Here comes the STRAIN and CMSAC
Well I’m behind on this newsletter due to the busy semester… but this post will share recent news within the CMSAC network:
Here Comes the STRAIN: Analyzing Defensive Pass Rush in American Football with Player Tracking Data by Quang Nguyen, Gregory Matthews, and myself was recently accepted for publication in The American Statistician. Rather than summarize it myself, you can check out the great talk Quang gave at NESSIS a few weeks ago:
I will just mention that my favorite figure in the manuscript is Figure 8, comparing the average STRAIN curves by pass rush outcome (i.e., STRAIN is to pass rush as exit velocity is to hitting in baseball):
Journal URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00031305.2023.2242442
Public URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.10262
If you want to learn more about STRAIN and how to implement it, as well as learn other tips for working with Big Data Bowl player-tracking data, then you should REGISTER NOW for the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference (CMSAC)!
The conference is just one month away, kicking off on Friday Nov 10th with a Big Data Bowl workshop sponsored by SumerSports! As mentioned above, this will feature Quang Nguyen demonstrating how to implement STRAIN.
Then on Saturday Nov 11th we have a packed lineup of talks featuring:
Keynote Address: Sarah Rudd, CTO and co-founder, src | ftbl
Closing Keynote: Andrew Patton, Director of Player Health and Safety Data Science, NFL
Invited talks on a variety of topics:
Mathematical Models of Player Contract Valuation - Albert Cohen (Michigan State University)
Sources of bias in diving competitions: prevalence and adjustments - Monnie McGee (Southern Methodist University)
From Fixed to Fluid: A Model for Frame-by-Frame Player Role Classification - Devin Pleuler (Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Partnership)
CMSACamp student speakers presenting their projects on a variety of sports that were discussed in a previous post!
SMT Data Challenge finalists for both undergraduate and graduate divisions! These projects are based on minor league baseball tracking data with the theme of studying defensive plays in baseball involving two or more players.
You can view the full schedule with speaker bios and talk abstracts on the conference website.
All registrants will be able to upload their resume to share with our lineup of industry sponsors consisting of several teams and sports analytics companies.
Register now for the conference and book your hotel with our room block discounts (at The Oaklander Hotel or Hilton Garden Inn) before they expire this week!
And if you are unable to attend (either in-person or virtually), please consider supporting our student speakers with a minimum amount of $25 in the conference registration store (just follow the Register Now button in the Registration section of the conference website). All money raised from these individual sponsorships will be distributed as travel awards to our student speakers to help offset their travel costs.
Thanks for reading!