The World Cup

What's more fun than watching Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher fall on the floor like they've been hit by a steam engine? That's right! Watching two groups of 11 people each doing the same thing for 90 minutes with the non-stop mind-numbing ear-drum-bursting hum of vuvuzelas in the background! It's the World Cup! Can put numbers to the World Cup? Yes we can! For example:

Vuvuzelas have been measured at 127 decibels. A referee's whistle blown as hard as possible is 122 dB. That means one Vuvuzela is over 3 times as loud as a whistle (decibels are on a logarithmic scale). So we can't even hear our falling fouls.

There's an average of 1.86 total goals per game so far. In the "boring" american sport baseball there are about 9 runs per game. In a "boring" canadian sport (hockey) there are over 5 goals per game. Heck, even in the last World Cup there were 2.44 goals per game in the opening round.

Say you wanted to watch goals and not just listen to quirky british announcers (a plus for soccer), when should you watch? Lets look at goals by minute broken in to 15 minute groups:

It's clear from this that the end of either half (bins 3 and 6) is the best time to watch. Just don't tune in for the middle of the first half, because only three goals have been knocked in during that stretch. More specifically, the 79th minute is the best time to watch because 4 goals have already been scored then (yes, more than in the 15 minute stretch during the first half).

Notice that there have been no goals scored after the 90th minute. That's because soccer doesn't always use overtime. Already more 1 point ties have been handed out than 3 point wins (16 to 15). Which means "nil-nil" games for all of us. I think it might be time to start watching more baseball.

Game 7

And so, the last game of the NBA season is upon us. It has seemed crazy, but the two teams left at the end are the two that on day 1 many thought would be there: the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers. Unlike two years ago though, this series has hinged on the play of many of the role players. Rajon Rondo led Boston's "Big 3" out of the nursing home and into the finals. Andrew Bynum's stellar first 3 games brought the Lakers a 2-1 lead, but Glen "Big Baby" Davis slobbered the Celtics back into the driver's seat as the series headed back to LA. Tuesday though, Kendrick "Jumbo Muffin" Perkins's injury resulted in a resounding Boston defeat. So now there's game 7 to decide it all. Which is kinda strange, because one play can make so much difference. What Kobe Bryant's legacy depends on a Ron Artest 3 at the end? Could one 'Sheed outburst forever put a black mark over the era of Boston's Big 3? Like in any game, the chance and luck play a big role. Running only the first 6 games of this series in the Power Rankings, I got the following Power Rankings:

Lakers 1.45

Boston 0.69

That means that after including home court advantage for the Lakers, there is a 75.9% chance the Lakers win tomorrow. Which isn't that far off from the 69% chance they had at the beginning of the series. So it really does all come down to one game. Let's just hope Ron-Ron's a little off.

Self Lineup Runs

Who's the best mlb hitter this season? We looked already at Ken Griffey Jr.'s best years using a lineup full of Griffeys. Now, through yesterday, I've looked at the same statistic (which I've decided to call "Self Lineup Runs" or SLR. Please suggest better names.) for the best hitters in baseball. Here's a look at how those with the top 10 OPS fare in SLR:

	Player	Team	SLR
1	MORNEAU	MIN	11.016
2	YOUKILIS, K	BOS	9.819
3	CABRERA, M	DET	9.352
4	ETHIER, A	LAD	8.962
4	CANO, R	NYY	8.959
4	PUJOLS	STL	8.952
7	RASMUS, C	STL	8.296
8	ZIMMERMAN, R	WAS	7.923
9	KONERKO, P	CHW	7.893
10	ROLEN, S	CIN	7.421

Interestingly, for those who know the stats above, this is very closely related to OPS (On Base Percentage plus Slugging), but even closer to 2*OBP + SLG. This correlation was suggested in Wayne Winston's book Mathletics, and will be looked into more later.

Note: Although Ethier, Cano and Pujols don't have the same SLR, it's effectively a tie because of variance in the simulation. Running it again once actually put Pujols ahead of the other two, so it's too close to call.

College Football Winners and Losers

Because the Celtics are getting their butts thoroughly kicked, it seems like a good time to discuss the new conference realignments in the NCAA (and really, just in football).

For those of you don't remember much about last season, here's an excerpt of my final rankings:

Pac-10
9	Oregon	10	3	365.1351385
21	Stanford	8	5	206.7906192
24	Southern Cal	9	4	196.9013724
31	Oregon St	8	5	144.8142221
33	Arizona	8	5	136.8915592
44	Washington	5	7	112.9405358
47	UCLA	7	6	99.71857331
48	California	8	5	98.35135469
57	Arizona St	4	8	80.31118691
153	Washington St	1	11	7.85820361
Big 12
3	Texas	13	1	741.1500129
6	Oklahoma	8	5	435.2079459
14	Texas Tech	9	4	265.2266125
32	Oklahoma St	9	4	142.6887075
45	Missouri	8	5	103.9479536
49	Kansas	5	7	96.83809863
50	Texas A&M	6	7	94.68885479
61	Kansas St	6	6	66.69280004
69	Iowa St	7	6	51.93482029
81	Baylor	4	8	42.94916289
Big 10
7	Ohio State	11	2	419.4915248
11	Penn State	11	2	307.9650998
22	Iowa	11	2	202.6684293
28	Wisconsin	10	3	161.9426895
43	Michigan St	6	7	113.215311
62	Purdue	5	7	65.91140341
63	Minnesota	6	7	63.99163737
65	Michigan	5	7	62.57196326
70	Northwestern	8	5	51.5339931
82	Illinois	3	9	42.44594732
89	Indiana	4	8	35.27651734
Switching
8	Nebraska	10	4	379.605562
10	Boise St	14	0	309.586632
75	Colorado	3	9	49.11184134
Best MWC
5	TCU	12	1	541.2771632
26	Brigham Young	11	2	165.9322645
40	Utah	10	3	119.3573139

The (former) Big 12 has an average power ranking of about 133, and that stays the same with the subtraction of good Nebraska and Bad Colorado.

The (12-team) Big 10 has an average ranking of about 100, but by adding Nebraska, which will immediately compete for best team in the conference, their average improves to 107.

The (Mountain) Pac-10 has an average ranking of 107, but with the addition of a terrible Colorado team (worse than all but lowly Washington State), that ranking drops to 100.

Colorado and Nebraska are both in a way losers, because each leaves a better conference for a worse one.

There is a clear winner from the switching though, and that's the newfangled Mountain West Conference which now puts together a top 4 group of teams that can compete with any conference's top 4 year in and year out.

The biggest loser of all though is of course the Boston Celtics. Fingers crossed for game 7.

Big Ten

Here's some simple math: 11 +1 =/= 10. nor is it equal to a cool 11 hidden in one of the best logos in the history of logos. The Pac-10 has also forgotten that 10+1 =/= 10. And that Colorado isn't on or really near the pacific coast. Let's hope they remember that 5 more still isn't 10. Someday, when college football isn't king of the hill the Big Ten will regret Nebraska lacking a basketball team and being the worst academic school in the conference.

Ken Griffey Jr.

With the retirement of Ken Griffey Jr. last week baseball lost one of it's best and most liked players, one who even made it through the steroid era unscathed. But just how good was he, and when was he best? Sounds like a perfect time to debut my new baseball simulator program! The program plays a full nine innings with up to 9 batters using singles, doubles, triples, and home runs (it has yet to include speed things like stolen bases and advancing an extra base, and it counts walks as singles). Putting in a player's stats for a year then having them bat over and over repeatedly for a game gives a good indication of how good a player is at swinging away. So, how good was Griffey? Here's the results by year ("runs" being the program calculated category):

	YEAR	TEAM	OPS	RUNS
GRIFFEY JR	1989	Sea	0.74896	3.862
GRIFFEY JR	1990	Sea	0.84987	5.274
GRIFFEY JR	1991	Sea	0.93168	6.8
GRIFFEY JR	1992	Sea	0.89248	5.661
GRIFFEY JR	1993	Sea	1.02355	8.356
GRIFFEY JR	1994	Sea	1.07558	8.828
GRIFFEY JR	1995	Sea	0.85999	6.146
GRIFFEY JR	1996	Sea	1.01857	8.006
GRIFFEY JR	1997	Sea	1.02992	8.006
GRIFFEY JR	1998	Sea	0.97242	7.037
GRIFFEY JR	1999	Sea	0.95552	7.117
GRIFFEY JR	2000	Cin	0.93908	7.081
GRIFFEY JR	2001	Cin	0.89663	6.045
GRIFFEY JR	2002	Cin	0.78522	4.621
GRIFFEY JR	2003	Cin	0.91595	6.458
GRIFFEY JR	2004	Cin	0.86276	5.713
GRIFFEY JR	2005	Cin	0.95036	6.746
GRIFFEY JR	2006	Cin	0.8019	4.682
GRIFFEY JR	2007	Cin	0.8741	6.029
GRIFFEY JR	2008	Cin/CWS	0.7761	4.583
GRIFFEY JR	2009	Sea	0.7333	4.183
GRIFFEY JR	2010	Sea	0.45506	0.712
GRIFFEY JR	Total	--	0.90428	6.264

It turns out that Griffey's strike shortened 1994 season was his best, even better than his 56 home run performances in 97 and 98. How does this compare to other players? The average for the MLB so far this year is 3.68 runs (meaning this program is about half a run too low, most runners go second to home on a single) so even Griffey's worst years were better than average. Amongst other Seattle greats Griffey's '94 (8.83) is better than both A-Roid's '96 (8.41) and Ichiro's '04 (5.39). Still, Junior's not quite on Pujols's level (10.93 in 2008) and a long was behind former greats like the Babe (a whopping 17.63 in 1920). Nevertheless, with his 10 Gold Gloves, 184 stolen bases, and 630 home runs I'd take Ken Griffey Jr. on my team anyways.

Good suggestion Woozle.

Ray "Jesus Shuttlesworth" Allen

Last night's savior Ray Allen kept the Celtics in the game and even up throughout the first half, despite an almost total absence of Kevin "Heels on the 3-point line" Garnett and Big Baby's unlucky 4 inch height disadvantage. Allen's 8 for 11 three point shooting set an NBA Finals record, and got the Celtics the road win they needed. But were the Celtics really the better team?

The Celtics won by 9, but it was close all second half and the Celtics padded the final score with some free throws. The Lakers started fouling while down 7, so even if Allen had only hit 6 of 11 the Celtics probably would've still won, but not if he hit less. What are the chance the Celtics win then?

Using Allen's career 3 point percentage of 39.6 (which is higher than the 36.8 percent he shot this year) there is actually only a 2.2% chance that Allen makes 8 of them ( and .5% chance of more). Adding in the probabilities of 6 and 7 three pointers, Allen makes at least 6 out of 11 23.8% of the time. So the Celtics only win last night's game about a quarter of the time? Yup. And that's not good news for them going forward.

Perfect Games

Poor Armando Galarraga. Today should've been a perfect game. However it'll still go down as one of the closest calls ever (Hey MLB, can we just fix the call and make it a perfect game?). Had Jim Joyce made the right call we would've had the third perfect game this season, and we're not even halfway done. What're the chances of that?! Funny I asked...

The key is on-base-percentage (we're not gonna count errors, dropped third strikes, etc.). There has to be 27 consecutive outs. Also useful is that there are 3,240, and about 345,000 all time. For the stats savvy I'm also assuming that perfect games follow poisson statistics, which can be a dubious assumption for low end odds.

The following stats are against MLB average, Yankees (best team), Houston (worst), Justin Morneau (best batter), Aramis Ramirez(worst, of course), and with each of the three "perfect" game pitchers.

Who	OBP		Expected		3+		All-time
MLB	0.33		0.065247621		4.40885E-05		6.966794621
Yankees	0.366		0.01468774		5.22314E-07		1.568278894
Houston	0.286		0.363409878		0.006106128		38.80297759
Morneau	0.487		4.82741E-05		1.86517E-14		0.005154448
A-Ram	0.227		3.100211665		0.598882668		331.0241437
Galarraga	0.218		4.237672039		0.794695585		452.476124
Halladay	0.258		1.02671629		0.08528064		109.627315
Braden	0.277		0.509658225		0.015130549		54.41859965

Because you get to have good pitchers against bad teams every once in a while, I'd suspect the odds of the number of perfect games are roughly equivalent to Houston (there are 18 perfect games in the modern era, plus a couple others that might've qualified in these stats), so we should have three perfect games in a year once every 200 seasons (actually as low as every 100 because poisson stats are kinda inaccurate here). That's more often than you think? Remember, there's now 30 teams in the league, many more than earlier, so more games. Also, this year's league average OBP is the lowest since 1992 (although roughly average overall. Can you say steroids?).

And in good news for Galarraga, let's suppose he pitches 30 starts a year for 15 year (a solid career). If he continues his opponent OBP of .218 (the lowest among league starters), he has a 44.5% chance of pitching another perfect game. Of course, with an OOBP like that, he'll also be the best pitcher of all time.

Good suggestion Greg.