Relatively Irrelevant Team Level Stats

Small sample size be damned, numbers are fun!

Since team rosters change throughout the season, I thought it would be interesting to look at what the average winning teams and average losing teams do in terms of high level stats. Nothing fancy here, simply the averages of Goals, Defense, Completions, Throw Aways, Drops, and Roster Size per winning and losing teams on a per game basis.

Winners: 23.8 goals, 11 Ds, 148.5 completions, 16.9 throw aways, 4.6 drops, 11.3 roster size

Losers:   16.2 goals, 7.7 Ds, 135.6 completions, 23.1 throw aways, 4.4 drops, 10.1 roster size

(Disclaimer: there may be mistakes)

The numbers are simple enough to come up with and the reasoning behind them probably is too, but let's have look anyway.

Goals: Yes, winning teams score more goals than losing team. Duh! Moving past that, there is a large disparity here (pun intended). Two weeks of data, 20 games is a small sample that includes some blowouts and zero trades. I can only imagine lopsided wins make Keates sad even when he partakes in them on the winning side. With trades, one figures the gap between winners and losers goals will close.

Defense: Again, the winning team gets more of a positive stat. (I'm beginning to think this may be a waste of time but I'll plow on in the interest of generating a higher ParityDiscussions/60.) This seems logical since you win by scoring more goals and you have more opportunity to score goals by getting Ds and having an offensive possession. Shout out to #goals in week 1 who lost the D battle 10-9 but beat Moneyball by 5 goals. Clearly, D isn't everything. There have been two cases where teams tied in total Ds and many more where teams were within a couple Ds of each other. Parity still not achieved.

Completions: This category fascinates me and this type of look at the completions stat is definitely not the best way to go about it (same goes with probably this entire analysis but I'm too lazy to dig deeper). The winning teams have more completions which seems simple. I think a couple things that winning teams do factor into this number: 1) get Ds and get more possessions and 2) play conservative BORING ultimate and don't turn the disc over. I think generally, that good ultimate offence is efficient and probably doesn't rack up completions. In week 1, Uncorked won 25-16 while completing 141 passes to Michelle's Physios 158 passes. In week 2, Uncorked again won while completing fewer passes than their opposition and Michelle's Physios lost again despite completing more passes than their opposition. I can only conclude that Uncorked has been efficient  while the Physios are racking up empty calorie salaries.

Throw Aways: Winners throw the disc away less. Fantastic. Excellent. Everyone gets a gold star. Let's take a minute to appreciate that there are an equal amount of goals and throwaways. That has got to count for some kind of parity.

Drops: Winners drop the disc more but don't forget that they also have the disc more. It would be better to look at this as a percentage of offensive possessions that end in a drop (I think). For this overstuffed small sample size analysis, we have near drop parity. The consistent number of drops by teams over the two week sample of games is remarkable. In week 1, the only team that didn't end up with 4 or 5 drops was Big Love ... who had 3. Week 2 got drop crazy with cRyan's 7 drops and #goals 2 drops. Drops appear to be a pretty rare event and yet the range is remarkably tight.

Roster Size: In every case that a team had more players than their opposition they won (sample size = 5). This is apparently the most important factor in deciding wins. Screw, disc skills, fitness, and heckling, the only thing you need to win is more players.

Looking forward to hearing how wrong I am. See you on the field.