Championship Weekend 2014

It is here lady and gents, Championship Weekend. The quest to wear the ring that will single handedly mark you as a geek is nearing the end. It has been an exciting season, a wild playoff, and now finally it ends with a matchup that not many saw (if anyone saw it).

First, there are several items I want to discuss with all of the managers about next year that I have at the bottom of this post. So please respond in some form or fashion. I know the season isn't over, but I doubt I will have everyone attention next weekend.

Also, this post is heavy on the numbers and long as it comes in three parts, just like the Godfather... And by me saying that probably half or the three people that might read this have left. I'm left with 1.5 of you now. Let's hop to it.

PART I:
Championship Matchup - 
kindergarten kops v. Mrs. Starr

How they got here: 

kops - Defeated the Manager of the Year and the #1 seed in the playoff, Quixotic Prayer by a score of 98 to 89. Kops is on a four game winning steak and is now 10-6.

Starr - Defeated the Rookie of the Year and the #2 seed in the playoffs, Cobra Kai by a score of 122 to 83. He is riding a five game winning streak and is now 10-6.

BOTH TEAMS- Benefited from the T.Y. Hilton injury. T.Y. has been one of the most productive players for the Cobra Kai squad. He has scored over 20 points in four of his last nine games and over 10 points in six out of his last nine games. Cobra looked to his bench this week and put in Jarvis Landry, who got a solid 1.9 points. Ouch.

And poor Q. Prayer! Andrew Luck, who has been a machine, did not look good without his favorite target in Hilton. Luck has thrown the ball to TY 27 times, has accounted for 200 receiving yards and two touchdowns in the last two games he played. TY has scored at least one TD three of his last four games. Unlucky for Prayer. (I HAD TO DO IT). 

What's the season been like for them? 

kops - A team that was put together by the superior Yahoo algorithms, kindergarten kops was made to be a wrecking machine. First was managed by the son of Son of Luchesse, but who left for a better gig soon after the draft. Brent quickly filled in and has made some solid moves since taking the helm. He has been one of the most consistent teams week in and week out. He has never dropped below 91 points a game.

Starr - first time commish and also had the first draft pick. With an up and down season, he barely made the playoff (another first for him) and has been more lucky than good.

Both teams hail from the Sierra League, the power division, and are well tested.

Tale of the tape:

Cousins by birth, but rivals by nature... I guess? A Seahawks fan and a Forty Niners fan. A BYU fan vs a Ute. Washington State v Nevada. Family Man v Newly Married Man. Rookie v Commissioner. Rebel v Straight Edge. Thick skinned v Thin skinned. This is sure to be a rumble.

They have met twice this season. kops easily won the first matchup in Week 3, with a score of 96 to 54. Starr exacted vengeance in Week 12, beating kops 114 to 92. They both hunt the waiver wire like dogs; Starr has 47 moves as of 12/22 7:32 PM MST and kops has 38 moves as of 12/22 7:33 PM MST.

Figure 1 and 2 shows the breakdown of each team with metrics we have been looking at all year. They are almost dead even in Pts/Game, but after that the similarities end, like all rivals! Kops high score dwarfs Starr's, but the recent trends favor Starr.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 1 is actually Figure 2, just in a bar chart format. It really brings out the differences in the teams statistics. It helps you visualize what those numbers mean. You can really see the difference in height. Neat, huh?

Figure 3 is neat too. This illustrates how these teams have performed as to the number of times they have scored below or above certain bench marks. The distribution for Starr is more even than that of kops, which is further shown in Figures 4 and 5. 

Figure 3

Here is the thing, kops hasn't scored below 90 once. He is due for that, right? Starr sure hopes so. Another stat, while Starr hasn't hit the highs that kops has, he has hit decent marks more.

A normal distribution curve helps explain probability. The issue with our fantasy figures is that they are more random and chaotic; they are not evenly distributed. The below figures detail out the scores and normal distribution of those scores. Its a poor man's chart, but brings an interesting wrinkle. 

Starr's chart resembles more closely to the standard bell curve that is seen in class, evenly distributed. Kops looks more heavily weighted below the mean and sporadic above the mean.

Figure 4

Kops has a mean of ~107 with a standard deviation of ~20. This means that most of his scores, theoretically, fall into the range of 87 to 126.

A small std. dev. is good, as in that it shows consistency. Comparing all the std. dev. I would say that around 20 is where you want to be. The worst teams in the league by record and scoring were below 20.

Starr has a mean of ~105 with a standard deviation of ~22. This means that most of his scores fall into the range of 82 to 127. When Starr misses the mark, they miss hard.

Figure 5

Lets take a look at each team's actual points scored over the year and the the 3 Week Weighted Moving Average (weights of .2, .3, .5 still are used).

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

The consistency of kops really is shown in the above Figures 6-8. However, the upward trend vs the subtle downward and even plateaued trend of kops is seen. 

Okay, with all of this numbers, what does it mean? Honestly, I don't know. This game is all about luck. There are so many factors that affect the game and so many little control the manager has. This is worse than gambling or the stock market (maybe?). The point is that injuries, match-ups, weather, other teammates, etc. all affect the outcome and score of the game. These charts and graphs are rudimentary and not predictive. My analysis relies heavily on past events, which isn't the best way to predict the future.

John was the closest in his model. He successfully predicted that kops would be in and the winner of his game vs Starr would win (he actually said he would win). I said that Q. Prayer and Cobra would be in the finals, but both teams fell short.

I'll pick Starr to take the crown.

Bronze Metal Matchup - 
Quixotic Prayer v. Cobra Kai

If I haven't lost you yet, I commend you.

How they got here: 

Q. Prayer - The number one seed all year. He's led the league in scoring with a total of 1902 points and ~119 a game. After his bye he managed to only put up 89 points, just the second time all year that he hasn't broke 90. Fell short at the wrong time. They are 11-5 and have lost four of their last seven games.

Cobra Kai - The Number two seed all year. The second best team in the league with a total of 1818 points and ~114 points a a game. After his first round by he managed to only put up 83 points, his lowest of the season and the only time he's scored below 90. This was not the time to falter. They are 11-5 as this week's loss was only their second in their last seven games.

Tale of the tape:

This is the matchup that I thought would happen from the very beginning. Two of the teams that arguably drafted the best. Both teams have been hunting the waiver wire, Cobra with 18 moves to Prayer's 26, but didn't rely solely on that area. They have had solid production from a couple of players all year and maybe that is where it hurt them the most.

They have met just one time this season, in week 9 Q. Prayer won 127 to 102. This was also when Prayer looked it's hottest and has since tailed off. In fact, Q. Prayer said that he would lose to Brent. I mean, have some faith! On the other hand, Ben hasn't ever commented on a single post. Is he breathing?! Is Cameron actually managing "his brother's" team?! Wouldn't be the first time that family collusion has happened.

But seriously, Ben you do read these? Or are you like Sean and had no idea that we had a message board and blog going? This would ruin my Christmas.

Figure 9 and 10 tells the story of a fading Prayer and Ninja just getting warmed up.

Figure 9

Figure 10

Most of Prayers big time scoring was done in the early to middle part of the season, while Cobra has put up some big number recently - 160 is week 14.

Figure 11

Prayer has a mean of ~119 and a std. dev. of ~25, giving him a range of 94 to 144. Prayer has the third largest std. dev.

Figure 12

Cobra's curve shows his mean of ~114 and a std. dev. of ~20.

Figure 13

To further explain the trends that the teams are on, lets look at total points v their 3 Week Weighted Moving Average. Both teams had peaks early and in the later half of the season. Both are experiencing a decline in production. Gotta diversify that portfolio bro!

Figure 14 

Figure 15

Figure 16

I don't really see this being a high scoring affair, as both of their star players are facing decent opponents, but again, what the heck do I know? I say Cobra squeaks out a win over the disbelieving Prayer.

PART II: 
Actual Points v. Projected

John asked me to take a look at projected points vs actual and who underperformed. The below graphs aren't the greatest to look at so I will call out some obvious results. Also, I have attached another set of charts illustrating each teams performance.

1.  Yes, John, you underperformed, but you made the playoffs. 
2. Paragon missed his total projected score by ~267 points.  

Figure 17

Figure 18

Figure 19

Figures 20 through 22 are season long totals for each team. Figure 20 shows the total points scored, average, high, low, how many times the team scored below 90, above 100 and so forth. Figure 22 is a graphical representation of scores below 90, above 110 and above 120. 

Figure 20

Figure 21

Figure 22

 In case you were wondering....

PART III: 
Items for Next Season 

1. The Draft. Paragon Heroes has motioned to move to an auction draft rather than the traditional snake draft. For those who do not know what auction drafting is - it is where each manager is allotted a dollar amount and gets to bid on each player; the highest bid wins. 
• This would involve a different strategy and would be more realistic as you are acting as a GM. 
• Beware auto-draft kings. 
• If this is something you are interested in please second the motion and we will vote on it as a league. 
2. Awards. I would like to keep doing the awards, but I do not want to fund it alone. If everyone could pitch in $10 bucks we could continue the awards and get some fun stuff. 
3. Involvement. There are several opportunities that I would like to offer to you managers. If I don't get any volunteers I am happy to nominate someone. 
• Award Selection Committee: I need two people to help me select candidates for awards and choose the awards. 
• CFO: I need a Saul who will help me collect money for the awards.  
• Weekly Roundup: I plan on continuing to provide weekly analysis or some type of write up, but I would appreciate if someone else joined in. Another person would bring a different perspective and insight. 
4. Keeping the league at 12. I think the number of managers we have is perfect and I do not want to add any more. If you do not want to participate in the league next year that is totally fine. Just let me know so we can find a suitable replacement. Sorry if this comes across wrong, as this is not my intent, but I feel like we have a good thing going.