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Category: Sports Analytics
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Entities: Aaron ShotsBillsCaleb WilliamsCommandersEaglesESPNFootball OutsidersFTN FantasyJaguarsJaylen DanielsNFLRavens
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Welcome, welcome to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics here on the Wharton podcast network.
This is Kate Massie hosting this week along with my longtime colleague, collaborator, co-host, and
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friend Eric Bradlo. Our two other co-hosts, Shane Jensen and Audi Winer, are out this week.
They're doing Shane and Audie things. They will be back.
Some combination of us are here almost every week of the year and have been for more than 11 years now. Delighted to be
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here with you. We are going to run through a regular schedule.
We're going to record, we are recording on Tuesday afternoon. The show will go up on Wednesday.
We're going to do about an hour. We're going to do a guest in the first half as we have been lately and then some open topics in the second half.
We have back on the show for the
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eenth time and um a very happy annual marker of sorts. Aaron Shots is here with us which means football season is just around the corner.
Delighted to see you Aaron Shots. Welcome back.
>> Hey, we made it through another off
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seasonason. Football people any I I am aware there are other sports but football people made it through another offseason and I'm ready to go.
I'm ready for a new season. I'm ready.
training camps are open and I'm ready to uh completely get obsessed with whether guys throw interceptions to their
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teammates and pretend that it means something. >> Good.
Good. Well, we appreciate the enthusiasm.
That's what you're here for. Most of you guys know Aaron.
If you don't, let me give you just a little bit of background. He is presently the chief analytics officer of FTN Fantasy.
He
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also writes for ESPN. He's very well known for founding Football Outsiders.
many years ago, more than 20 years ago, he was early into the game on advanced football analytics. He's the creator of DVOA, which has been doing a lot of work in our community for a long time.
And um
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he's always a delight to talk to. I I always like to note also that he is the his his writing tree, his analysting tree is as impressive as it gets in football, if only that perhaps the two leading lights.
He I give you credit for finding Bill Connley and Bill Barnwwell.
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If I think if you do word count right now, the leading word count producer on the NFL side for ESPN would be Barnwell and the leading word producer on the college football side of ESPN would be Connley. So Shots is the journalistic father of both of those guys.
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>> A lot of my writers in the past have turned out to be quite verbose. Uh Bill Connelly has a new book coming out by the way, so I hope you'll talk to him about that.
It's really exciting. And uh yeah, my coaching tree includes Doug Ferrar from Athlon and Mike Taneer who
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has his own site now and Ryan Wilson from CBS, Michael David Smith from Pro Football Talk. It's a lot of people.
>> You're forgetting FEI, I think. >> Yeah, Brian Frimo, who does the FBI ratings?
Yep, >> exactly. Freo as well.
That's a heck of a tree. Heck of a tree, Aaron.
Okay,
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man. Let's get into it.
This is uh NFL talk one for us and so God knows we're going to kill you with questions. I know you've got some stuff you want to talk about, too.
I'm going to start at the top with a personal question. All right.
I'm in a in a dangerous position this year. My favorite professional team is
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at the top of many people's list and my favorite college team is at the top of many people's list. It's uncomfortable.
You'd rather be there than anywhere else, but it's a little uncomfortable. I need to know, Aaron.
I need to know what's the case for the Ravens. We're used to them being like second, third,
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fourth on most people's list. There's usually somebody like the Chiefs or the Bills or the defending champion Eagles up.
They're look looking up at them. But now everyone, it's ridiculous how many people are saying the Ravens are the best positioned in the league.
Now I know there it's tight.
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>> You say Kate, there was a time. Was there not a time that the Bills were your favorite team?
Like when I first met you almost 30 years ago now. >> Well, you spend a couple years in Buffalo and and you get you get soft for the Bills and they're still way high on the list for sure.
But there I I discovered, Eric, last year, remember
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they played in the playoffs and it's like I didn't know what was going to happen internally when I went to know >> that's how you found out and it was clear to me. I'm sorry, dear Buffalo friends.
It was clear to me that recent recency matters and it's the Ravens. So Aaron, I need to hear your thoughts on
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the Ravens for this year's NFL. >> Well, if anybody who follows my numbers knows that they have absolutely loved the Ravens for the last two years.
Uh they have been our number one team for two straight years and number one in a historically great way like among the
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top 10 or 12 teams ever measured in the regular season and then they go to the playoffs and they fall on their faces. >> So the idea that the Ravens are the best team is based on the idea that falling
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on your faces in the playoffs is not a real thing. that history is filled with teams and players that couldn't do it in the playoffs until the year they finally did >> get it done.
>> And certainly we know that there's no
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magic sauce that John Har uh John Harbaugh can't win in the playoffs because the man won a Super Bowl 13 years ago. >> Is there some sort of magic sauce that Lamar Jackson can't win in the playoffs?
I honestly >> don't think so. Has he struggled so far?
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Yes. Does it mean he'll struggle forever?
Just ask Pton Manning or Jason Tatum or Barry Bonds or a number of different athletes if you struggle in the playoffs for your entire career or maybe it just happens early and then you
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kind of get with it. Now, the downside for the Ravens is that they are desperately trying to get past the Kansas City hump, except they also have to get past another team that is also desperately
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trying to get past the Kansas City hump, right? >> Which is the Buffalo Bills.
It's a really interesting table we have in the book. Mhm.
>> The top DVOA average of a five-year team that doesn't make the Super Bowl belongs
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to the last five years of the Buffalo Bills. >> The second highest average belongs to the last five years of the Baltimore Ravens.
So these are what great teams would say historically get past a hump >> over what period of time are we talking
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about? >> This is over the uh since 1978.
>> Oh my gosh. The best 5ear spans since 1978 to not make a Super Bowl are the Bills and Ravens of the last five years.
>> Yeah. And we just place that on Andy Reid's doorstep and and Pat Mahomes
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doorstep. Geez.
Good lord. Okay.
Well, tell us why it's different this year. Why would it be different this year for either of those teams?
>> I mean, it's just a question of, you know, when is somebody gonna get it done and and when is Kansas City not gonna
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have the brakes work for them? And I mean, I think Kansas City is a very well coached, very well quarterback team, but I don't think that they're invincible.
They did show a couple of years ago that if somebody could get past them because Cincinnati did. And I think that they're
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not going to have the same luck they had last year. I think they may be better than they were last year, but they're not going to have the same luck.
So, they're not necessarily going to be the number one seed in the playoffs. I think the most likely team to be the number one seed is the Buffalo Bills because they have the easiest schedule out of
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those three AFC top teams, >> right? I mean, Ravens visit Buffalo week one and then they go to Kansas City first half of the year sometime as well.
It's >> that week one game is hugely important for playoff seating. It >> you also pointed out um it doesn't have
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to be this is what I've always thought. It doesn't have to be the Bills or the Ravens that defeat the Chiefs.
As far as I know, Kansas City goes to San Diego or the whatever Harbaugh team. The other >> Harbaugh Chargers, LA Chargers.
Yeah.
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No, I mean, we think Denver is very good this year. We think Cincinnati is good.
>> Absolutely. The Bengals beat them.
The Bengals beat them and then the Ravens and Bills, one of them wins. That's what I think is actually going to happen this year.
Also, uh, it's guaranteed that
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some team from the AFC South will make the playoffs. >> That's Yep.
That's the way the NFL works. Sure enough.
Um, well, remind me what we learned from the Super Bowl. If I don't misreall, the Eagles beat down
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the Chiefs. I mean, not just a little bit.
So, tell me what we learned from that about getting past the Chiefs. uh that offensive line is a weak link unit.
>> Say what you mean more. Say more about what you mean by that.
>> The idea is that your offensive line is
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generally only as good as its weakest lake. >> And therefore you need to be good at every position.
And the Chiefs had Caliando at left guard and they had Tuni playing out of position at left tackle. And the Eagles pass rush destroyed them.
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And the other thing we learned, Vic Vangio is a very good defensive coordinator. >> That Eagles defense from week six onwards would have been one of the top 10 defenses since 1978 by DVOA if you if
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you take out the first four games of the year. That's how good that defense was last year.
>> All right. Well, let's use that as a pivot to the hometown Philadelphia Eagles.
Are people sleeping on them this year? I know they're roughly a a a top, you know, I don't know, five team or so in most people's expectations, but some
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think Detroit going to clip them this year. What What is your What does the air and shots take?
>> I'm the opposite. I actually think the Eagles are not quite going to be as good as people think they are.
They are, I mean, a very good team, but this is something we talk about a lot. Offense
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is more predictable and more consistent than defense. The Eagles had the number one defense in the league.
It is very unlikely they will have the number one defense in the league again, especially because using the equation that I use to
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look at personnel changes, they lost the most veteran personnel of any defense in the NFL this off seasonason. Miami was second.
So, with all the players they've lost, they're depending on a lot of young guys. They're probably not going
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to be number one on defense again. Their offense in the regular season was not as good as it was in the playoffs.
So, let's say that they have a little bit better offense than last year. And like the fourth best defense in the league,
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they also have the second hardest projected schedule after the Giants. >> That is not a 13 uh win team.
>> That's a 10 or 11 win team. >> Okay.
Before we go on, I want to go back to the first thing you said there, which was that offense is more predictable
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yeartoear than is defense. This is kind of the can this is canon now, I suppose, for football analytics, but it's everybody may not know that because it's only been observed, I don't know, the last five or 10 years perhaps, but can you give us the intuition for that?
Because I think most people might have the opposite intuition. Something about
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offense feels more volatile, so you might expect it to be less predictable. Why is it that season to season defense is less reliable, less consistent than a team's offense is?
>> We don't. >> Is it Is it turnovers?
Because that's one stat that they've said is very hard
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to predict from year to year. Is Is it that part of defense, Aaron, or is it some other part?
>> Yeah, turnovers regress towards the mean strongly and stronger on defense than on offense. That is absolutely true.
A big part of it is the quarterback position because so much of the offense is
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managed by one player, right? It's very hard to imagine that a team quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes is going to have a below average offense.
Yet, a defense with Miles Garrett as its best player can be one of the top three
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defenses in the league one year and one of the bottom three defenses in the league the next year, despite the fact that Miles Garrett is still awesome in both seasons. That quarterback having so much control over the offense leads to much more consistency.
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>> Super interesting. So, it's more about offense reliability as opposed to defensive unreliability.
Super interesting. Okay, I want to come back to that.
I know you you worry a lot about a hard thing in analytics, which is how do we forecast a quarterback when he moves positions, but let's hold that question for one second because we left the team previews one team too early. We
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were talking about Eagles and if you don't like them as one of the top teams, you might even like the Commanders better in the East. They are coming and they've got one of the most exciting, if not the the most exciting young quarterbacks in the league in Jaylen Daniels.
What do you expect from them this year? Yeah, that's that's our big
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surprise projection this year. We project the Commanders over the Eagles to win the NFC East.
That is not to say that the Eagles are not a great team. I think they'll be the number one wildcard team.
>> Okay. >> Um the Commanders are going to not be as
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good on fourth down. They were shockingly good on fourth down.
That is going to regress. But I think they have balanced that out with some of the additions they've made on the offensive side of the ball.
Debo Samuel and especially Laramie Tonsel to improve
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their offensive line. We think their defense can be a little bit better than last year.
They were actually 23rd on our defensive ratings last year. So, we have them projected average like 17 >> and they have an easier schedule than
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the Eagles because of which teams in which divisions finished first and second last year >> and therefore we do actually have them projected ahead of the Eagles this year. >> Okay.
>> So, Aaron, just two quick follow-ups to that. Um, a how much weight do you put?
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Um, I was at every Eagle playoff game this year. Um, the Eagles absolutely destroyed the Commanders in the playoffs.
uh they ran through them. It I forget if they won by 30 or whatever the number was.
How much weight does that put into anything? The second thing is
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the team that I didn't think the Eagles were much better than last year and got lucky to win. I was at that game too was the Rams.
So where do you put the Rams? I mean Matt Stafford in that snowstorm, he was one pass away from them going to the Super Bowl.
So I'm interested to
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hear, do you put any weight on the fact that the Eagles blew the Commanders out in the playoffs? And what do you think of the Rams?
>> First of all, that's only two games. Let's say that there really is something about the way the Eagles play that the Commanders do not match up well with.
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There's still 15 other games that determine who wins the division. >> So, it could be >> predicting necessarily that they're going to beat them in the playoffs.
You're talking about the division like >> Yes, I'm talking about the winning the division during the regular season. >> That's totally different.
I agree. That's entirely different.
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>> And the Rams, we like the Rams. We do think their defense is going to take a step back.
There's a lot of questions in the secondary. Um, their defense improved a lot last year and there's a sort of a plexiglass principle thing where they may come back to the pack a little bit.
Uh, so we don't have the
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Rams. That's a very strong division.
So, we also like the Cardinals this year and we also really like the 49ers this year and the Seahawks may be better than we think because their defense because Mike McDonald in Baltimore at least had his defense improve a lot in his second year
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there. So, that's a very strong division, but the Rams are a very strong team.
>> Okay, let's let's talk QBs. Um Jaylen Daniels um after a spectacular year last year, it's it's you know because quarterbacks are so important to offense
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and offense is so important to a team. Understanding where a quarterback's going to be is the single most important component in forecasting a team.
And yet especially early in a guy's career, it's hard to know what kind of steps he's going to take. What tell talk about Daniels?
Like what do you see in Daniels? What do you expect in Daniels
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long term? What do you expect in Daniels this year?
I mean, the best thing I can say about Daniels is that when a player is that good as a rookie, you don't expect that they'll take a step forward in year two because they were already so
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good as a rookie that they're not going to necessarily get better. >> Okay.
>> Uh Marino was like the exception, but he's not necessarily going to get worse either. I think I mean he's really good last year.
He's a great pocket passer and then he's an amazing scrambler. He's
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accurate. He's got a good clock in his head to not take sacks, right?
You compare that to Caleb Williams. Now, the quarterback projection system that we use to try to project quarterbacks from college to the pros liked Caleb Williams better, but the fact is Caleb Williams
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just he made too much of his own pressure, took too many sacks, and didn't have anywhere near the kind of year that Jaden Daniels did. It's so hard to predict.
Erin, tell me, talk about that because Caleb Williams, I mean, I would say I don't, we'd have to go through through the numbers, but he
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wasn't quite forecasted as a generational guy, but the consensus around him >> was he was number one, >> was so strong. I mean, I could just the consensus was as strong as it has been in many years.
>> I agree with Aaron, by the way. I've seen both quarterbacks live, including JD Daniels first ever game, which was uh
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Commanders at Buccaneers, and the Bucks won the game. But I remember saying as I was leaving the stadium, "Thank the Lord the Bucks played them in week one.
This guy's clock is amazing. This guy's accuracy.
He's making the
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right reads." You a lot of times, as you know, Aaron, you go to games and you say, "This guy's open all over the field. What was the quarterback thinking?" I don't remember saying that once about Jaden Daniels during the game.
I think I think you hit it on the head. I I don't know why that would regress.
Why would his ability to find
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receivers and his I'll call it internal clock not holding on to the ball too long knowing when to run. I'm not sure why that would regress even though defense is quote unquote adjust.
>> I mean the biggest reason why listen CJ Strad regressed a lot but he mostly
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regressed because the team around him he had injuries with his receivers and his offensive line completely fell apart. Washington has tried to make sure that does not happen by going out and getting the only good player from the Houston
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offensive line to improve themselves at left tackle, knocking last year's left tackle, Brandon Coleman, into left guard. So, they're hoping for a better blocking to make sure that that Daniels doesn't take the step back that Straoud took back.
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>> What What about Caleb Williams in Chicago? you know, expectations.
It I I will say that as hard as it is to forecast a QB coming out of college, it seems to take us a number of years before we really understand a quarterback in the pros. We we get short on guys that end up turning it around at
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a second or third stop and we get long on guys that end up progressing three, four years into their career. What is your current position on Williams?
What is your current forecast for having a >> I think he can be better. I think we may be making too much out of the new offensive lineman that Chicago got.
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They're gonna have better blocking, but the problem is still Caleb Williams as far as the pressure goes. It's not the offensive line.
That being said, Ben Johnson is a very smart offensive coordinator. Now, head coach is a different job.
We have no idea, none,
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how good Ben Johnson is at being a head coach, but part of his job is that he will be running the offense. That we know he's very good at.
So, I mean, we do think Chicago in our projections, they come out as an above average offense this year. >> Okay.
Okay. Well, we we've talked about
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projecting guys coming out of college and the challenge of that. Number one pick last year, Cam Ward going to be playing in the NFL for the first time.
What hess in general? And then what do you see for Cam Ward?
We like Cam Ward better than I
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think uh the consensus was that if Cam Ward had come out a year ago, he might have been the seventh quarterback taken. >> Yeah.
Right. >> Our projections like him better than that.
We have him more like third or fourth, like after Williams and Daniels. Um it, you know, it's based on the
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college performance. It's based on mobility in college.
It's based a little bit on experience and a little bit on age. Now, the age thing is interesting because the change in how college is working means that age and experience
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may not mean the same things they've meant in the past. Guys are staying longer.
The COVID year really complicated this, but now NIL complicates this. It used to be you'd see a guy was like 24 in college and you'd be like, "That guy is beating up on 18 and 19 year olds.
How does that
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necessarily translate to the NFL?" Now, that guy is 24 in college, and a lot of the other players are going to be 24, too, because they're staying in college because of the NIL money. So, overaged prospects may not be as overaged as we've thought in the past.
Cam Ward is
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not, by the way. Cam Ward is still a young guy, but this was an issue with Daniels.
This was an issue with Bo Nicks. This was an issue with Michael Penn, etc.
>> So, Aaron, let me ask you, as someone that does mathemat mathematical modeling, how do you then address that
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issue? I'm sure a lot of our listeners like in some sense we've seen a regime change in the NFL where you know the age distribution has changed but like we can't just project from the past because we haven't seen that age distribution before how do you even think about
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addressing it from an analytical perspective or do you assumption do you assume that you look at the 24 year olds in the past and you try to project them forward what do you do >> I think early on like now you just do your projection questions the way you've
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always done them and you just put words next to them. I mean, that's why we have words and not just tables in our book.
You know, we explain when we think, you know, things are changing and and what it's going to mean now after we've seen three or four years of this. We'll have
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to see. Wide receivers is another position where this comes into play.
Like we've always found wide receivers who come out as juniors are just better in the pros than similar wide receivers who come out as seniors. They just are.
But what if guys stay for senior years
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because they can make $2 million and get college checks? Like you know like what that it's not that they're staying till their senior year because they're not as good.
It's they're staying till their senior year because they're making lots of money. So, it's going to change how
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we see things. >> So, is that just kind of the art of it?
And yet, I know, you know, as modelers, we try not to put our thumbs on the scale, but you do put your thumbs on the scale when you know your model's missing something. >> I mean, we we all right, I I've heard people talk about this.
As much as we want to believe that our models are
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objective, the way you build your model is in its way its own way sort of subjective. So, yeah, I mean, we try not to put our thumb on the scale, but we also want to be as true to life as possible.
and life has changed. >> That's right.
That's right. That's the
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humility of it really. Um you recognize that it's imperfect and you got to sometimes bring a little subjectivity.
We could talk quarterbacks all day long. I mean, another interesting one is JJ McCarthy.
So, he's not I mean, he's not a rookie, but he is a rookie. And what what is a year sitting on the sidelines?
He's not even getting snaps, right,
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because he's injured, but maybe that year of mental prep makes a difference. What what and the team is now completely dependent on him.
What are your expectations for McCarthy? rejecting him like a rookie.
There's never been anything like this before. >> Mhm.
>> You've never had a quarterback who
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missed his entire first year because of injury. You've had guys who sat on the bench for their first year, but you never had a guy who was supposed to start and then got hurt and so you don't know what to expect from him.
I mean, obviously there are guys who sat on the
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bench for a year and Patrick Mahomes in his second year, right, was insane. But in general, I think we have to treat him like he's a rookie.
And that's in our projections. We treat him like he's a rookie.
>> Okay. But you he came in in a strong QB draft.
If he'd come out a year later, if
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he'd come out in the Cam Ward 2025 draft, >> he might have been the number one pick. >> He's he's that that's how high you have him coming out of their >> I mean that it's more like people are not as excited about Cam Ward.
Remember Cam Ward, and this is another modern thing. He played for three different schools included including Incarnate
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Ward, >> right? Like he he's kind of a late bloomer.
>> Yeah. >> So I think that a lot of scouty type people would have put McCarthy ahead of him.
>> Okay. Okay.
Okay. Another of these
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challenges from a modeling perspective is when coaches change and a lot of us have tried to do coaching modeling and and we've seen some efforts here and there. for a for a long time we just kind of called the residual coaching effects.
It's somewhere in the residual but it can't be the entire residual. What are
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you doing with coaching these days? And when we see coaches move from one franchise to another what what can we say?
>> It's hard because you don't have a history of except for a guy like Fangio, you don't have a history of, hey, he's coordinated 10 different defenses and
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this is what's happened to them, right? You're usually with a coach who's on a new team, your sample size of his past performance is either one or zero, right?
Like we've never seen Ben Johnson run a team. We've never seen Aaron Glenn
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run a team. We have seen Mike Vrabel run a team, but only one team, only the Tennessee Titans.
So, we know something about Mike Vrabel, but we don't necessarily know what was those Titans players and what was Vrabel. Now, Vable
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is an interesting uh one to talk about though because there's a flip of this which is there's no way to model like really bad coaches. Like there's no numbers that say that Gerrod Mayo was completely in over his head even though everybody says Gerrod Mayo was
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completely in over his head. So, it's possible that we are underplaying the change in coaching, not because Rael is more important than we think he is, but because Mayo was so bad.
>> What if every Aaron ju just say, let me ask a question. What if every statistical model, what about if all of
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your models, all the other models, Massie, Peabody, whatever it is, had the Patriots last year at seven and 10 and they went three and whatever they went three and 14. Wouldn't that give some suggestion?
I I wouldn't say it's perfect, but wouldn't we have some
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information that maybe Jared Mayo severely underperformed? >> Yeah, I think so.
But here's an interesting thing. Um, so I have an equation called the postgame win expectancy.
And what it does is it looks at the stats of a game and says based on the in
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the stats of this game, which team would we have expected to win? >> I love And there are certain coaches who have a history of outperforming what that equation says, like Mike Tomlin and Andy Reid.
There's also a coach who has a really amazing history of underplaying
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what the postgame win expectancy would say, and he's considered one of the best coaches in the game. And that's Kyle Shanahan.
>> Oh, I was going to guess Shawn McVey, but okay. >> No, it's Kyle Shanahan.
So, what if does
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that mean Kyle Shanahan's not a good co? Right?
Like there's a lot of measurements that you try to put into coaching, but I do think that if you have a consistent record of winning close games and winning more games than your underlying stats would suggest, it's probably a sign you're a good
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coach. And the opposite is also probably true.
But that's not true of the Patriots last year. The Patriots did not tremendously underperform the underlying stats.
The underlying stats were bad. Well, that's the thing.
The coach gets some responsibility for that
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fundamental, >> right? I mean, when you hear that like Gerrod Mayo was not even aware of like which meetings he should be holding on which days, like you have to expect that that impacted the underlying stats.
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
But that is an interesting that is one glimpse into
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coaching effects. It's not the whole picture and it's not perfect as you said, but as you say, as soon as you get a somewhat sufficient sample size, it says something.
It says something about the coaching. >> Let me ask you, Aaron at all because I find this whole topic fascinating.
Just
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one quick followup to that. >> Do you find that the same stats help you predict, let's call it expected outcome at different parts of the distribution?
Like in other words, can I just have one set of stats that would predict a really bad team's outcome, a good team's
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outcome, and a great team's outcome or >> Yeah, I think it does. I mean I think using the same stats it uses you know DVOA it looks at penalties it looks at how many plays you run right like DVOA is more predictive which is an efficiency metric uh than how many plays
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you run but in a single game how many plays you run is important right like you want to run more plays that's not necessarily predictive for future performance but it helps you win that game but I think those underlying stats for like determining single games are
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basically the same whether you're a really good team or a bad team. >> Let me ask you one other follow-up question just for because we may have a big machine learning audience, blackbox audience out there.
Um, when you think about these models or even you and your disciples, it's it was great to hear from you guys early on what your
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disciple tree is. Um, would you be happy today just building a machine learning black box with, you know, kind of throw away whatever you know about the NFL and whatever does best out of sample prediction, you're just going to jam it into some black box or do you see it as a blend of the two?
Like what do you
30:08
feel most comfortable with? >> I would say a blend.
I will say that the uh the big data bowl a couple years ago when they did uh trying to predict the rushing yards on a play based on where the players were, the winners were two
30:24
dudes from Europe who knew nothing about football and just put everything into a black box. So that was kind of interesting.
I'm also I mean going to just be really honest here, which is I am not a trained data scientist. Even though I've been doing this for over 20 years, I'm very self-taught.
I have an
30:39
economics degree. There was no such thing as a data science degree in the mid1 1990s.
The people who have come after me are much more adept at teaching machine learning to a computer than I would be. But I love the answer though
30:54
um because it highlights that there are different kinds of problems in sports, never mind different kind of problem. There are even different kinds of problems within the NFL.
So the example you gave was a really cool year where they were predicting the yards from from at any given moment on a rush rushing
31:11
play like stop the action and say what's the expected yards from here. That's very different from saying are the 49ers going to be any good in 2025 with the rushing yardage forecast.
You've got not infinite data but you've got a lot of data. You've got micros secondsonds as
31:28
your unit of of analysis and you've got as much videotape from history as you can cram in essentially because there hasn't been that much change. That's a good environment for blackbox models.
When it comes to are the 49ers going to be any good in 2025, the unit of
31:43
analysis is essentially a season, a a team season and that's really chunky and really coarse and we don't have much data. That's not great for blackbox models.
>> Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of subjective things when you look at whether teams are going to be better or
31:58
worse from year to year and things like trying to figure out which personnel changes count and how to count them. >> Yeah.
Right. Huge.
And that's why I think that's why we're going to be having these kinds of conversations for the rest of our lives anyway. We're not going to have these things solved
32:14
anytime soon. Okay, Erin, that's we've already taken more time than we should.
Let's ask one last question. Give us one more storyline from 2025 NFL.
one more storyline that you think is gonna be interesting, you're gonna have your eye on as the season unfolds that you think we should pay attention to, too.
32:29
>> And Kate, I'm gonna get one more question in here that I really want to know the answer to, too. >> Okay.
>> I'll mention, by the way, that all of these projections and stuff, we do the preseason book we've done for 21 years. So, I do want to point out to people the FTN football almanac 2025 is available
32:45
on Amazon or a PDF version which costs a little less. You can get at ftnfantasy.com/almanac.
Uh, one of my interesting picks for this year is that we like Jacksonville as our favorites in the AFC South. Partly for
33:02
the same reason that we like Washington in the NFC East, which is the Eagles were the number one defense in the league last year. It's very unlikely they'll do that again.
The Houston Texans were the number two defense in the league last year. Okay, >> it's very unlikely we'll do that again.
33:19
We like the Jaguars defense to improve a little bit. We like the Jaguars offense to improve a little bit and we may be underelling what Liam can Cohen can do with that offense if he's a very good head coach.
But the big variable here is Travis
33:36
Hunter playing both ways, which is the most interesting story of the year as far as I'm concerned because it's it's only been done a couple of times in the last 30 years. Roy Green had a year where he played both wide receiver and safety.
And Deion Sanders had a year
33:52
where he played both wide receiver and cornerback. Nobody's ever tried to do it to the extent that Travis Hunter has talked about doing it for multiple years.
It's fascinating. >> Okay.
You did the whole Jack Jacksonville bit and didn't mention Trevor Lawrence. That's amazing.
>> Well, that's the thing is the question.
34:08
Can Liam Cohen unlock Trevor Lawrence like he unlocked Baker Mayfield? >> Okay, that's cool.
That's good. That's great.
All right, Eric, you last question here. >> Yeah, I just wanted to ask him.
So, these are yes, no questions. We always say half the NFL teams that made the playoffs last year typically don't make
34:24
it this year. So, if I'll just list the quickly, you just tell me yes, no.
Do they make the playoffs? The Chiefs?
>> Yes. >> The Bills?
>> Yes. >> The Ravens?
>> Yes. >> The Texans?
>> No. >> The Chargers?
34:39
>> No. >> The Steelers?
>> No. The Broncos, >> yes.
>> The Lions, >> yes. >> Eagles, >> yes.
>> Rams, >> yes. >> Buccaneers,
34:56
>> yes. >> Vikings, >> no.
>> Commanders, >> yes. >> Packers, >> yes.
>> That's >> That's the whole field. That's the whole field, man.
>> That's great. >> All right, Eric, I just realized you're wearing your Bucks colors.
This you may
35:12
intentionally not >> no this is an R this is not >> Tampa Bay >> Mike Tir's chapter talks about Tampa Bay deserves more respect as a really good team and not just as a team that gets to go because somebody from that division gets to go. >> Okay, I'll believe that when I see it.
35:28
But okay. >> And we love Baker Mayfield, let me tell you.
>> All right. >> We love Levante David.
We love Levante David. >> Erin Shots, great to talk to you, man.
Great preview. Wish you the best.
Fun time of year. Have fun for the next month as we ramp up.
>> Absolutely, man. I hope everybody enjoys
35:45
the NFL season. ftnfantasy.com/almanac to get the book.
>> There you go. That has been Aaron Shots, formerly football outsiders, one of the real pioneers in football analytics.
Welcome back to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to the second half of this
36:02
week's show. Kade Massie here, hosting with my longtime colleague, co-host Eric Bradlo.
We are gonna do the second half of the show as an open topics half number of things to talk about but we just got off the line with Aaron Shots.
36:17
Aaron is a frequent contributor here at Wharton Moneyball has been for all of our 11 years I'd say and is good sign that NFL is upon us. Football is upon us.
And he does a great preview. I think Aaron does a fantastic preview.
Super helpful, super insightful. Eric, any observations coming out or or let's say
36:33
anything left to say about the NFL here about a month out? No, I I like I loved what he said.
I mean, he said that offense is more persistent. Um, partially he said defense is less persistent because of turnovers.
We've talked about that. There's actually reversion, mean reversion that typically
36:50
happens in turnovers. Um, offense is more persistent because quarterbacks don't bo and weave that much.
And so, I thought that was a very good insight. And so what he basically said was is that if you have a team that was average
37:06
offensively but great defensively and like for example the Eagles and that's what made them a great team. You'd have to forecast some sort of regression towards that.
And I think that's the thing I like about it too is, you know, it's in all the complex models and
37:23
worlds we have now, that's something you can explain to somebody and it it doesn't it doesn't it's not just empirically true, but it makes sense. >> Yep.
Um I found his team by team breakdowns helpful. It's interesting
37:39
that they're a little short on the Eagles. If you go to the markets, our friend Neil Payne sometime the last two weeks summarized the market forecast like the probability of a team winning a Super Bowl.
He got market forecasts from two places, FanDuel and Poly Market. This interesting new market, Poly
37:54
Market, the for the numbers are very highly correlated. And you can look at what it says going into this year.
We've got five teams at like 10% or higher. No, four teams.
Four teams 10% or higher. And that's more than we've had
38:09
in a few years. It's definitely more bunchy at the top.
And despite Aaron's take, the Eagles are the highest, at least on the poly market side, at about 12% chance of winning the Super Bowl. >> Yeah.
So, I love this bunchiness um that there's more teams at the top. Um I
38:26
could debate just because I was there and you know, again, this is a bias that I have. I think people are underelling the Rams.
Um, that was a damn good football team that came into Philadelphia and was one play away from going to the Super Bowl. Um, they're not
38:43
that low, you know, they're like the seventh or eighth best team. >> Well, let's say what that is, but but as a as a fraction, it is so much smaller.
It's like 4% or something. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. The other part that's interesting is a lot of that bunchiness, this is what we talked about with Aaron, is the Chiefs, Bills, and the Ravens, and only
38:59
one of them Super Bowl. >> That's right.
That's why the Eagles That's why the Eagles are popped up above them because that market poly market understands that and they're they just have less competition in their competition. >> Actually, you brought up a really important point because not a novice, but someone that's not thinking about it as carefully might say, "Well, of course
39:15
that means the Eagles are the strongest team." No, the Eagles are in a weaker division. They have really one serious contender.
Not that they don't have others, but the Lions I think people would consider in that top tier. >> Yeah.
in the AFC. I mean, there's a lot
39:30
of teams. There's a lot of teams that could be competitive and certainly the Ravens, Bills, and Chiefs.
That big three, >> you know, three versus two tier, three versus two top tier teams changes your probability of going to the Super Bowl and winning dramatically. If you have
39:47
one other top tier team, you have to beat one. If you have three, depending on your break and the playoff uh seating, you may have to beat two.
And that's a big difference. Well, that that concentration is so high as well.
So, three AFC teams above 10% to win the
40:03
whole thing and then nobody down until somewhere below four. So, it's just heavily heavily weighted to the top.
And and Aaron, maybe the most stunning thing Aaron said was that since 1978, so almost 50 years worth of data, the the two highest five-year runs of DVOA,
40:21
which is his advanced analytics measure for quality of a football team, the two highest five-year runs without appearing in a Super Bowl belong to the current Bills and Ravens in the last 47 years. It's absolutely stunning.
That's because Chiefs >> the last two years, you you might have a
40:37
different opinion. I think it's hard to argue.
I'm not arguing with the outcome. The outcome was the outcome.
>> I think it's hard to argue the Chiefs were a better football team than the Ravens or Bills the last two years. I don't I'm happy to go back three, four, five years and say that, but not the last two.
And I don't expect I do not
40:53
expect the Chiefs to be a better football team. And let's even talk about Aaron also talked about postgame matchup beating expectations.
I think the Chiefs are going to excel at that. You even mentioned they got Andy Reid.
I mean, come on. That's worth a
41:10
lot. I'm not saying John Harbaugh is not a very good coach.
I'm not saying um Sean uh why can't I think of his last name? The Bills coach.
>> Yeah, I never can do names either. Sean.
>> Yeah. He's obviously a very good He's obviously a very good coach, but he's
41:25
not Andy Reid. And so I think the Chiefs may be the third best team in the in the AFC.
And I think right now I would put them as again since they still have Pat Mahomes, they're still the favorite to make the Super Bowl. Why not?
>> All right, so we got we got we started our football previews a little bit early
41:42
this year. We're going to we're going to slow walk them in.
We're going to stage them in over the next few weeks. We've got a five weeks or so before we launch NFL.
We've got some college football previews coming up in future weeks. Eric, I know you're just back from your annual pilgrimage with your cousin and the boys to the Hall of Fame inductions
42:00
for baseball. How'd it go?
What stood out to you? >> Well, couple interesting things that I heard.
First, um, Billy, there's only eight, what was it, eight relievers that are in the Hall of Fame, full-time
42:15
relievers. Billy Wagner's one of them.
Billy Wagner's right-handed. He broke his right arm as a kid, so learned to pitch left-handed.
So, he's a left-handed pitcher that made the Hall of Fame who's not left-handed. So, that was one thing I thought was interesting.
42:31
>> I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're saying.
You lost. >> He's right-handed.
>> You mean pitches lefty? >> He's right-handed outside of baseball, but he pitches he pitches with his left hand.
Okay, got it. >> That is correct.
That's because he broke his arm as a youngster and couldn't pitch with his right arm.
42:47
>> Okay. Okay.
That was one thing. The second thing is that um Ichiro besides giving a hilarious speech um he had no hits until age 27.
43:03
>> No major league baseball hits. >> Correct.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
>> And they actually published a list. They showed it actually up on the screen.
I'll make it up. Like Tai Cobb had like 1,600.
You know, there were 11 players that had a thousand of their 3,000 hits by the
43:18
time they hit that age six. Wow.
>> And Icho had zero. >> And of course, his first 10 seasons record, obviously, all 200 hit seasons, including his fourth year, we had set the all-time record of 262 hits in a
43:33
season. Um, he averaged 236 hits per season in his first 10 seasons.
So, that's a lot. Let me just real real quickly.
236 is is pushing one and a half a game. And how many at bats do these guys expect to
43:50
get? Not that many more than three.
So, it's almost half of his at bats he's getting hits. Maybe maybe they get four at bats.
Maybe it's >> maybe it would have to be. And actually, I have to look at his batting average after his first 10 seasons.
I think his
44:06
career batting average was 331. I'm just doing it by recollection.
I'm not sure, but it could very well have been between 340 and 350, which would be exactly your math. If he got, you know, four at bats a game, 640 a season, and he got one and a half hits per game, that's hitting 350
44:24
out of four. Okay.
So, that could very well be. He may have had a 350 lifetime batting average after 10 seasons.
>> What do you think his longest hitless streak was, but in games or or at bats? Well,
44:40
I mean, if he's basically hitting onethird of the time, then the probability of not getting a hit in a game is uh well, he'd have to it's 2/3 to the fourth. So, 8 over 8 over 9 8
44:56
over 8110th probability. He doesn't get a hit in a game.
So if you call that a geometric distribution, his the expect I don't know 10 I don't know uh games without a hit. I was going to say 10, but that seems way too high.
>> That seems too high, right? The way you
45:12
just went through it, that seems too high to be more than 50%. >> It does seem way too high because there's a 10% chance roughly that he won't, you know, 2/3* 2/3* 2/3 times 2/3, which is not hit, not hit, not hit, not hit.
That's eight out of roughly
45:28
that's one10enth. If you put a geometric distribution on that, like I'm flipping a one out of 10 coin.
Um, oh, the waiting time. Yeah, the waiting.
I I don't know. Maybe I'm computing the distribution of the maximum wrong.
That's probably what I'm doing. I'm just
45:43
probably thinking about the distribution of the maximum wrong. I don't know what it is.
>> Okay, let's stop. Let's stop the math now and give an intuition.
Like six games or so. >> Yeah, I'm going to say five or six games.
>> Yeah, something like that. That's that's extraordinary.
Okay. Um, but I interrupted your Hall of Fame thing.
45:59
>> No, no, no. The only other thing, the only other thing I would say was that I also had forgotten when I looked at his stats how great a player Dave Parker was.
You know, he was close. Not I don't know.
He had 20 over 2700 career hits. I
46:14
assumed his stats were much worse. And so I now have to wonder why he wasn't potentially in the Hall of Fame earlier.
Um because just because I maybe it was a different era when people were voting and everything else like that, but I compare him to a lot of the players that have gotten in recently and you know to
46:31
me he was as good I saw them both. He was as good as Andre Dawson.
He was as good as Andre Dawson and you know he was as good as a lot of people that are currently in the Hall of Fame. So that was the other thing that struck me.
>> Eric, remind me remind me what was so
46:47
special about those Pirates teams back then with Willie Starel and Dave Parker like that. There's something that like the fish that ate Pittsburgh or whatever the what was so crazy about what was going on with those guys.
I forget what was going on with those guys. >> Well, I think a bunch of it was just they were very interesting big time
47:02
personalities. I think that was part of it.
Also, they just had an amazing, you know, an amazing pitching staff, amazing hitting team, and it was also just, as you remember, Pittsburgh was title town back then, right? That was the Steelers uh era.
47:17
>> Don't remind me. Don't remind me.
No, I'm just saying that was a big era for the city of Pittsburgh. Um, and they were just I think um Pittsburgh again Dave Parker obviously just passed away two months ago.
His son spoke. It was he
47:32
was just saying it was a team with a lot of personality. >> Yeah.
Fun. Fun.
Okay. All right.
Let's do a little bit of contemporary baseball because your boy Judge just hit the IR or whatever they call it and DL whichever one it is. And meantime that pesky catcher out of Seattle dinged a
47:48
couple more. I think I'm liking my I think I'm liking my position on the on the Raleigh versus Judge bet.
>> Well, now all of a sudden you're looking good. >> Hey, who's that?
You could you had to factor in injuries. Judge is not exactly injury robust.
>> Yeah, of course Judge's injury was from
48:04
throwing the ball. And so the interesting part from the Yankees perspective, and you I forget if we talked about this last week or not, >> if Judge can't throw, then Judge can't play the outfield, which means Judge has to DH, which means you now put Stanton in the outfield because you you got to
48:20
play Stanton. He's the second or third best hitter on the Yankees, maybe fourth.
So you got to play him. And so now you put him in the outfield and then you get defensively much worse.
So the they've got a lot of trouble. Um, I now put it at at best.
I think Raleigh has
48:37
40. I think Judge has 37.
I may be wrong, but I think he has 37. Judge is on the 10day injured list.
If he comes back, I still like Judge, but not by much. He might be five behind by the time it happens.
And there'll be only 55. Actually, I I don't know how I can
48:54
say I like Judge. If he's five behind with 55 to play, his rate, well, it would have to be 0.1 more per game, which means over 162, I'd have to think he's a 16 better home run hitter than Raleigh, and that seems unlikely.
49:11
>> It's a little strong, but on the >> on the on the other hand, these things do seem to be chunky. So, there's a lot of chance there, just you might not expect it.
Um, but I think Rley got to 40. I may have this wrong.
I thought he got two in a row relatively quickly. I thought he was at 41, but perhaps
49:28
>> Oh, he could be. I just the last time I heard he was at 40.
>> Okay, Eric, I want to give you some bits and bobs from around sports. >> 41.
>> All right. So, he did sneak out there a little bit.
Um, the things that have caught my eye are a little unusual.
49:43
Maybe it's because it's the time of year, but we're a little bit in a in a in a Eb in major sports, but some of the interesting bits have been a little bit more businessy. We don't do a lot of sports business here, but some of these are businesses.
Some of them are stuff from women's professional leagues. So, for example, I just saw, you know, the
49:59
the the Euro the women's Euro finals was this past weekend, and England won. We saw some headlines around that, but I just saw the TV numbers for that.
And the the the US numbers were the were a record for a women's soccer game.
50:14
There's something like I'm missing the exact same like 1.4 four 1.5 million viewers, which is a 50% increase apparently over the 2022 Women's World Cup. And even the the the whole tournament, not just the final, but the whole tournament was averaging 458,000
50:30
or something like that, which is a 100% increase over 2022. And people are thinking that this is because the NWSL has become so popular around here.
And then those players go overseas and play in some of these um national tournaments
50:45
and their interest goes with them. But so how when you just like raw numbers, this is one thing we ought to do more of Eric and I and I think we've been trying some in recent years is just to be calibrated on the number of eyeballs on various sporting events because that's what drives revenue in sports.
And so we
51:01
need to have some sense of what's a big event, what's not a big event. When you hear 1.4 4 1.5 viewers and it peaked at like 1.9 for the women's Euro final in the US.
How does that strike you? >> First of all, I love women's soccer.
I
51:18
love watching it. I love the game.
Um, in some ways I can um not associate, but I can like watch the game and you know identify more with it than the men's game which I can't identify with at all. Um, the women's game I think is a
51:33
beautiful game to watch. >> So, hold on.
Let me Rick, let me jump in on that. Um, my advisor used to say, he's a golfer.
He used to say, I think we ought to all watch more women's golf instead of men's golf because we can't really expect to do what the men do, but our swings, if we
51:49
if we tried to mimic the women's swing, we'd be better off. >> I completely agree with that.
And I I played golf this weekend. I need to mimic something other than my own swing.
But um you know I'm I'm surprised at that number. I'm not surprised at 1.35 million.
I'm surprised that it's a
52:05
record for women's soccer because you know if we think that there's I don't knowund 100 million US households that's still only a and you know I don't know how many TV viewing households there are. you know, I don't like I think the average NHL game gets about that number
52:22
and so and so it's not large compared to other sports and premier games from other sports, but I'm glad to see that it's growing. And you're right, we are a business show as well and the business of sports is generated by TV revenue.
52:40
That's the business of sports. The reason the NFL players get paid well, MLB players, etc.
are the TV deals and packages. That's the primary source of revenue.
And I hope this trend continues. If you would asked me to guess what the highest ever
52:57
this game, I would have probably guessed the number around five to six million. >> Right.
I definitely would have been three or four. And you make a very good point.
I mean, can you imagine that in the, you know, the US women's championship in what was that 2000, the the the World Cup, 2000 against China,
53:13
we had fewer than one and a half million Americans watching that match. That's really surprising, but apparently apparently true.
Um, but the increases also the increase from the last Euro um championship are notable that that that
53:29
we're jumping that high essentially year-over-year or tournament over tournament. >> Yeah.
Just to let you know I this is the wonderful thing about large language models. So the average Major League Baseball viewership per game on Fox, ESPN, TBS, the national networks is 1.84
53:47
million viewers. >> 1.84.
So the average MLB that's the average tele like all in a given night like all the games they're all they're a on a random Wednesday night or whatever they're averaging 1.8. That's probably better than I would have
54:02
expected. >> And NFL, by the way, what's your guess for the NFL?
>> Oh, it's an entirely different thing. So, I know I just saw the stat.
You see variations on it, but like 72 of the highest 100 programs in 2024 were NFL games. >> Yeah, it's 17.5 million
54:20
>> for the average NFL game. Yeah, exactly.
Okay, Eric, what I think we're doing and we ought to do more of is basically the analytics of sports business. So, we like analytics, right?
I don't care that much about business, but if we can make it more interesting analytically, but this is just fundamental calibration.
54:35
This is this is what drives dollars. It drives signings.
It drives everything. So, just be calibrated.
We we can keep on trying to to be calibrated all. So, let me give you I don't have the numbers on this.
Actually, did while I'm asking you this question, Eric, do the research on the average um TV audience for the
54:52
WNBA game. Give us that.
And then let me make the following observation. I just learned this.
So, we know that the new TV deal is coming for NBA, WNBA, and they're expecting a whopping um increase. So, I think they're expecting something at two or $300 million.
And
55:09
that's more than a two-fold increase. It's I'm I'm getting the numbers wrong.
It's a massive increase this coming season. And here's the interesting bit, Eric, and this is what I just learned in the past week.
Because players and agents have known that that's when the
55:25
new TV contract was going to come up. And because they've anticipated the numbers going much higher, no, everybody has set their contracts to expire this off season.
So essentially, unless you're on a rookie deal, >> the entire the entire veteran crop of
55:41
WNBA players is going to be up for free agency this off season. So, you're we're going to see something in the WNBA we've never seen before, which is a I don't know if it I think it's the majority of players are going to be up for signing with whatever team.
It's going to be a
55:58
super super interesting offseason. >> So, so if I had asked you to guess the ratio of NBA to WNBA average viewer, what would be your guess on the ratio?
I'm not even asking you for the number, the ratio. >> Well, I'm not I don't walk around with
56:13
high expectations for NBA audiences. My sense is that they're down a fair bit and they keep on coming down.
So I think they may be as low as like 2 million or something. Um and so and I'm working to the ratio, Eric.
I have to do it this way with basketball, the women's
56:30
basketball, I'm going to go in the high six digits. And so I'm going to put it at about 3 to one.
>> You're very well calibrated. You're not off by much.
You're you're off, but not by much. Men's is at 2.68 million.
higher than I thought.
56:45
>> Women's is at 1.32. So it's two >> also higher than I thought.
>> But also but I'm saying though I mean if you would asked me I would have guessed five or seven to one not just the NB WNBA. I would way overestimated the NBA.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
That No, I've been that's a
57:00
story over the last few years that just keeps on coming down and people are amazed at the valuations keep on going up. No, but your point is is that you know the shirts that you and I both support that the women's shirts were pay us the damn money we deserve.
If the ratio is 2 to1 the salaries might be 100
57:18
to one, 50 to1, 25. >> Yeah.
Yeah. So that's that that's a that's a big topic and one we probably ought to tackle.
Whenever they get into those formal negotiations, we should talk about it because it's a really interesting question. The biggest issue is the val the club franchise values are
57:34
really going up in the WNBA. That's where the owners are doing great on franchise values.
Revenue is is moving and it's about to move. It's about to move again this offseason, but it's not anything like the changes in franchise values.
>> No, but Eric, hold on, hold on, hold on. This is the key point.
Historically,
57:51
>> professional athletes haven't participated in franchise increases. They participate through revenue.
And it's a whole it's a whole question of whether they can get a part of franchise and that you that now we're talking about are we talking about labor versus capital. So it's this interesting philosophical question.
>> No, no, I just loved your previous I I I
58:09
appreciate it now even more than 30 seconds ago or two minutes ago when you said it like you'd be a fool to sign a long-term WNBA contract right now. Why would you sign it now?
I want my contract to be expiring. No, they that's and everyone saw it and so it's just
58:24
going to be this amazing offseason moment where it's it's like be a free-for-all essentially resigning all these veteran players. All right, last one for you, Eric.
And this is instead of a a business question, I'm go back to statistics, but I'm going to stay in the women's professional world. It's a little detail I saw in the bottom of
58:41
this article. So, there's a young rookie who just made her debut, a PGA debut at the Scottish Open this past week, Lahi Wde.
Lahi W. She's done real well as an amateur.
She's done ridiculously well as an amateur, but this was her first um professional tournament and it counts as
58:56
a PGA tournament even though it's the Scottish Open. She wins the dang thing.
All right. So, that's great.
We should all keep an eye on Lahi W. And by the way, the the women's I think it's the women's is it the US Open is this weekend?
I think it's No, no, no. We've already had the US Open.
Is it the
59:12
British Open? Essentially, the Europe there's a major this weekend and I'm shame on me for not knowing exactly.
I think that's coming up this weekend. But here's the question.
>> She just won Scottish. It's probably the British because they probably do what the men do.
Scottish than British, >> right? Okay.
Here's my question for you. I get your I want to hear you talk this
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one out loud. What do you think in the 75 years of the LPGA?
What's the longest streak of a new winner? What's the longest streak of new of between a a winner repeating anybody
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repeating? What's the longest streak of um not not first- time winners?
I mean, just the longest streak of not having a repeat winner in 75 years of LPGA. And I'm tell >> you're talking about a given person the distance between their first win and second win.
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>> No. >> What are you referring to?
>> I'm saying for anybody to repeat. So if you know, so Lahi W.
If she if she won five weeks from now, that would be a four-week streak of No. Well,
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let's say four new winners and then Lahi Wins again. That would be a four-week streak of there not being a repeat winner.
>> Oh. Oh.
What's the longest streak of there not being a repeat winner? >> Yes.
Yes. Yes.
>> Oh. In the LPGA.
>> In the LPGA. This is a harder problem
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than I usually give you guys. So, let's just talk about how what's your expectation.
I'm going to tell you that they just hit their record mark in 75 years. and I would have had no idea how to think about how to calculate.
I'll give you the answer, but I first want to hear you talk about estimating.
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>> Don't give me the answer first. Let me think tell you how I think about it.
So, um I don't I would imagine this may be this may already end me and doom me for too low a number. Um I doubt there's been any year on the LPGA tour where
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there hasn't been someone that's won twice. Now, if that's true, if that's true, I'm not saying it's true.
If that's true, then the number has to be less than the number of tournaments in a year on the LPA LPGA tour. So what I'm computing the stat is the maximum
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number of wins by a player in a given season. And if that number is two for every season, the maximum of your statistic can't be more than about 25 or 27 or however number of tournaments
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there are in a given year. So that's why I'm going to guess somewhere in the high 20s because I don't think there's been an LPGA season whether it's Nelly Corda, Anukica Soren Stam, Nancy Lopez, Ro Jang or whoever the hottest golfer was in a
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given year. Somebody's won twice in that year and therefore that's how I'm going to bound the maximum from above.
>> Well, that was my first thing I was going to say. You you didn't come up with a real answer.
You just bound it. So you're saying less less than that >> down from there a little But but it's interesting to me how top down you went
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because usually we build things very very bottom up and you you just kind of went cluji in the middle which is fine. It gave you a bound.
>> I could do the other thing too. >> Yeah.
Let's try to go bottom up to come what? Let's give us a more precise number underneath that bound.
>> Well, if I went from the bottom up, let's just say there's someone let's say
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a very good golfer has a 5% chance to win a given tournament. Right?
So the expected weight time until the next win is geometric with probability 0.05. So the expected number is 20 20 weeks 20 events it would take that's not the
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distribution of the maximum number of weeks but I also have a large number of players I mean I could simulate this in about two seconds and see what the answer is. Um >> but that's hold on let's say because what you just did is really interesting.
You said for a good player your
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expectation is that they might win every 20 tournaments or so, but then so but then we're talking about records, right? So we're like how what's the most extreme?
>> I know. >> And and we're also talking about multiple players and so it kind of those go in different directions.
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>> Exactly. >> Multiple players are going to shorten that but the maximum is going to lengthen it.
>> Tell me the answer is something like 60 or something like that. >> No, no, no, no.
Like look what you just did. For example, >> I'm staying with my number.
I'm staying my bottom up and top down seem to have some sort of convergent validity and I'm
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going to stay with a number in the 20s somewhere. >> Well, I want to I want to say again that you're you you you did a real simple thing.
You said one player, decent good player, 5% chance. I would expect that player to win every 20 tournaments.
And then I said, well, there are two other factors. One, we're not looking for the
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expected. We're looking for that how what's the extreme version of that?
The max of that that pushes it longer. On the other hand, we've got more than one player and so somebody's going to do it below their expectations.
So that factor goes the other way. You might say just kind of heristically since I've got factors going both directions, I'm going
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to stand on 20. And had you done that, you'd have been shockingly close to the answer.
Their record as of this week, it may go longer. It's not done.
It could go longer. The record is 19.
>> Yeah. So, but I also forget whether I was close or not close.
I like well I
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was I like the fact that the top down and the bottom up both led to or the upper bound and then the more granular probabilistic led to similar answers. >> Well, cool.
That was it's always fun for me to hear you hardcore basian
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statistitians work through the way you think of these things and sometimes it's very involved and sometimes it's heristic and I think both can be instructive. All right, why don't we end it there?
Eric enjoyed the visit. Thank you for being here.
Thanks in absentia from our colleagues Shane Jensen, Ali
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Winer. Thank you to the big boss Dion Simpkins for keeping the wheels on the track.
We hope all is well today as you are away doing doing Deion Simpkins things. Thank you guys for listening as well.
Come back and join us next time between now and then. Enjoy your sports.
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