As 17-year-old Canadian winger Alphonso Davies heads to Bayern Munich after this MLS season, TruMedia’s Paul Carr used ProVision to compare him with his MLS peers and other young stars in Europe.
“Should his progression continue, Davies will be the first Canadian international to play in the Bundesliga for Bayern. The eye test, past and present stats, and Bayern’s transfer fee all suggest Davies has a ceiling unmatched by an MLS academy product.”
Full article: OptaPro blog
Read MoreThe Boston Red Sox have launched Wally’s Math Academy, a program that engages elementary and middle-school students by combining their passion for baseball with the math skills they are learning in school. Developed by TruMedia Networks, this powerful application allows educators to quickly generate classroom exercises and take-home worksheets that feature real-time sports content.
Boston News Network segment, featuring TruMedia CEO Rafe Anderson
The Washington Post explains one way that Khalil Mack can help the Bears defense:
"Adding a fearsome pass rusher like Mack could turn Chicago’s fortunes around in a hurry. According to data from TruMedia, teams scored almost two points per drive in 2017 when the offensive line didn’t give up a sack. That dropped to less than a point per drive when yielding one sack or more, making it easy to see how much of a momentum killer a sack can be. And with Mack, the Bears should be getting plenty more of them."
Full article: The Washington Post
Read MoreTwins Daily, part of ESPN's blog network, uses TruMedia's product to analyze Logan Forsythe's approach...
"Forsythe rarely chases breaking balls out of the zone. According to ESPN/TruMedia’s data, since 2017 he’s reached on just 14.3 percent of breaking balls outside of the zone whereas the average hitter has done so on just over 30 percent. For comparison’s sake, Joe Mauer has even chased after 23 percent of breaking balls in that time. Forsythe will swing through some (8 percent, same as Mauer) and the results aren’t great when he does make contact (a .588 OPS vs .657 MLB average) but with baseball’s increasing reliance on nasty breaking balls, being able to wait back and keep from chasing after those pitches is rare skill set."
Full article: Twins Daily
Read MoreTruMedia's Dean Oliver talks to ESPN about how player-tracking data will affect the NFL's use of analytics:
"Of course, in order for player tracking data to have a positive impact on any given team, that franchise has to have a desire to use it.
"I think there's interest, but there's always some healthy and some unhealthy skepticism about what it can do," said Dean Oliver, vice president of data science at TruMedia Networks."
Full Article: ESPN.com
Read MoreNeil Greenberg of the Washington Post uses TruMedia to show why Zach Ertz, Cam Newton and Allen Hurns might be good fantasy football picks this season:
Round 4: Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz ranked fourth in targets (110) and target share (20 percent) last season per data from TruMedia with a higher share of targets (23 percent) in the red zone.
Full article: Washington Post
Read MoreESPN.com's Bradford Doolittle writes that the circumstantial evidence for Jose Urena's innocence is not great, regarding his beaning of Ronald Acuna:
"Urena's 25 hit batters since last season are tied for the most in the majors with Cole Hamels and Charlie Morton. According to TruMedia research, his 17 hit batsmen since 2016 on fastballs are tied for the most in baseball."
Full article: ESPN.com
Read MoreWhat might the perfect fantasy football draft look like? Neil Greenberg uses TruMedia data to figure it out:
"For example, LeSean McCoy is the No. 1 back in Buffalo, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of opportunities for his primary backup, Chris Ivory, to get carries. Last season McCoy’s backups accounted for 25 percent of all carries but also 49 percent of the team’s carries in goal-to-go situations, per data from TruMedia."
Full article: Washington Post
Read MoreNeil Greenberg uses TruMedia data and heat maps to show how good teenager Juan Soto has been this season:
"When Soto isn’t taking a free pass to first, he’s crushing balls: Soto is batting .367 with a 1.215 OPS against four-seam fastballs, sinkers and cutters, the highest OPS among batters who have seen at least 650 fastballs in 2018, per data from TruMedia. It doesn’t matter if the pitch is inside, outside, high or low — Soto finds a way to muscle it out of the park."
Full article: Washington Post
Read MoreUsing ProVision to preview the big game of the Premier League's opening weekend by analyzing sequence data for Arsenal and Manchester City:
"City averaged 5.3 passes per sequence last season, which may not sound impressive but was 26% better than the second-best Premier League team, which was Arsenal at 4.2 passes per sequence. This gap is about the same as the difference between Arsenal and Southampton, who ranked seventh in this metric and narrowly avoided relegation.."
Full article: OptaPro blog
Read MoreFor ESPN.com, Bradford Doolittle looks at Mike Trout's low RBI total and whether or not the pitches he sees are a factor...
"According to TruMedia, since the beginning of the 2016 season, 46.7 percent of the pitches Trout has seen with runners on base have been in the strike zone. That's lower than the league average (47.6 percent) but not shockingly low. There have been 103 hitters to see an even lower frequency of strikes in those spots."
Full article: ESPN.com
Read MoreFor the Washington Post's Fancy Stats blog, Neil Greenberg used TruMedia's heat maps to show the extra strike calls that Wilson Ramos' framing provides:
"Ramos also gives the Phillies another catcher who can frame pitches. With Knapp behind the plate, Philadelphia’s pitchers get a called strike on pitches out of the zone 5.4 percent of the time, per TruMedia; Ramos has a 7.2 percent called-strike rate on those pitches, just slightly lower than Alfaro (7.8 percent). The league average is 7.2 percent."
Full article: Washington Post
Read MoreTruMedia CTO Jeff Stern discusses defensive metrics with the Boston Red Sox' J.D. Martinez and The Boston Globe.
“The 40-minute conversation between Martinez and Stern was illuminating in trying to assess Martinez’s defense on an individual level and in understanding the evolution of modern defensive statistics — and whether those numbers seen by the public are the same as those used by teams or analysts such as the TruMedia team.”
Full article: The Boston Globe
Read MoreThis SI.com article goes beyond the box score to examine how France's N'Golo Kante and Croatia's Luka Modric powered their teams to the World Cup final.
"[Modric] does defensive work, as he’s tied with Kante for most recoveries at this World Cup (48), and no player has won possession more times in the middle third of the field (31).
Modric is also the offensive talisman, with 16 chances created, double the total of any teammate."
Full article: SI.com (by Paul Carr, TruMedia Director of Content Development)
Read MoreFor FiveThirtyEight, TruMedia's Albert Larcada analyzed how waiting time affects penalty conversion, revealing that longer delay appear to increase the likelihood of a miss.
"The success rate of penalties with a wait time of less than 150 seconds is 76 percent, while the success rate of penalties with a wait time of greater than 150 seconds is 73 percent. With the relatively large sample of penalties we have, the difference is statistically significant."
Full article: FiveThirtyEight (by Albert Larcada, Director of Analytics)
Read MoreThe Washington Post's Neil Greenberg wonders if the time has come to bring back the bunt.
"According to data from TruMedia, there were 232 bunt singles last year from March to June, the lowest since 2008, the first year data is available. This season there were 226.
But it might be time to bring the bunt back, especially with more and more teams employing the shift to neutralize the league's most-predictable hitters."
Full article: ChicagoTribune.com (via Washington Post)
Read More"Possession hasn’t necessarily been helpful here in Russia. According to TruMedia Networks, the top six teams in average possession at this World Cup already have gone home. Interestingly, Croatia, England, France and Belgium rank 7th through 10th, respectively. Uruguay, the CONMEBOL side that held the ball the least, still stands 19th overall. Four years ago, Germany finished second in the possession standings at 60%, but none of the other semifinalists were in the top eight."
Full article: Sports Illustrated
Read MoreTruMedia provided data to The Washington Post for this article and visualization on Benjamin Pavard's stunning strike against Argentina.
"...the shot had an “expected goals” of just 0.03, meaning it would be expected to produce a goal three percent of the time. This figure is calculated from 10 different variables, but the two most significant for this particular shot are pretty straightforward. It was taken from 22 meters away from the goal line – pretty far out. And it was taken from 15 meters off the center line – a very bad angle."
Full article: Washington Post
Read MoreTruMedia's Paul Carr wrote a Sports Illustrated piece with a stat and graphic for each of the World Cup quarterfinalists. The article highlighted contributions by Romelu Lukaku, Neymar and Luka Modric, along with potential issues for Russia and England.
"Despite playing four games, England ranks 22nd in the tournament with 23 shots from open play and 17th with 2.22 expected goals from open play. Only three of those shots were worth at least 0.2 xG each, which is about double the average shot quality."
Full article: Sports Illustrated (by Paul Carr, Director of Content Development)
Read MoreFor the Washington Post, Albert Larcada wrote on how Mexico's young stars shined in the first two group games.
"Perhaps the biggest name of Mexico’s under-23 contingent, [Hirving] Lozano put in a performance against Germany that ranks among the best in recent World Cups. Here is the full list of players over the past six World Cups with a goal, an assist and a pass-completion rate of better than 90 percent in their team’s first two matches: Lionel Messi (2006) and Lozano. That’s it."
Full article: Washington Post (by Albert Larcada, Director of Analytics)
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