Longest Tennis Match Ever, Round II

I thought that I'd do a simple time comparison Mahut vs. Isner rematch at this year's Wimbeldon. The match went only 2 hours 5 minutes this year, which is an incredible 6 times quicker than the match from 2010, which spanned 11 hours and 5 minutes. Or a work-day for the average person shorter.

My first thoughts for comparisons were long international flights which worked out pretty well. Assuming that a plane is big enough for a tennis match (unrealistic) they could have replayed the match from 2010 with a few extra minutes for take-off and landing on either side. That would have even been a little tight though. Speaking of which, why don't we have major sports games in planes? Seems like an interesting (albeit expensive) idea or maybe that's just me.

A came across this link yesterday related to the event which I found rather humerus. I'd recommend picking it up around the 3:30/3:45 mark.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jun/23/wimbledon-2010-tennis-live

Sources:
www.delta.com (airline chosen at random)
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/wimbledon11/columns/story?columnist=garber_greg&id=6687954

2011 NBA Finals Salary Comparison

Initially I thought that all NBA teams were created (on funded) equally, however upon doing more research it appears that there is quite a gap in the league's spending between the top and the bottom. More on this in a future post. For today I wanted to do a line by line comparison of the Mavericks and Heat to see where the money was going and if there was a significant difference between the "Big 3" versus Dallas's singular star. (Aside - I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it was an interesting homage or reference to the Dallas Cowboys singular star logo.)

As expected the bulk of the Heat's spending went into the top three. Everyone already knows this though. What I found interesting though was how much the Maverick's 4th through 9th players make in comparison to the Heat's same players. You can see in the plot how big the gap is, in many cases well over two to three times the money. Beyond that, the salary for slots two and three, the only ones held by the Heat, aren't as big of a gap as one might think (roughly $5.5 million total)

I think that the main reason for this difference in spending levels between the teams comes from the disparity between how much the Heat (~$68 million) and Mavericks (~$90 million) pay out each year. You're looking at nearly $22 million in difference or in player terms, Caron Butler and Jason Terry. Perhaps the Heat were at a disadvantage more-so because of the spending differences than the lack of a point guard or dominant inside presence. If the Heat were to drop that extra money on players, to catch up to the Mavericks, those holes could have been filled. It will be interesting to see if this spending difference issue is addressed during the impending NBA lockout.

Sources: Team and Player salary pages from www.hoopsworld.com and www.hoopshype.com

Cost per Win - Baseball

So my first thought for this posting was to do a salary comparison or "cost per win" sort of metric for this 2011 MLB season. However, thinking more about those plots I came up with very basic flaws. The straight salary would only tell you that the Yankees ($201 Mil), Phillies ($171 Mil), and Red Sox ($161 Mil) spend a crap load of money every year, especially in comparison to teams like the Padres ($45 Mil), Rays ($41 Mil), and Royals ($36 Mil). Though, looking at slaries I was kind of surprised to see Giants kick in at #8 with $118 Mil. I guess that I always pictured them as this smaller market team (read $70-80 million) with homegrown talent and less big money players (well outside of Zito).

The second thought of a "cost per win" weighted by the number of games played by each team. This weighting is necessary as some teams have played 70 games and others only 65 games, representing a 3% of the season difference. However, when presented individually, this "cost per win" metric is also flawed because it will only generate highly positive results for teams that don't spend any money, but still might be terrible, and therefore have low costs per each win. This was affirmed with the Royals, Rays, Pirates, Padres, and Indians leading the way.

The final plot that I'm posting is a composite of cost per win and record. I've given record a two times multiplier, because who cares if your players costs are cheap if your team doesn't produce? Teams near the top of the plot have found a good balance of player cost and productivity, while teams at the bottom ... not so much.

I'm pretty happy with the results of this, as you can see the Cubs, Twins, and Astros checking in near the end due to poor records and/or financial management while the surprising Brewers and Indians join the Rays near the top. I was also surprised to see two things. One, the Phillies checking in around 8 and the Yankees at 12, proving that you can spend money to win. Two, that all the teams who spend significant money (ie top 10) are bunched into two clumps, as noted by the blue bars, one in the 8-12 range and another in the bottom 10 range.

Source: www.ESPN.com

Early 2011 Verlander

Justin Verlander has turned around his 2011 in a pretty astounding way. He started off pitching pretty rough until the no-hitter on May 7th, carrying an ERA 3.75 and a 2-3 record into that game. While those aren't terrible numbers, you'd want a little better out of your number one pitcher.

However, starting at the no-hitter through the start last night (6/14) he's posted an ERA of 1.84 and rattled off 6 wins over 8 decisions. Further, if you remove the 6 earned in 6 innings nightmare on May 24th, which Detroit still won 7-6, his ERA drops to an astounding 1.09 over those 7 starts.

Beyond this hot-streak he's also carrying a sub-one WHIP (.089) and has posted 105 strikeouts in 114 innings of work this season. The strikeout numbers are a shade lower than last season, but you really can't argue with the results of what he's done this year. He's now up to 3 nine inning games (two shutouts) and 8 appearances (of 15) where he's gone 8 innings or more and allowed three runs or less. It will be fun to watch him pitch over the rest of the year and hopefully he doesn't suffer a fate similar to Ubaldo Jimenez in 2010 (hot start, poor finish).

Source: www.ESPN.com