Point Blank – September 6
Box Scores, Old Joe and the 800-yard field…Tyler Anderson continues to be better than just about anyone in the marketplace thinks…
The opening weeks of any football season for me will always be filled with some special memories, the daily back-and-forth with Old Joe that went on for three decades, working through not just the nuances of how the various puzzle pieces of the sport connected to scoreboard results, but perhaps even more about life itself. Today there is a prime opportunity to use those memories for a key talking point as the 2016 season unfolds, and also to ponder why the markets remain slow in appreciating Tyler Anderson.
Item: On turnovers, if you only adjust the scoreboard, you will get it wrong
The first NCAA box scores trigger so many of the old memories because of the combination of both art and science that they bring, and the decades of sorting to find the balance between the two. Fortunately the betting markets will often fail to achieve that balance, which creates opportunity, and over time it happens for different reasons.
The discussions with Old Joe are badly missed, in particular the Sunday night session that would usually run about 90 minutes, right after the openers had begun to settle out. He is no longer here, a long bout with cancer having finally produced a finish line a few furlongs short of what many of us would have liked, but it was a race run awfully damn well, a level of dignity so very rare in this endeavor. So part of the reminiscing will always go to his final weekend in Las Vegas, the last major soiree being at Forte a place that brought the proper integrity for such a night (and their generosity in allowing us to bring some moonshine in for the occasion, which we in turn generously shared with the staff and other patrons). It brought a photo op that reminds me of how fortunate I have been, being able to share time with the best of the generation before me, and also with Nina Manchev, the proprietor and someone that will be among the best of the generation to follow (the art works on the walls in the background are also her own creations).
Now back to football. I begin with a catch phrase here because it shows much about those shifting market mores, and how adjustments for the impact of turnovers in any particular game can now run too far, after a time in which they did not go far enough. Things really can change that much.
Back when I first got involved in the point spread battles at a high level it was possible to take advantage of scores that were rather fluky, a few bounces of the ball via turnovers having such an impact that the scoreboards did not reflect the game flows well. Things really were that simple in the 1980s. Eventually the marketplace caught on to the basics of those principles, but not all of the nuances, and that is why value can get created from the opposite direction.
Here is the gist – while many do properly adjust the scoreboards “down” because of the impact of turnovers, they fail to adjust the box scores “up”. If you only perform one task, without the other, you have not taken a positive step. Hence one of the phrases that got developed in our discussions – “They would have scored on an 800-yard field”. I am not sure why we settled on 800; perhaps it just rolled off the tongue easy.
Here is where it came from. Sometimes a team would win a game 42-6, but not put up great offensive numbers because they were given the ball several times in the opponent’s territory off of turnovers. It can create the impression that the scoreboard may have rewarded them too much, for such little production. That is actually rather common thinking, and you will read or hear it often this fall – “Big State U. may have had 42 points but they were lucky – they only gained 355 yards.”
And there is the trap. Yes, it was easier to score points because of the short fields, but there is a flip side to that – it was made more difficult for the offense to produce first downs and yards because the goal line got in the way. So the next prime axiom -
Axiom: Do not reward the defense for the goal line making a tackle
The goal line is essentially a 12th defender, making a stop when the other 11 players couldn’t. Learn to view it that way and your process of sorting box scores will become much more efficient. Our notion of the “800-yard field” came from years of game study, and in particular directly watching so many of them, and realizing that so often it wasn’t the turnovers creating points – sometimes the offense was going to score no matter where a drive began. So the notions that would get spread across the Sports Mediaverse were often improper; instead of a team being lucky in getting good field position for scoreboard production, they were often statistically unlucky because that same field position limited offensive production. The flip side is that defenses that seemed unfairly penalized on the scoreboards were also being improperly rewarded in the box scores – the goal line prevented them from giving up added yards.
There is as much art as there is science to balancing this out, but it is a necessary step. And you need to take it even further when it comes to special teams or defensive touchdowns. Yes, they reward that team that scored by giving points without the offense going on the field, but at the same time they punish that team statistically because their offense doesn’t get the ball, and a chance to produce yards and first downs.
Over the course of the season I will use specific games to sort through these examples, and I am already reading from several circles this week how Indiana was lucky to get a 34-13 margin at Florida International, the Hoosiers trailing 13-12 in the 4th quarter, and getting two interception returns for TDs in the game. Yet it was a dominating performance by Indiana, which won the unadjusted yards per rush 4.7 to 2.5, and yards per pass 8.6 to 5.5, and the dominance was so pronounced that the Hoosiers ran 80 plays to just 68 for the Panthers. That discrepancy is important because the +12 came despite the Hoosiers losing a pair of possessions, and FIU getting two added ones, when those Pick 6's were taken to the house.
For now here is at least one simple thing that you can do in your own tracking, in terms of preventing the goal line from making a tackle – adjust all short scoring plays. If an offense scores on a one-yard TD run they actually get penalized on the play, and the defense rewarded – the NFL average was 4.1 per rush attempt last year, and 4.5 across the colleges. The offense should not be charted as finishing 3.1 yards below that. What we do is make all rushing TDs of four yards or less the NFL or NCAA average, and the same with passing TDs (7.4 per pass attempt in NCAA and 7.3 in NFL in 2015). You could also save some time and make all TD plays of five yards or less 5.7, regardless of whether it was a run or a pass. This is only a subtle adjustment, but one of the proper disciplines as you pursue the goal of winning is to take those extra small steps when you can, which creates a much stronger foundation that you can later build from.
About Last Night…
Edwin Jackson entered Monday’s game against the Red Sox at 3-5/6.26, then threw seven shutout innings, striking out 11 of the 25 batters he faced. Ubaldo Jimenez was 5-10/6.82 before taking the mound at Tampa, allowing a single to Kevin Kiermaier, a walk to Evan Longoria, and a 3-run HR to Logan Morrison in the first inning. And then did not allow a hit the rest of the way, throwing the first Baltimore complete game in two years.
It is Art and Science both in the Post Mortem, every single day. And there are some folks still not doing enough of either when it comes to Tyler Anderson...
In the Sights…
Earlier in the season it was noted there that Anderson somehow is bringing much less sizzle to the betting markets than Jonathan Gray, despite the fact that he was also a Colorado first round draft pick. That is what can happen when a pitcher suffers a stress fracture in his elbow, which cost him all of 2015, and may have simply left folks skittish. The Rockies certainly weren’t that way, and after seeing how well he was throwing the ball across six Minor League starts they saw no reason to not bring him up to The Show, and since then he has been terrific.
Of course to many a 5-5/3.43 hardly merits “terrific”, but it sure does when you factor how many innings of that sample have been at Coors Field, where Anderson has been a superb 5-1/3.11, among the better single-seasons anyone has worked from that mound, plus the ineptitude of a bad defense behind him (#29 PADE).
The basics are all there –
K/9 8.3
BB/9 2.2
GB% 53.4
SWS% 11.4
And in truth Anderson is getting better as the season progresses. He faced a daunting challenge at Coors in August, two games against the Dodgers (yes, I know of their struggles vs. left-handers, but they are playing with playoff energy), and one each against the Cubs and Rangers, yet handled those four to a 2.60 tune. Now he gets to face a slumping Giants offense that is performing at a frighteningly bad level, and that puts #912 Colorado First Five Innings (8:40) into pocket this evening, with as low as -125 available in the current trading, and this one carrying value up to -135.
The Giants are just 16-31 since the All Star break, and have managed only 17 hits across their last five games. Meanwhile the Rockies have already plated 51 runs in the seven game son this home-stand, and before you declare their form as being “all Coors”, note that the it was also 19 runs in three games at Washington in the last road series. They can continue their form against the journeyman offerings of Jeff Samardzija, who put together a misleading ride vs. weak competition before laboring badly at Wrigley (21.8 PPI) in his last outing. I will make the focus Anderson vs. Samadrzija, the fact that the Rockies bullpen comes in fresh not being much of a confidence generator for that untrustworthy crew
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