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By Bryan Berg  October 30, 2009, at 7:35 am  
When you’re a fan of a losing team, you generally don’t watch them expecting to win. Instead, you watch hoping you’ll see something amazing. For example, even though the Mets were out of playoff contention in July, I still watched them most nights, just in case they finally pitched a no-hitter (yeah, I know) or did something particularly special. In hockey, there are no milestones that would compare to a no-hitter, so I hope for very memorable games, the kind that transcend a losing season. Last year, beating Detroit and Chicago on the road were such games, and Opening Night would have been such a game had the Islanders pulled it out.
Wednesday night’s game against the Rangers would certainly qualify as what I’d call a memorable game. If the Islanders to produce a 2009-10 highlight video, highlights of Wednesday night would be heavily featured. The Islanders played their game, were intense throughout, and won their first regulation game by sheer will. The Islanders also won because of a growing trend in their play – their success in the faceoff circle.
Over the summer, I read Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Moneyball, for those who don’t know, explains how the small-market Oakland A’s of Major League Baseball were able to stay competitive with teams like the Yankees by building their team around undervalued assets like walks and on-base percentage. As I read Moneyball, I tried to figure out what statistics in hockey could be the basis for a winning team in today’s NHL. One of these days, I’ll post my thoughts. For now, though, perhaps the most important stat I’d build around would be faceoff percentage.
Think about it. There are approximately 60 faceoffs in a game. The average team, of course, wins 50 percent of those faceoffs, meaning that they begin play with the puck 30 times a game. A team that wins 60 percent of their faceoffs, on the other hand, begins with the puck 36 times. That’s twelve times more than their opponent. So, not only do you have the edge twelve more times than your opponent, that’s twelve times that your opponent can’t score until you give up the puck.
As of right now, the Islanders sit at third in the NHL with a success rate of 54.1% in the faceoff circle, with the Isles dominating faceoffs in their past few games. And while this success hasn’t resulted in wins just yet, there’s plenty of reason for optimism – aside from the Islanders (.409), Minnesota (.250) and Nashville (.458), every team over 50% in faceoffs has earned more than half of the points it could have possibly earned so far this season. What’s particularly telling about the Islanders’ success is that it’s been widespread. Every eligible Islander is over 50% in faceoffs this year, including John Tavares at 50.3%, Josh Bailey at 53.9%, and both Doug Weight and Nate Thompson at 58.8%. What does all of this mean? Simply put, if the Islanders are better than their opponents at controlling the puck off the draw, they’re that much more likely to control play and potentially generate good scoring chances. In addition, their opponents will have to make more plays on defense than usual in order to get the puck. And if the Islanders can get past their third period hiccups – as they did on Wednesday night – their faceoff skills can help them become a truly dangerous team.
By Anthony De Franco September 2, 2009, at 11:57 pm For those who don’t know, Author Michael Lewis has been a huge influence on the lives of both Jason and myself. First, he wrote Moneyball, which became our bible. Then, he wrote an excellent book known as The Blindside which chronicled the story of Ole Miss tackle Michael Oher and the evolution of the left tackle position in the NFL. With Oher now playing for the Ravens, the book is getting more pub than ever before.
Enter Hollywood, who decided to make the book into a movie. Here’s the first trailer of the flick, and it looks good. It looks to feature more of the story of Oher than it does the focus on football. Sandra Bullock stars as Oher’s foster mom, and looks to play the role really well.
Check out the trailer:
The movie releases on November 20th.
By Jason Comack July 28, 2009, at 3:00 pm It seems to have become popular to rip A’s GM Billy Beane. I can see why he’s an easy target. He’s more recognizable than 99% of GM’s, he’s had a book written about him (Moneyball) and soon it will be a motion picture. Stats in baseball, more so than other sports, seem to be polarizing. There seems to be very little in between either you are a SABERmatrcian or you are a fan of outdated illogical baseball (less than subtle jab.) But the argument against Beane and Moneyball (as highlighted by Howard Bryant on the front page of ESPN) seems to be missing a few key things.
Moneyballs subtitle was “the art of winning at unfair game.” What Billy Beane set out to do was exploit baseball by finding players that were undervalued by using statistics like on base percentage and slugging percentage. Remember 10 years ago talking about a pitchers BABIP would have made no sense. It’s why Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford were such valuable pieces of the A’s machine. They were effective, cheap and no one else wanted them. However part of Beanes problem was how influential he was. Moneyball, and Bill James work in general, launched a statistical revolution in baseball. Teams like the Padres, Red Sox, Indians, Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays, Giants all rely heavily on statistical analysis now. Beane let the secrets out of the cookie jar and it hurt him in the long run. Now Beane can’t exploit the draft like he use to because everyone is doing the same thing. Hell, even the big boys like the Yankees and Red Sox understand the value of draft picks. When teams all started to value these diamond in the rough players they in a sense became overalued. Smart teams, like the Rays, turned their attention to pitching, defense and base-running. The upstart 2008 Rays may have been the most athletic baseball team ever and it wasn’t by accident.
Now recently I wrote about Bronson Arroyo when the Yankees were apparently targeting him (although that turned out to be false.) I used two statsical mesasures, xFIP and Outside Contact% to show that Arroyo might not be as bad as most think. Mike Tramamasomethingorother of WCWP Sports took me to task in my evaluation of Arroyo.
Now I don’t like Arroyo at all, and his bloated ERA will atest to him not being very good. However, if you want to say his playing in Cincinnati is hurtful thanks to their homer friendly ballpark is a viable argument…to a point. Yet Jason begins using a stat called xFIP- or fielding independent pitching with a normalized home run rate. Hold on….WHAT?!?!
Ah, look it’s the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. “Now I don’t like Arroyo at all, and his bloated ERA will attest to him not being very good.” Wait…was that a statistic you used there Mike? Why should ERA be the measure by which you evaluate players.
ERA is a silly stat for a few reasons. 1) it doesn’t take park or league factor into effect. Pitching at Yankee Stadium is different than pitching at PETCO Park. 2) it doesn’t factor in defense. Is it a pitchers fault if Jason Giambi is playing first base as opposed to Mark Texieria? Why should the pitcher be penalized for things he can’t control? You are judging Arroyo by statistics just like I am except you’re only getting part of the picture.
Another perfect example is Ben Zobrist. Last time I checked 28 year old role players don’t become Albert Pujols overnight but if you judge Zobrist on, what I’ll call Mike T Surface Stats, his .301 average, 18 homers, 12 steals look really good. But, looking closer his .335 BABIP (or batting average on balls in play) is .35 points above league average. And an astonishing 22% of Zobrist’s fly balls are home runs (leauge average is about 12%) I’m sure these stats will back up any scouting report on Zobrist. He’s having a fluke season. And I can only hope that last paragraph made Mike’s head explode like the dude in Scanners.
It’s people like Mike Tramawhatever that perpetuate the myth that stats like Wins and RBI’s matter at all. While you can say “that xFIP is useless” I’ll say don’t be afraid of things you don’t understand. And while Beane has won “less than 1 world title” since 2000 so have the Yankees and Mets but they’ve spent a whole lot more money failing.
By Anthony De Franco July 11, 2009, at 12:00 pm This is from a while ago, but I Just recently saw it, so it’s new to me. While former West Wing (and Sports Night, one of my favorite shows of all time) writer Aaron Sorkin has been hired to rewrite the script for Moneyball: The Movie, Deadspin posted a piece of the original script that was scrapped. Not for nothing, I think this scene sounds awesome.
I still think that this could be a good movie. If anyone can bring out the best in characters, it’s the guy who wrote Natalie Hurley and Dan Rydell. It’s a Sports Night reference. Go watch the show.
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