THE POWER RANK

  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
  • Log in

The curse of small sample size in Tigers bullpen stats

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2015-08-12 at 8.36.52 AMThe Tigers bullpen has been a mess all season. However, there are always some small sample size flukes with pitchers that throw so few innings.

In my latest Detroit News article, I look at Bruce Rondon, a hard throwing right hander that has shown Tigers fans his best and worst this season.

The crux of the article is how humans want to tell stories about small sample size flukes. The same obsession with patterns that gives us technological marvels like smart phones also gets us in big trouble when watching sports inherent with randomness.

This might be the first sports column to quote a neuroscience book.

To read my Detroit News article on bullpen statistics, click here.

Filed Under: Baseball analytics, Detroit News Column, Detroit Tigers

Contenders’ flaws still give Tigers a chance

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 9.48.35 AMIn my most recent Detroit News column, I look at the American League landscape and find it devoid of all but one true contender.

It was kind of an argument that the Tigers could not sell their players and make a run at the playoffs. However, the Tigers did sell, a healthy move for their franchise.

The one AL team that I did like was the New York Yankees. In the 9 nine days since the column appeared, the Yankees have surged. They now have the best record in the AL and are 2nd in my MLB team rankings.

To read the Detroit News article, click here.

Filed Under: Baseball analytics, Detroit News Column, Detroit Tigers

Is the Home Run Derby slump real?

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

home_run_derby

Over at the Detroit News, I look into whether hitters who participate in the Home Run Derby go into a slump afterwards.

The idea seemed ridiculous to me. However, I was surprised by the truth.

The Home Run Derby slump is a textbook example of regression to the mean. In writing this article, I think I developed a pretty good way to think about this crucial statistical concept.

In addition, this Home Run Derby curse has an impact on players who won’t participate.

To read the article, click here.

Filed Under: Baseball analytics, Detroit News Column, Detroit Tigers, Major League Baseball

How the gambling markets view Tigers in the AL Central

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2015-06-30 at 3.47.14 PMIn my latest Detroit News article, I use a rich source of information to evaluate the AL Central: the gambling markets.

Each day, sports book set a moneyline for each game, and investors around the world put money on both teams. This collective wisdom of crowds drives a final price that should accurately reflect the strength of both teams.

Based on this market data, I calculate expected records for each team over the season. The results for the AL Central are surprising.

To read my article on how the markets view the AL Central, click here.

Filed Under: Baseball analytics, Detroit News Column, Detroit Tigers, Major League Baseball

Are you fooled by the randomness of baseball?

By Dr. Ed Feng 3 Comments

ausmus_randomnessA version of this article appeared in the Detroit News on Monday, June 15th, 2015. The ideas on how humans view randomness apply far more widely than just Tigers baseball.

Do you remember April 20th? The Tigers had an 11-2 record and looked like an offensive juggernaut.

There were many ways to rationalize the success of the Tigers. Miguel Cabrera was finally injury free and back to his first ballot Hall of Famer form. Shane Greene allowed one earned run through 3 starts and looked like a Cy Young contender.

Now let’s fast forward to June 5th. The Tigers had just dropped their 8th straight game and had a 28-28 record.

There were also many explanations for the losing streak. Ian Kinsler was cold as ice, and the Tigers couldn’t get a clutch hit if the fate of the world depended on it.

It also didn’t help that 7 of these 8 losses came against the A’s and Angels, two underrated top 10 teams in my baseball rankings.

As fans, we find all kinds of reasons for winning and losing streaks. However, there’s an additional reason for these streaks not often talked about: randomness.

Let me show you.

Random flipping of a coin

In baseball, any team can win any game, even the Phillies over the Dodgers in 2015. Because of this uncertainty, it’s useful to have a probabilistic model for game outcomes.

We’ll do a simple experiment to see the relationship between the randomness of this model and streaks. Suppose a baseball team has a 50% chance to win each game.

To see how this average team’s season plays out, I flipped a 50-50 coin on my computer 162 times. The visual shows the results through 63 games.

randomness_patterns

Team average catches fire on game 19 of the season and rips off a streak of 10 straight wins. They lose a game but then win another 4 games in a row. Two of their young pitchers look like Cy Young contenders.

However, the bottom falls out at game 34. Team average can’t buy a clutch hit as they go 6-13 over the next 19 games. Fights break out in the clubhouse because of the lack of team chemistry.

Despite the losing streak, team average still has a strong 38-25 record after 63 games.

For the record, I made zero effort to find a random sequence with streaks. I generated this sequence once for an article I wrote a few years back. Randomness looks streaky.

The next visual shows the wins and losses for the Tigers through 63 games.

tigers_2015

Both visuals contain quite a few streaks.

What the Hot Hand paper says about streaks

To understand how humans view randomness, consider a famous paper by Amos Tversky, a Stanford professor. In 1985, he published a paper called The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences.

In the study, Tversky asked participants to look at a sequences of X’s and O’s that represented made and missed shots in basketball. Some of these sequences were generated at random and looked like the my coin flipping visual. However, only 32% of participants called this random shooting, while 62% called it streak shooting.

People tend to see patterns or streaks in randomness, just like you most likely saw patterns in the random sequence above.

The authors of the study also generated sequences in which it was more like to get an O after an X and a X after an O. Only with this increased tendency for an alternating sequence did more people call the sequence random shooting.

Perceptions of randomness from a young age

I’ve also done my own experiment on perceptions of randomness. At Summers-Knoll, a project based school in Ann Arbor, I brought a bag with a white and black chess piece into the kindergarten class.

I told the kids they would take turns picking a piece from the bag, which replicated the random flipping of a coin I performed on my computer above. But first, I asked them what they expected the sequence to look like.

Most of these five and six year olds wrote down an alternating sequence of X’s and O’s. A few children had a sequence of two X’s in a row. We tend to think of patterns in randomness at a very young age.

When the children picked out a chess piece from the bag, they saw that the sequence looked quite different from their expectation.

Another interesting thing happened during the experiment. After a few pulls from the bag, the children started chanting for the black piece to get picked. Cheering for randomness? That’s exactly what sports fans do. It’s ingrained in us from a very young age.

What this means for Tigers fans

From June 9th through the 14th, the Tigers played 5 games against the Cubs and Indians. They alternated wins and losses as you can see in the final 5 games of the Tigers visual above.

As humans, we view this alternating sequence random. Win some, loss some, just hope the Tigers get to the 88 wins they need to win the division. (The coin flipping experiment I did above produced 91 wins in 162 games.)

This perception changes drastically when the Tigers win 11 of 13 or drop 8 in a row. Their play no longer seems random, and fans go in search of explanations for the streak.

It’s fine to rationalize the causes behind these streaks. Baseball is far more complicated than the flipping of a 50-50 coin. However, remember that randomness alone would generate these types of streaks.

Filed Under: Baseball analytics, Detroit News Column, Detroit Tigers

Next Page »

Data driven betting information

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.

To sign up for The Power Rank's email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"

Popular Articles

  • How to predict interceptions in the NFL
  • 5 insights from academic research on predicting world soccer/football matches
  • How to win your NCAA tournament pool
  • The ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics
  • Accurate football predictions with linear regression
  • The surprising truth about passing and rushing in the NFL
  • Football analytics resource guide
  • The Reason You Can’t Avoid The Curse of Small Sample Size
  • The essential guide to predictive CFB rankings
  • How computer rankings make you smarter about sports
  • How to win your college football bowl pool
  • Do you make these 3 mistakes with college football statistics?
  • The Top 10 Things to Know About The Power Rank’s Methods

Recent Articles

  • Podcast: Hitman on NFL betting, Super Bowl LVII
  • Members: Super Bowl game and prop analysis
  • 7-Nugget Saturday, January 28, 2023
  • Cincinnati at Kansas City, AFC Conference Championship Game
  • Podcast: Dr. Eric Eager on the NFL Conference Championships

© 2023 The Power Rank Inc., All rights reserved.

About, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy

Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.


These are the goals with every correspondence, which cover bets on the NFL and college football.


To sign up for The Power Rank's free email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"


No thanks, I'll make my predictions without data and analytics.

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":true}
  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member