(06-04-2014 03:41 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 03:14 PM)boydnation Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 11:56 AM)grol Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 11:29 AM)I45owl Wrote:  As an aside, did anyone else catch the ridiculous discussion about the "people" at Boyds world from Ben McDonald et al? Boyd has been running stats going back nearly to the time that Ben McDonald was at LSU (if not longer), though I don't think the ISR is quite that old. I would have thought that they'd be better informed about who Boyd is and the history of the ISR and the fact that it's pretty much one guy putting up the website.

Interesting. I didn't catch that as I had them on mute often. Par for the course with announcers who generally don't follow college baseball.

I suppose I should start watching TV more often. Anyone want to clue me in as to the context and to whether I should be spinning up the PR department or the legal department?

Boyd

I think it's available on ESPN3... if I can find the right location in the game (much less the right game), I'll let you know. They said something along the lines of you being in need of rebranding ... "sounds too much like wayne's world". Aside from that, I think they talked about likelihoods of advancing in some scenario and talked about you in the plural ("the staff at boyd's world") or something like that.

I'd have assumed that the college baseball world was small enough that they'd be very familiar with you along with Sorenson, Kendall Rogers, Jeremy Mills, and Mr. Carr (FSU alum) ... I've long imagined a bar somewhere in Omaha with that group around the table and a collection of half-filled mugs...

edit: the game had to have been Rice v UT, Rice v TAMU, or UT v TAMU from the Houston regional.

7th inning of Rice vs. TAMU on Sunday afternoon (1 out, runner on 1st). ESPN3 showed 2:58:30 or so.

Tom Hart Wrote:You know, the folks at Boyd's World dot com... Great website, bad name ... you know, let's put some college baseball in that title. I'm not sure who boyds is, but reminds me of wayne's world. But Boyd's world, the do some a fantastic job, especially with the RPI. .... They're odds... they had Texas winning this regional by mere percentage points over Rice. ...

Ben McDonald Wrote:Well, mainly that was a lot to do with their pitching staff...the Texas staff is sooo deep...

(06-05-2014 09:06 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

Tom Hart Wrote:You know, the folks at Boyd's World dot com... Great website, bad name ... you know, let's put some college baseball in that title. I'm not sure who boyds is, but reminds me of wayne's world. But Boyd's world, the do some a fantastic job, especially with the RPI. .... They're odds... they had Texas winning this regional by mere percentage points over Rice. ...

I had forgotten the "especially with the RPI" nugget.

(06-05-2014 11:52 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  I had forgotten the "especially with the RPI" nugget.

Yeah, I cringed with both of those comments. RPI is a sideshow of boydsword and Ben McDonald seemed to think that all of the contributors on boydsworld.com sat around and discussed the virtues of every aspect of each team before they submitted their probability votes.

As a final aside, I believe in the ISR and probabilities when used across a broad range of games. On any given weekend, I think the likelihoods are skewed significantly more on matchups than on probabilities derived from aggregate results. I think Mademen will find that UT is tougher than he thought, but my prediction would all hinge on how well the UH Friday and Saturday starters do. I would expect that UH would probably have a good chance (~60+%) of advancing if they make it to Sunday.

145Owl: As Boyd has said, there's scarcely enough games in the college season to create good statistical data. And you are right that it all comes down to starting pitching at the SR. Best 2 out of 3 and who's hot.

Boyd: As for being mentioned on ESPN, I think any publicity is good publicity. Maybe during the SR's and CWS you can get a gig as a color guy (and set them straight). Talk to our buddy Eric for style pointers. You may have to shave your head.

An AP story on Yahoo sports gives the amounts of the bids from UH and UT (first time I've seen the actual numbers):

"But the Longhorns have a bigger stadium and, according to the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, guaranteed the NCAA gross revenue of $253,250 for a three-game series. Houston promised $135,787."

(06-05-2014 12:41 PM)grol Wrote:  145Owl: As Boyd has said, there's scarcely enough games in the college season to create good statistical data. And you are right that it all comes down to starting pitching at the SR. Best 2 out of 3 and who's hot.

Boyd: As for being mentioned on ESPN, I think any publicity is good publicity. Maybe during the SR's and CWS you can get a gig as a color guy (and set them straight). Talk to our buddy Eric for style pointers. You may have to shave your head.

Oh, I figured out long ago that there wasn't enough blood in that particular turnip to bother trying to squeezing it, and, unlike Eric, I have a face for radio. Mostly I was just curious about who was involved, since I've swapped email with one or two of the ESPN crew and figure they'd probably at least know my name.

In fairness, they did better than the NY Times/NPR piece last year that (small thing) called me a "blogger" and (big thing) got the facts right but the point completely wrong on the story. It's sort of cool to be name-checked on Weekend Edition, but having it happen where it's obvious that they just spent 30 seconds on Google kind of takes the wind out of it.

(06-04-2014 11:53 AM)grol Wrote:  Boyd confirmed that the SR predictions included home field advantage.

He used "normal HFA" in his probabilities and pointed out that super regionals were more home-friendly than normal.

While I suspect this is true in the aggregate, I doubt that the UT-UH SR is more home-friendly than normal. His comment is likely based on the large number of long-distance SRs (e.g. UCI @ Stillwater, Stanford @ Nashville, CoC @ Lubbock)

ETA: OT but speaking of Lubbock: http://www.kcbd.com/story/25703327/lubbo...in-america

"At least we don't live in Lubbock..."

for the young'ens ... that was one of our mid-80s chants behind the Texas Tech bench.

(06-05-2014 08:25 AM)Mademen Wrote:  

(06-05-2014 08:01 AM)I45owl Wrote:  Note: I followed up with Boyd and he found that his code had assumed that Houston would host after knocking off LSU. That means that the odds calculated were as if Houston had hosted (Texas would have a slight statistical advantage travelling to UH). The home advantage for UH was canceled by recent tourney experience (he goes back five years). With a 10% advantage for home plus experience, the overall odds of UT advancing have now changed to 67.4% for UT and 32.6% for UH. Mississippi now has the best odds of advancing from a road super-regional at 40.7%.

Even Boyd's computer knew we got screwed j/k. If you want to take a nice summer vacation, take the Cougars as the +250 underdog. They are clearly the better team playing better ball right now. That doesn't mean they are guaranteed to win, but I don't anticipate Texas being tougher to beat than LSU.

If you were at home with those odds, I would even bite...

Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the kids from the College of Charleston when they get off the plane in Lubbock?

(06-05-2014 08:13 PM)grol Wrote:  Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the kids from the College of Charleston when they get off the plane in Lubbock?