Methodical Aptitude: A New Pool Game Metric (sabermetric)

ABSTRACT:
In brief, Methodical Aptitude (MA), discourages speedy play and encourages effective methodical measures of play. Similar mathematically to the controversial metric, Shot Aptitude (SA), this one we defined using inverses in the equation of SA. While shot aptitude expresses how effective and decisive a player can be while shooting, there needed to be a similar metric for our more methodical players. This metric gives positive weight to made and defensive shots, and negative weight to missed and foul shots. Made and defensive shots are weighted differently as are foul and missed shots. However, they are of the same weight as in SA.

The interesting aspect of MA is that we define it as four separate calculations: Overall MA (OMA), MA (t > 10s), MA (t > 20s), and MA (t > 30s). This allows a player to find his or her optimal methodical approach that will lead to the most effectively play. For example, if you look at the rankings at the link provided, you will see some players have a higher MA (t > 20s) than a MA (t > 30s). This suggests that a player loses some of their effectiveness after taking more than 30 seconds to shoot.

White Paper
We will be publishing the paper of Methodical Aptitude sometime in the next few weeks. For now, we urge you to compare the infographic from Shot Aptitude with the one above and see how their general equations differ to get some understanding of where the calculations are coming from.

Current MA rankings:
http://poolst.at/ma

Current MA rankings (graphed w/ corresponding FargoRates):
http://poolst.at/magraph

Bob Jewett said:

So before you downgraded players when they took more time to play than average. Now that's a potentially good thing?

Click to expand...

Players are not only downgraded in SA for playing slow, it also factors in rate of missed and foul shots with different weights and inversely proportional degrees of shot difficulty. So conversely, if your a methodical player such as Ralf Souquet or Albin Ouschan or Mario He, how effective is your methodical play among other methodical players? That's what this measures. The other measures decisive effective action.

Not only that, the calculations also measure your effectiveness in various time scenarios. If you look at the rankings you'll notice that actually the two fastest players, Jayson Shaw and Joshua Filler are the most effective players after 30seconds. There are various degrees of measurement going on here. If there is a ranking for decisive action, there should be one for methodical action since there are those two types of players.

Three types of players:

1. Decisive.
2. Methodical.
3. Somewhere in the middle.

If you are a type 1 player, use Shot Aptitude to gain an understanding of your effectiveness when being decisive. Increase it by playing defense, making your shots and being confident about your decisive action.

If you are a type 2 player, use the various Methodical Aptitude measurements to gain an understanding of what time, t, your most effective methodical approach is and try to increase your overall MA.

If you are a type 3 player, use both MA and SA to see what increases as you adjust your game whence giving you insight on what your best approach is.

To reiterate and simplify, you only get positive points for making your shots or playing defense, and negative points for missing or fouling. The better your Shooting Percentage the higher MA and SA will go.

Don't look at playing fast or playing slow as a good or bad thing; use these metrics to gain an understanding of what best works for you as a player during your game.

MA and SA is correlated with Shooting Percent (SP). To what degree, I'm not sure as I haven't ran that calculation yet. But, it is obvious to me that there is in fact a correlation (probably decently strong) because I designed the equations that way.

Here is a good example using the data we've compiled with SA and MA.

Jeffrey De Luna is a type 3 player.

His AVG time to shoot (TTS) is 18.9s. Where the fastest player is Ian Costello with an AVG TTS of 9.6s and the slowest player is Jui-An Hsu with an AVG TTS of 39.8s.

Jeffrey De Luna has an SA of 10.21 and an overall MA of 9.86 - a .4 point difference - around the same number and something you would expect from a type 3 player.

Jeffery De Luna has an MA (TTS ≥ 10s) of 10.61, an MA (TTS ≥ 20s) of 13.29 and an MA (TTS ≥ 30s) 11.54.

What this data tells us is that even though Jeffery De Luna has a good SA and slightly lower, but still good MA, most of his lost points come from missing or fouling in quick and decisive action. It also shows that with his Average TTS of 18.9s and his maximum MA coming when TTS ≥ 20s tells us that if he spends between 1.1s and 11.1 seconds more per shot he can improve his MA and his game.

I can't yet tell how much better his game will improve, but it will improve. We will have to figure out a predimetric (http://www.predimetric.com) for that in the future