Sports. Data. Cognition. https://www.cteeter.ca 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 system. Ideas for improving the... Sun, 22 Oct 2023 12:12:12 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2023-10-22-sports-luck/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2023-10-22-sports-luck/ 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 culture. So, armed with a... Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:12:12 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2023-09-26-mcu-infinity-rankings/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2023-09-26-mcu-infinity-rankings/ Ian Nepomniachtchi was prescient. He said that wins in this World Chess Championship would come as a result of mistakes and that has certainly been the case. Unfortunately for Nepo the mistakes have been his and he trails Magnus Carlsen by three points with only four games to play; almost... Fri, 10 Dec 2021 09:21:55 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2021-12-10-plotting-2021-chess-championship-carlsen-nepo-g6g10/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2021-12-10-plotting-2021-chess-championship-carlsen-nepo-g6g10/ Running back to Game 10 of the 2016 World Chess Championship, there have now been 19 straight draws in the classical portions of these championship matches. The five most recent entries in this draw-streak have come from the 2021 Championship in which World No. 1, Magnus Carlsen, is battling World... Thu, 02 Dec 2021 19:21:55 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2021-12-02-plotting-2021-chess-championship-carlsen-nepo-g1g5/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2021-12-02-plotting-2021-chess-championship-carlsen-nepo-g1g5/ 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 league pennant, winning World Series)... Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:50:22 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-10-29-mlb-attendance-winning/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-10-29-mlb-attendance-winning/ 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 for a year or so... Mon, 28 Sep 2020 10:07:09 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-09-28-epl-scoring-juiced-ball-draws/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-09-28-epl-scoring-juiced-ball-draws/ 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 played under the anxiety of... Wed, 22 Jul 2020 02:02:00 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-07-22-picks-and-predictions-2020/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-07-22-picks-and-predictions-2020/ 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 for Canadian cities. Using polar... Wed, 17 Jun 2020 04:49:49 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-06-17-canadian-city-street-networks/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-06-17-canadian-city-street-networks/ 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 problem and intended on using... Thu, 30 Jan 2020 20:00:00 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-01-30-monty-hall-problem-simulation-R/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-01-30-monty-hall-problem-simulation-R/ 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 expected. He was a tremendous... Wed, 22 Jan 2020 01:33:20 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-01-22-ibwaa-hof-ballot-2020/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2020-01-22-ibwaa-hof-ballot-2020/ As the end of the decade approaches, recap and best-of articles abound. One such article that stuck out to me was a review of the decisions that shaped the Boston Red Sox over the last decade. The 2010s were a successful decade for the franchise. Their two World Series Championships... Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:25:08 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-12-14-carl-crawford-sadness-red-sox/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-12-14-carl-crawford-sadness-red-sox/ Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire’s home run chase in 1998 is often credited with bringing fans back to major league baseball after the 1994 strike. Cy Young award winners were not thrilled, but fans loved it. These guys (and many others) were launching and the game was fun. In 1998,... Fri, 29 Nov 2019 18:58:30 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-11-29-home-run-surge-baseball-drag/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-11-29-home-run-surge-baseball-drag/ Last Wednesday it was reported that the co-owner of the Orlando Magic, Pat Williams, has dreams of bringing a major league baseball team to Orlando. Williams even came prepared with a photoshopped Little League logo for his Dreamers. Rich people are going to do rich people things, so maybe this... Tue, 26 Nov 2019 16:50:50 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-11-26-attendance-baseball-florida-giancarlo-stanton-hr/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-11-26-attendance-baseball-florida-giancarlo-stanton-hr/ Baseball, like much of the rest of society, seems to be in a bad spot right now. Just look at this list of ongoing issues: Commissioner Rob Manfred says the league will not make concessions in order to attain labour peace (read: we are heading for a strike or lockout... Thu, 21 Nov 2019 19:20:00 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-11-21-picks-and-predictions-2019-review/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-11-21-picks-and-predictions-2019-review/ The Red Sox have started the season poorly. Their sloppy, pressing play has resulted in a 5-10 record (-29 run differential). It is only 15 games, but that record is ominous. No Red Sox team has ever made the playoffs after posting a sub-.500 record in their first 20 games.... Sun, 14 Apr 2019 05:10:29 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-04-14-red-sox-firsttwentygames-playoffs-followup/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-04-14-red-sox-firsttwentygames-playoffs-followup/ I am late to post my annual picks and predictions this year. Most teams have already played 4 games. The Orioles took two of three from the Yankees! The Red Sox’s starters looked hapless in Seattle. The new look Phillies swept the Braves. Interesting stuff all over the league, but... Tue, 02 Apr 2019 01:19:57 -0300 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-04-02-picks-and-predictions-2019/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-04-02-picks-and-predictions-2019/ I posted a new Shiny app to the Apps page that allows you to play with data from The Masters golf tournament. You can interact with a plot of yearly tournament results, explore each year’s final leaderboad, sort through historical performance leaderboards, see who are the lowest scorers at Augusta... Sun, 24 Feb 2019 12:25:00 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-02-24-launching-masters-app/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-02-24-launching-masters-app/ The 2019 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees were announced last week. Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Roy Halladay, and Edgar Martinez have each been assigned a permanent residency in Cooperstown. This is an excellent class. All four players are absolutely Hall of Famers. But there were a couple of noteworthy... Mon, 28 Jan 2019 19:19:04 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-01-28-ibwaa-hof-ballot-2019/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2019-01-28-ibwaa-hof-ballot-2019/ Magnus Carlsen got what he wanted. Or at least that is what I infer from his behaviour in Game 12 of the 2018 World Chess Championship. He had a winning position on the board and an opponent with only a few minutes left on the clock, but he offered a... Wed, 28 Nov 2018 21:00:44 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2018-11-28-plotting-2018-chess-championship-carlsen-caruana-tiebreaks/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2018-11-28-plotting-2018-chess-championship-carlsen-caruana-tiebreaks/ This is long overdue, but here is a quick follow-up on baseball’s pace/inactivity problem I wrote about in April. Pace of play was a constant talking point around the game this past season, and discussion of the issue has persisted this winter. As I wrote in April, I don’t consider... Tue, 27 Nov 2018 15:01:19 -0400 https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2018-11-27-baseball-inactivity-2018-strikeouts-hits-followup/ https://www.cteeter.ca/blog/2018-11-27-baseball-inactivity-2018-strikeouts-hits-followup/