Fun with Stats – Completion % vs. Assist Rate %

Scott Higgins is a very handsome, 6'2, (permanently) 25-year-old male model with the steely blue eyes of a greek god. Once thought of as the pinnacle athlete in the union of Canadian ultimate and hockey, this titan has set numerous records both on and off the field. These include most assists in one game (15), most goals in one game (15), most points in one game (30), most D's in one game (the number is too large to write down, but it was recently determined to be the largest known prime number). Off of the field, Scott has set records for sexiest stare (2006 - present), sexiest smile (2002 - present), sexiest man alive (1984 - present), and largest fish ever caught in the Kanata Lakes fishing competition (14 lbs!).

Outside of his many accolades, Scott is known for his philanthropy, regulary donating upwards of 120% of his annual salary to many local causes. Recently, CHEO opened up the "Scott Higgins Centre for Families" to support families of sick kids.

You are pretty good looking, with nice hair, and purrty smile

https://imgur.com/a/cIr64

Everyone gets an x- and a y- score. Your x-score is how many more assists you throw than an average league player would throw given your attempts. For example, Hadrian had 269 passing attempts. An average league player would have throwing 30.33 assists, yet Hadrian threw 46 for his x-score to be 46 - 30.33 = 15.67. (xi-xbar)

Your y-score is how many less assists you had than the league average. Again, using Hadrian's 269 attempts he had 34 incompletions. An average league player would have had 37.84 so his y-score is 37.84 - 34 = 3.84 (xbar-xi). (I did it this way to have positive stats be in the positive quadrant.)

So Hadrian gets a score of (15.67, 3.84) which is plotted in a usual x-y graph. I repeated this with every player in the league to get the graph above.

You can then arrange people by quadrant. Those who had more asists and fewer incomplete passes than the league average. I've called these players "Superstars." They are in the top right quadrant. Examples include Real-Life Hair Product Commerical, Hadrian (if this reference is out of date, remember: I don't live in Ottawa anymore); resident Whale (for both his over-valued and physique) Seb; and part-time Senators Goaltender and Full-time Superstar Craig Anderson.

Those players who had more assists but also had more turnovers. I've called these players "Pew pew pew!" for their obvious habit of just cranking the disc to the endzone with complete disregard. I've highlighted examples Kelsey "Pew-pew-pew" Charie, Jon "Pew-Pew-Pew-" Pindur, and Nick "I wouldn't be on this list if I hadn't tanked the last two weeks Pew-Pew-Pew" Theriault. They are in the bottom right quadrant.

Next, in the top left quadrant are those players who played "SAFETY FIRST" offense. These players had fewer assist, but also had fewer incompletions than the league average, clearly showing that you can both not throw assists and not thrown turns. Players included here are Geofford "Why Turn it over, that means I have to play defense" Seaborn, Adam "Why turn it over, that means I have to run" MacDonald, and Hannah "Why turn it over, then I can't score goals" Dawson. 

Lastly, there are those players who had fewer assists and more incompletions than the average league player. As you can see, most of these players are clustered near the origin, meaning they aren't too far off. I couldn't come up with a name for this group. Perhaps they can be called "Teachable Moments"?

He has the beard of a sage, and the wisdom to match. He also writes like he's used to stone tablets and cuneiform. I really think I'm on to something here.

i cant handle teaching others: so i limit my teachable moment choices. also Justine is on my team and giving her the disc is always the best option.

I think there's something wrapped up in here that is difficult to pull out of the numbers, tied to what everyone is saying here. I'm going to use myself and Hadrian to look at it, and I'm going to ignore defensive contributions.

I talked to Bush about his numbers and if I am reading it right I am the dot immediately to the left of Justine, slightly above the line. I am about average for throw aways this year (unusual, usually I turn it more), but above average in assists (normal). Hadrian is above average for assists (usual), slightly below average for turnovers (usual).

If you look at our numbers, our assists are similar (46 for Hairn'Flair, 44 for me). He's done it over 264 attempts to my 216 attempts. He's got 34 throw aways to my 29. If an offense is more likely to turn it over the more they throw it, as a mental exercise, given two players with those stat-lines, who is more valuable (answer: in the real world, Hadrian, obviously)?

More to the point, what does this mean? Hadrian has generated slightly more assists than I have off of many more touches, so how do we interpret this? Am I more aggressive? Does he worry more about avoiding turnovers to generate safer scoring changes? Do we simply generate our offense in different ways on the field and our touch distribution reflects this?

Which gets down to a question I often have when I think about this stuff. A team always wants to score. A team always wants to minimize risk of turnovers on offense. Throws = risk. Ergo, scoring in as few throws as possible is the ultimate goal of offense. So, how much risk is ideal in frisbee, and how do we know?

For the record Hadrian is a much better player than I am and our statistical similarities in one category are almost certainly meaningless.

I obviously did not write this. Hacked. Where is the "please trade me" listing on the slack forum for session two? Get me off this train.

We've always penalized thrower and catcher because of the issues you indicate. Marginal throws and poor execution on a catch both lead to this. It's rare for it to be entirely one sided. Too fast, too high, too low, weird angle etc. There is almost always some degree of fault on both parties. Easy drops in football aren't completions, and they shouldn't be. Nor here.

They aren't all created equal, either. A handler who puts a disk at the edge of their receivers margin should probably be more responsible for the drop than the receiver, but we don't track that separately. I don't know why we'd do the reverse for handlers.

To make it fair you have to put a "fucked it up" button for recovers beyond drop, but that's emphasizing failure in a way I think isn't great. From a data perspective it might be valuable but quite frankly the people who throw it away the most touch it the most and can deal with the great share of the blame and the greater share if statistical shame.

I hope the league never looks to make this change.