Jaques' Rotolab Report, 5/12/08

Dear League-

I have resurrected my analysis from last season and humbly present to you some Roto Calculator 2008. I have tried to answer the age old question: how lucky is X team? The below analysis cannot answer that question completely but I will subject you to the below and you can draw your own conclusions.

Method: I took everyone's stats through six weeks in every category and came up with league averages for each week. I then went binary, and assigned a team a '1' in any category where they were better than the league weekly average and a '0' in any category where the were at or below the league weekly average. I then summed the categories for each week and summed the weeks to get the below table. This led me to "implied standings" whereby the teams with the highest frequency of being above average in various categories should have higher win totals. The "rank" ranks the teams based on "implied wins". The standings are similar but there are some significant differences vs actuals. I then compared each team's "implied win %" vs their actual win %. I subtracted the two to come up with the difference. The teams with negative differences are said to be "unlucky" (on the basis that they were better than average in categories more than their actual record would indicate). Teams with positive differences were "lucky" (opposite).

Limitations: Obviously this analysis does not account for matchup management idiosyncrasies, but we have (I think) agreed that this factor has a 10% or less impact on a given matchup and do not categorically help or hurt certain teams, but only lower your confidence level (slightly) in the results. Also, let's remember that everyone must play good and bad teams and therefore you should expect to have two teams matched up that are above or below average in a lot of the same categories. That is the nature of Head-to-Head. Since not everyone has had a crack at everyone else yet, the Week 10 results may be more telling as scheduling asymmetries should be mitigated to a degree.

Results: The results are somewhat interesting. The #1 team in the league (Scuffie) is actually underperforming vs what his accumulated stats would imply. The third place team (Shirts) is also underperforming vs his actual record. Meanwhile Float It has had the worst matchup luck of everyone and the defending champion (Busey) is not far behind.

On the flip, the second place Crackers are far and away the "luckiest" team in the league. Surprisingly the beleaguered Steaks are actually overperforming what their statistical output would imply. Babes, Hot Ice and Fastballs are slightly overperforming and the Three R's is the goldilocks of the group.

Comments and controversy welcome.....

Rank	Name	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG		K	W	SV	ERA	WHIP		TOTAL	Implied Win %	Actual Win %	Difference
1	Scuffie	5	5	3	5	3		4	3	5	4	5		42	70.0%	62.5%	-7.5%
2	Shirts	3	3	4	4	4		6	4	5	4	3		40	66.7%	58.3%	-8.4%
3	Float	2	3	4	4	2		4	3	6	3	4		35	58.3%	46.7%	-11.6%
4	Busey	4	2	4	5	2		5	2	5	1	4		34	56.7%	48.3%	-8.4%
5	Babes	1	4	2	0	4		4	4	5	3	1		28	46.7%	53.3%	6.6%
6	Crackers	3	3	4	5	5		0	0	3	3	2		28	46.7%	61.7%	15.0%
7	Hot Ice	2	2	5	1	1		3	4	0	4	4		26	43.3%	46.7%	3.4%
8	Fastballs	4	1	1	3	5		1	2	5	1	3		26	43.3%	49.2%	5.9%
9	Three R's	3	1	1	3	2		2	3	1	2	2		20	33.3%	34.2%	0.9%
10	Steaks	1	1	1	3	1		3	2	0	3	2		17	28.3%	39.2%	10.9%