Happy Valley Hardball with a sabermetrics twist

Team WinPct Pyth% Luck 1 Michigan State .644 .651 -.007 2 Michigan .630 .636 -.006 3 Purdue .609 .621 -.012 4 Ohio State .568 .546 .022 5 Minnesota .449 .520 -.071 6 Illinois .511 .508 .003 7 Penn State .457 .482 -.025 8 Indiana .511 .481 .030 9 Northwestern .438 .428 .010 10 Iowa .457 [...]

Despite a disastrous weekend in State College, Michigan State managed to hold onto their first place Pythagorean Standing. Penn State’s performance moved them closer to where the Pythagorean ratings have suggested they should be most of the season, i.e. somewhere in the middle of the pack. Team WinPct Pyth% Luck 1 Michigan State .667 .664 [...]

Team WinPct Pyth% Luck 1 Michigan State .703 .734 -.031 2 Michigan .641 .659 -.018 3 Purdue .590 .629 -.039 4 Ohio State .629 .574 .055 5 Indiana .526 .514 .012 6 Minnesota .400 .486 -.086 7 Illinois .500 .480 .020 8 Penn State .436 .427 .009 9 Northwestern .395 .372 .023 10 Iowa .432 [...]

Somehow Penn State has managed to stay ahead of Northwestern. Team WinPct Pyth% Luck 1 Michigan State .800 .719 .081 2 Michigan .571 .655 -.084 3 Ohio State .650 .649 .001 4 Purdue .550 .626 -.076 5 Illinois .500 .541 -.041 6 Indiana .545 .534 .011 7 Minnesota .333 .450 -.117 8 Iowa .400 .383 [...]

Northwestern’s two wins over PSU didn’t help them in the Pythagorean rankings either as they remain in this basement also. Minnesota looks to be the hardluck team to date as their actual winning percentage trails their Pythagorean ranking by over .100 points. Team WinPct Pyth% Luck 1 Michigan State .800 .756 .044 2 Ohio State [...]

Team WinPct Pyth% Luck 1 Michigan State .800 .761 .039 2 Ohio State .650 .620 .030 3 Michigan .571 .611 -.040 4 Illinois .500 .588 -.088 5 Purdue .550 .585 -.035 6 Indiana .545 .517 .028 7 Minnesota .333 .437 -.104 8 Penn State .429 .374 .055 9 Iowa .400 .344 .056 10 Northwestern .261 [...]

As we enter Big Ten play, here’s the conference standings based on the teams’ Pythagorean Winning Percentages. For the uninitiated, the Pythagorean Win Percentage is a formula invented by the legendary Bill James that projects a teams expected winning percentage based on the number of runs that they score and the number of runs that [...]

I had planned on switching to a Pythagorean Standings using just conference data but I’ve been unable to find conference only statistics that I can easily access, so we’re sticking with the overall rankings. Team Runs Scored Runs Allowed Pyth % Delta 1 Minnesota 276 196 0.665 -0.028 2 Ohio State 338 253 0.641 -0.115 [...]

Later in the week, I’ll calculate the standings just using conference results. Team Runs Scored Runs Allowed Pyth % Delta 1 Ohio State 282 190 0.688 -0.100 2 Minnesota 206 148 0.660 -0.007 3 Illinois 205 157 0.630 -0.094 4 Penn State 241 213 0.561 -0.014 5 Michigan. 217 197 0.548 -0.046 6 Indiana 240 [...]

Whenever I post these I am alway impressed with how close to the actual standings they come out. These are through Sunday’s games. Team Runs Scored Runs Allowed Pyth % Delta 1 Ohio State 192 118 0.726 -0.124 2 Minnesota 132 88 0.692 0.008 3 Michigan. 150 103 0.680 -0.057 4 Illinois 132 100 0.635 [...]

  Team Runs Scored Runs Allowed Pyth % Delta 1 Michigan. 115 70 0.730 -0.104 2 Minnesota 73 45 0.725 -0.003 3 Ohio State 96 67 0.672 -0.128 4 Illinois 66 56 0.581 -0.196 5 Penn State 58 58 0.500 0.000 6 Indiana 62 68 0.454 0.054 7 Purdue 58 85 0.318 0.095 8 Michigan [...]

Time to introduce the Pythagorean Standings:   Team Runs Scored Runs Allowed Pyth % Delta 1 Ohio State 67 42 0.718 -0.282 2 Illinois 47 31 0.697 -0.136 3 Michigan. 73 58 0.613 -0.165 4 Indiana 38 31 0.600 0.000 5 Minnesota 40 35 0.566 -0.148 6 Purdue 42 45 0.466 0.132 7 Michigan St [...]

Team Runs Scored Runs Allowed Pyth % Delta 1 Michigan. 434 248 0.754 -0.024 2 Ohio State 360 298 0.593 0.038 3 Purdue 334 277 0.592 0.037 4 Illinois 393 351 0.556 -0.010 5 Indiana 396 376 0.526 0.026 6 Iowa 384 409 0.469 0.069 7 Northwestern 309 345 0.445 0.017 8 Penn State 305 [...]

Michigan remains atop the heap in both their real and projected win percentages. Illinois has managed to squeak past Purdue into second. Michigan State and Penn State by all APMRmetric standards should be at the bottom of the conference, yet they somehow manage to win enough games that they are battling it out for the [...]

Penn State inched up another spot to eighth in the conference despite giving up a ton of runs, forty nine to be exact, to Illinois in the four game set this weekend. It helped that the Nits also scored forty two on the Illini hurlers. Still the Nits projection is significantly behind their actual winning [...]