This paper aims to analyse the efficiency of the teams that have participated in the last eight seasons in the Spanish football (soccer) league (LFP). Efficiency is based on technical aspects of the sport rather than variables of an economic nature due to how difficult it is to obtain such...

The concept of teammates whose skills `fit' together is explored through frescoball, the beach paddleball game with two people hitting a ball back and forth trying to keep it in the air. This simple game can be analyzed through Markov Chains to obtain the expected number of hits between the two...

The rank of an object is its relative importance to the other objects in the set. Often a rank is an integer assigned from the set 1,...,n. A ranking model is a method of determining a way in which the ranks are assigned. Usually a ranking model uses information available on the objects to...

The placing of NHL players into categories such as stars, average journeyman forwards, defensive forward, etc., is a popular pastime of fans and professional sports commentators. This is usually done in an ad hoc manner, sometimes contentiously, and without reference to any detailed analysis of...

We present a methodology to assess the effect of point deductions, which are widely applied as punishments to teams in European association football (soccer) leagues. In particular we outline a method to estimate the increased probability of relegation and the decreased probability of promotion...

This analysis of team-level major league baseball performance, for the 1985 through 2001 seasons, addresses four questions: (1) 'Is there a relationship between winning and performance?' (2) 'Is there a relationship between pay and performance?' (3) 'Is there a relationship between winning and...

In this paper we introduce the nested Dirichlet probability distribution and propose a method of using it to model Major League Baseball (MLB) player abilities. To do so, we define fourteen distinct outcome types for any typical plate appearance (excluding intentional walks and bunt attempts),...

In football leagues, a won match produces three points (all for the winner) whereas a drawn match produces only two (one for each team). Here, the total resource from the viewpoint of league points is not constant and the gain of the match for both teams changes depending on the result of the...

A control chart is developed specifically for monitoring batting performances in cricket. Issues associated with the need to retain extreme values and limited sampling opportunities are overcome by using a parametric approach to obtain theoretical quartiles from the distribution of individual...

The Pinehurst Terrapin Classic (PTC) is a five day, 16 player, annual golf tournament that includes match-play and scramble rounds. Pairings must be created for each day of the tournament that ensure each pair of participants play on the same team at least once during the tournament, and ensure...