Rufus Peabody is a sports analyst and professional sports bettor, currently traveling the world on Remote Year. He is a 2008 graduate of Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on inefficiencies in the baseball betting market. Mr. Peabody was previously ESPN's 'predictive analytics expert' and many, many years ago got his start in the industry working as a statistical analyst for Las Vegas Sports Consultants.
Here are our “grades” for NFL Week 1. We control for game location and opponent quality, and discount garbage time situations. exp score diff is how we’d expect the team to do against an average team on a neutral field based on the way they actually played in the game, but using only predictive metrics. So Pittsburgh was fundamentally 10.7 points better than an…
Here are our “grades” for the second week of the college season. We control for game location and opponent quality, and discount garbage time situations. score diff is how we’d expect the team to do against an average team on a neutral field based on the way they actually played in the game, but using only predictive metrics. So…
The season got off to a sluggish start, with both our official plays losing, though our one lean was victorious. As I mentioned last week, we’re weighting the market number more heavily early in the season, so the threshold for something to quality as a pick is a little higher than in the past. I…
Team can play well and lose, or poorly and win. In order to see beyond the score to determine how a team performed fundamentally, we score a team’s performance in each game relative to all games played in the last ten years, accounting for opponent strength. With this tool we can objectively see which wins were…
Welcome back! It’s been a long offseason, but during that time Cade and I have made some improvements on our model(s). We’ve also examined its historical performance more closely and critically, and found that our predictive value, relative to the market, increases as the season progresses. To folks who know the basics of our methodology, this shouldn’t…
Unfortunately, we think the market got it right this time. We make the Panthers a 5.6-point favorite (with a 67.8% chance of winning), and our total for the game is 44.3. No value at the current consensus line of 5.5/44. For the season, our picks ed up: Big Plays: 24-14-1 Other Plays: 17-19 Leans: 9-10-2 So…
Sorry for the late post. Been busy moving/dealing with the snowstorm. Big Plays (23-14-1 YTD) Denver +3 vs. New England [MP Line: DEN -0.5] Other Plays (17-19 YTD) none MP Leans (9-10-2 YTD) none We make Carolina a 4.8-point favorite over Arizona.
Sorry for the late posting. Been a busy week… Big Plays (22-14-1 YTD) Pittsburgh +7/+7.5 at Denver [MP Line: PIT +3.8] Other Plays (17-18 YTD) Kansas City +5.5 at New England [MP Line: KC +2.9] MP Leans (9-10-2 YTD) none this week Lines for the rest of the games Arizona -8.3 vs. Green Bay…
We finish off the regular season with a very solid Week 17, going 3-2 on our Big Plays and 1-0 on our Other Play. At the end of the regular season, our official plays are 38-32-1 (54.3%), putting us in profitable territory for the sixth straight year. On to the wild card picks… Big Plays (22-14-1 YTD)…
Week 17 always feels a little different. It’s not unusual for a team to have nothing to play for in the latter weeks of the season–except of course for their jobs, which is a pretty powerful incentive. But that’s been the case for some teams for awhile now. What’s difficult is figuring out the motivations of teams…