… If David Ortiz‘s 2016 season hadn’t occurred so recently, perhaps we would be taking greater notice of Beltre’s campaign.
What’s remarkable about Beltre, to me, is how consistent his skill set has remained at a time when the game has become so extreme. Consider the changes Beltre has seen in the second half of his career. Pitchers’ velocities have increased every year in the PITCHf/x era. Breaking stuff has benefited from the result of increased arm speed. Bullpens have become more specialized. And yet, here are Beltre’s swinging-strike rates from the last seven seasons: 7.6%, 8.5%, 7%, 7.3%, 7.6%, 7.1%, and 7.5%.
New Cavaliers point guard Isaiah Thomas is set to arrive Sunday and begin his rehab work on his injured right hip with team doctors and training staff on Tuesday.
The Cavs don’t have a timetable of return for Thomas, the 5-9, two-time All-Star who was the biggest name player Cleveland received in exchange for Kyrie Irving. Multiple sources told cleveland.com the team “is not going to rush it” with Thomas, but is optimistic he’ll return to the court in the 2017-18 season and play at his usually high level.
Giancarlo Stanton isn’t only in the midst of a Most Valuable Player-type season. He is turning in one of the most valuable seasons in baseball history, one worth more than $100 million.
Only a handful of players are capable of nine-figure singles seasons, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with ability. In Stanton’s case, it is relative to his $325 million contract, the largest in American sports history, and how he not only rescued the Miami Marlins from caving under the weight of it but put them in a perfect position to profit off it.
… Vanney, 43, is Toronto FC’s longest-serving and most successful coach, having won back-to-back Canadian Championships and having guided the team to last year’s MLS Cup final. He’s also the first coach in franchise history to earn a second contract – he signed a new deal in July.
On the occasion of his three-year anniversary, Vanney sat down for a lengthy, one-on-one chat with Sportsnet to discuss a variety of subject. In part one, Vanney talked about his coaching influences, his reflections on the MLS Cup final loss, how he balances his family and professional life, and much more.
In part two, below, Vanney discusses his working relationship with GM Tim Bezbatchenko, which TFC player reminds him the most of himself, his future at the club, and more.
… McDermott’s trajectory ascended with persistence. He grew up an Eagles fan in suburban Philly, found a way inside his hometown organization and kept getting promoted.
Until the day his life changed forever.
“He had 12 years there,” his father, Rich McDermott, said. “It was a nice, floating boat with no choppy waves.
“Then the way it slid, it became a total disaster.”
Reid fired Sean McDermott after the 2010 season, the first time in Reid’s dozen years as Eagles coach he’d fired a coordinator.
… “My club here is actually a well renowned basketball club with different sections to it,” says McKinstry. “It works a bit like Barcelona, except obviously there the basketball club plays second fiddle to football. Our club logo has a basketball, which gives you a good indication of how popular basketball is in this country. But equally, it’s an incredible opportunity and a challenge. This is an organisation used to getting results at the highest level and we need to work and build the football club up from the bottom which is obviously something that appeals to me.”
McKinstry understands the concept of building up a football organisation from the ground floor better than most managers. A young man who came from Lisburn in Northern Ireland with no experience as a professional player, he decided as a teenager that coaching would offer him the best opportunity to work at the highest level of the game. He made his name coaching youth sides at New York Red Bulls and, after working at Craig Bellamy’s foundation in Sierra Leone, he eventually found his niche in Africa.
… No doubt, the time-trial represents a long and honored tradition. Still, it has limitations. “A lot of the runners, especially the young ones, go out way too fast and blow up,” Jeff notes. “That means it’s not a good gauge of their fitness, or how to plan their training. Plus, it’s so demoralizing to the ones in the back. How can anyone pretend it’s a positive race experience for them?
Jeff calls his better way the “coaches’ challenge.” Basically, it amounts to a series of controlled-pace 3200-meter races on the track, with each runner placed in an appropriate heat. Special guests and alums are invited to pace each group. They alone are given the goal time selected by Jeff and the other Hall coaches. None of the high school runners knows what the pace will be, and they are not allowed to wear a watch.
As Greater Western Sydney strives to claim the AFL’s Holy Grail — the premiership cup — the club’s academy director is searching for his own version of the mythical Christian drinking vessel.
John Quinn’s quest is to find a way to measure and train a crucial mental aspect of sports performance – decision-making. While athletes have long pushed the boundaries of physical development, Quinn is desperate to unlock the secret behind some players’ ability to appear to make time slow down as they make multiple, quick-fire decisions under pressure.
Anders Ericsson is the Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, and an expert on the science and psychology of expert performance. Award-winning podcaster David Burkus recently hosted him on Radio Free Leader to talk about the real research behind Malcolm Gladwell’s famous 10,000 Hour Rule, and how true expertise emerges from the quality, not simply the quantity, of training.
David: What is everybody getting wrong about the 10,000 Hour Rule?
Anders: Malcolm Gladwell came up with this idea of a 10,000 Hour Rule. He emphasized the almost magical aspect, that when individuals have spent 10,000 hours [practicing something,] they are then able to make contributions. One example that he gave was the Beatles.
He was citing our work, but unfortunately, he misread it a bit.
Player unavailability negatively affects team performance in elite football. However, whether player unavailability and its concomitant performance decrement is mediated by any changes in teams’ match physical outputs is unknown. We examined whether the number of players injured (i.e. unavailable for match selection) was associated with any changes in teams’ physical outputs. DESIGN:
Prospective cohort study. METHODS:
Between-team variation was calculated by correlating average team availability with average physical outputs. Within-team variation was quantified using linear mixed modelling, using physical outputs – total distance, sprint count (efforts over 20km/h), and percent of distance covered at high speeds (>14km/h) – as outcome variables, and player unavailability as the independent variable of interest. To control for other factors that may influence match physical outputs, stage (group stage/knockout), venue (home/away), score differential, ball possession (%), team ranking (UEFA Club Coefficient), and average team age were all included as covariates. RESULTS:
Teams’ average player unavailability was positively associated with the average number of sprints they performed in matches across two seasons. Multilevel models similarly demonstrated that having 4 unavailable players was associated with 20.8 more sprints during matches in 2015/2016, and with an estimated 0.60-0.77% increase in the proportion of total distance run above 14km/h in both seasons. Player unavailability had a possibly positive and likely positive association with total match distances in the two respective seasons. CONCLUSIONS:
Having more players injured and unavailable for match selection was associated with an increase in teams’ match physical outputs.
… Scientists at the University of Sussex have developed an algorithm that takes smartwatches to the next level. It enables the device to both detect and record everything that you do, without instruction. Existing watches are programmed to detect only specific activities, like when you are running, doing yoga, even sitting still. But this algorithm bypasses such instruction.
Hristijan Gjoreski of the University of Sussex said in a press release, “Current activity-recognition systems usually fail because they are limited to recognizing a predefined set of activities, whereas of course human activities are not limited and change with time.” He continued in stating that, “Here we present a new machine-learning approach that detects new human activities as they happen in real time, and which outperforms competing approaches.”
As Hy-Vee explored an expansion to the standalone restaurant business, it was the success of an in-store offering that showed it where to look.
Specifically, it was the association with actor Mark Wahlberg’s Performance Inspired sports nutrition products line that led to this week’s announcement that the chain would build and operate 26 Wahlburgers restaurants, becoming the largest franchisee of the chain founded by the Wahlberg family, said Jeremy Gosch, EVP and chief merchandising officer for Hy-Vee.
The players are gone for the day but work at Huddersfield Town AFC’s training ground is far from over.
A group of IT experts are busy installing new servers in a storage cupboard behind the press auditorium, while the occasional loud bang from across the hall betrays efforts to get the recently completed players’ lounge up and running. Right next door, a couple of elderly gentlemen are immersed in a game of snooker, impervious to the commotion. Huddersfield might have hit the big time in football, but they’re still sharing their complex — including the canteen — with gym members and bowling, croquet and hockey players from the local community. And why not?
“The Leicester City Fairytale?” : Utilizing new soccer analytics tools to compare performance in the 15/16 and 16/17 EPL seasons Ruiz et al., KDD’17
In England the cricket season is coming to a close and a new football (soccer) season is getting underway. Today’s paper choice is a bit of fun from the recent KDD’17 conference, where the data scientists from stats.com look into what can be learned from Leicester City’s winning 2015/16 season. Along the way, they develop a strategic gameplay features model that goes behind the usual shots on target etc., and proves useful in predicting the outcomes of games.