DMB/SAT Repository

Diamond Mind Baseball & Second and Ten Football Tips, Links & Info

Splits, projection disks, etc.

Posted by lukegofannon on November 19, 2008

Thread on DMB forum regarding splits and projections disks [click for full thread ] :

dmbluke

At this point I just don’t know if we’ll do [a projection disk] or not. It’s not a big seller but it does generate a lot of PR and buzz.

….

Baseball4Good

If we get V10 and 2008 season disk out as planned, one of us can always put out a projection disk or can get a zips projection from Dan Szymborski at the baseball thinkfactory website.

jfish26101

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy they decided to continue DMB. It’s just that without the season disk, I’ll have no reason to use it. I don’t like the seasons disks and don’t have any desire to play past season disks. That is just sort of the way I feel. Also while Szymborski’s disk is an option, his projections don’t have splits and rely on the default splits that aren’t accurate…well accurate as in everyone has the same modification for their splits as it was explained to me. Nothing against him but taking .10 off your BA and a little bit here and there off the other stats for every single player isn’t my idea of splits.

TedRoethke

I’ll just repost a link to part of a thread regarding splits and projections for the benefit of folks who might be spooked off by the issue, and that’s the last I’ll say about the subject.

http://dmbforum.yuku.com/…-anyone-.html#reply-41586

diesel

iverson3ai wrote:

Last time I looked, Dan’s projections don’t account for splits, and all the other detailed areas that DMB focuses on.

That’s not entirely true. The ZiPS projections use DMB’s built-in generic splits which provide realistic platoon splits based on historical norms. In addition, Dan makes adjustments for switch hitters where appropriate.

DSzymborski wrote:

I’ve always taken it for granted that any split created with overall would have the event table apply generic historical splits as that’s always been my experience - I’ve played a ridiculous amount of DMB. If I thought that “Overall” generated an event table was the same for lefties as righties, I’d definitely make more of an effort to project splits. The only thing I’ve done differently this year (though not for the first release) is regenerate tables for starting switch-hitters with strong platoon splits (like Orlando Hudson) by changing them to the side of the plate they’re in tune with, regenerating the event table, and then putting them back to switch.

What other detailed areas are you referring to?

Daniel Evensen

I prefer the generic splits to real life ones, for both projection disks and season disks. It’s a sample size thing.

3rdandKing

The smaller the sample size, the less accurate the results. Is there a cutoff point where it makes more sense to use overall stats than splits? For example, if you have 75 at bats or less, it’s better use overall, but over that it’s ok to use splits?

diesel

3rdandKing wrote:

The smaller the sample size, the less accurate the results. Is there a cutoff point where it makes more sense to use overall stats than splits? For example, if you have 75 at bats or less, it’s better use overall, but over that it’s ok to use splits?

For player’s that you either create or modify yourself, DMB doesn’t make any adjustments to the event tables to account for sample size.

What you see is what you get.

David

diesel

Update:

I checked with Luke about this and it turns out that the game does do some smoothing for user created/modified players with limited playing time by adjusting their internal event tables. It was my belief that this was only done during the creation of DMB’s season disks.

This smoothing applies to batters and pitchers and is more drastic the fewer the at bats (or batters faced) a player has. Someone did a study awhile ago that zeroed in on the usage threshold that DMB uses as the cutoff. I think it was somewhere in the area of 30-40 PAs or BFs before you could expect to see a player perform at the level of his stats.

David

DSzymborski

The smaller the sample size, the less accurate the results. Is there a cutoff point where it makes more sense to use overall stats than splits? For example, if you have 75 at bats or less, it’s better use overall, but over that it’s ok to use splits?

There is a cutoff point where L/R split breakdown starts to predict future L/R split breakdown better than a generic L/R split breakdown does, but it’s much, much farther out. Andy Dolphin did the legwork and found that the point where this happens is well into the thousands of at-bats (4-to-5 thousand overall at-bats for hitters).

After the last discussion about this (at least that I was involved in), I went through the hitters and calculated, based on size of splits and sample size, which hitters had platoon splits and/or sample sizes large enough to make the actual platoon splits the better idea (the less at-bats, the larger a difference in splits you need for it to be relevant and vice-versa). I ended up with 13 hitters.

jfish26101

Whatever you say but I’d rather have the splits. There are LHed hitters that hit LHP better and vice versa not to mention some hit them equally well while others are horrible against one or the other. Generic splits are not realistic no matter how you wish to spin it. There is no telling whether the splits DMB puts on the disk are realistic either but I think on a player by player basis it’s more probable than using the same generic splits for every player in the database.

clueless

jfish26101 wrote:

Whatever you say …

Heh. With three words, ~1000 words of quality info are succinctly dismissed.

Ted, thanks for culling and formatting all of that. Interesting, informative, and thought-provoking.

jfish26101

I didn’t dismiss it, I just don’t agree with it and have read the conversation before. You can’t tell me using basically the same method for all the splits of every player on the disk is more accurate then looking at their splits and trying to project out what might happen. Dan makes those disks for fun and for free for the public and while I appreciate it I prefer the disk DMB puts out. Sorry.

DSzymborski

You’re missing the crux of the argument. As a factual matter, until a player has 4-5 thousand total at-bats, generic platoon splits more accurately predict the future platoon splits of an individual player better than actual past platoon splits by the player. So by definition, a database that uses generic platoon splits is going to more accurately predict platoon splits of the players in the database simply because the vast majority of players with platoon splits that differ from normal don’t have enough of a career to determine objectively if their platoon splits are predictive.

jfish26101

No, they wont be more accurate necessarily, you are simply saying you don’t know whether their RL splits are accurate or not so why put in the effort of trying. How can you say subtracting .10 off their BA and adding .10 to their BA depending on what arm the pitcher they are facing uses is more accurate? I don’t really care what sort of research you used, it simply doesn’t make sense. I’m fine with you saying you wont know how to truly judge what a player is going to do till 4-5k ABs so you have a large enough sample size to make a real educated guess but that doesn’t mean none of what they do until then matters. You can keep saying that all you want until you are blue in the face but your simply wrong. Just because you feel it isn’t a large enough sample to truly guess what their splits will be doesn’t mean ignoring the data makes it more accurate. I’m sure if a coach in RL were to base his lineup decisions on the same logic you keep repeating it wouldn’t work out to well. Heck BC does, he benches Kelly Johnson often when a LHP is on the mound and yet I believe his numbers have been better agaisnt LHP for 3 straight seasons. What sort of sense does that make? Bench a lefty is on the mound simply because the batter is left handed as well despite having better numbers against them? Perhaps when you look at the whole sim and every single player in it, maybe the projections would be closer using generic splits but I doubt it. It’s a freaking projection disk anyhow and projecting every player to have the same effects when facing RH or LH pitchers is ridiculous and I’m positive less accurate on a player by player basis.

DSzymborski

No, they would be more accurate, by definition. The reason we don’t know whether or not they are accurate is because the sample size is too small for it to be useful as a predictive manner. It’s a matter of mathematics, not personal preference.

If I flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads 7 times, that’s not enough of a sample size to conclude that the coin is weighted. So if I’m predicting what the next 10 coin flips would be, I would still guess 5 heads and 5 tails as being the most likely. By the logic you’re employing, we’d predict 7 heads because we want to put in the effort of trying. Players aren’t coins, obviously, but the fact is that platoon split departures from generic act like coins until quite a long-term.

jfish26101

Haha

It’s amazing what can pass as facts these days. I’m no mathmatician, perhaps you are, but I do understand the concept of a small sample size. Just because someone said you can’t guess platoon splits accurately until ______ doesn’t mean you completely dismiss what data you have which is exactly what you are doing. The majority of the projection disk is based off of small sample sizes. There are players every year that are on the disk that don’t even have a single pro AB or IP. The fact that a sample size is small doesn’t disprove the data which is basically what you are saying. You are saying that it is DEFINITELY more accurate without a shadow of a doubt on a player by player basis to take every single player on the disk and use generic splits? That that is a fact?

Edit: By the way, this is the last time I will comment on your disk. I had this discussion on your site last year as well as this forum I believe. When I asked my league which disk they would prefer, every single person who commented said DMB’s disk. When asked if DMB doesn’t make a disk, is your disk OK? A few said yes but more said they would rather look into using a different product. /me shrugs

Edit 2: Also let me add I’m not trying to be a dick or trash your work. I’m just saying I’d rather have different splits for each player by looking at what they have done in both the minors and majors just like you would do with the other stats.

DSzymborski

You are saying that it is DEFINITELY more accurate without a shadow of a doubt on a player by player basis to take every single player on the disk and use generic splits? That that is a fact?

Of course not. That’s not how probability works.

Also let me add I’m not trying to be a dick or trash your work. I’m just saying I’d rather have different splits for each player by looking at what they have done in both the minors and majors just like you would do with the other stats.

I’m not even talking about the disk. I’m talking about the predictive value of actual platoon splits vs. generic platoon splits. If DMB did generic platoon splits and I did platoon splits based on actual history, then I’d be the one to be wrong.

You’re not being a dick, but you’re certainly being dense in a discussion of how probability and predictive value works. It’s not a democracy or a popularity contest, it’s a question of math and looking at what happened in actual baseball games. And as such, it’s a matter of fact, until a player has several thousand at-bats, actual platoon splits will predict future platoon splits with less accuracy overall than generic platoon splits and when you’re only talking a couple of seasons, using a player’s actual platoon splits for any kind of predictive exercise is essentially mathematical lying.

3rdandKing

I’m not getting into the argument between Jfish and Dszm. I just am curious about the real-life outliers. For example, Russell Branyan in 2008 was 33 for 118 against right handed pitchers, a .280 average. He was 0 for 14 against left handers. In my 2008 projection season, I’m using Branyan’s real life splits. He’s 4 for 14 (.286) against lefties and only hitting .226 against righthanders. What kind of performance would one expect from Branyan based on generic splits? If I had put in generic splits, those number might be reversed. And what about numerous batters who hit better against their own hand pitching than opposite?

JB50

Let’s take Dan’s example of a coin flip a bit further, perhaps that will clarify what he is saying.

If you flipped a coin a thousand times, and the results were 543 heads and 457 tails, what would the odds be for the next thousand flips? 500 and 500, of course. Now you don’t actually expect to get exactly 500 each. In fact, if you do, you’re rather amazed. But the “predictive value” of 500 and 500 has the most likelihood of being closer to the actual result of the next thousand tosses than the 543 and 457 from the previous thousand. Anyone who persisted in saying we should go with the 543 and 457 would be unreasonable. So when you are dealing with small sample sizes like a single season of MLB batting splits, even for full-time players, it is more reliable to us generic splits for players with less than 4-5,000 at bats. That’s what Dan is saying.

DrArbiter

Actually, it’s much worse than that, for three reasons.

In doing splits, what we are really doing is computing the difference between two samples. So, a better analogy would be that we have two coins, say of different types, and we want to find out if one comes up heads more often than the other. We flip each one 500 times, and take the difference in proportions of heads. The magnitude of the noise in this experiment is several times that of the one JB50 describes, for two reasons. First, because with each coin we are flipping only half the original 1000, our observations of each coin are noisier. But, when we take a difference of the (noisily observed) counts from the two coins, the noise in the difference is the *sum* of the noises in the observations of the individual coins! (Formally, the variances are added together.) Both those facts increase the uncertainty in our observation in determining which coin comes up heads more often.

Now, to bring that back to splits. We already start with a rather noisy estimate of a player’s true skill level. (See the thread on “season disk distortions” that was bumped a few weeks ago.) Then, we split up our observations of that player into two categories, which, by definition, will have smaller sample sizes, and therefore more noise. Then we are implicitly taking a difference between those observations — which adds even more noise.

And, then, there’s one more practical kicker. In the coin-tossing experiment above, we tossed each coin an equal number of times. That is optimal (in terms of minimizing the noise) if we don’t have any knowledge which coin is in fact the one that would come up heads more. If the 1000 tosses are divided unequally between the two coins, the noise in the difference of proportions of heads increases. And, that’s just what typically happens in baseball; most players don’t have an approximately equal number of plate appearances against pitchers (or batters) of each hand.

Add that all up, and you get the conclusion that Dan has been citing: We just don’t have nearly enough observations to reliably estimate splits. They’re not entirely noise, but there’s a lot of noise in them — way, way more noise than even in whole-season non-split statistics — and the most reliable predictor of future splits is something which, except for long-career players, is very close to the “neutral” split.

3rdandKing wrote:

And what about numerous batters who hit better against their own hand pitching than opposite?

They don’t exist. Or, at least, they’re not numerous. An implication of what Dan’s been saying (and I outline the essential intuition behind in a previous post) is that the noise in single-season, or even multiple-season, splits is huge. The noise is so huge that it is very easy for even a guy who has an above-average platoon differential to post a reverse differential in a single season. That doesn’t mean he actually hits his own hand pitching better; it’s just luck.

On the other hand, there are a few pitchers who do seem to tend to be more effective against opposite-side batters. For instance, take Bruce Sutter:

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/S/Lsuttb0010.htm

However, even Sutter’s career isn’t long enough that we can conclude that lefties “really” hit him for a lower batting average than righties (although it’s very close to being long enough).

DSzymborski

On the other hand, there are a few pitchers who do seem to tend to be more effective against opposite-side batters. For instance, take Bruce Sutter:

It’s important to note screwballers, too, who have a very strong tendency to have a reverse platoon split for simple mechanical reasons. The break-even point for pitchers seems to be significantly lower.

I should also note that it’s not just sample size, but magnitude as well. Very large unusual platoon splits require fewer plate appearances to validate while ones that differ only slightly need even more - I’m not sure if anyone’s ever played enough to demonstrate that a split 10 points of OPS smaller than normal is predictive (it’s too late at night for me to start dragging Statistica into this).

My point remains that for the vast majority of players, either their playing time is too short or the platoon splits are close enough to normal that it’s simply not worthwhile to try and predict their platoon splits from past platoon splits.

Posted in Diamond Mind (DMB), Sports Sims | 1 Comment »

2TE penalty in SAT?

Posted by lukegofannon on November 16, 2008

2TE penalty ??

From: keller351 10:45 am
To: ALL
3490.1

why is there a penalty in a 2 TE 2 RB 1 WR but not for 2 TE 2 WR 1 RB ?? current day pro teams if that matters.

From: (Steve) (CUBSFAN23) 11:04 am
To: keller351
3490.2 in reply to 3490.1

The penalty you described would appear to be for not having 2 WR as opposed to having 2 TE. If the penalty is on pass plays, that seems to make sense.

From: poniewaz 12:48 pm
To: keller351
3490.3 in reply to 3490.1

What two TE penalty for 2 TE, 2 RB and 1 WR? That formation produces +5 on all the run ratings and Dn4 on PC%. So I assume you mean the dn4 on PC%. Has to be a trade-off there.

Now if you play 2 TE, 2 WRs and 1 RB here’s what happens. First you do NOT get the +5 for two TEs. But you do not get the penalty for having just 1 RB. IN other words the 2nd TE can be viewed as serving the blocking functions of a RB.

You also do not get the -4 reduction on PC% for 2 TEs.

So I think the best answer to your question is what was already suggested - view the 2 TE, 1 WR and 2 RB penalty on passes as being due to not having a 2nd WR.

It seems to me it has to be this way. There has to be some penalty for using a 2nd TE instead of a 2nd WR. It has to be more than just the possibility that the TE might have worse ratings than a WR. It should hurt your pass game if you have 2 TEs and just one WR. Why should it hurt your pass game to have 2 WRs and 2 TE instead of a RB?

Actually the more I’m writing here I suspect your question was possibly influenced by a belief that a 2 TE, 2 WR set received the +5 bonus for 2 TEs. It doesn’t. Every time I see an opponent move to that formation I’m wondering if they are thinking it does. So I guess another possible answer to your question is that there is no dn4 on PC% for 2 TE/2 WR since there is no +5 on run ratings.

So the rules make it pretty easy to use 2 WR/2 TE and 1 RB sets since there really aren’t any penalties for doing so. Well there are two penalties. One, chances are a 3rd WR might have better ratings than a 2nd TE, especially in today’s NFL. Two, you’ll lose the bonuses that some time pop up for having a BB as a second RB. But you don’t get penalized for not having a BB or 2nd RB.

Wayne

Posted in Second & Ten (SAT), Sports Sims | No Comments »

“Fire Joe Morgan” calling it quits

Posted by lukegofannon on November 14, 2008

From the Nov. 13 FJM:

Post #1377: The Relatively Short Goodbye

Hello, everyone.

After 21 years, and almost 40 million posts (we’ll have to check those numbers, but it’s something like that), we have decided to bring FJM to an end.

Although we have not lost our borderline-sociopathic joy for meticulously criticizing bad sports journalism, the realities of our professional and personal lives make FJM a time/work luxury we can no longer afford.

We started this site with two purposes: to make each other laugh, and to aid and abet the Presidential campaign of Bob Barr. Although we failed in the latter goal, we gleefully succeeded in the first, and thanks to a grassroots internetty word-of-mouth kind of a deal, we appear to have positively affected the lives of actual citizens as well, which astonishes and delights us to this day… [full post].

To aid and abet Bob Barr. Heh.

Posted in Sports, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Poniewaz’s thoughts about adding the triple option to SAT

Posted by lukegofannon on November 13, 2008

Thread on Delphi forum where ideas for triple-option offense with SAT are discussed.

Thoughts about triple option

From: poniewaz Nov-9 9:43 pm
To: ALL

I haven’t discussed this with Richard and I’m not even suggesting this will be something for v7. However some ideas popped into my head today about a possible way to implement this play. Comments and other suggestions are welcome.

First, the play could only be called with at least 2 RBs in the game plus a QB who has a minimum number of carries allowed in a game (5? 7?). In fact it might only be allowed if there is a FB and RB/HB in the game. Of course requiring a QB with 5 atts or so still means the play would be allowed fro 50s and early 60s seasons which is before the play was developed (I think).

Every play must have an advantage and disadvantage and I’m not quite sure my idea balances those out. Here’s what I’m thinking.

On offense you call the option which means you DON’T get to choose who runs. If there are no run keys called then SAT picks who gets the ball (FB, QB keeper or RB or even a second RB). SAT would make the choice of ball carrier based on the relative atts of the players in the game. All defensive effects are the same as they usually are.

If the offense calls a run key any effects of that run key (say the run key was correct) are eliminated. However it is assumed the QB read the defense (run key) correctly and a non-keyed RB is picked by SAT to run the ball. On defense there is still an advantage of keying somebody as it keeps that player from getting the ball. So if I key Greg Pruitt on 71 Oklahoma then Mildren is going to keep it or give it to the FB up the middle. Pruitt won’t be picked by the program to get the ball. Not sure how a 3rd RB fits into this equation.

Not sure if this adds a strategic option or not and whether the play is fair to both offense and defense. Not sure something else could/should be added.

Comments welcome.

Wayne

**********


From: richardh64 Nov-10 12:38 pm
To: Rusty (Rusty2132)

From a programming perspective I would prefer a system which involves a standard playcall which fits in with the current ‘offense first’, ‘defense second’ process.

Otherwise there would be a further complication needed for internet play.

It also goes against the basic principle of the game where the coach calls the play and the players make the on-field decisions (i.e. a QB decides on a secondary receiver, not the coach).

Whether this involves a new rating for the QB to determine their on-field option ability (and this would always be a qualitative rating) I don’t know, but I do feel the best solution would be a simple ‘option’ play-call which has a strategic risk-reward attached to it like all the other plays.

Richard.

**********

From: poniewaz Nov-10 3:52 pm
To: ALL

Here’s my revised plan. A serious flaw in the original plan became obvious to me: the system circumvents the keying process and the keying process is the key to preventing over-use. If the only effect of a key is to keep that player from getting the ball then a WH=A is affected by a key in the same way as a WH=D. So why worry about over-use on offense? Keep that Wh=D with the 42* run rating in the game and just call the option. If the defense keys on him, so what, the QB will keep instead. If the defense doesn’t key on him he can keep getting the ball.

My revised plan eliminates the triple part of the triple option. The triple isn’t supposed to be a cure all and eliminate any offensive play calling. It doesn’t make sense (as the original plan had it) that the QB will hand to the FB up the middle because he reads a key on the tail back. He wouldn’t make that read at the point in time he has to make a decision about the handoff up the middle.

So here’s my revised plan with the same basic concept: keys or no keys still play a role in whether the QB keeps or pitches (but it is not all or nothing) and the offensive coach has no choice in the matter.

It’s a two step process to call an option: you click option and you click a RB/TB/HB who is out there for the possible pitch. FBs are not eligible for the play. But it’s to the offense’s advantage to have a FB in the lineup (see a little later in this post).

So we will stick with 71 Oklahoma and Pruitt/Mildren. I click option and Pruitt. If there are no run keys the computer decides 50/50 (not proportional to their carries) who gets the ball. That part is easy.

If there’s a key on Mildren the chances of him running versus pitching to the TB/HB/RB switch from 50/50 to 25/75. He still runs 25% of the time but flips it 75% of the time. If he keeps it the normal run key rules come into play EXCEPT that his WH is reduced by one letter. So Mildren is normally a WH=A meaning 0 yards on a roll of 8 or 9 on the run key “die”. A correct key and the 25% keeper means 0 yards on a roll of 7,8 or 9.

So correct keys are still rewarded sometimes (25% with an increased chance of an effect) therefore preventing over-use of players. But the correct key is “avoided” other times as the QB pitches 75% of the time. In fact you don’t even need to set limits on which kind of QB can run the option as a 2 cpg QB will quickly “keep the ball” too much and have a very poor WH rating, getting him killed on run keys. You can call it quite a bit with Mildren at 20 cpg.

Now assume Mildren wasn’t keyed but the TB/HB/RB was keyed instead. First let me explain something. In this scenario the defense only has to key EITHER of the RBs/TBs/HBs in the lineup and it counts as a correct key even if the other one gets the ball. Keying a HB/TB means the defense is playing for the pitch regardless of which RB gets the ball.

However if the defense keyed the FB that doesn’t count as it meant the defense was expecting a dive play up the middle. That means it’s in the best interest of the offense to keep a FB in the lineup at all times to draw some keys. If you have 3 HBs then keying ANY of them means a correct key on a pitch to any of the 3. So keep a FB in there and also give him some up the middle runs.

But let’s just say the defense keys Pruitt. Now it’s 75% Mildren keeps and 25% he pitches. So the option does reduce the effectiveness of the key. However on the 25% of the time he pitches the WH of the RB is made worse by one letter. Pruitt becomes a B instead of an A in this case (or a C instead of a B if his WH had been reduced because of over-use).

Side rules involved. If he pitches it counts as an outside run (increased OB chances and bigger losses if the play loses yardage). If he pitches, the fumble chances are increased but if he keeps it the fumble chances are reduced by the same amount. (That’s why the 75/25 and 50/50 are used as everything remains balanced.

Now that I outlined the system the question then becomes, why call the option? I’m not sure of the answer! On the one hand, it has to be something that’s balanced (doesn’t favor the offense or defense). OTOH, if it’s totally balanced what’s the point? I know Jim and Bill want to make those teams stronger but I don’t think that should be the goal.

The goal should be to add another play option which increases the “cat and mouse” game between offense and defense. I’m not sure it does that as outlined above. It’s as if what’s missing is some kind of new defense such that the option works poorly (worse than normal runs) against the new defense but works better than normal runs against some other defense. I have no idea what an “option defense” means.

Perhaps what’s needed is a new defensive option: inside or outside run defense. If the offense calls a run up the middle against an inside runD it’s a greater “down” effect (say down 4). But if it is an option (considered an outside play) there’s no effect of an inside run defense. An outside runD does just the opposite. This means you have to balance option calls with runs up the middle. Keys still apply either way though.

Wayne

**********

From: poniewaz Nov-10 7:01 pm
To: Rusty (Rusty2132)

The original ratings assigned to a team are adjusted for the type of team. Type of team is based on the percentage of pass yards to total yards. For example a 62% passing team actually has run ratings reduced by 1 and pass ratings increased by 1. Higher percentages have even greater adjustments.

In other words there is a built-in adjustment for the expected kind of defenses which will tend to be called. An 84 Dan Marino will be expected to see mostly pass defenses and his ratings are just a bit better than his stats for that reason.

The same thing applies to running teams (under 50% pass yards which means the same as over 50% run yards of course). In that case run ratings are improved and pass ratings are made worse. So an 80% rush yards teams already has some points added to their rating to account for the extra run defenses they will face. Maybe the adjustments aren’t big enough for some of these extreme teams. I’m not sure.

Plus, as noted by BillK, it’s lot harder to key correctly when any one of 3 RBs plus the QB might be running the football. If you ever played defense against one of these teams it’s definitely just a wild guess as to who might be running the football.

Now throw in the long pass threat many of these teams have and you actually can’t even play RunD all the time.

Now might some of these teams under-perform? Probably. It’s hard to reproduce an extreme performance like 1971 Oklahoma (471 rushing yards per game).

Wayne

Posted in Second & Ten (SAT), Sports Sims | No Comments »

billsportsmaps.com: SEC football attendance

Posted by lukegofannon on November 8, 2008

Posted in Sports, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Poniewaz on pass prevent and zone coverage in SAT

Posted by lukegofannon on November 7, 2008

I just thought I’d point some things out about these two defenses, because most folks rarely call them. Yet they have some advantages that might not be immediately obvious.

The one thing I want to point out about a pass prevent is that it caps long gains on any play other than a ML or Long pass. Of course a ML pass against a prevent is down 3 lines, and Long pass against a PP is down 4 lines — so those drop anyway.

However, I think folks get scared off when they see all those “up” results for a pass prevent against other types of plays. But a run against a Pass Prevent is limited to Line 2 regardless of the number rolled. For example, a 1 drops to line 2 if it’s a PPre. Also any “UP” result cannot move above line 2. Line 2 is a dice roll (DR) of 6-7 and basically produces results like 8+ or 10+. So if your opponent has a RB with a large LG rating (say LG = 7) he cannot break a 70+ yard run against a PP defense. I wouldn’t call it early in the game, but it is a way to keep from losing based on one lucky breakaway number

S, MS and Med passes are also capped as well at line 5 on the pass completion tables against a PPrev. That would be a result of 30+1/2 (say 30-35 yards) for a medium pass but is only 20+1/2 for a MS and 15+1/2 for a S. So even though PP is Up4 or 8 or even 12 (quick toss) it can’t go above those results. Plus, if it starts above those results (you roll a 1) it will drop to those results.

So now you know.

A zone defense has some similar safeguards against longer gains built in as well However, they are nowhere near as extreme, and more importantly, a zone can’t guarantee there won’t be a LG on a run or a short pass etc. However, a 1 on a run against a zone will sometimes be knocked down 1 or 2 lines keeping that runner from breaking that 50+ run or whatever his LG is.

Extra DBs and a zone can be a good strategy sometimes. Extra DBs in a zone won’t affect the results for MS passes or S passes. However, they’ll change the “no change” effect on a medium pass to down 4, the Dn8 on ML to dn 12 and the dn12 on L to dn16.

That can useful to know against teams with several good receivers. Obviously the alternative is some other pass defense with extra DBs. If they have 4 good receivers and you DC two of them, remember there’s an up4 on PC% if you are wrong. A pass defense with correct DC (say against an A) makes that effect Dn8. But a PassD with incorrect