Certified Legendary Thread The Squiggle is back in 2023 (and other analytics)

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Forward Press said:
There is.

However, what would be a realistic solution to this? Umpires are always swayed by home crowds, numerous studies have proved this.
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We can see with our own eyes how easily the umpires can be swayed by the regular gun full forward v full back contests. The full back (no need to be partisan, basically they all do it) will hang off the full forward all day, the full forward being a Shaquille O'Neal-esque victim of his own size.

So the umpire ultimately gets fed up after it's happened a dozen times and pays a free kick for an easy shot at goal to the howls of injustice from the players and supporters of the infringing team.

What happens the next time the ball goes in? Nothing. It doesn't matter what the defender does, no way is the big key forward getting two free kicks in a row. You've got your one alloted free kick for the day Jack, Josh, Buddy, Jeremy, Roughy, Tom, Jesse, Charlie...shut up and cop it for the rest of the game.
 
Joao said:
Would you be comfortable saying there is definitely something going on in West Coast home games? Looks like Port is up there too.
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Anyone with a basic knowledge of stats could look at that West Coast number and conclude that there is 'something' going on.
 

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Forward Press said:
There is.

However, what would be a realistic solution to this? Umpires are always swayed by home crowds, numerous studies have proved this.

In the end, as people like to say, it is far more important where free kicks are paid, and where free kicks are missed. Raw numbers by themselves is just one set of data that anyone can twist to suit their agenda.

For example, I can say that in games where sides commonly accumulate 300 possessions a game, an extra 1.3% given by the umpires is barely significant.
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Yes, I think a lot of it is unavoidable. You just can't expect human beings to remain 100% objective while they sprint around a field making repeated 50/50 calls for two hours in a high-velocity contest where the athletes are deliberately trying to deceive them while tens of thousands of people scream that they're favouring one side.

We COULD make the game easier to umpire, and I wish we would! The classic example for mine is the deliberate out of bounds rule, which could be so simple: "A player may not dispose of the ball in a manner whereby no other player on the field could have intercepted it before it goes out of bounds." Instead, we require umpires to read minds and judge intent, which is just fundamentally and unavoidably error-prone. (And, perversely, it means that players are allowed to boot the ball 40m away and out of bounds but only if they're incompetent and didn't mean it. So we are rewarding lack of skill.)

The goal-line review stuff is similar. I'm not sure why we care whether the ball brushes the post on the way through at all, but okay, if we have to, it's just asking for trouble to give them 25fps cameras and make the whole crowd wait while they hitch back and forth through frames trying to figure out the unfigurable.

The AFL sets umps up to fail in ways like this, which personally I think is a bit corrosive. It's very easy to get upset at the umps and we shouldn't give people reasons to do it.
 
Final Siren said:
Yes, I think a lot of it is unavoidable. You just can't expect human beings to remain 100% objective while they sprint around a field making repeated 50/50 calls for two hours in a high-velocity contest where the athletes are deliberately trying to deceive them while tens of thousands of people scream that they're favouring one side.

We COULD make the game easier to umpire, and I wish we would! The classic example for mine is the deliberate out of bounds rule, which could be so simple: "A player may not dispose of the ball in a manner whereby no other player on the field could have intercepted it before it goes out of bounds." Instead, we require umpires to read minds and judge intent, which is just fundamentally and unavoidably error-prone. (And, perversely, it means that players are allowed to boot the ball 40m away and out of bounds but only if they're incompetent and didn't mean it. So we are rewarding lack of skill.)

The goal-line review stuff is similar. I'm not sure why we care whether the ball brushes the post on the way through at all, but okay, if we have to, it's just asking for trouble to give them 25fps cameras and make the whole crowd wait while they hitch back and forth through frames trying to figure out the unfigurable.

The AFL sets umps up to fail in ways like this, which personally I think is a bit corrosive. It's very easy to get upset at the umps and we shouldn't give people reasons to do it.
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I can’t agree with this more. There are so many rules now which require difficult decisions (or just blatantly clash like below the knees and head high contact) that it’s impossible for umpires to consistently make good/correct decisions. Making it simpler would benefit the players, umpires and punters.

Can you please take over the afl rules committee already?
 
Isaac Cumming No 1 said:
Is it why?
I think it's largely a myth. The biggest joke is the Eagles supposedly hometown umpiring decisions. Last year our most generously umpired game was at Optus against the Eagles.
This year the gameday at thread was full of complaints from neutrals abou8t the supposed Eagies bias but I couldn't fault the decisions.
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You were all over this thread a couple of days ago mate - we haven't seen you since Final Siren posted that stuff about how the eagles have the biggest home game positive differential umpiring in the league. Surely you're still on Big Footy?
 

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Richmond +10 v Melbourne
Essendon v Collingwood +11
Port Adelaide +31 v North Melbourne
Gold Coast v Brisbane +5
St Kilda +10 v Adelaide
Sydney v GWS +23
Fremantle +28 v Western Bulldogs
Hawthorn +6 v Carlton
Geelong +17 v West Coast

8/9. Running total 32/54


1. Geelong 24.4 (+1)
2. Collingwood 20.1 (-1)
3. GWS 12.0 (+1)
4. Essendon 9.9 (+2)
5. Adelaide 7.9 (+4)
6. Fremantle 7.6 (-1)
7. Port Adelaide 6.2
8. West Coast 4.7 (-5)
9. Richmond 3.8 (+1)
10. St Kilda 0.3 (-2)
11. Brisbane -0.6 (+1)
12. Hawthorn -2.5 (-1)
13. Carlton -9.4
14. Western Bulldogs -10.3 (+1)
15. North Melbourne -14.2 (+3)
16. Melbourne -16.2 (-2)
17. Sydney -16.8
18. Gold Coast -17.3 (-2)

Collingwood +20 v Port Adelaide
Melbourne v Hawthorn +14
GWS +17 v St Kilda
Brisbane +25 v Sydney
Western Bulldogs v Richmond +14
West Coast +35 v Gold Coast
Carlton +5 v North Melbourne
Geelong +14 v Essendon
Adelaide +13 v Fremantle
 
West Coasts season according to squiggle:

giphy.gif
 
Dirty Bird said:
8. Essendon 11-11 104%
9. Adelaide 11-11 104.6%
I don’t understand?
Are we breaking the salary cap or on drugs or something?
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I'm doing a bit of work on projected ladders at the moment, so this is a very relevant question!

The short answer is that Essendon are considered more likely than Adelaide to finish higher up the ladder, even though, once you round everything off, they're both projected to win around 11 games (Essendon 11.3, Adelaide 11.2).

The problem that people like me run into is there's plenty of nuance in probability-based predictions, which can't be captured by a ladder. So we have to decide how much predictive accuracy we want to throw away in order to make the ladder conform to the rules of reality, such as that, in this example, Adelaide must finish above Essendon if they both have 11 wins.

A week or two ago, I decided to stop forcing the ladder conform to those rules, since I think it's more valuable to accurately reflect the predicted ranks (i.e. Essendon is considered more likely to finish above Adelaide).

But there are a lot of wacky questions like this, and I'm still messing around with how best to answer them. So the ladder may continue to evolve in the near future.

In the meantime, I think the best ladder projection is this one, which aggregates predictions from a bunch of good models, and prioritizes getting the ranking right: https://squiggle.com.au/ladder/
 
Something else I'm making that you might like: "Who Won the Round?"

This is an algorithmic ranking of teams based on their round-by-round movement in the Projected Ladder. So teams have a good round when they finish it being projected to finish higher up the ladder than before.

The fun bit is that this is only partly determined by their own performance! For example, Geelong had a cracking win, but they were already expected to finish 1st somewhat comfortably, and other teams that might challenge them, like Collingwood, GWS and Richmond, also did pretty well. So there's not a huge net gain for the Cats.

The Crows, on the other hand, revitalized their finals prospects by recording a solid win over a fellow finals aspirant in St Kilda -- a classic 8-pt game, with an above-expectation result -- so this really does make a significant difference to where they're likely to finish.

And Carlton had a pretty good round even though they lost, since they ran the Hawks close enough to suggest they might win a game or two more than previously projected, and additionally, teams that should finish around them performed badly, especially Gold Coast and Sydney. This creates a bit of daylight for the Blues to climb off the bottom and finish above them.
 
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