HOPE YOU BROUGHT YOUR THINKING CAPS TO THIS POST!
I was always curious, is there a way to find a way of comparing sports. Is there some aggregate score that could be assigned based on points/runs scored vs. points/runs allowed and winning percentage.
So here is what I came up with. It is essentially the same system for each sport; however, for hockey, I had to adjust the system a bit for OTL. I counted each OTL as half a loss as the each OTL counts for 1 point, not zero.
1 other item, for baseball, I took a liberty based on the fact that the sport is split practically in 2. I felt that comparing NL run totals entirely against AL ones would be unfair. So I took each the total runs scored for MLB and counted that as 25% of my denominator and counted a league's individual run total as 75% of the denominator.
Calm down there creative ones, (that comment is based on the likely false assumption that creative minded people are less math oriented - apologies to all who are offended) I will shortly give an example...
But, I digress - I divided a team's points (for baseball - runs, for hockey - goals) scored by the total points scored by an average team in the league. I then did the same for points scored against; however, I took the reciprocal of that number because otherwise the lower score one had the better (I know this is complicated, but stay with me - if a team gives up fewer runs [ex.100 with a league average of 150], and I divide the teams runs by the league average [in the example 100/150=.667], I would get a number under 1. I wanted the opposite so a higher number would be better [If I divide 1/.667=1.5, then I have achieved my goal of the better a team does in comparison to the league the higher score they achieve - yay!].
Moving on, I then took the combined total of the points scored comparison and points scored against comparison and added them together. I then multiplied that number by the team's winning percentage and, for simplicities sake multiplied the total by 100 to better understand the numbers.
SO FOR THE RESULTS YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!
O, wait 1 more thing...I took some very good teams from recent history, as well as very bad teams and exactly average teams (.500 winning percentage) to give a comparative glance...
In First Place:
The New York Football Giants - 235.9
[this may screw up my whole idea because this number is higher than the next one, which was a ridiculously good baseball team - this is still a work in progress]
2) The 2001 Seattle Mariners (116 - 46 'most wins of all time') - 174.2
3) The J-E-T-S - 161.5
4) New York Rangers - 143.6
5) New York Knicks - 109.2
6) Average - 104.2
7) The 'Brodeur'less Devils - 101.8
8) New Jersey Nets - 77.7
9) New York Islanders - 74.7
10) The Pathetic 2008 Mariners (61-101) - 68.0
The significance of these numbers alone is not great; however, relative to each other and the averages, it is quite clear, that in comparison to their competition, the New York football teams are far outperforming their New York athletic brethren playing sports on ice, hardwood and diamonds.
I'll give periodical updates on my tweaking of this idea as well as periodic results.
If you have any suggestions or are curious about further information on the process, feel free to comment!
Wow, that was a doozy!
Yaros
You made a mistake by the Jets the Jets are supposed to be at 121.5 and not 161.5 because you forgot to take away the 40 point deduction that you get for not winning a championship, or doing anything for that matter for 40 years so the jets should be in 4th with 121.5
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