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151st issue. No Barcardi, please.
The 2023/24 Premier League saw a record 11% increase in injuries, highlighting the impact of player availability on performance, while the SIS prediction model for the 2024 NFL season predicts the Raiders and Saints to exceed win totals and the Eagles and Vikings to underperform. Additionally, Team USA is favored in Olympic golf, and new Statcast data from Baseball Savant offers detailed insights into bat speed and swing length.
This Week's Lineup
The Cost of Injuries in the Premier League: 2023/2024
The 2023/24 Premier League season saw a record-breaking 11% increase in total injuries, attributed to the congested football calendar and excessive player workloads, with FIFPro warning about rising mental and physical fatigue. While most teams experienced worsening injury burdens, Bournemouth and West Ham stood out for their impressive injury management, contributing to their successful seasons, highlighting the critical impact of player availability on team performance.
Analyzing NFL Win Totals with the SIS Prediction Model
The SIS pre-game prediction model forecasts NFL team performance for the 2024 season, highlighting notable differences between sportsbook win totals and the model’s projections, such as the Raiders and Saints expected to significantly exceed their win totals, while the Eagles and Vikings are projected to underperform.
[Research Paper] Entropy-Based Strategies for Multi-Bracket Pools
The paper proposes an entropy-based strategy for generating predicted tuples in multi-bracket pools, such as March Madness, that is tractable and scalable, addressing the challenge of optimal wagering strategies for higher-dimensional betting pools.
Olympic Golf 2024: Who’s Projected to Take Home the Gold?
Team USA, led by major winners Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, is the favorite to win gold at the 2024 Olympic golf competition at Le Golf National, with strong medal prospects also seen for Spain's Jon Rahm and Ireland's Shane Lowry, while South Korea's Byeong Hun An and Chinese Taipei's C.T. Pan are notable dark horses.
Bat Speed and Swing Length
Baseball Savant's new Statcast bat tracking data introduces variables like average bat speed, swing length, squared-up rates, and blasts, allowing for analyses such as the relationship between swing speed and exit velocity, swing length variations by count and spray angle, and individual player explorations using the baseballr package.