Sid wrote: >>Very good question! >> >>What sport are was this discussion about, >>where there was any carry-over effect at all? >> >>It has been shown pretty well that there is no such thing >>as a 'hot hand' in basketball, for one evening or across games. >>Points-scored in basketball is (at least) a continuous outcome, >>which makes it easier to research (that is, smaller N is needed) >>than dichotomous outcomes. >> >>Having hits in baseball doesn't carry over, or hitting homers. >> >>Historical winning streaks in team sports seem to match >>the number of consecutive games that you would expect >>by chance, without much in the way of assumptions.... > > > Not American ones - particularly baseball where the "World Series" includes > two team from Canada. > I heard that they were going to rename it the "Milky Way Series" for greater > impact :) > > There must be a valid way of ranking one team over another or others? > > I am not interested in winning streaks per se. I am not trying to predict > the odds of the Mets winning their next five games. > > How come the same teams keep winning trophies - it's not by chance is it?
Over long periods of time, some performers (teams or individuals) are superior to others. This has nothing to do with the "hot hand", which deals with streaks and randomness within a certain level of performance ... the hot hand does not deal with performance level. Example: Player A is a .333 hitter, Player B is a .209 hitter. The apparent streaks (or lack of randomness) that Player A experiences are really due to chance; just as the apparent streaks that Player B experiences are also really due to chance. That is the "hot hand" or rather, lack thereof. The absence of a "hot hand", or the presence of random chance, has been shown in many sports. HOWEVER: Player A will more likely get more hits in the long run than player B will get. This is not the hot hand, this is the level of performance of the two players. Now, with regards to your question about predicting the odds ... it may be indeed possible to determine the relative strengths of Team A (the Mets) and Team B (the Anti-Mets), and then compute the probability that the Mets win their next X games. To which I say ... it may be possible ... and good luck if that's your goal. This is a huge task, it is made more difficult by people wanting to use statistics of the short-term to predict short term results, rather than using long-term statistics to predict long-term results (and even that isn't easy to do). I'm sorry if I'm sounding like I'm discouraging you, Sid, but I am trying to discourage you. Your task is extremely complex, if you're talking about sports I am familiar with; you yourself will have to find the right weighting scheme out of a zillion that exist, we cannot do that for you; the goals you have set out (detect a 10% difference between methods) are extremely tough to achieve; getting accurate predictions is also extremely difficult to achieve. Your goal is admirable, your path is difficult. -- Paige Miller Eastman Kodak Company [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kodak.com "It's nothing until I call it!" -- Bill Klem, NL Umpire "When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance" -- Lee Ann Womack . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
