Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Springing into the Baseball Season (NY Times)

The baseball season is ready to get underway and here is some fun analysis we did for spring training -- and what it might mean for the regular season.  (By Carlton Chin, Don LaFronz & Jay Granat; picked up by the NY Times; here's an excerpt).

Spring training is almost over and your team has been red hot. Or maybe your team has had a tough spring. But who cares? It’s just spring training, right? Do wins and losses during spring training mean anything? To answer that, we analyzed whether spring training is connected to performance during the regular season.
Data shows that spring training can be a leading indicator for regular-season performance. In fact, some big surprises are sometimes predicted by spring training results. 


Read more here:
http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/divining-clues-from-spring-training-success/#more-41909

The article is by Carlton Chin, a fund manager for Adamah/CARAT and Don LaFronz, a financial adviser.  Jay Granat, a psychotherapist, contributed reporting.  

Saturday, March 26, 2011

March Madness: Elite 8 Probabilities

The Financial Markets Program at the University of Chicago - together with Carlton Chin, a fund manager - devised a March Madness pool -- that models each game as a financial marketplace.  The pool is being run "round-by-round" so it can generate fresh pricing as each round develops. 

The points awarded for correct selections -- are based on market participant entries.  As a result, the final price for each game can be used as a proxy for the probability of a team advancing to the next round.  Below is a table that shows the final pricing for the current round's match-ups.  It is interesting that our financial marketplace model produced probabilities similar to projections from various sources.  The pool is designed to study:  
  • Financial marketplaces and market pricing.
  • Ideas of game theory.
  • Concepts of contrarian methods.

For more information - please visit the March Madness link at CARATcapital.com.  Please also visit this summary of the March Madness Pool.


Financial Markets Program: Elite 8 Final Prices 
(Proxy for Probability of Advancing to Next Round)

Kansas 72%
VCU      28%

Arizona 55%
U-Conn  45%

North Carolina 52%
Kentucky 48%

Florida 57%
Butler 43%

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

March Madness Bracket Probabilities (2011)

The Financial Markets Program at the University of Chicago - together with Carlton Chin, a fund manager - devised a March Madness pool -- that models each game as a financial marketplace.  The pool is being run "round-by-round" so it can generate fresh pricing as each round develops. 

The points awarded for correct selections -- are based on market participant entries.  As a result, the final price for each game can be used as a proxy for the probability of a team advancing to the next round.  Below is a table that shows the final pricing for the first round's match-ups.  It is interesting that our financial marketplace model produced probabilities similar to projections from various sources, including the New York Times 538 forecast -- even with a relatively small sample size of just under 40 data points.  The pool is designed to study:  

  • Financial marketplaces and market pricing.
  • Ideas of game theory.
  • Concepts of contrarian methods.

For more information - please visit the March Madness link at CARATcapital.com.  Please also visit this summary of the March Madness Pool.


Financial Markets Program: First Round Final Prices 
(Proxy for Probability of Advancing to Next Round)


Region
Seed
Team
Official Final Price (1st Rd)
  SW
1
Kansas
94.80
SW
16
Boston U
5.20




SW
8
UNLV
52.20
SW
9
Illinois
47.80




SW
5
Vanderbilt
53.20
SW
12
Richmond
46.80




SW
4
Louisville
83.90
SW
13
Morehead St
16.10




SW
6
Georgetown
65.60
SW
11
TBD
34.40




SW
3
Purdue
89.25
SW
14
St. Peters
10.75




SW
7
Texas A&M
44.40
SW
10
Florida St
55.60




SW
2
Notre Dame
90.10
SW
15
Akron
9.90








W
1
Duke
92.95
W
16
Hampton
7.05




W
8
Michigan
43.05
W
9
Tennessee
56.95




W
5
Arizona
66.95
W
12
Memphis
33.05




W
4
Texas
77.65
W
13
Oakland
22.35




W
6
Cincinnati
40.20
W
11
Missouri
59.80




W
3
Connecticut
85.40
W
14
Bucknell
14.60




W
7
Temple
50.10
W
10
Penn St
49.90




W
2
San Diego St
90.25
W
15
No. Colorado
9.75








E
1
Ohio St
93.95
E
16
Play-in Winner
6.05




E
8
George Mason
47.60
E
9
Villanova
52.40




E
5
West Virginia
75.35
E
12
Play-in Winner
24.65




E
4
Kentucky
86.90
E
13
Princeton
13.10




E
6
Xavier
48.95
E
11
Marquette
51.05




E
3
Syracuse
83.55
E
14
Indiana St
16.45




E
7
Washington
60.20
E
10
Georgia
39.80




E
2
North Carolina
94.30
E
15
Long Island
5.70








SE
1
Pittsburgh
92.45
SE
16
TBD
7.55




SE
8
Butler
42.20
SE
9
Old Dominion
57.80




SE
5
Kansas St
47.75
SE
12
Utah St
52.25




SE
4
Wisconsin
64.60
SE
13
Belmont
35.40




SE
6
St. Johns
50.30
SE
11
Gonzaga
49.70




SE
3
BYU
78.20
SE
14
Wofford
21.80




SE
7
UCLA
45.95
SE
10
Michigan St
54.05




SE
2
Florida
93.15
SE
15
UC Santa Barb
6.85