01-06-2024, 07:18 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-10-2024, 01:57 PM by xenosthelegend. Edited 3 times in total.)
New Year, Same Nonsense over here in Amkalytics HQ!
If this is your first Amkalytics thread, I'm glad you're here and please see the prologue on my first post before you get mad at how none of these numbers are supported by math.
Today, we will slice up the state of the DSFL heading into the last week of the season using four different Amkalytics tools. Let's keep it cute with a bar chart and then get slightly more unhinged as we move on.
As stated in the last post, this piece of amkalytics might be valid -- but it's not especially useful. Tijuana has almost doubled up their points scored against their points allowed, and are gearing up for a playoff bout. While they maybe don't have a pristine record according to thee Expectation, it's still safely in 1st place in the DSFL.
Minnesota Grey Ducks : -.9 Expected Wins (PF: 242, PA: 337, 5-8, 4.1-8.9)
In a world full of division and angst, there are few truths we can all collectively lean on. One of these trutsh is this: Math is for dorks and losers. Oh, a calculator says the Grey Ducks should have lost an extra game? SCOREBOARD. What will the math say when the Golden Geese shock the world in the Ultimini? What will the abacus shufflers and pencil pushers have to say, then? Numbers are crutches for the epistemologically weak, and empiricism has wrought the greatest horrors of our world. Mathematical projections gave us the atom bomb. Makes you think, huh?
ABANDON MATHEMATICS, EMBRACE TRA-DUCKTION.
#honkoganda
Kansas City Coyotes : -.4 Expected Wins (PF: 301, PA: 299, 7-6, 6.6-6.4)
Bondi Beach Buccaneers : +/- 0 Expected Wins (PF: 296, PA: 278, 7-6, 7-6)
Norfolk Seawolves : +.1 Expected Wins (PF: 253, PA: 414, 3-10, 3.1-9.9)
Dallas Birddogs : +.3 Expected Wins (PF: 384, PA: 261, 9-4, 9.3-3.7)
This half of the league may be in very different places, but according to the PF/PA projections are pretty much where the math would guess, record wise. KCC may be estimated to be a .500ish team, but in the DSFL North that's basically the equivalent of being the '72 Dolphins. BBB is EXACTLY on their expected total and, despite being on the outside looking in on the playoff race, can selfishly lay down their swords to allow the Grey Ducks to fulfill their Manifest Duckstiny (#Honkoganda). Norfolk is also JUST outside their projection after beating the Ducks this past week (though sources inside the locker room note that the Ducks were pretty tired and didn't even try that hard anyway.)
Dallas has the math on their side as their 3-game gap in the W/L is cut in half with their .4 game increase and Tijuana's -1.3 decrease. Will the DSFL South matchup prove closer than the standings would have us believe?
London Royals : +.8 Expected Wins (PF: 301, PA: 376, 4-9, 4.8-9.2)
The Royals are cooking? Three wins in a row, and continuing the slow upward climb and they meet my divebombing Ducks in the Expected Win/Loss Column. This season may not have gone how the Royals expected, but a win next week could put them at an Expected W-L record of 6-6. A few better bounces next season and we could see the Royals on the upswing.
Portland Pythons : +1.3 Expected Wins (PF: 286, PA: 294, 5-8, 6.3 - 6.7)
Amkalytics doesn't have the cachet to have memes yet, but if it did it'd be: "lol Portland Pythons are mid/average". They have almost a net-zero PF/PA split, and despite the W-L record, they are playing like an expected .500 team. That's crazy. I don't know how this is happening. My new theory is that the Portland Pythons are the most impressive team this year in the DSFL. Allow me to lay out my argument.
At it's heart, this is a more convoluted way of looking at Points Allowed/Points Scored per game. What it's trying to do, however, is reward teams for putting up points against good defenses and preventing good offenses from scoring points. It is also meant to try and downgrade teams that just beat up bad teams and give credit to teams that may lose but put up a good fight against good teams. It's a zero-sum system (When Team A goes up by 1 point, Team B goes down by 1 point), so it's pretty sketchy, but if you made it this far, I think you're cool with it.
How do I read this?
The Y axis is defense; you want low percentages. -10% means that a team allows 10% fewer points than you'd expect if you look at how many points Team A allows and how many points Team B scores on average. The X axis is offense, a similar concept. 10% higher means that the offense scores, on average, 10% more than you'd expect against their opponent.
Top (Rope) (Bird)Dogs: High Defense, High Offense
TIJ : +10.3% Offensive Quotient (OQ), -17% Defensive Quotient (DQ)
DAL : 9.6% OQ, -7% DQ
Tijuana and Dallas are head and shoulders above the other teams in the DSFL, and the DSFL South playoff matchup will be, according to Amkalytics, the true Ultimini (unless the Ducks are in it). Tijuana’s near-perfect record also bears out in the Opponent Adjusted stats, with the only negative points (outside their one loss) stemming from when they beat worse teams by one score instead of multiple scores. The Birddogs aren’t slouches either, barely losing to the Luchadores by a point in their last round, and amkalytics Beta-Testing projections have them within a point of Tijuana on a neutral field.
Middle of the Pack: High Defense, Lower Offense
BBB -3.6% OQ, -7.4% DQ
POR : -2.7% OQ, -4.1% DQ
KCC -3.4 OQ, -.2% DQ
Saying these teams have “worse” offense feels disingenuous. Since it’s a net-zero scoring system when Dallas and Tijuana put Space Jam numbers on teams, other “average” teams get pushed in the negative. Bondi has the 2nd best defense in the DSFL, which is saying something for being in the DSFL South, and Portland (despite their record) has done well to keep close to the best teams in the DSFL.
Which brings me back to my Python Saber-Rattling. If we trust Amkalytics (and who wouldn’t?) Portland is the 4th closest team to the bottom-right ideal quadrant. This would put Portland in the league's upper half and the best-performing team in the DSFL-North. (The best team, of course, is the Mallard Mafia. The Goose Down Bandits. The Flying-V-Vigilantes. The Great Lakes Geese Gang. The Minnesota Grey Ducks. #honkoganda)
Neapolitan Quadrant: Pick your flavor of underperforming - Lower Offenses, Lower Defense
MINN -12.9% OQ, 1.8% DQ
NOR -7.2% OQ, 11.2% DQ
LON -2.1% OQ, 10.7% DQ
Like the (in)famous ice cream flavor, this quadrant allows you to mix and match your favorite underwhelming flavors.
On the X-axis we have combined Opp. Adjusted Points. On the Y-axis, we have the average margin of victory. Once again, the meme holds: Pythons are almost in the exact middle of the chart. And they have the best performance of any DSFL North team. KCC’s 63-point explosion in week 1 gave them an edge on average MOV, but not by much! Also, this chart once again shows how this season is really a two horse race for DAL and TIJ.
Okay, so TIJ and DAL are the best teams; Portland might be the most average team. Tijuana has a lot of capped-out players, so I thought I would look at the on-field opponent-adjusted performance in conjunction with the average effective TPE for each team.
On the X-axis we have Average Effective TPE, compared to league average. Having a value of .05 for this means that a team has a 5% higher Average Effective TPE value than the league average. The Y-Axis is the same opponents-adjusted stats value of the previous chart, just on a different axis.
What we see is that there’s a pretty strong relationship: The higher the average effective TPE value, the better they fare in opponent-adjusted stats. You can trace a pretty clear line from the Seawolves to the Birddogs, with a few teams overperforming better their TPE advantage ( Tijuana ) and some teams underperforming their TPE average ( London ).
Then there is Portland . 12% less Average Effective TPE than the league average, but they’re dead smack in the middle of Opponent Adjusted performance. They broke the graph so badly that I had to show an arrow to draw attention to them. The arrow shows the level of the TPE that Portland is holding pace with. If TPE were the sole determinant of performance, they’d be the 2nd worst team in the league. Instead, they are levitating in an anti-gravity, net-zero, zen state like Dr. Manhattan.
There are no “almost end of the season” awards. They could still get washed in their last game and tumble down the charts. Until then, hats off to our inaugural Amkalytics People’s Champion Award , awarded to the team that most overperformed their TPE in the DSFL.
Congrats to the Pythons! I hope you enjoy watching our inferior team raise the Ultimini Trophy!
If this is your first Amkalytics thread, I'm glad you're here and please see the prologue on my first post before you get mad at how none of these numbers are supported by math.
Today, we will slice up the state of the DSFL heading into the last week of the season using four different Amkalytics tools. Let's keep it cute with a bar chart and then get slightly more unhinged as we move on.
Pythagorean Expectations: Which teams are above/below this win expectation?
How to read this chart: Teams with negative values are teams that the expectation formula would say are worse than their current W-L record. Positive values are teams that the expectation formula would say are better than their W-L record.
Tijuana Luchadores : -1.3 expected wins, (PF: 407, PA: 211, W-L: 12-1, Expected W-L: 10.7 - 2.3) As stated in the last post, this piece of amkalytics might be valid -- but it's not especially useful. Tijuana has almost doubled up their points scored against their points allowed, and are gearing up for a playoff bout. While they maybe don't have a pristine record according to thee Expectation, it's still safely in 1st place in the DSFL.
Minnesota Grey Ducks : -.9 Expected Wins (PF: 242, PA: 337, 5-8, 4.1-8.9)
In a world full of division and angst, there are few truths we can all collectively lean on. One of these trutsh is this: Math is for dorks and losers. Oh, a calculator says the Grey Ducks should have lost an extra game? SCOREBOARD. What will the math say when the Golden Geese shock the world in the Ultimini? What will the abacus shufflers and pencil pushers have to say, then? Numbers are crutches for the epistemologically weak, and empiricism has wrought the greatest horrors of our world. Mathematical projections gave us the atom bomb. Makes you think, huh?
ABANDON MATHEMATICS, EMBRACE TRA-DUCKTION.
#honkoganda
Kansas City Coyotes : -.4 Expected Wins (PF: 301, PA: 299, 7-6, 6.6-6.4)
Bondi Beach Buccaneers : +/- 0 Expected Wins (PF: 296, PA: 278, 7-6, 7-6)
Norfolk Seawolves : +.1 Expected Wins (PF: 253, PA: 414, 3-10, 3.1-9.9)
Dallas Birddogs : +.3 Expected Wins (PF: 384, PA: 261, 9-4, 9.3-3.7)
This half of the league may be in very different places, but according to the PF/PA projections are pretty much where the math would guess, record wise. KCC may be estimated to be a .500ish team, but in the DSFL North that's basically the equivalent of being the '72 Dolphins. BBB is EXACTLY on their expected total and, despite being on the outside looking in on the playoff race, can selfishly lay down their swords to allow the Grey Ducks to fulfill their Manifest Duckstiny (#Honkoganda). Norfolk is also JUST outside their projection after beating the Ducks this past week (though sources inside the locker room note that the Ducks were pretty tired and didn't even try that hard anyway.)
Dallas has the math on their side as their 3-game gap in the W/L is cut in half with their .4 game increase and Tijuana's -1.3 decrease. Will the DSFL South matchup prove closer than the standings would have us believe?
London Royals : +.8 Expected Wins (PF: 301, PA: 376, 4-9, 4.8-9.2)
The Royals are cooking? Three wins in a row, and continuing the slow upward climb and they meet my divebombing Ducks in the Expected Win/Loss Column. This season may not have gone how the Royals expected, but a win next week could put them at an Expected W-L record of 6-6. A few better bounces next season and we could see the Royals on the upswing.
Portland Pythons : +1.3 Expected Wins (PF: 286, PA: 294, 5-8, 6.3 - 6.7)
Amkalytics doesn't have the cachet to have memes yet, but if it did it'd be: "lol Portland Pythons are mid/average". They have almost a net-zero PF/PA split, and despite the W-L record, they are playing like an expected .500 team. That's crazy. I don't know how this is happening. My new theory is that the Portland Pythons are the most impressive team this year in the DSFL. Allow me to lay out my argument.
Warning: Entering Sicko Territory!
The below section of Amkalytics is edging ever closer to peak "Touch Grass" territory. If you yourself are bordering on terminally Dot-Pilled or otherwise susceptible to recklessly and ineffectively using Microsoft Excel, I encourage you to close your browser and feel the warm glow of the sun on your skin.
Introducing: Amkalytics Opponent-Adjusted Power Rating
What am I looking at?
At it's heart, this is a more convoluted way of looking at Points Allowed/Points Scored per game. What it's trying to do, however, is reward teams for putting up points against good defenses and preventing good offenses from scoring points. It is also meant to try and downgrade teams that just beat up bad teams and give credit to teams that may lose but put up a good fight against good teams. It's a zero-sum system (When Team A goes up by 1 point, Team B goes down by 1 point), so it's pretty sketchy, but if you made it this far, I think you're cool with it.
How do I read this?
The Y axis is defense; you want low percentages. -10% means that a team allows 10% fewer points than you'd expect if you look at how many points Team A allows and how many points Team B scores on average. The X axis is offense, a similar concept. 10% higher means that the offense scores, on average, 10% more than you'd expect against their opponent.
Top (Rope) (Bird)Dogs: High Defense, High Offense
TIJ : +10.3% Offensive Quotient (OQ), -17% Defensive Quotient (DQ)
DAL : 9.6% OQ, -7% DQ
Tijuana and Dallas are head and shoulders above the other teams in the DSFL, and the DSFL South playoff matchup will be, according to Amkalytics, the true Ultimini (unless the Ducks are in it). Tijuana’s near-perfect record also bears out in the Opponent Adjusted stats, with the only negative points (outside their one loss) stemming from when they beat worse teams by one score instead of multiple scores. The Birddogs aren’t slouches either, barely losing to the Luchadores by a point in their last round, and amkalytics Beta-Testing projections have them within a point of Tijuana on a neutral field.
Middle of the Pack: High Defense, Lower Offense
BBB -3.6% OQ, -7.4% DQ
POR : -2.7% OQ, -4.1% DQ
KCC -3.4 OQ, -.2% DQ
Saying these teams have “worse” offense feels disingenuous. Since it’s a net-zero scoring system when Dallas and Tijuana put Space Jam numbers on teams, other “average” teams get pushed in the negative. Bondi has the 2nd best defense in the DSFL, which is saying something for being in the DSFL South, and Portland (despite their record) has done well to keep close to the best teams in the DSFL.
Which brings me back to my Python Saber-Rattling. If we trust Amkalytics (and who wouldn’t?) Portland is the 4th closest team to the bottom-right ideal quadrant. This would put Portland in the league's upper half and the best-performing team in the DSFL-North. (The best team, of course, is the Mallard Mafia. The Goose Down Bandits. The Flying-V-Vigilantes. The Great Lakes Geese Gang. The Minnesota Grey Ducks. #honkoganda)
Neapolitan Quadrant: Pick your flavor of underperforming - Lower Offenses, Lower Defense
MINN -12.9% OQ, 1.8% DQ
NOR -7.2% OQ, 11.2% DQ
LON -2.1% OQ, 10.7% DQ
Like the (in)famous ice cream flavor, this quadrant allows you to mix and match your favorite underwhelming flavors.
- Are you looking for a team that’s pretty stingy on defense but is the worst offense in the DSFL? Of course, you do; it’s the best flavor. An acquired taste. Rubes and Philistines don’t appreciate the Grey Ducks' commitment to bringing back Smashmouth football. The low offense is a political protest, actually. Tuna could throw for 300 yards and Willie Swaggert could rush for 250 a game. Why don’t they? A little thing called INTEGRITY. #honkoganda
- How about a team that can keep pace on offense that will get in high-scoring shootouts because they aren’t concerned with defense? We have a slice of London with your name on it!
- Are you a traditionalist? Do you like teams still looking to figure it out on both sides of the ball? Fear not; we have all the Norfolk you’d like!
Let’s look at the season opponent-adjusted stats as a whole. I submit Exhibit B.
On the X-axis we have combined Opp. Adjusted Points. On the Y-axis, we have the average margin of victory. Once again, the meme holds: Pythons are almost in the exact middle of the chart. And they have the best performance of any DSFL North team. KCC’s 63-point explosion in week 1 gave them an edge on average MOV, but not by much! Also, this chart once again shows how this season is really a two horse race for DAL and TIJ.
Okay, so TIJ and DAL are the best teams; Portland might be the most average team. Tijuana has a lot of capped-out players, so I thought I would look at the on-field opponent-adjusted performance in conjunction with the average effective TPE for each team.
Exhibit C: Opp-Adjusted Stats and Average Effective TPE (compared to the league average)
On the X-axis we have Average Effective TPE, compared to league average. Having a value of .05 for this means that a team has a 5% higher Average Effective TPE value than the league average. The Y-Axis is the same opponents-adjusted stats value of the previous chart, just on a different axis.
What we see is that there’s a pretty strong relationship: The higher the average effective TPE value, the better they fare in opponent-adjusted stats. You can trace a pretty clear line from the Seawolves to the Birddogs, with a few teams overperforming better their TPE advantage ( Tijuana ) and some teams underperforming their TPE average ( London ).
Then there is Portland . 12% less Average Effective TPE than the league average, but they’re dead smack in the middle of Opponent Adjusted performance. They broke the graph so badly that I had to show an arrow to draw attention to them. The arrow shows the level of the TPE that Portland is holding pace with. If TPE were the sole determinant of performance, they’d be the 2nd worst team in the league. Instead, they are levitating in an anti-gravity, net-zero, zen state like Dr. Manhattan.
There are no “almost end of the season” awards. They could still get washed in their last game and tumble down the charts. Until then, hats off to our inaugural Amkalytics People’s Champion Award , awarded to the team that most overperformed their TPE in the DSFL.
Congrats to the Pythons! I hope you enjoy watching our inferior team raise the Ultimini Trophy!