), but Chism really needs to focus on his post game. These guys are the anti-Kentucky: you know they're going to be very good, but it's hard to see them being great.

Final rating: .953

3. Mississippi St.
2009 rating: .818
Returning 96% of minutes, 97% of points
Lost Brian Johnson (senior), Jacquiese Holcombe (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Renardo Sidney (6'11, 255; 5*), John Riek (7'2, 240; 4*), Shaunessy Smith (6'5, 180; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .910, VW .935, JP .929, RM .875

RM: If Sidney is available to play (and I'm assuming he will not be), MSU is the odds-on favorite to win the SEC West. Jarvis Varnado is the key to their defense, and I'm interested to see what the long-awaited 7'2 project John Riek can add to that frontline. If Sidney can miraculously become eligible, that frontline could be the best in CBB since 2006 UConn (R. Gay, J. Boone, H. Armstrong).

ML: Even without Sidney, or any of the recruits for that matter, they project as a Top 20 team, and yet I doubt you'll hear much about them before March. Varnado should hire a publicist.

VW I was assuming Sidney would play when I put these together, so I'm going to have to calm down a bit with that lofty rating. They'll be tough inside regardless of how that situation shakes out, but where will the production come from in the backcourt? They're going to need former four-star recruit Dee Bost to improve on his 37% shooting from two, and Barry Stewart to finally fulfill the promise he showed as a freshman.

Final rating: .905

4. Vanderbilt
2009 rating: .785
Returning 92% of minutes, 93% of points
Lost George Drake
Incoming freshmen: John Jenkins (6'4, 180; 4*)
Initial ratings: ML .905, VW .870, JP .890, RM .880

RM: Most everyone of consequence returns, and there are seeds of a solid defensive team here (#12 defensively in the paint). As always with Vandy, their best teams are bloody murder at Memorial Gymnasium, so it'll be key for the Commodores to set the tone early there in games against Missouri and Florida.

ML: Their interior defense made a pretty large leap last year, and from the looks of it this can be attributed to the addition of Ezeli & Goulbourne coupled with the continuing development of Ogilvy. The Commies look like a solid 5-7 seed in the tourney to me.

VW: Their perimeter D really held them back in '09; they've never been great in that area, but last year was an obvious outlier, so I'd except them to regress back to around the national average there. Other than that, they should have some pretty natural progression for a team that was only average last year but has all of their key cogs coming back.

Final rating: .890

5. Florida
2009 rating: .867
Returning of 66% minutes, 63% of points
Lost Walter Hodge (senior), Nick Calathes (draft), Allan Chaney (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Kenny Boynton (6'2, 185; 5*), Erik Murphy (6'9, 210; 4*)
Initial ratings: ML .875, VW .860, JP .867, RM .870

ML: I've got them 4th; not in the conference, but in the Eastern division. UF is a football school once more.

VW: The offense will be decent enough; I was surprised to see that Erving Walker shot 42% from three last year, and Tyus should continue to improve inside. Throw Werner and Parsons in there, and add Boynton to the mix, and they may not even miss Calathes too much on that end.

Defensively though...yikes. Hodge and Calathes forced a decent number of turnovers last year, but they're gone, and they were pretty bad at just about everything else. Actually, they were strong in one area: UF's opponents shot 62.5% from the line, the lowest mark in the country. Tyus and Kenny Kadji are going to have to block a ton of shots to make up for the inevitable regression in those two areas.

Final rating: .868

6. South Carolina
2009 rating: .805
Returning 78% of minutes, 78% of points
Lost Zam Fredrick, Branden Conrad (seniors), Mitchell Carter (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Lakeem Jackson (6'5, 200; 4*), Ramon Galloway (6'2, 170; 3*), Steve Spinella (6'5, 180; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .860, VW .855, JP .860, RM .865

RM: Darrin Horn has a really nice team returning, led by the mercurial Devan Downey. At first glance, losing Zam Fredrick might appear troublesome, but all he really did was take a lot of bad shots and gum up the offense (41% on twos).

VW: Yeah, Fredrick could shoot a bit from outside, but he should be replaceable -- he didn't exactly fill up the stat sheet on D or on the boards either. Baniulis has lit it up from three for a couple years now; I suppose he doesn't provide a whole lot beyond that, but it'd be nice to see him get a few more minutes on a team that had some trouble scoring last year.

Final rating: .858

7. Auburn
2009 rating: .844
Returning 60% of minutes, 62% of points
Lost Korvotney Barber, Rasheem Barrett, Quantez Robertson (seniors)
Incoming freshmen: Andre Malone (6'4, 200; 3*), Earnest Ross (6'4, 185; 3*), Ken Gabriel (6'7, 200; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .790, VW .815, JP .795, RM .800

ML: Rightly or wrongly, I've consistently rated teams whose defensive stats were likely aided by luck slightly lower than the regression numbers. I know everyone else is excited as I am to see how this actually turns out.

VW: Absolutely looking forward to it. In this case it was an opponents' FT% of 66.1%, almost 3% below the national average. That was a small part of a strong defense, which should continue to be respectable, although they're going to miss Barber's excellent work on the glass. They're going to struggle to score though -- they weren't very good on that end last year, and are losing two high usage guys in Barber and Barrett. The SEC conveniently splits itself up into two tiers this year, and with the Tigers we've descended into the lower one.

Final rating: .800

8. Arkansas
2009 rating: .596
Returning 81% of minutes, 85% of points
Lost Andre Clark and Brandon Moore (transfers), Jason Henry (suspended, no longer on team), Montrell McDonald (quit), Marcus Monk (ineligible)
Incoming freshmen:Marshawn Powell (6'8, 225; 4*), Anthony Borden (6'10, 205; 3*), Glenn Bryant (6'6, 190; 3*), Jemal Farmer (6'5, 215; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .790, VW .750, JP .782, RM .800

ML: The Hogs were legitimately terrible last year, which is only surprising because I don't recall wagering on them very often, and I was playing like 20 games a night. Even though it likely won't be in HD, I'm excited to see what Rotnei Clarke is all about. I hadn't even heard of him before this exercise, but his efficiency stats are rather impressive.

VW: Not sure why I came in so low here, beyond the fact that they were easily the second worst team in a weak conference last year. They lose a lot of bodies, but not much production. Clarke looks like he could be a good one, and Michael Washington shot 59% from two last year. I'm still not sure about their defense though.

Final rating: .782

9. Louisiana St.
2009 rating: .866
Returning 42% of minutes, 42% of points
Lost Chris Johnson, Terry Martin, Garrett Temple, Quintin Thornton (seniors), Marcus Thornton (draft), Delwan Graham (transfer)
Incoming freshmen: Aaron Dotson (6'4, 194; 3*), Eddie Ludwig (6'7, 195; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .770, VW .790, JP .790, RM .810

RM: Even though they lose a ton of production, the returning duo of Tasmin Mitchell and Bo Spencer should keep LSU competitive. The key for the Tigers will be how well last year's corps of freshman can step into roles vacated by all the departures.

VW: Mitchell and Spencer are nice pieces, but that only gets you 40% of the way there. They still need to draw three more starters from a pool of guys who played less than 20% of the time (and weren't very effective when they were in), and a couple three-star recruits. Seems like a pretty tall task.

Final rating: .778

10. Alabama
2009 rating: .720
Returning 69% of minutes, 70% of points
Lost Alonzo Gee, Ronald Steele, Brandon Hollinger (seniors)
Incoming freshmen: Ben Eblen (6'0, 185; 3*), Shawn Kemp (6'8, 200; 3*), Chris Hines (6'7, 225; 3*)
Initial ratings: ML .780, VW .760, JP .780, RM .820

RM: Ronald Steele wasn't healthy for the last 2+ years, so Alabama really only loses Alonzo Gee from a team that showed marked improvement at the end of last season. JaMychal Greene is poised to explode onto the national scene as a sophomore, with his rebounding, defense and soft scoring touch.

VW: I like Greene, and Torrance to an extent, but I don't know that there's a lot else to get excited about here. Hillman really brings very little to the table -- he can't shoot, doesn't rebound, and turns it over too much -- and I'd imagine he'll be handling the ball even more now that Steele is completely out of the picture.

Final rating: .777

11. Mississippi
2009 rating: .713
Returning 72% of minutes, 66% of points
Lost Malcolm White, David Huertas (Puerto Rico)
Incoming freshmen: Reggie Buckner (6'9, 205; 4*)
Initial ratings: ML .780, VW .775, JP .766, RM .800

RM: Before losing David Huertas to the pros in Puerto Rico, Ole Miss was another team that looked to make a significant leap in the SEC West this season. Still, a cast of youngsters led by senior Chris Warren and reigning FrOY Terrico White will make the Rebels formidable. The SEC West is insane with just how close these six teams match up against each other - can we have six 8-8 records this year?

Final rating: .774

12. Georgia
2009 rating: .403
Returning 61% of minutes, 62% of points
Lost Terrance Woodbury, Corey Butler (seniors), Troy Brewer, Zac Swansey (tranfers)
Incoming freshmen: None of note.
Initial ratings: ML .560, VW .630, JP .595, RM .650

RM: Georgia's offense was comically bad last season (275th in the country), by far the worst for a BCS team in D1, so I'm a little uncertain how much improvement can actually occur given that the Dawgs lost their most productive offensive player (Woodbury).

VW: There's some hope because they were so young last year (258th in the nation in experience), but that offense was pretty awful across the board. It's not like they're losing a ton with Woodbury though, who had an ORtg of just 93.6. If It looks like Thompkins could end up being a decent piece -- he was extremely high usage for a freshman.

Final rating: .592

Final SEC ratings:

That puts our current national top five at Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Purdue, and Duke. The season somehow tips off in three weeks, so hopefully we'll be able to finish these up and recap everything before November 9.

This Week's Links (10/12-10/16)

2009-10-16T20:23:00.004-04:00

Fire Shapiro?

Louisville's Terrence Jennings and Jerry Smith show excellent judgment.

CC Sabathia is a big Bert Blyleven fan.

You're sitting on a gold mine, Trebek.

Updated 2009 NFL Wins Over/Unders

2009-10-16T09:54:00.005-04:00

Bodog has posted revised win totals for a few notable teams. Here they are, compared to the numbers Bodog had for each team back in May, and the rates at which each team would have to win the rest of the season to hit their new total:

Even during their hot start, the Bengals' DVOA was only -2.6%, so .545 definitely seems optimistic for their true talent level. However, part of that is because of schedule: Cincinnati still has games against the Browns, Lions, and Chiefs at home, and Oakland on the road. Their revised total still seems a bit high, but FO has them finishing with 9.5 wins, so it's close.

Despite their record, DVOA actually has the Jets having played better than Cincy, with New York coming in at +8.4%. FO thinks they'll be a bit better than the Bengals the rest of the way, and puts their mean win total at 9.1, so everybody is in agreement there.

I'm not sold on Tennessee being a .500 team at this point after their -28.1% DVOA performance over the last five weeks. It's not like their remaining schedule is a walk in the park either. FO says 4.7 wins, and I'd have to agree with the under there, especially at only -105 at Bodog.

I hate to be the one to obsess with recent results, but: the Titans are better than the Broncos!? Denver's remaining schedule includes an interesting combination of very difficult games (@BAL, @IND, @PHI), and fairly straightforward ones (@KC, vsOAK, vsKC). FO strongly disagrees with this total, putting the Broncos at 11.2 wins, and I'd have to side with them here -- pegging Denver as a .409 team (give or take, based on SOS) after how they've played over the last five weeks seems unreasonable. The only problem with this is that the juice on the over is up to -125.

Carolina has been bad, certainly, but they do have a win under their belt, and home games remaining against the Bills and Bucs; 5.5 seems about right (FO says 5.0).

The last two are pretty funny. They definitely both seem low to me, but let's go through some line guesses for their future games to find out. Here are line estimates for the Rams based on DAVE, the LVSC, and SportsBetting's prospective lines, followed by my guess and how likely that'd make them to win each contest:

Some of those SBET lines are pretty ridiculous. It does look the over is the way to go with St. Louis, but not by all that much, and it's currently -130 at Bodog.

Now, for the Bucs:

That's quite ugly; at -130, there doesn't look to be value in the over two wins for the Bucs.

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 6

2009-10-13T21:20:00.016-04:00

Last week:
PIT: W, 28-20
NYG: W, 44-7
PHI: W, 33-14
DAL: W, 26-20
MIN: W, 38-10
BAL: L, 17-14

Third straight, and fourth of five, slow week for eliminations, with 5.3% of the Yahoo! pool going down.

Teams used (DAVE rank): Philadelphia (3rd), New Orleans (4th), Dallas (11th), Washington (20th), Houston (21st)

On the recommendations of Matt and Natan, I'm using both OFP and Yahoo! for the consensus numbers this week:

Pittsburgh (vs. Cleveland)

The Steelers are -940/+760 (88.6%) to win at Pinnacle, and are an extremely popular selection according to the OFP numbers. They don't have a crazy amount of future value, but they do play Cincy at home in Week 10, and host Oakland in Week 13. This is a reasonable enough pick, but it'd be nice to find something not quite as popular and with less future value that doesn't give up too much probability of advancing.

Philadelphia (at Oakland)

It's just unfortunate that this game is in Oakland, really, because this had the potential to be a pretty hilarious line. As it stands, the Eagles are "only" favored by 14, and are -840/+660 (87.2%) to win at Pinnacle. PHI -14 is also incredibly public: 81% at Wagerline, and 93% at SIA. It's interesting that they're so much less popular in OFP than Yahoo!; that might indicate that the OFP population is a bit more advanced, and possibly even understands the concept of home-field advantage.

I've already used the Eagles because of their lack of future value. Home games late in the year against Washington and San Francisco both have some potential, but aren't all that appealing.

Green Bay (vs. Detroit)

Despite being favored by 13.5 and -700/+570 (85.4%) to win, the Packers aren't nearly as popular as the Steelers in either pool. Looking at those two variables, Pittsburgh remains the slightly more attractive option. But this is by far Green Bay's easiest game the rest of the year; it's unlikely that any of their games from here on out end up being legitimate options. Considering how ridiculous the line on OAK @ PIT may end up being in Week 13, that makes Green Bay a better selection than Pittsburgh this week.

Jacksonville (vs. St. Louis)
NY Jets (vs. Buffalo)
New England (vs. Tennessee)

All three of these teams are favored by 9.5 points at home, and are about 80% to win. They're less popular selections than Green Bay, but not enough so to make up for the four-point difference in the line. Each also has some future value, with both the Jets and Pats hosting the Panthers down the road, and the Chiefs coming to Jacksonville in Week 9.

No other team is favored by more than a touchdown, so the Packers are the pick this week.

Likelihood of MLB Playoff Sweeps (1999-2009)

2009-10-12T08:17:00.009-04:00

This is pretty random, but I was curious so I decided to look into it. It seemed like the Yankees' ALDS sweep was one of the more predictable sweeps in recent memory, while the Dodgers taking down the Cardinals in three came as a bit of a surprise. Covers has lines going back all the way to 1999, so using those I determined the odds of each of the 23 sweeps since then; 17 in the DS, and six in the CS/WS (let me know if I missed anything there). Here they are, from most to least likely:

The Yankees' sweep was indeed the least surprising series shutout since '99; it helps to have a 77% chance of winning Game 1. The #2 finisher was the 100-win Cardinals against the 82-win Padres in '05.

The '00 Cards actually had HFA in that series against the Braves, but they were still dogs against Maddux and Glavine in St. Louis, and then Millwood was a large favorite against Garrett Stephenson in the final game.

I promise I didn't intend for STL to dominate the extremes of this list, but beating both Johnson and Schilling on the road in '02 is even more impressive; that one only gets knocked down to second least likely because they were about 60% to win at home against Batista in G3.

It's not particularly surprising, since there are only six of them, but none of the four-game sweeps have been particularly unlikely; if each game is a coin flip, each team had a 6.25% chance of sweeping, which is what the White Sox come in at at the bottom of the list. Compare that to 12.5% for a three-game series, a mark which 10 of the 17 teams are below, which is rather incredible.

Series Win Probability Graphs: STL vs. LAD

2009-10-11T17:29:00.004-04:00

Trying something new here, so any feedback would be appreciated. I did two things to come up with the graph below. First, I adjusted the FanGraphs win probabilities for each game based on the line, so instead of starting G1 at 50-50, the Dodgers started at 44.4% (+122/-130).

I then incorporated both the actual game lines and my guesses for games that never happened to figure out the series odds based on the potential result of each game. If the Cardinals had won Game 1, they would've been at 75.4% to win the series; LAD's victory got the Dodgers up to 61.7%. So throughout the game, those two are weighted by the batter-to-batter single game win probability.

Do that for all three games, and you end up with this:

(click to enlarge)

I think the main thing this shows is just how little Holliday's error is to blame for St. Louis going home early.

Please leave any thoughts/potential additions in the comments.

This Week's Links (10/5-10/9)

2009-10-09T10:29:00.002-04:00

Pro Basketball Prospectus 2009-10 is out.

Interesting Advanced NFL Stats post on how distance to go on fourth down effects whether a team punts or kicks a FG, which it should be pretty much irrelevant. I like the theory by the third commenter, which Phil Birnbaum explains a bit further down, personally (H/T: Jonny).

David Appleman explores the "wild fluctuations" in year to year UZR.

Great timing, Brady Morningstar.

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 5

2009-10-08T00:48:00.004-04:00

Last week:
NYG: W, 27-16
SF: W, 35-0
CHI: W, 48-24
IND: W, 34-17
CIN: W, 23-20
HOU: W, 29-6

Another terrible week for eliminations, with just 1.8% of the Yahoo! field being eliminated.

Teams used (DAVE rank): New Orleans (2nd), Dallas (14th), Houston (18th), Washington (19th)

Here are this week's most popular selections in the Yahoo! pool:

Pittsburgh (at Detroit)

Do people just not understand the concept of home-field advantage? That is honestly the only reasoning I can come up with to explain how the Steelers are more popular than the two teams discussed below. Pittsburgh has not looked as good as the Giants or Eagles over the first four weeks of the season, and is the only one of the three playing on the road. Sure, Detroit isn't good, but they did win at home a couple weeks ago, and they may well end up being better than both the Raiders and Bucs when all is said and done.

Another reason not to take the Steelers this week, beyond the relative shortness of the line and their mystifying popularity in these Survivor pools, is their immense value in future weeks. Pittsburgh hosts the Browns, Bengals, and Raiders, and also travels to Kansas City in Week 11. It may eventually be difficult to figure out when to pull the trigger on the Steelers, but it seems pretty obvious that the answer is not "Week 5".

NY Giants (vs. Oakland)
Philadelphia (vs. Tampa Bay)

Might as well just go ahead and group these two together from the start, since at first glance they're the two best options of the week, and they're clearly similar.

Likelihood of winning: It's a tie, with both teams currently favored -950/+770 (88.7%) at Pinnacle.

Popularity: The Giants are slightly more popular in the Yahoo! contest (23% vs. 18%), and more than twice as popular (21% vs. 9%) in the ESPN contest. Clear advantage to the Eagles here, although not a huge one.

Future value: Considering the strength of these two teams, there are going to be surprisingly few opportunities to take them in the season's final 12 weeks. Both have one game in which they'll be favored by 9.5, according to the current SBET prospective lines: New York hosts Carolina in Week 16, and the Eagles play Washington in Philly in Week 12.

Beyond that, though, there's not much; I suspect that the Giants will be favored by more than the 6.5 SBET currently has them at in Week 7 against the Cardinals, but the chances of that rounding into a Survivor play are slim. This category is essentially a draw, although it does make both plays even more appealing.

Putting the two options up against each other in those three categories reveals that the Eagles are a slightly superior option. Now we just have to go through the other games and make sure that holds true overall.

Dallas (at Kansas City)

The Cowboys are favored by nine (although the juice heavily favors KC), and are about 76% to win at Pinnacle. They are less popular than the Eagles, but the difference isn't nearly big enough to make up for the gap in win probability. Dallas also has more future value than Philly, with a home game against Oakland in Week 12 that SBET currently has lined at -14. There is no way I'm taking the Cowboys over the Eagles (especially since I've already used Dallas in this pool).

Minnesota (at St. Louis)

Pretty much the same deal here. The Vikings are favored by 9.5, and are around 81% to win. They've been selected by fewer than one in 10 people in the Yahoo! pool, but even if literally nobody was picking them they wouldn't be a better option than Philly. They also have some legitimate Survivor value in their future, hosting the lowly Lions in Week 10.

Baltimore (vs. Cincinnati)

This one interested me at first because so few people are picking the Ravens; just 0.7% in the Yahoo! pool. They're 77% to win at Pinnacle, which is solid but doesn't exactly compare favorably with Philly, and they are definitely worth saving, with home games against Detroit (W14) and Oakland (W17).

It doesn't look like any of the other options are even all that close, so the Eagles are the pick this week.

DS Previews

2009-10-07T08:50:00.004-04:00

I'm going to keep this fairly quick, since I've had zero time all week; hopefully I'll be able to get something up on the Red Sox series tonight.

Rockies @ Phillies
Current Pinnacle series line: PHI -152/COL +142
Game 1 line: Jimenez +124 @ Lee -132
Identical regular season games (same pitchers and location): none

For awhile there, when the potential Game 2 matchup was Cook at Lee, we did have a relevant line -- those two matched up on August 6 in Philly, with the Phillies being -165/+157 favorites. It would make sense if the line for the current G2 matchup ended up being similar. Something like this:

G1: COL (Jimenez, +124) @ PHI (Lee, -132)
G2: COL (Cook, +154) @ PHI (Hamels, -162)
G3: PHI (Blanton, +111) @ COL (Hammel, -119)
G4: PHI (Happ, +109) @ COL (Marquis, -117)
G5: COL (Jimenez, +124) @ PHI (Lee, -132)

Obviously I'm guessing on who the Phillies will start in their two road games, but I don't think there's enough separation between those two and Pedro at this point for it to make a huge difference; the Rockies should be 53-54% to win those games regardless. On the other hand, de la Rosa looked to be a cut above Colorado's current G2-G4 starters, so losing him hurts.

The potential lines above put the overall series line at PHI -129/+129; the Rockies are currently available at Carib at +150. Clearly, I think there is value in that, especially considering how much public action Philadelphia's G1 line has been getting over the last few days, regardless of their probable starter.

Twins @ Yankees
Current Pinnacle series line: NYY -397/MIN +334
Game 1 line: Duensing +303 @ Sabathia -333
Identical regular season games (same pitchers and location): 7/7/09, Sabathia -128 @ Baker +120

The above figures are rather ridiculous; justified, maybe, but ridiculous nonetheless. It's the combination of the Twins playing 12 innings and using seven relievers on Tuesday night and the lopsided pitching matchup that creates the crazy G1 line (which keeps getting higher, by the way); I'm assuming the next four lines will be a bit shorter:

G1: MIN (Duensing, +290) @ NYY (Sabathia -320)
G2: MIN (Blackburn, +195) @ NYY (Burnett, -215)
G3: NYY (Pettitte, -143) @ MIN (Pavano, +135)
G4: NYY (Sabathia, -136) @ MIN (Baker, +128)
G5: MIN (Blackburn, +195) @ NYY (Burnett, -215)

These numbers put the Yankees at -319/+319 to win the series. That may seem like a pretty big difference compared to the Pinnacle line, but when you get that high it really isn't; my numbers put New York at 76.2% to win the series, while the Pinny line has them at 77.6%. There appears to be some value in the Twins to win the series, but only a marginal amount.

Cardinals @ Dodgers
Current Pinnacle series line: STL -140/LAD +130
Game 1 line: Carpenter -136 @ Wolf +128
Identical regular season games (same pitchers and location): 8/19, Wainwright +117 @ Kershaw -125

G1: STL (Carpenter, -136) @ LAD (Wolf, +128)
G2: STL (Wainwright, +110) @ LAD (Kershaw, -118)
G3: LAD (Padilla, +136) @ STL (Pineiro, -144)
G4: LAD (Billingsley, +121) @ STL (Lohse, -129)
G5: STL (Carpenter, -129) @ LAD (Wolf, +121)

My initial lean was to take LAD for the series, but Carpenter being that big of a road favorite in G1 gives STL a huge advantage, and the action on that game is pretty split. I'll admit that the huge difference between G1 and G2 lines looks a bit strange, but I don't see much reason to stray too far from that Wainwright/Kershaw line from about six weeks ago, especially considering how well CK has pitched since that game. These numbers put the series line at STL -141/+141; I don't see a very compelling reason to take either side there.

MLB Totals Contest Final Standings

2009-10-04T20:02:00.004-04:00

Here's the final top 10:

Congratulations to "cmac" who went 9-1, only missing (by half a win) on the Astros total. His nine successful picks were: ATL O, LAD O, NYM U, TBR U, PIT U, OAK U, CHC U, CIN U, STL O.

Sadly, Tocchet's quest for 0-10 failed, as he ended up hitting his seven- and six-pointers (CHW U, HOU U) by half a game each. He actually didn't even finish last; that honor goes to "Mazz", who finished with just four points, winning only his Astros under.

The full results can be found here. Thanks to everyone for participating, hopefully we'll do this again next year.

Edit: Here's the distribution of how many people finished with each possible point total:

The average was 26.2, while the expected average if you have a 50% chance on each total is 27.5. PECOTA doing so poorly probably has something to do with our collective sub-par performance.

This Week's Links (9/28-10/2)

2009-10-02T00:46:00.002-04:00

MVP.

Colin Wyers debunks the debunker.

Some interesting data from Sean Forman in #53 on how often teams sweep doubleheaders.

What were the KU football/basketball incidents (reportedly) about? "Girlfriend issues", of course.

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 4

2009-09-29T10:21:00.007-04:00

Last week:
BAL: W, 34-3
GB: W, 36-17
PHI: W, 34-14
NYG: W, 24-0
DAL: W, 21-7

Not a strong week for eliminations, with the five most popular selections each winning by at least two TDs. The Redskins and Steelers did knock a few misguided people out; 7.0% of the Yahoo! pool failed to advance.

Teams used (DAVE rank): New Orleans (4th), Dallas (11th), Washington (19th)

Here are this week's most popular selections in the Yahoo! pool:

NY Giants (at Kansas City)

By far the biggest mismatch of the week, with the only issue being the game's location. This may come as a surprise, but the Giants are only favored by 8.5, and their money line (-375 at Pinnacle) is only the fourth most attractive of the week. Combine that with the fact they'll be valuable in future weeks (vs OAK, vs ARI, vs CAR), and the large number of people taking them this week, and there's no reason to use New York here.

San Francisco (vs. St. Louis)

The 49ers are -430/+370 (79.2%) at Pinnacle, and are favored by nine points. They're fairly popular ATS at the consensus sites and in the Yahoo! contest, and it looks like their only future value will come at home against the Lions in Week 16. This is just a solid pick; nothing about it is spectacular, but there aren't many drawbacks either. Definite possibility.

Chicago (vs. Detroit)

So the Lions win one game...at home...barely...against a pretty questionable Washington team...and suddenly they're both a much less popular fade in Survivor and a public dog at Wagerline? That Detroit win last week was actually very helpful in this contest if it means fewer people are going to be picking against them each week; they're still just 31st in DAVE (the Browns have taken over the bottom spot, congratulations to them).

The Bears have some favorable home matchups the rest of the way, hosting both Cleveland and St. Louis. Chicago is favored by slightly more than the 49ers (-450/+390, 80.0%), and a bit less popular in the Yahoo! contest, but I'd also rather have use of them in Weeks 5-17 than SF, so it's quite close between the two.

(It's also worth noting that the Bears are the most popular pick (32.5%) in the ESPN pool. That information is worth something, but it's also a good example of why I switched over to the Yahoo! data. There's no question that most of those people took Chicago before last weekend, when the Lions hadn't won in 21 months and were an obvious "lock" to lose all their road games. I really think Yahoo! not allowing you to make picks more than a week in advance makes it much more comparable to actual office pools.)

Indianapolis (vs. Seattle)

There's no line for this game at the moment, although the SportsBetting prospective odds had the Colts as a 7.5-point favorite in this matchup a week ago. It's looking like Hasselback won't play, but I'm not ]interested in getting involved here.

Cincinnati (at Cleveland)

I realize the Browns are horrible, but since when are the Bengals a viable Survivor pick on the road? Cincinnati is only favored by 5.5 here, this would be a terrible selection.

Houston (vs. Oakland)

The Texans are favored by nine at the moment, and are receiving fairly split action at the consensus sites. Their ML comes in at -415/+355 (78.6%) at Pinnacle, which is essentially equivalent to San Francisco and Chicago. What makes the Texans more attractive than those other two, at least if you just isolate this week, is their lack of popularity in the Yahoo! contest (they're also only at 6.2% in the ESPN pool).

Houston is pretty much useless going forward, as their five remaining home games come against San Francisco, Tennessee, Indianapolis, Seattle, and New England. I thought this week was going to be a difficult decision between the 49ers and Bears, but it looks like I was wrong; the Texans are the pick.

Evaluating April MLB Predictions (2009)

2009-09-28T13:16:00.009-04:00

This is, incredibly, the third annual version of this post. The tone of this year's edition will be a bit different, for two reasons. One is that PECOTA, which had a tremendous track record between '05 and '08, was actually the worst out of all the projections I collected by a substantial margin in 2009. The other is that, sadly, ESPN didn't have all of their analysts make projections this year, so we have no way of knowing what Steve Phillips was thinking six months ago.

There were still plenty of people making win predictions this year though, and some of them were even good. The projections I'm including in this analysis are: Joe S. Sheehan, CHONE, Sports Illustrated, PECOTA (AL, NL), CAIRO, ZiPS, Marcel, THT, RLYW (AL, NL), the Yahoo! guys (Tim Brown, Jeff Passan, Gordon Edes, and Steve Henson), and Keith Law.

Here are the five best predictions of the year, after taking into account how far off the average prediction was ("on pace for" is through Sunday's games):

1. Jeff Passan, Florida Marlins
Predicted wins: 87
On pace for: 86.2

This is pretty impressive, with the average projection having the Marlins at 76 wins, and the second-highest being just 82. Florida's Pythag splits the difference between the consensus and what actually happened, putting them right at .500. Their bullpen has been a big part of their surprising success, with guys like Kiko Calero (1.89 ERA) and Dan Meyer (2.91 ERA) having big years.

2. Jeff Passan, Texas Rangers
Predicted wins: 85
On pace for: 88.8

Going out on a limb certainly paid off for Passan this year. If those pesky Angels hadn't gotten in the way with their constant winning, the Rangers would have been a big story in '09; as it happened, they'll have to settle for being the "next big thing" in '10, with a potential rotation of Millwood, Feldman, Holland, Feliz, and Hunter.

3. Steve Henson, Baltimore Orioles
Predicted wins: 65
On pace for: 62.7

More Yahoo! dominance; obviously Henson didn't buy into the Wieters hype. In theory it was a nice offense, but nobody ended up posting an OPS+ above 115, with Izturis (57 OPS+) and Mora (74 OPS+) weighing them down. The pitching ended up being as bad as expected, and that's a good recipe for losing 100 games.

4. CHONE, Detroit Tigers
Predicted wins: 85
On pace for: 86.7

Finally, some logic we can at least try to follow. CHONE saw Verlander returning to form, although it didn't quite envision 256 Ks. Most of the computer projections (avg: 81.3 wins) saw the Tigers bouncing back from their disappointing '08, while the humans (avg: 74.3 wins) weren't nearly as optimistic (or accurate).

5. ZiPS, Pittsburgh Pirates
Predicted wins: 60
On pace for: 61.0

ZiPS projected the Pirates would have zero SPs in the "top third", one in the "middle third" (Maholm), and the rest in the "bottom third", so that wasn't very promising. The bullpen actually ended up being even worse than the rotation, finishing second to last in the NL with a 4.67 ERA. Throw in the trades, and undershooting their Pythag by five games, and that's how they ended up right around this incredibly pessimistic projection.

And now for the worst misses:

1. ZiPS, Florida Marlins
Predicted wins: 66
On pace for: 86.2

Another exceedingly pessimistic ZiPS prediction, although this one didn't turn out quite as well. ZiPS ended up being way low on Josh Johnson; it had him putting up a 4.04 ERA in 107 innings, while in reality he has thrown 199.1 innings with a 3.12 ERA. For whatever reason, the Marlins were another team with a big difference between the humans (avg: 80.3 win) and the computers (72.0).

2. PECOTA, Washington Nationals
Predicted wins: 77
On pace for: 54.3

The Pirates may have had the second worst bullpen, but they weren't even in the same conversation with the Nationals, who have a relievers' ERA of 5.30, including a horrendous 1.3:1 K:BB ratio. That crazy Cristian Guzman projection didn't work out too well for PECOTA, as his OBP dropped all the way down to .309. I don't think anybody could have anticipated how bad guys like Scott Olsen and Daniel Cabrera would be, and Washington has been 10 games worse than their Pythag, but even so 77 wins was a bit absurd for this group.

3. Steve Henson, Seattle Mariners
Predicted wins: 65
On pace for: 83.1

This would be the same Steven Henson that had Seattle winning 89 games in 2008; I don't think anyone will be confusing him with Dave Cameron any time soon. The Mariners famously improved their outfield defense over the offseason, and it certainly paid dividends, with Gutierrez and Chavez combining for a ridiculous 34.4 UZR; Henson probably only figured those two for about 20 runs above average in the field.

4. Gordon Edes, New York Mets
Predicted wins: 93
On pace for: 69.6

At 23.4, this is the biggest miss in absolute terms, although it's obviously not as bad when you consider how far off everybody was on the Mets. It also looks a little "better" when compared to the biggest miss from last year: Steve Phillips being 31 wins off on Seattle, predicting they'd win 92 games while they finished 61-101. Truly a performance for the ages.

5. Steve Henson, Detroit Tigers
Predicted wins: 69
On pace for: 86.7

This was a pretty ridiculous prediction; the Tigers only won 74 games in '08, but their Pythag was 78-84, and there weren't a whole lot of reasons to expect them to get worse.

I'll do a more detailed analysis of this when the regular season actually ends, but here are the overall 2009 standings, using RMSE (lower is better):

This list actually looks very similar to most years if you ignore the bottom row, with the computer projections being more accurate than those done manually. With an average RMSE of 10.15 among these projections, 2009 was a bit easier to predict than 2008 (11.37), although that's partially because we took out the non-Law ESPN "analysts".

It may seem strange to see Passan so low considering he had the two best predictions, but he had a ton that were significantly worse than average, including SDP (59), CLE (89), NYY (89), COL (73), KCR (79), NYM (91), and DET (74).

Look for a post breaking down breaking down the 2005-2009 "standings", which look a good deal different after PECOTA's 2009 performance, next week.

Photo: here.

This Week's Links (9/21-9/25)

2009-09-25T06:54:00.000-04:00

Zack Greinke has terrible command.

"How many home runs would Pujols hit if he was pitched to like Juan Pierre?"

Another cool Flip Flop Fly Ball graph on how often the "best team" wins the World Series.

2009 NFL Survivor: Week 3

2009-09-23T08:55:00.008-04:00

Last week:
MIN: W, 27-13
WAS: W, 9-7
GB: L, 31-24
TEN: L, 34-31

Pretty big week for eliminations, with 26.5% of the ESPN pool getting knocked out and 27.2% of the Yahoo! pool going down.

Teams used (DAVE rank): New Orleans (11th), Washington (16th)

Here are this week's most popular selections in the Yahoo! pool*:

*I've switched from the ESPN data to Yahoo! after discovering that the former lets you make picks well ahead of time, while in the Yahoo! pool you can only make picks for Week 3 right now. I think picks someone made on ESPN a month ago are skewing the data with useless information.

Baltimore (vs. Cleveland)

Easily the most attractive option of the week, with the Ravens favored by 13 at Pinnacle, which is four more points than anyone else. Unfortunately I'm not the only one who has realized this, as you can see in the graphic above. Baltimore is the team most likely to win this weekend, but it's worth continuing to search for a better option both because they're so popular, and because they host the Bengals, Broncos, and Lions in later weeks.

Green Bay (@ St. Louis)

Well this certainly isn't it. The Packers are only favored by 6.5, and are an exceedingly popular choice at the consensus sites.

Philadelphia (vs. Kansas City)

Under normal circumstances the Eagles would be a solid option here, but Philly's circumstances this week are so abnormal that there isn't even a line for this game yet; neither McNabb nor Westbrook practiced on Wednesday. Definitely not interested idn getting involved here.

NY Giants (@ Tampa Bay)

This is almost a carbon copy of the Green Bay game, and you saw how attractive I found that matchup. The 2-0 Giants are only laying 6.5 on the road against the 0-2 Bucs, and are predictably getting pounded at the consensus sites.

Dallas (vs. Carolina)

Here's the only Week 3 option that is even comparable to Baltimore. The Cowboys are nine-point favorites on Monday night, aren't very popular either ATS at the consensus sites or in the big Survivor contests, and don't appear to have a lot of future value, with the possible exception of Week 12 vs. Oakland.

According to the Pinnacle money lines, the Ravens are 86.4% to win, while Dallas comes in at 77.3%. When you consider the Yahoo! consensus data, it's basically a wash; if you look at ESPN's numbers, Baltimore comes out slightly ahead. I think it's close enough that who you pick depends on the size of your pool. If you're in a very large pool that's likely to last deep into the season, I'd go with Dallas -- the Ravens could be extremely valuable in Week 14 against Detroit, especially considering over 60% of the Yahoo! pool has already used Baltimore in just three weeks.

In a smaller pool, one which is unlikely to last much past midseason, I'd probably take the Ravens, since having Baltimore available in Week 14 isn't very helpful if your pool is over by Week 9. For the "official" blog pick though, I'll go with the Cowboys.

2009-2010 College Hoops Projections: Adding Recruiting Ratings

2009-09-22T19:57:00.008-04:00

Six weeks ago I wrote about a college basketball projection "system" that I had started working on, which uses a team's previous year's KenPom rating along with how many minutes they had returning to project how strong they'd be in the following year.

As with any simple equation that tries to predict something extremely complicated, there were many flaws with this, probably the most obvious being that it completely ignored incoming recruits. In an effort to change that, I went through the Scout archives and added the number of four- and five-star recruits each team had each year to the data set. The results looked like this:

Definitely promising; 5* recruits are worth a little less than twice as much as four-stars, and both of those variables are statistically significant. Something bothered me about this though; if a team returned most of their minutes, and also brought in some really good recruits, the regression would consistently overrated them. The reason for this seemed simple enough: there are only so many minutes to go around, so if a team has a lot of starters returning, the freshmen are going to have less of an impact.

To fix that I created a rating from a formula that considered RetMin%: (five-star * 2 + four-star * 1) * (1- RetMin%). I then had a burst of creativity, called that rating "RECRUIT", and included it in a new regression:

I couldn't have asked for much better results than that, with "RECRUIT" fitting into the regression perfectly and even bumping the adjusted R-squared up by about .02.

I would like to continue improving on this. Two realistic additions have come to mind so far. The first is adding some combination of KenPom rating in year N-2 and how many minutes the team is returning from that year. I tried this with just the KP rating from two years prior, and it didn't improve things much, but I think it might be worthwhile if we knew how many of those players were coming back, and thus how relevant that rating is. This would also prevent Indiana from having an unreasonbly good '09-'10 projection; Eric Gordon and D.J. White are not walking through that door.

The other thing I'd like to add eventually is RetPts%, which I think would make a small but meaningful difference. Just for fun, here are the 10 best '09-'10 projections using the "RECRUIT" regression described above, only looking at conferences I've collected data for (ACC, B10, B12, SEC):

As I noted on Twitter, Tennessee really does return all but nine minutes. Hopefully our SEC preview will be up a week from Monday.

MLB Totals Contest Update (September 21)

2009-09-19T17:19:00.002-04:00

Through games of Sunday 9/20. This is just the number games each total is projected to win/lose by, multiplied by its confidence level; I'll try to put together a more extensive post next week. The current top 10:

"cmac" is on pace to go 10/10, which would be quite impressive, although the ATL and HOU overs are going to be close. Tocchet has a chance to go 0-10; he "needs" the CHW and HOU unders to lose. The full standings can be found here.

This Week's Links (9/14-9/18)

2009-09-18T20:00:00.001-04:00

The FJM Reunion.

Cool new site that archives futures lines. If you have any old ones lying around that he doesn't have, go ahead and e-mail him, this could end up being a really good resource.

Pos responds to Robothal. Also, buy the book!

LoHud's Peter Abraham is leaving to work for The Boston Globe.