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Volley Talk :: Volleyball :: Women's/Girls' Volleyball Forum :: Quoting Stats 101 Page 1 of 3 » Jump to page   Go     Author Topic: Quoting Stats 101 (Read 1,667 times) GrandsonofBarcelonaBob Professional member is offline Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 3,806 Quoting Stats 101 « Thread Started on Dec 15, 2007, 9:33pm » Okay, all of you VT dipweeds. I don't mind you arguing your points on this forum and quoting stats, but you numbnuts need to realize that absolute raw numbers in the box score do not always tell the true story of how good or bad a player did in a given game or match. Tonight's match is a prime example. Each team played really well for 2 games, and really bad for 2 games. So a player's stats may have been padded by their effectiveness in the good games, but overall that player may not have had a good match. Likewise, a hitter may have hit for good numbers overall, but if they made 5-6 hitting errors at critical points in the match, then their overall hitting percentage may still look good in the box score, but they still had a crappy match. There are also alot of stats that aren't tracked in the box score. Missed blocking or defensive assignments, poor choices in out-of-system plays, crappy free ball passes. A blocker could not block a single ball during an entire match, yet that player's coach could praise her for having the most incredible blocking match of her career if she made every single blocking assignment and move correctly, and took away what she was assigned to take away, and the backrow defenders end up with 300 digs. So stop telling me that Player A from Team Z was so much better tonight than Player B from Team Y because she hit %.045 better and had 2 more digs and 2 more kills. You guys sound totally retarded when you make nitpicky posts like that. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged (R)uffda! Professional member is offline Genuinely Athenian. Joined: May 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 2,554 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #1 on Dec 15, 2007, 9:40pm » Plus, VB's stats can be really misleading for other reasons. I agree with p-dub that a blocked attack is not the same error as an outright hitting error. And there's no way to tell what a "0" attack led to. Did it throw the opposition out of system or did it not stress them at all? Was that hitting error caused by the block? The difference between 10-3-25 and 10-0-25 is 120 % pts. Does that really reflect the difference between the two hitters? Coleman made great strides in coming up with meaningful stats, but I still think VB stats are woefully inadequate. « Last Edit: Dec 15, 2007, 9:41pm by (R)uffda! » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged All downhill from here. D. B. Cooper Sophomore member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Posts: 221 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #2 on Dec 15, 2007, 9:52pm » All I know is that the game ain't played on paper and I've was always miffed how some VolleyTalk gurus felt compelled to chime in about every match just because they could read a boxscore. Great stats don't necessarily equate to being a great player. Only by actually watching the matches can one really judge a players contribution to the team. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged mikegarrison Professional member is offline Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,264 Location: Covington, WA Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #3 on Dec 15, 2007, 10:08pm » Quote: All I know is that the game ain't played on paper and I've was always miffed how some VolleyTalk gurus felt compelled to chime in about every match just because they could read a boxscore. Great stats don't necessarily equate to being a great player. Only by actually watching the matches can one really judge a players contribution to the team. People have been saying that about baseball for 100 years. But only in the last 15 or so have the traditional stats been replaced by stats that have been carefully designed and tested for their usefulness at actually predicting the value of a performance. And the change has revolutionized baseball. It's becoming very hard to argue that "stats don't capture the real value" of baseball players these days. Maybe volleyball just needs better stats. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged D. B. Cooper Sophomore member is offline Joined: Apr 2005 Posts: 221 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #4 on Dec 15, 2007, 10:19pm » Quote: Maybe volleyball just needs better stats. So true. What volleyball has now just gives you the broad brush strokes but leaves out the very important fine line details. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged alantech Fab 50 member is offline Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 34 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #5 on Dec 16, 2007, 12:38am » Developing better, more nuanced stats is the purpose of my VolleyMetrics website. I am a member of SABR and have read extensively on the refinement of baseball stats, as described above. I would like to help volleyball move in that same direction. Since I only introduced VolleyMetrics this past fall, a lot of my postings were devoted to explaining and examining existing volleyball stats. In the months and years to come, however, I'd like to have my site become a forum for proposals and discussions of potential new stats. If you have any ideas, you can e-mail me through the VolleyMetrics site or leave comments when I post new write-ups. http://volleymetrics.blogspot.com/ Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged mikegarrison Professional member is offline Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,264 Location: Covington, WA Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #6 on Dec 16, 2007, 1:27am » Quote: I am a member of SABR That's a good place to start, I guess. Baseball is helped by the fact that it is such a discrete game. You are either out or safe. You are either at first, second, or third base. A pitch is either a ball or a strike. Etc. The weakest part of SABRmetrics is the fielding stats, precisely because fielding is analog rather than digital. A RF can shade to CF. A 2B can be playing in for the double play or back for the out at first. A player can just barely miss a ball or not really come close to it at all. Etc. Most other sports, including volleyball, are more like baseball fielding than hitting or pitching. So I would start by looking more at fielding stat methods than at hitting or pitching methods. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged standingroomonly1 Senior member is offline Joined: Jan 2004 Posts: 703 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #7 on Dec 16, 2007, 6:47am » Quote: Okay, all of you VT dipweeds. I don't mind you arguing your points on this forum and quoting stats, but you numbnuts need to realize that absolute raw numbers in the box score do not always tell the true story of how good or bad a player did in a given game or match. Tonight's match is a prime example. Each team played really well for 2 games, and really bad for 2 games. So a player's stats may have been padded by their effectiveness in the good games, but overall that player may not have had a good match. Likewise, a hitter may have hit for good numbers overall, but if they made 5-6 hitting errors at critical points in the match, then their overall hitting percentage may still look good in the box score, but they still had a crappy match. There are also alot of stats that aren't tracked in the box score. Missed blocking or defensive assignments, poor choices in out-of-system plays, crappy free ball passes. A blocker could not block a single ball during an entire match, yet that player's coach could praise her for having the most incredible blocking match of her career if she made every single blocking assignment and move correctly, and took away what she was assigned to take away, and the backrow defenders end up with 300 digs. So stop telling me that Player A from Team Z was so much better tonight than Player B from Team Y because she hit %.045 better and had 2 more digs and 2 more kills. You guys sound totally retarded when you make nitpicky posts like that. So the fact that you have 1,290 recorded posts is a 100% guarantee that they are all gems and you are a volleyball genius? You are correct again. Figures do lie and are often irrelevant and/or misleading. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged p-dub Volleyball 'Champion' member is offline Bad spellers of the world - untie Joined: Oct 2002 Gender: Female Posts: 8,232 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #8 on Dec 16, 2007, 6:58am » Quote: Quote: I am a member of SABR That's a good place to start, I guess. Baseball is helped by the fact that it is such a discrete game. You are either out or safe. You are either at first, second, or third base. A pitch is either a ball or a strike. Etc.. Even more important is the independence of events. Whereas the events in baseball are not completely independent, they are far closer than any sport. If a batter is batting with a runner on first, you generally know where that runner is going to be at any time. A basestealing threat can make some of a difference, but if he steals, then he is just a runner on second, and by that point, most of the variation vanishes (a fast runner can affect whether the batter gets an RBI, but the differences are small). None of this can be said for volleyball (or most other team sports). Players are all over the place, and offensive sets can vary significantly. The best example of baseball's stats indepedence is in offense and defense. Baseball (and like sports) is the only sport where a great defensive play does not improve offensive opportunities. In all other sports, the defense can help the offense. In volleyball, great defense can slow the opponents attack, and we always hear about "transitioning." Shoot, the defense can even score directly on a block. Similar things can be observed for other sports. In football, the defense can also score, and, even if they don't, field position is paramount. In basketball, good defense can lead to fast breaks, which are more efficiently offensively. In baseball, however, even after the greatest defensive play, the offense always starts in the same position: none on, no out. This is one of the reasons that baseball is more easily analyzed than most sports. Heck, even if you want to get grumpy, it is still undeniable that at, at least at the team level, you can evaluate offense completely by looking at points scored, and you can assess defense completely by points against. That's an important feature, and probably the most important. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged GrandsonofBarcelonaBob Professional member is offline Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 3,806 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #9 on Dec 16, 2007, 7:59am » Quote: Quote: Okay, all of you VT dipweeds. I don't mind you arguing your points on this forum and quoting stats, but you numbnuts need to realize that absolute raw numbers in the box score do not always tell the true story of how good or bad a player did in a given game or match. Tonight's match is a prime example. Each team played really well for 2 games, and really bad for 2 games. So a player's stats may have been padded by their effectiveness in the good games, but overall that player may not have had a good match. Likewise, a hitter may have hit for good numbers overall, but if they made 5-6 hitting errors at critical points in the match, then their overall hitting percentage may still look good in the box score, but they still had a crappy match. There are also alot of stats that aren't tracked in the box score. Missed blocking or defensive assignments, poor choices in out-of-system plays, crappy free ball passes. A blocker could not block a single ball during an entire match, yet that player's coach could praise her for having the most incredible blocking match of her career if she made every single blocking assignment and move correctly, and took away what she was assigned to take away, and the backrow defenders end up with 300 digs. So stop telling me that Player A from Team Z was so much better tonight than Player B from Team Y because she hit %.045 better and had 2 more digs and 2 more kills. You guys sound totally retarded when you make nitpicky posts like that. So the fact that you have 1,290 recorded posts is a 100% guarantee that they are all gems and you are a volleyball genius? You are correct again. Figures do lie and are often irrelevant and/or misleading. Hey, don't forget about my other 5000+ posts under different monikers. Those were way awesome, too! Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged GrandsonofBarcelonaBob Professional member is offline Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 3,806 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #10 on Dec 16, 2007, 8:57am » One of the easiest ways to stat an individual player's performance during a match is to assign a +1, 0, -1 scale to each touch that they get on a ball. For instance, +1 = excellent pass 0 = marginal pass (i.e. passed to 10-foot line) -1 = bad pass, aced or shank +1 = kill 0 = ball kept in play by opponent -1 = hitting error (blocked, out-of-bounds, into net) If grade each touch a player makes, by the end of the match you'll have a score that is between -1.0 and +1.0. It can help judge an individual players performance better, but it's not weighted for situational dynamics (i.e. a +1 contact when the score is 0-0 should not be weighted the same as a -1 contact when the team is down 23-29). It also doesn't address bad plays when the player is not touching the ball - such as out-of-position on defense, missed blocking reads, getting in another player's way on the court, etc. It's a start, though. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged traveler5 Sophomore member is offline Joined: Sept 2006 Posts: 121 Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #11 on Dec 16, 2007, 10:08am » Stats are more indicative of a players performance the longer period of time they cover. Stats for a season are much more meaningful than match or game stats, as they include much enough repetitions to provide a clearer picture. That said, as noted in other posts,there are still important many areas of play which are not covered in the stats for volleyball. IMO, the most important of these are passes which do not hit the target, missed blocking assignments (ie failure to close the block) and missed digs in the back row. Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged Chance All-American member is offline "Julie Knytych wants to win, so they are." -TDCincy Joined: Oct 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 1,533 Location: IHTFP Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #12 on Dec 16, 2007, 10:19am » Plus there are different ways of hitting .300, and depending upon how the opponent is doing some of them are more or less effective. One stat that is completely objective and I think could be useful would be what % of a players attacks are handled and then killed for a point by the other team. So if the other team digs your attack, and winds up getting a kill on that 3 touch sequence immediately following your attack, that would count negative, and if they dont score, either by sending over a freeball or having a legit attack dug up, it counts towards you. There would be a couple different ways to use this stat, and you could do it either limited to attacks that don't currently produce a stat, and break it down by all attacks total. So instead of of 36 attacks, 10 kills, 6 errors, you could see 36 attacks, 10 kills, 6 errors, 14 attacks not killed in reply, and 6 attacks which were turned into opposing kills. (in this example i didn't count kills in "not killed in reply" or errors in "turned into opposing kills"). The other nice thing about this stat is that while you cant get it out of a current boxscore, i think you might be able to get it out of the program currently used to reccord stats (where you have the super completely play by play, instead of just play by play of the point scoring part of each rally). You could also have an almost objective stat (which would require a completely new factor to be recorded) would be to break down how many blockers were on each of a players attacks, and how well they hit against 0, 1, 2, and 3 blockers. This could also be used by setters to see the average number of blockers their hitters had to go against. Front row vs backrow would also be nice, since a player good enough to get a lot of backrow swings is probably going to hurt their % some since that is a lower percentage shot. « Last Edit: Dec 16, 2007, 10:22am by Chance » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged http://www.tiny.cc/Knytych _________ BearClause Hall of Fame member is offline A cloudy day in Īao Valley Joined: Oct 2002 Gender: Male Posts: 10,643 Location: Kensington, California Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #13 on Dec 16, 2007, 11:29am » Quote: Quote: All I know is that the game ain't played on paper and I've was always miffed how some VolleyTalk gurus felt compelled to chime in about every match just because they could read a boxscore. Great stats don't necessarily equate to being a great player. Only by actually watching the matches can one really judge a players contribution to the team. People have been saying that about baseball for 100 years. But only in the last 15 or so have the traditional stats been replaced by stats that have been carefully designed and tested for their usefulness at actually predicting the value of a performance. And the change has revolutionized baseball. It's becoming very hard to argue that "stats don't capture the real value" of baseball players these days. Maybe volleyball just needs better stats. The difference is that baseball better lends itself to stat analysis because of fixed playing field dimensions to a great degree, as well as parity in the quality of opposition. The pitcher stands on the same spot every time. The batter gets in the same sized box. The defense doesn't have to worry about the batter hitting from a different spot (saved switch hitters) and the batter doesn't have to worry about the ball being targeted more than about a 3 feet width. Volleyball is a game where the ball is struck from almost anywhere on the court, and there isn't enough information available. I've seen baseball scouting diagrams detailing exactly where a player hit the ball over the course of a season, and which areas of the plate a player was successful or not with fastballs, curveballs, etc. My biggest pet peeve of the umber crunchers are those who tout ridiculous stats or won-loss records without regard for the average competition faced. « Last Edit: Dec 16, 2007, 4:48pm by BearClause » Link to Post - Back to Top   Logged The buck stops here. mikegarrison Professional member is offline Joined: Nov 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,264 Location: Covington, WA Re: Quoting Stats 101 « Reply #14 on Dec 16, 2007, 1:50pm » Quote: Stats are more indicative of a players performance the longer period of time they cover. Only if they are well-designed stats. More of a useless thing is just more uselessness. 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