Sports Info Solutions

Last week we introduced updates to our all-encompassing football player value stat, Total Points. Total Points is a product of years of research by our football analytics team in attempting to put a number to what every player on the field does on a given play. Our director of football analytics, Alex Vigderman explains this further in this video clip from our most recent Off The Charts podcast episode. If you'd like to learn more about Total Points, you can read our primer that fully explains it https://lnkd.in/eBv-55Qh You can also check out our recently-announced updates https://lnkd.in/eZJKhEgy And listen to the Off The Charts Football Podcast https://lnkd.in/e43Austt

We'll be at Saberseminar in Chicago this weekend, represented by Joe Rosales and James Weaver. It's a great conference that brings together the baseball analytics community for a good cause. If you're there, please be sure to say hello. https://lnkd.in/gqggCRg6

Football data can be challenging to work with because there are so many moving parts on a given play. Our director of football analytics, Alex Vigderman, has some tips for doing so. He suggests you keep these things in mind: 1) Football is a team sport - How much did the offensive line contribute to a running back's big game? Was a down year for a wide receiver because of him or the quarterback? What about the defenses they faced? Player interactions abound, and most stats don't even bother trying to attack the question of individual responsibility. 2) Context matters - Players are on the field in different situations based on their skill set and coaching decisions. This can make comparing statistics difficult. Is this player only on the field in short yardage situations or third-and-long? How much of the team's offensive output came in garbage time? These sorts of things should be thought out. 3) Samples get small quickly - With only 17 games a year and only a hundred or so plays per game, it's difficult to establish a solid body of statistical evidence for a lot of things in football. Slicing things down to specific game situations or route types or coverage schemes only makes the margins tighter. Be careful with how confident you feel in a finding based on a single-season split. The SIS Research & Development team has put years of work into creating an all-encompassing player value stat, Total Points. This stat incorporates everything that happens during a game and assigns value to every player on the field. We recently made some updates to our calculation of Total Points, which you can find here along with NFL leaderboards. #NFL #football #footballanalytics #TotalPoints https://lnkd.in/eZJKhEgy  

Take us with you on the go - with our baseball and football podcasts! Every 2 weeks on The Sports Info Solutions Baseball Podcast, Mark Simon interviews some of the best defensive players in baseball about how they do what they do. Guests this year include Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno, Nationals center fielder Jacob Young, and most recently, Angels shortstop Zach Neto. Mark also talks team broadcasters like Jason Benetti and writers from Fangraphs, Inc. and Baseball Prospectus about important baseball topics. https://lnkd.in/eurM2Mq3 On the Off the Charts Football Podcast, Bryce Rossler, the SIS Research & Development team, and football writers and podcasters convene each week  and utilize scouting and stats to dissect upcoming games and talk about pertinent football topics. Recent guests include Derik Klassen, Matty F. Brown, and Justis Mosqueda. Bryce just finished 8 episodes of comprehensive division previews. https://lnkd.in/dVYs3uD5 Check both of these out wherever you get your podcasts!

Our Stat of the Week looks at Royals superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and how defenses are having such a hard time with batted balls he hits on which they'd normally get outs https://lnkd.in/ehi3ubMT

Thanks to Orioles pitching strategy coach Ryan Klimek for speaking to our team today. Ryan is one of 2 MLB coaches who are SIS alums, as he's carved a path to the major leagues that many of our folks hope to emulate. Ryan talked about his career, his job, how he watches baseball, the tools he uses, and how important the communication aspect is to doing well in his job. A great educational experience for our Video Scouts!

Video Scouts are paid to watch baseball every day. Sounds like fun ... and it is. But it's a lot of detail-oriented work too. Video Scouts scrutinize everything that happens in a baseball game from first pitch to last out in the majors, minors, college, and overseas. A Video Scout's job goes well beyond basic scorekeeping. "What I've learned is that everything can be analyzed," said current Video Scout Liam Gaughan. "From the basics of fielder positioning and pitch types all the way to third base coaching tendencies and umpire strike zones there is always something being evaluated. Whatever the statistic might be, it can help create the smallest advantage for a team to win." Video Scouts chart all of that information on customized software that feeds a database with more than 20 years of our data. Their work is shared with MLB teams for them to use in strategic decision making (as well as to resources like FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference and Rotowire). It's also used by our R&D team for statistical analysis and our content team for the articles and notes you see on our website and on social media. Our most prominent alumni are working in MLB dugouts (MLB coaches Ryan Klimek and Tommy Kawamura) and even running baseball operations for MLB teams (Rays president Erik Neander). Many others are doing anything and everything in the major leagues and minor leagues - business, analytics, player development, and much more. Some of our alumni even continue working for us. "One of the cool things about being a Video Scout is being able to work with other people who share the same passions as me. It's great being able to talk to co-workers about MLB players, stats, and prospects," said operations analyst, Nick Rabasco, a successful past Video Scout. We're proud of our Baseball Video Scout alums at SIS and hope to continue to develop many more in our future.

A welcome to the more than 80 Football Video Scouts who began working for us this week! Though we got our start in baseball, we've built a robust football business that began in 2016 with the goal of being able to chart NFL and college football games with a level of detail like no one else. Our Video Scout alumni include men and women working for NFL and college football teams, as well as for NFL Network and ESPN. They also work in notable roles within our company. Best of luck to those in our class of 2024!

Each month for the last several years we've rewarded the top defensive players in MLB with a "Defensive Player of the Month" designation. This July, the top defensive players in baseball Andrés Giménez of the Guardians and Daulton Varsho of the Blue Jays. Normally it's quite difficult to select these players because the sample size is small and there's usually a cluster of players with similar stats. But both of these players had extraordinary months, two of the best we've seen in the time we handed out this award. At SIS, we take pride in our ability to measure defensive excellence.. We can confidently say that both Giménez and Varsho are well deserving. They're two of the best defensive players in the game. https://lnkd.in/eXyj6RQM

Don't miss next Monday's brand new episode in our AI in Action series of The Alldus Podcast as host JP Valentine chats with Sujoy Ganguly, CTO at Sports Info Solutions. Check out this short teaser as Sujoy explains how sports analytics data is now highly detailed, enabling analysis of defense, shooting mechanics & biomechanics to enhance insights across Basketball, Baseball and gradually American Football. Full episode drops 07/22 so stay tuned to alldus.com/podcasts or wherever you get your favorite podcasts so you don't miss it #aiinaction #sports #dataanalytics #artificialintelligence #podcast