Week 4 Stats blog

I think ultimate is a sport that really depends on your team mates. Unlike hockey or basketball where an all-star can run circles around their opponent, an ultimate all-star needs someone to throw to them. The best striker in the world is useless if no one on his or her team can huck. The best defenders are only as good as the force on the mark.

All that said, it's interesting to see who is doing the lion's share of work for each stat that we record in parity. Today, we'll look at how players are contributing to their teams.

Points as a percentage of team goals

http://imgur.com/a/gPRi2

Here are the top 10 players who are contributing to the majority of their teams scoring. Keates has a whopping 40.6% of his team's points. There are some common names on that list, but Jonathan Pindur stands out to me, someone who's doing the legwork for his team and generating points. What's interesting is that the top salaried players in the league aren't necessarily the top players on this list.

Catches as a percentage of team catches

http://imgur.com/a/y4Vxo

What stands out to me from this list is that four players are in both catches and points, meaning that the other 6 players in the points list are doing more with their catches. It also means that the 6 players in the catching list are driving the offense without contributing to points. I would hypothesize that these players have lower salaries but still are players that you want on your team.

Completions as a percentage of team completions

http://imgur.com/a/p6M7F

Here is the complementary side to the catches portion. Who's making the most passing attempts of their team. Again, only two people are on the 3 lists above: Kells and Keates. These players are the "disc-hogs" of the league, driving the offense, getting the resets, and scoring the goals. Craig Anderson is another player who's #2 on proportion of catches and #1 on proportion of completions, suggesting he's out there picking up most discs and getting most bails.

Throwaways and Throw Drops as a proportion of team totals

Throwaways http://imgur.com/a/Eu12n

Throw-Drops http://imgur.com/a/yKvui

I was particularly amused to see Seb Belanger lead the Throw-Drops list, particularly since he has mentioned it a few times in the forum. Does this mean he is on the throwing end of some particularly bad receivers or are they on the receiving end of some particularly bad throws? Unfortunately, we can't know and throwing is a bit subjective. As for throw aways, it's no surprise that Jessie and Al lead this category. They are known for their reckless choices, their gunslinger mentality, their "WTF was that?!" attitude.

Drops as a proportion of team drops

http://imgur.com/a/PRg1s

It made me very happy to see that I didn't make it into the top 10 of proportion of drops, because I have been on the receiving end of a few of Seb's passes (I was #11 though).

D's as a proportion of team D

http://imgur.com/a/v6Kms

This is the category where the studs shine. I notice some big names on this list who are pulling a Greg Jennings and putting the team on their back. Scott Higgins and KK are getting over 25% of their team's D's (Scott is almost up to 1/3!) I've seen both these players in action and know that one should avoid throwing near them. Other stand outs include Seb, Fred, and Aggie doing some good work away from the disc.

 

Just curious why you don't count 2nd assists as "points"?

Two reasons:

1) The way Matt coded the App initially you could collect a second assist and a goal. Example: Alex > Al > Alex would get me both the goal and the second assist. I'm therefore double-dipping on points.

2) The general concensus among ultimate statisticians (AUDL, ultiworld) is not to count second assists as points even though there is value in knowing them. I also think that second assists is a very canadian thing since hockey is the only sport that counts them.

 

 

By now in this debate someone should have explained how they lead the league in an obscure statistic that isn't being adequately measured or is underrated in terms of its impact on the game, like the number of times they picked up the disc on the sideline and looked to bail immediately (sadly rare, but extremely useful).

I'll speak in defence of 2nd assists - of course it's all in their nature as they are not all created equal.  The 2nd assist that breaks the force leading the receiver towards the endzone with no mark and immediately thereafter an easy scoring pass is king.  The 2nd assist where one bails to an inveterate hucker who throws into triple coverage but scores after a twice tipped disc, less so.

Though pleased to be off the throwaway leaderboard I'm still hopeful that my number will come up and I'll get an opportunity to at least finagle my way on to it on a per/game basis, not through any injury to you fine folks of course - just through job offers/extended vacations and other positive events.

 

M.

 

It's funny how today I was part of a conversation where maybe we should be renaming the illustrious B.I.S.A.N.G. to something new. I was hoping for a B.U.S.H. but this suggests we can't swing for that either.

I am nowhere on these lists yet got traded this week... resulting in my schedule now being 5 out 6 late games

Awesome.

And now jessie and al are on the same team.

How much defense did Greg Jennings play?

Prime Time may be a better example.

Ronnie Lott.

Rod Woodson.

Charles Woodson.

Dick LeBeau (for Sully).

It may be worth reminding people they can make their own analyses from the data, posted here and here

It's also worth mentioning that since trading for the Bill and Melinda of Ultimate, Team Nepotism is nearly fully armed and operational. We just need to acquire Melissa "Beyonce" Jess and we'd be set.

 

 

Bill and Melinda of ultimate?

Employing a balanced and distributed attack, with nobody showing up on the Scoring% or Catches% top-10 can (should?) be seen as a good thing! Everybody's getting involved in the offense. It's clear that Sina is the focal point of the disc movement from Completion% to nobody's surprise. Proulx's vision of building a 1-handler, 11-cutter roster flowing as intended...

Among all the discussion about stats and what stats to measure, I think it bears rehashing this for those who haven't participated in this discussion before:

The No-Stats All-Star
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html

This is actually why these threads that Bush keeps pushing out are amazing. He's looking for those stats that tell us a different picture than those that we're told matter (ex. goals, assists). Is it the picture of the true value of a player? Probably not... but it might be closer than what we generally accept is.

Kevin Hughes's picture

I suspect this analysis is skewed towards players who played every game so far since if you missed one its unlikely you would make one of these lists. Would it be hard to normalize?

Can we add Games Played to the data, in order to unskew it?

Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood's picture

As someone who has missed two games, I strongly endorse this approach.

Hurray I finally made a top 3 list! Wait... throwaways are good right?

With Al and Jessie now fighting to throw away the same disc, the race for this title is wide open.

Stan is my Dark Horse pick to win though; sorry Tim.

Don't listen to Morgan!!  I believe in you Tim!!  Don't let those other players look good!  Or bad...?  One of those!

Jessie Robinson's picture

For the record, I've been told to keep it in my pants... However, I've also been told I might be a cutter. Neither statements are really possible to execute. Katy Parity has satisfied my teenage dream with tall dreamy receivers. Jim is going to be jealous that the Bush/Jessie connection is back in town. See Bush for ridiculous stats of domination.

I for one cannot allow the Bush/Jessie (#BJConnect) connection to happen.  Guess I'm going to have to "try" and cover Bush... or Jessie.

Your height suggests you'll have a better time with Jessie but you might lose your dignity. Your height also suggests that even 1 D on Bush will tank his stats for the whole game from the shame of it. Either way, the rest of the league wins :)