Quantifying Randomness in Sports

The 2023 Major League Baseball postseason has included some “upsets” that have people questioning whether the playoff format is fair. This happens whenever a perceived favourite does not win. The Braves, Dodgers, and Orioles all losing is taken as evidence of something wrong with the... [Read More]
Tags: R, Statistics, Sports, Variance

Ranking the MCU Infinity Saga

Over the last few years my partner and I decided to tackle the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Neither of us were big into the story, having each seen only a few of the films, and now wanted to see this thing that had taken over popular... [Read More]
Tags: R, MCU, Pop culture

The Relation Between Home Game Attendance and Winning Percentage in MLB

I came across a post on the Data is Beautiful subreddit showing NFL home game attendance over the last 20 years and wondered how it has looked in Major League Baseball. So I grabbed team schedules and results, and playoff appearances and successes (i.e., winning... [Read More]
Tags: MLB, Attendance, Winning percentage, NFL

The Juiced Ball Comes to the EPL [Updated]

This year, more than ever before I have committed to watching and following the English Premier League (EPL). The EPL has always been relevant in my family but just hasn’t ever been a focus for me. I would name “my team” if asked (Tottenham, Wolverhampton... [Read More]
Tags: English Premier League, Tottenham, Scoring, Draw percentage

Predictions for the 60-Game 2020 MLB Season

Somehow there might be a baseball season in 2020. For many reasons I think the powers-that-be should have canceled it, but they didn’t because money. While I am glad to have baseball back in my life, the shortened season is going to be weird and... [Read More]
Tags: Predictions, Awards, Playoffs, World Series

Comparing Canadian City Street Orientations

When I stumbled across Geoff Boeing’s street network orientation visualizations for 25 major cities in the United States and 100 cities around the World I made a note for myself to figure out how to (1) create something similar in R, and (2) do it... [Read More]
Tags: R, Maps, Canada, OpenStreetMaps

Simulating a Deal with Monty Hall in R

The Monty Hall Problem is a counter-intuitive statistical puzzle stemming from one of the situations presented to contestants on Let’s Make a Deal. I was first exposed to the problem in an introductory Bayesian statistics course. Many months ago, I wrote code to simulate the... [Read More]
Tags: R, Statistics, Monty Hall

A Second Canadian gets Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

The 2020 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees were announced yesterday. Derek Jeter fell one vote shy of becoming the second player to be voted in unanimously and Larry Walker became the second Canadian-born player to earn a spot in Cooperstown. Jeter’s first-ballot election was... [Read More]
Tags: Awards, IBWAA, BBWAA, Hall of Fame