3 Comments

  1. James Cohane
    February 3, 2018 @ 2:11 pm

    I would like to see an analysis of the “value” of each position. My hypothesis is that the 2 most “valuable” positions are FOGO and goalie. But I don’t have any data to support this.

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    • Zack
      February 4, 2018 @ 8:40 pm

      Thanks for the suggestion James. I’m curious how you are defining value though? In an analysis like this, hardest part is probably to narrow in on defining the problem.

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      • James Cohane
        February 5, 2018 @ 11:43 am

        Zack – thanks for the reply. I am not a stats guy, so I am out of my depth on this, but my hypothesis is that the 2 players that have the most (i.e., have a disproportionate) influence on the outcome of a game are: 1) FOGO, 2) Goalie. Wrt the FOGO – if you have a great FOGO, you will have more possessions -> more goals -> higher probability of winning. Likewise, wrt the Goalie – if you have a great goalie, you will give up fewer goals (and have more possessions) -> higher probability of winning. Put another way, if you were building a roster from scratch, I would think you would start with FOGO and Goalie, because if you are weak at either position, that will potentially negate your strengths at other positions (Attack, Middie, Defense). Another way to express this idea is that if you had to choose between adding an above-average FOGO or Goalie and an above-average player at any other position, I would always pick the FOGO or Goalie. So these 2 players are extremely “valuable”. Having said all of this, I don’t know how you would go about testing my hypothesis. Happy to discuss more if you like.

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