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NFL TNF, QBs and more QBs. Soccer machine learning research paper. MLB no-hitters.
The fourth issue of Unexpected Points Added. Coming out a little later than hoped, but this week provides a solid dose of NFL, a research soccer paper, and a review of MLB's pitchers who have thrown no-hitters this year.
If you have a favorite source I should review for the next issue, please share! I'll give you a shoutout and come up with a sports analytics acronym based on your name
This Week's Lineup
Are NFL Thursday Night Football Games Horrible?
This piece reviews how Thursday night NFL games compare to those on Sunday and Monday. Scoring, team strength, penalties, turnovers, and injuries were reviewed from 2012 through 2020. Spoiler alert, they're not horrible. Details inside.
Quantifying Value Lost By Not Drafting a QB in Round One
It's a lot, considering the median NFL quarterback is worth twice as much as the median left tackle, the second-most-valuable position in football. So if a QB is off the board, the next best bet is to take high-value positions and hope they hit. A list of current NFL GMs since 2010 is included to show where they went wrong.
The NFL Has Changed How It Drafts Quarterbacks | FiveThirtyEight
changed how they draft quarterbacks. It might seem that teams are drafting more recently, but part of that is cyclical due to the increasing age of starters. The strategy that has evolved are teams prioritizing QBs with starting potential in round one, letting developmental types fall to the third day, or becoming an undrafted free agent.
Soccer Expected Possession Value Machine Learning Research
Warning, this is a lengthy research paper and gets into all the details of the author's approach in evaluating the impact of observed and potential actions, both visually and analytically. To their knowledge, this is the first EPV approach using and incorporating all 22 players and the ball through tracking data.
Scoring Baseball's 2021 No-Hitters
With six no-hitters through this point in May, how do they stand up? The author uses the Game Score Version 2.0 to help provide context in how they compare with all 35 no-no's since 2011. It also highlights another approach by using adjusted home/road splits. Turns out that John Means' version was pretty damn good.
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