Comments on Sons of Steve Garvey: Debunking the Myth: Winning Streaks

...and I stand ready to graph said trend in Rebecc...

2008-07-16T14:19:33.783-07:00

...and I stand ready to graph said trend in Rebecca's comment awesomeness.

Seriously Rebecca thanks for stopping by. I have actually come across your book before though have not read it. It's good to hear that real mathematicians have reached the same conclusion as I did (at least in this instance).

Rebecca,That is an awesome comment (which I believ...

2008-07-15T21:40:30.173-07:00

Rebecca,

That is an awesome comment (which I believe is your first on SoSG; welcome and thank you!).

I have a feeling your next comment will be equally awesome, and the one after that will maintain the awesome trend. Keep them coming!

Jim Albert has written some academic papers on str...

2008-07-15T16:25:28.557-07:00

Jim Albert has written some academic papers on streaks in baseball -- his findings agree with yours, that there is no more streakiness than would happen randomly. He has looked at hitting streaks for individual players and winning streaks for teams, I believe.

Within a game, I was a co-author of an article in Statistical Thinking in Sports which looked at momentum within a game. We didn't find evidence of momentum once we included controls for ability and other variables.

Momentum and streakiness are either hard to find or very rare.

But wouldn't that mean they're facing a fifth star...

2008-07-11T16:18:32.011-07:00

But wouldn't that mean they're facing a fifth starter as well?

The fact that teams tend to lose after they've won...

2008-07-11T14:13:48.815-07:00

The fact that teams tend to lose after they've won 3 or 4 in a row might have to do with pitching rotations. For a staff where one pitcher is notably inferior, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a lot of 4-win streaks come in games where the #1, #2, #3, #4 starters pitch -- and then the team is more likely to lose when the fifth starter comes up.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. You're right. Back to th...

2008-05-28T06:11:48.497-07:00

Dammit, dammit, dammit. You're right. Back to the drawing board...

EK, I have found yet another flaw to your logic: N...

2008-05-27T21:29:29.218-07:00

EK, I have found yet another flaw to your logic: NBA Jam. After hitting three baskets in a row, one's player would hear "He's on fire!" and proceed to drain every outside shot from there on. In fact, the only thing the defense could do would be to foul the crap out of the player to stop the streak.

I haven't run your model on this dataset, but I don't think it holds.

Dusto: thanks.Cigarcow: Yeah, I agree the '02 A's ...

2008-05-27T13:57:30.586-07:00

Dusto: thanks.

Cigarcow: Yeah, I agree the '02 A's and particularly the '07 Rockies may have hit a hot streak. I guess I'm saying 99.9% of the time when we collectively say a team is on a hot streak or "in the zone" it's really just being good and/or lucky. The other 0.1% of the time it's things like the '07 Rockies.

Quad: I see business at Red 5 Research is still slow. Hang in there. And you're right on with the coin flip analogy, particularly for 0.500 teams. Lookup 'binomial distribution' on wikipedia (or wookieepedia if you prefer).

I have way too much free time at work...I thought ...

2008-05-27T13:36:09.793-07:00

I have way too much free time at work...

I thought the win/loss relationship seemed very similar to the heads/tails relationship of flipping a coin. Fielding errors, bad pitching, and weak hitting accounts for the randomness in baseball, while coin rollage, hitting my foot, chair, or desk accounts for the randomness in coin flips. I simulated a full season with heads being a win, and tails being a loss. I ended up with a record of 85-77 and a slightly better winning percentage after a win than overall. Then I looked at the records from last year and found that my record was the same as the Cubs.

Guess I'll use this quarter to buy me some DoubleMint Gum since it won't last long in the playoffs.

Apparently English is hard, too.

2008-05-27T13:27:30.778-07:00

Apparently English is hard, too.

The Rockies of '07 are seem to me like an indicato...

2008-05-27T13:27:06.866-07:00

The Rockies of '07 are seem to me like an indicator that hot streaks do exist. Because clearly they are not a good team.

Math is hard.

Wow! Great stuff!I guess my thought on "streaks" i...

2008-05-27T12:12:23.322-07:00

Wow! Great stuff!

I guess my thought on "streaks" is that eventually the team will play to their average. If they win 5 in a row, they like will lose 5 in a row if they are a 500 team.

Naturally I think the Dodgers will will 162 in a row. Is that asking for too much?