Playing a match on a team’s home field and hometown provide a number of advantages over a visiting team, including home fans, playing on your own turf, and things as simple as having your own trainers. We aimed to quantify Home Field Advantage (HFA) in the English Premier League (EPL), as determined by goal differential. ...Read More

The rise in sports analytics has focused on popular American games such as baseball and basketball, as well as soccer. While cricket is one of the most popular sports on a global level, there has been limited application of sport analytics reported in the literature. In this work, established sports analytics methods are applied to ...Read More

In baseball it is commonly believed that throwing harder, pitches of higher velocity, leads to more whiffs, a batter’s swing and miss at a pitch. In this study, we investigate if pitch spin rate and velocity affect the whiff rate. MLB pitcher pitch data was from baseball savant’s statcast. However, we observe ...Read More

Stolen Bases are Disappearing as Baseball Become More Analytical, authored by Nathaniel Yellin, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy), Trevor Chen, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy), Tobias Coker, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy), Zeyad Shariff, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy) Read More

NBA games have been changing. In particular, such play style shift, through ’positionless’ basketball, has often been associated with more three- pointer attempts and fewer inefficient mid-range shots. However, while such aggregate trend is trivial to analyze, we pose three outstanding questions that the aggregated trend fails to encapsulate. First, is that there is a ...Read More

How Rare is Pete Alonso’s 53 Home Run Season? authored by Jason Burlant, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy), Daniel Goldblatt, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy), Aaron Visser, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy), Jake Hart, University of Pennsylvania (Moneyball Academy) Read More

In the NFL, on average passing plays generate more yardage than rushing plays – 6.7 compared to 4.4 yards/play over the 2019 season. Why don’t teams pass more? Does the value of passing diminish as you throw more often? Also, does passing efficiency increase if you have a more even play distribution? Read More

Pythagorean win expectation uses the average points scored for and against per game to predict the number of wins a team ‘should’ have won. In this work we attempt to construct a more predictive expectation determination based on per possession points to predict wins totals in NBA games. Additionally, we standardize for seasons and ...Read More

While some forward-thinking NFL coaches such as Doug Peterson and John Harbaugh have adopted an analytical approach regarding their fourth down decision making, many have ignored such data. Most NFL coaches do not make consistent data driven 4th down calls. We believe factors that may contribute to this poor decision making are personal image and ...Read More

The NBA basketball draft involves a great deal of uncertainty. Some non-lottery picks like Pascal Siakam and Kawhi Leonard go on to have All-Star careers while top draft picks like Kwame Brown, Derrick Williams, and Anthony Bennett end up as busts. In this project, we created a model that uses NBA players standard and advanced ...Read More

Common across many domains, and especially prevalent in basketball, the ‘hot hand’ suggests that a person who has experienced a recent period of success has a greater likelihood of future success. In basketball, the player with the hot hand who has recently made a series of baskets is more likely to continue their recent success. ...Read More

In Major League Baseball, starting pitchers and relief pitchers have different value equations, and teams allocate financial resources separately to those positions. In this study we explore if for already-contending teams, is it smarter to invest in a starting rotation or a bullpen? Should a team invest to improve their starting pitchers or relief pitchers, ...Read More

The new NHL team, the Seattle Kraken, will select players in an expansion draft. Advanced hockey data has limitations as a general predictor of protected player value because it is often too specific, yet it is very good for comparing players. Generally, teams protect their best players, but they also favor younger players and better ...Read More

Rocket League is an online game where players control cars in a soccer field with the aim of scoring as many goals as possible within 5 minutes. In this work, existing sports analytics methodology developed for soccer are applied onto Rocket League in order to gain better insights into player skill. The dataset includes instantaneous ...Read More