In my most recent post, I presented some technical adjustments to my Expected Saves model which resulted in much more interesting (and meaningful) results than the previous version. Last August I used the previous version of the model to evaluate goalkeeper performance in last season’s Primera División. I’m anxious to see how the findings change […]
Last August, I wrote something about my expected saves model and used it to assess goalkeeper performance in Argentina’s Primera División. To be honest, I was deeply unsatisfied with the model. It yielded a very optimistic expectation of saves made and as a result the expected goals allowed was extremely low. Every goalkeeper in the list […]
The Major League Soccer panel at the 2018 SSAC was organized at very short notice, but the discussions over the fifty-minute session were engaging and helped to illuminate the tension between analytics research and practice at MLS’ member clubs.This year’s panel was made up of MLS performance and data analysts from the last two league […]
I was going to write a longish preview of the two soccer-related panels at this year’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, but after a big night at the pre-SSAC Soccer Analytics Mixer (and you REALLY should have been there) and a late rise, I’m going to make this short.I suppose I should be thankful to […]
Alongside the Research Paper competition at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference are the research poster displays. Research posters have always been a part of the SSAC (at least since I started attending in 2010), and even the research paper finalists had accompanying posters. In recent years more attention has been paid to the research […]
The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is more of a sports business conference these days, but the MIT association conveys a conference that also values rigorous and high-quality research. The Research Paper competition keeps the SSAC connected to this heritage as it evolves. This year the competition returns with tracks for publications on Baseball, Basketball, Other […]
Some, maybe most or even all, MLS teams use some sort of cheat sheet to help them make decisions on possible deals during MLS SuperDraft day. One of those cheat sheets is the draft value card that provides a rough estimate of the relative value of a draft pick.As you know, I’ve written several articles […]
This week is the week of the MLS SuperDraft in Philadelphia, and I am on my way there to attend an analytics symposium sponsored by Opta. One of the talks at the symposium will be a presentation by Kevin Minkus on the use of data to make draft selections. Last year I wrote extensively on […]
