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 | Luck of the (Recruiting) Dice Posted by |
Okay, so we all have thought once, twice, or a hundred times that Olmec hates us. As Kevin was so nice to proved factual data that proves Olmec really hates Antioch the most when it comes to expected results in matches, I have been working on crunching Recruiting data from the past 5 seasons to see who Olmec likes to stick it to the most when it comes time to roll those dice for skill levels.
Don't worry, at the end of this post, only 3 teams really won't have any right to compain about Olmec and their recruits. The rest of us, we can still grumble to our hearts' content.
For primers, here's some basic data of the number of recruits that have been made since Season 4. We made some significant changes to the recruiting process in Season 4, so to keep things as controlled and statistically relevant as possible, data from Seasons 1-3 has been omitted from this analysis.
| Season / Stars | Num Players | 1-Star | 2-Star | 3-Star | 4-Star | 5-Star |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 64 | 1 | 2 | 26 | 21 | 14 |
| 5 | 136 | 7 | 3 | 53 | 43 | 30 |
| 6 | 130 | 3 | 1 | 51 | 45 | 30 |
| 7 | 132 | 5 | 1 | 52 | 44 | 30 |
| 8 | 135 | 5 | 5 | 51 | 44 | 30 |
| 9 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 45 | 30 |
| Total | 697 | 21 | 12 | 258 | 242 | 164 |
The data includes all the players brought thought the recruiting/bidding phase, as well as all of the walk-ons that get signed at the end of the season.
The position breakdown from Season 4-9 is as follows:
| Position | Total Players |
|---|---|
| L | 110 |
| MB | 182 |
| OH | 181 |
| RS | 112 |
| S | 112 |
When looking at the data, not every stat applies to every player. For example, MB does not use the Rcv or Set stat, however within the data, they are still assigned either a 1 or a 2 value. Any place where a position does not make use of a stat, that data was not evaluated here. This is something to keep in mind as we proceed.
| Position | Number of Applicable Stats |
|---|---|
| L | 4 |
| MB | 4 |
| OH | 6 |
| RS | 4 |
| S | 5 |
If you look at the Rules (Stars to Skill Level Conversion, Page 14), it lays out the possibilities of each position and star for minimum and maximum values. Every usable skill has 3 possible values, a minimum value, a maximum value, and then by virtue of there only being 3 values, a median value. There are special players where they can game Max Stat_X or Max Stat_Y + 1. For these stats, they automatically hit the max value for that category, making them pretty sought after.
The data can then be parsed pretty simply by tallying each skill for each player as whether or not the player hit the Min (1), Median (2), or Max (3) value for that stat. Let's look at Teutopolis's players from Season 9 to explain the data crunching:
| First | Last | Stars | Pos | Srv | Rcv | Atk | Blk | Def | Set | Max SL | Srv | Rcv | Atk | Blk | Def | Set |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike | Ingram | 4 | L | 10 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 9 | N | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Geordi | La Forge | 5 | OH | 11 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 5 | N | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Dillon | Ward | 4 | OH | 10 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 5 | N | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Aside from wondering what C-Ball was doing here only recruiting 3 players, with 2 of them being OH's, it's easy to see that the players he recruited fared QUITE well and were generally liked by Olmec. None of them were Max SL players for any category, but of the 16 categories that Teutopolis recruits use, 10 of them were Max value, 3 were Min value, and 3 were Median value.
So, with that said, let's take a look at all of Season 9, and see how each team fared with their recruits:
* Nashville fared the best of all teams last season with 66% of their skill stats being Max value. However, they only recruited 2 players, so that's a little skewed.
* Of the teams who recruited 3+ players, Ames and Teutopolis fared the best with 62.5% of their stats being at (or above) the max.
* Of the teams with 3+ recruits, St. Charles suffered the worst with only 17.39% of the skills at the max value.
* In the 3+ recruit teams, Sheboygan suffered the worst in the opposite direction with 42.86% of their skills ending with the minimum value. New Orleans was right on their heels with 42.11%
* Ames and Mat-Su managed to avoid the whammy the most with 12.5% and 13.33%, respectvely of their recruits' skills at the minimum value.
There's a whole lot of analysis that can be done here, but we're all begging to know:
* Who does Olmec hate the most when it comes to recruiting?
Let's start with the fortunate sons.
Top 5 Teams for the lowest Min % since Season 4:
| Rank | Team | Min Skill % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ames | 18.95% |
| 2 | Mat-Su | 22.22% |
| 3 | Merritt Island | 22.68% |
| 4 | Sheboygan | 24.59% |
| 5 | Dallas | 25.58% |
Top 5 teams for the highest Max %:
| Rank | Team | Max Skill % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nashville | 47.62% |
| 2 | Dallas | 46.51 |
| 3 | Mat-Su | 45.56% |
| 4 | Alton | 45.26% |
| 5 | Ames | 45.26% |
Now, onto the suckers... those teams that Olmec saw in the Recruiting dice-rolling mechanism and laughed at.
Top 5 teams for the highest Min %:
| Rank | Team | Min Skill % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quincy | 45.54% |
| 2 | Pekin | 40.54% |
| 3 | San Jose | 40.22% |
| 4 | Starkville | 39.78% |
| 5 | Arlington | 38.64% |
Top 5 teams for lowest Max %:
| Rank | Team | Max Skill % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manitowoc | 27.38% |
| 2 | Arlington | 28.41% |
| 3 | Starkville | 29.03% |
| 4 | Santa Clara | 29.67 |
| 5 | Quincy | 32.14% |
So, the data seems pretty clear... Arlington, Starkville and (this pains me to say) Quincy are three teams that have truly earned the right to say that Olmec hates their recruits.
On the flip side, Ames, Mat-Su and Dallas cannot complain about ANYTHING recruiting related. They seem to be Midas-touched with their recruits!
What's everyone's take on their recruiting stats? Is there anything you'd like to see analyzed?
Readers Comments
Interesting read - if only to confirm some suspicions of mine.
One improvement would be to map the outcomess to the (assumed) value of the skills,
A good SET roll at a L doesn't quite compensate for a bad DEF.
It wouldn't make much difference on the whole, however.
Hmm... that could be an interesting angle Eduard.. each position has 1 or 2 "key" skill stats where if they Min there, but Max everywhere else, they'll be less effective. Wouldn't be difficult to crunch that.
I agree - a 4* setter with max SET and min everything else has a higher rating than min SET and max everything else (50 to 49)
Two points
5* players mostly have 10s or 11s so no median there.
I'm not surprised Quincy come bottom. I regularly check them and haven't seen a good recruiting season yet.
Brilliant stuff Rob 👏 and shout out to Max aswell for sneaking the anti-Quincy code into the programme.
Agree with Eduard that it would be good to see how this plays out on the basis of key skills.
I'd also love to see how it looks for different skill levels. Olmec has a twisted sense of humour and I feel like quite a high percentage of my max levels go to my 1* walk ons who are never going to get a match anyway, while my very expensive 5*s get shafted.
Not surprising at all that Spokane is simply mediocre. Nothing to complain too strenuously about, but nothing to crow about, either.
Jason directly copying and pasting from the Spokane tourism board website there
Rob: Very well done, thank you! It highlights how the software is against Quincy at every turn and teams should pity us with C-level lineups. It will be enough for you to win with our luck...I assure you!
Eduard and Steve: I like those ideas.
Roger: Please don't encourage Max. 😎 Also, if you need to see all the worst-case scenarios, please see the Quincy Roster.
Jason: sounds like things are in neutral...I could be so lucky.
John: I laughed. Well done! 😂
Love the stats and the work you've put in Rob
Nashville appear to have done well, but as Steve pointed out if you recruit 5 star players instead of 3/4 you will have higher SL.
I recruited two 5 stars, the setter had max Set but all other skill rolls were the minimum available.
Still not as bad as my 4 star RS from season 7 recuiting - it had one skilll level higher than the 3 star RS I got as a walk-on
I question your hours of work and research. Olmec hates us. If Olmec loved us we'd win everything like the Tomatoes and Horses.
I am sooo out of my depths here. Best of luck to me this weekend!
Just to clarify one point, the stats to balance out 3 vs 4 vs 5 star players as each tier of recruit has a separate min/med/max range (understanding that 5* players ONLY have mins and maxes).
I do plan on reviewing position-specific stats - that sounds interesting.
