What is The Most Likely March Madness Bracket?
With one of the most exciting tournaments in sports kicking off this week, it’s time to do another analysis with the aim of creating the best March Madness bracket. Last year, my ELO system didn’t do well, so this year I’ll take a look at the betting action on Draftkings and Fanduel to see what the industry consensus most likely bracket is.
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How To Stop Saquon Barkley??
Eagles running back Saquon Barkley is having one of the best rushing seasons in NFL history. He had the 14th most rushing yards per game in NFL history with 125.3 and the 4th most this century, trailing only Adrian Peterson (131.1 in 2012), Derrick Henry (126.7 in 2020), and Chris Johnson (125.4 in 2009).
How can the Chiefs stop Saquon in the Super Bowl? In this analysis I’ll take a look at Barkley’s rushing patterns to see how the Chiefs should plan against him.
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Who Has Better Post-Season Numbers - Brady or Mahomes?
Earlier this season I posted an analysis comparing Manning, Brady, Mahomes, and Rodgers in order to determine the best quarterback of the QBR era. In this post, I'll focus on a postseason comparison between Brady and Mahomes. Which quarterback has had a bigger impact on his team’s success when it matters most?
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Do NFL Teams Run the Ball Too Often on 2nd and Long?
1st down incompletion, 2nd and 10 upcoming— a clear passing situation, right? After all, only the league's elite ball carriers (just nine this season) can consistently gain 10 yards on the ground over two plays to avoid 4th down. So, what's the better strategy here? Two consecutive pass plays, each designed to pick up 10 yards, or a single pass play, aiming for 5-7 yards after a 2nd down run?
In this analysis, I’ll dive into NFL teams' run/pass decision-making on 2nd down and evaluate whether their play-calling aligns with game theory optimal strategies. Has the league cracked the code or if there’s room for improvement?
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Can Volpe Become a Better Base-Stealer?
With Statcast’s new baserunning and basestealing data released to the public, I wanted to take a look at the top base-stealers in 2024. Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe increased his stolen base total from 24 in 2023 to 28 this past season. How does he compare to the top base-stealers in the league, and how can we expect him to improve?
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Man vs. Zone Defense: Which One Is Most Efficient Against Passing Plays?
As the NFL regular season approaches its final week of play, I will take a look at how NFL defenses have performed since 2018 in each of man and zone defense against passing plays. I will use two key metrics—EPA (Expected Points Added) and WPA (Win Probability Added)—to assess team effectiveness.
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Dollar/WAR in the 2024/2025 MLB Free Agency Market
Last offseason, I examined the trend in dollar/WAR (wins above replacement) for free agent signings. In this analysis, I’ll revisit the dollar/WAR figures for this year’s free agency market and dive deeper into the evolving spending patterns.
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How Will Roki Sasaki Fare in the MLB?
23-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki, a star pitcher for the Chiba Lotte Marines in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), has officially been posted for MLB teams to sign. Sasaki is set to become the most cost-effective elite starting pitcher available this offseason due to his international amateur status. Being under 25, he must sign a rookie deal that pays the MLB minimum for three seasons, followed by three years of arbitration before reaching unrestricted free agency—mirroring Shohei Ohtani’s early MLB trajectory.
Last offseason, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was posted and signed by the Dodgers. As some may recall, I did an analysis back then aiming to predict how Yamamoto would fare in the world’s best baseball league. Using that same logic, but adding Yamamoto’s predicted and actual data to my dataset for the model, how is Sasaki projected to perform in the MLB?
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Who is the Best Quarterback in the QBR era: Manning, Brady, Rodgers, or Mahomes?
Total Quarterback Rating (QBR) data exists dating back to 2006 and is largely considered a better measure of quarterback performance than passer rating because QBR accounts for expected points added (EPA) for all plays a quarterback participates in, including sacks and quarterback runs, rather than focusing solely on passing plays.
In this analysis, I will examine the QBRs of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes for each season since 2006. My goal is to identify the top quarterback of the QBR era by assessing how many times each player secured the QBR title and comparing their rolling-peak QBRs from single-season highs to 16-season averages.
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Which Batters Swing Least Often and Most Often on First Pitches?
Securing strike one is vital for pitchers, and many hitters prefer to take the first pitch to gauge the pitcher’s release, velocity, and movement. In this analysis, I’ll highlight the 15 batters with the lowest and highest first-pitch swing percentages among all qualified hitters in 2024, and provide tips on how to effectively pitch to them.
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Which Playoff Teams Have the Most Dominant Pitching?
October baseball is in full swing, and the Wild Card round didn’t disappoint! We saw some stunning upsets: the Tigers ousted the Astros, the Royals knocked out the Orioles, the Mets took down the Brewers, and the Padres triumphed over the Braves in the only series in which the home team won. Now, with just eight teams remaining, it's time for my final xwFIP analysis of the season. I'll be crowning the regular season champions among all pitchers and starters, and taking a deep dive into which playoff pitching staffs are best equipped to silence opposing lineups this fall.
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What Were The Best Trade Deadline Pitching Acquisitions, According to xwFIP?
Following the recent trade deadline, I’ll take a closer look at the ten best pitching acquisitions of 2024. Which team made the best acquisitions, judging by pitching metric xwFIP? And how does the xwFIP leaderboard stack up for all pitchers this season through July?
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Where Does The Performance of Top Pitching Prospect Paul Skenes Rank?
Pirates rookie right-hander Paul Skenes has debuted his electric stuff with 30 strikeouts over 4 starts and 22 innings pitched. Skenes, baseball’s number one pitching prospect and number two overall prospect, was drafted 1st overall out of LSU last year. He features a 99 mph 4-seamer, a 94 mph splitter, and an 85 mph slider; and he ranks in the 99th percentile in fastball velocity and the 98th percentile in strikeout rate.
Where does Skenes stack in this month’s xwFIP rankings?
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Why Should You Advance Up the Court in Tennis?
Whether you’re a baseline specialist who can endure grueling rallies and outlast your opponent like Djokovic, Nadal, and Medvedev - or a player that prefers to approach the net to finish off points like McEnroe, Edberg, or Federer, your court positioning relative to the baseline and relative to the net is vital. Why is that? Let’s take a look.
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Is the Dodgers' Starting Lineup Optimal?
After winning the offseason by signing two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, Japenese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and slugger Teoscar Hernandez, while trading for ace Tyler Glasnow, the Dodgers are off to a fast start in 2024 with a 10-5 record, averaging a bludgeoning 5.4 runs per game (PECOTA projects them to average 5.38 this season). It doesn’t look like the team needs any help.
However, is their lineup construction optimal? In this analysis, I will assess if there is room for improvement.
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Should You Intentionally Foul With a 1-Point Lead to Secure the Final Possession?
Team A is leading Team B by one point. Team B has the ball with 10 seconds to go. If Team B’s two-point field goal percentage is higher than 50%, which is the case for 29 of the 30 teams in the NBA this season, they could be the favorite to win the game, despite trailing by one point. In which situations can an intentional foul by Team A swing the win probability back in their favor?
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How to Quantify Lineup Protection in Baseball
MLB lineup construction is a science that has been developing for over a century. The nuances of ordering hitters include alternating right-handed and left-handed batters to make it more difficult for opposing teams to exploit the platoon advantage, batting your least productive hitter 8th instead of 9th so that the number 9 hitter can act as a second leadoff hitter, and sometimes avoiding batting your best hitter 3rd since that spot is the most likely spot to come up with 2 outs and the bases empty.
In this analysis I’ll discuss lineup protection, that is, the impact that the hitter behind you has on the pitches you face. I’ll use the results of my lineup protection analysis to add another wrinkle to the lineup construction equation.
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Who Will Win the EPL Title - Liverpool, Arsenal, or City?
The EPL title race saw a major shift this past weekend when Liverpool came back from 0-1 down to defeat Brighton 2-1, and Arsenal went into the Etihad and held Manchester City to a scoreless draw.
In this analysis, I’ll use the last two seasons of EPL matches to rank the three contenders, considering the strength of opponent, final score, and each team’s expected goals scored (xG) based on the shots that they took/allowed in each match. I will then predict the match outcomes of the final nine weeks of the season and determine how likely each team is to capture the Premier League title.
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Which Kickers Are Best Prepared for the NFL’s New Kickoff Rules?
The NFL has approved a new set of kickoff rules for the 2024-25 season, with the goals of increasing the number of kick returns from the all-time low mark of 22% last season and reducing the velocity of player collisions on kickoffs. The XFL sported a 97% kick-return-rate last season under this kickoff format, so one of the game’s most exciting plays is likely to return to the forefront.
In this analysis I’ll discuss how the new kickoff rules will change kicking strategy, and determine which kickers are the best prepared to adjust to the new rules.
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A Relative Value Comparison of Goal Scorers and Goalies in Hockey
Conventional hockey wisdom puts the goalie as the most important player on the ice, akin to the quarterback in football or the point guard in basketball. In my first hockey analysis for The Paraball Notes, I’ll evaluate the NHL’s goalies and goal scorers to determine at which points in the player value distribution this conventional wisdom holds true. My ultimate objective is to find the relative value of goal scorers versus goalies.
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