## Profile

Christopher Long
Works at Chanteclair Farm
Attended Rutgers University
Lives in Versailles, KY
556 followers|133,545 views

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### Christopher Long

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When is a Lead Safe in the NBA?
Assuming two NBA teams of equal strength with $$t$$ seconds remaining, what is a safe lead at a prescribed confidence level? Bill James has a safe lead formula for NCAA basketball , and the topic has been addressed by other researchers at various levels of ...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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Solving a Math Puzzle using Physics
The following math problem, which appeared on a Scottish maths paper, has been making the internet rounds . The first two parts require students to interpret the meaning of the components of the formula $$T(x) = 5 \sqrt{36+x^2} + 4(20-x)$$, and the final "...﻿
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Elo's Rating System as a Forgetful Logistic Model
Elo's rating system became famous from its use in chess, but it and variations are now used in sports like the NFL to eSports like League of Legends . It also was infamously used on various "Hot or Not" type websites, as shown in this scene from the movie "...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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Getting Started Doing Baseball Analysis without Coding
There's lot of confusion about how best to get started doing baseball analysis. It doesn't have to be difficult! You can start doing it right away, even if you don't know anything about R, Python, Ruby, SQL or machine learning (most GMs can't code). Learnin...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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Some Potentially Useful SQL Resources
Some potentially useful SQL resources - explanations, visualizations, exercises, games, classes. A Visual Explanation of SQL Joins Datamonkey Introduction to Database Management Systems SQL Island Adventure Game PostgreSQL Exercises Public Affairs Data Jour...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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Baseball's Billion Dollar Equation
In 1999 Voros McCracken infamously speculated about the amount of control the pitcher had over balls put in play. Not so much, as it turned out, and DIPS was born. It's tough to put a value on something like DIPS, but if an MLB team had developed and exploi...﻿
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I love your data science series. And here it's really starting to get interesting.

But I'm not sure where the "$200M surplus" came from when you said, "An 8th round draft pick like Paul Goldschmidt could net you a$200M surplus."

It would seem to be the difference between what the player is paid and the amount of revenue he brought in. I see that his price tag for Goldschmidt is $32M for 5 years (2014 to 2019). His value, according to the table at the bottom of the page you pointed to, has been$71.4(M?) from 2011 to 2014. So are you projecting his value to increase at a much higher pace over the next several years? And the point, that I missed, is that it's the job of the data scientist to come up with methods of accurately projecting such players?

Thank you again for sharing this knowledge.﻿
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### Christopher Long

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An Enormous Number of Kilograms
For years the kilogram has been defined with respect to a platinum and iridium cylinder, but this is now no longer the case . Here's a puzzle about kilograms that's easy to state and understand, but the answer is very, very surprising. I've always had a fas...﻿
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A fun and well-written article!﻿

### Christopher Long

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Mixed Models in R - Bigger, Faster, Stronger
When you start doing more advanced sports analytics you'll eventually starting working with what are known as hierarchical, nested or mixed effects models . These are models that contain both fixed and random effects . There are multiple ways of defining fi...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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Power Rankings: Looking at a Very Simple Method
One of the simplest and most common power ranking models is known as the Bradley-Terry-Luce model , which is equivalent to other famous models such the logistic model and the Elo rating system . I'll be referring to "teams" here, but of course the same idea...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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NPB, KBO and the ever fascinating for me topic of why japanese do insist on the "typical japanese swing" (as opposed to a "major-league swing")?

NPB: Saitama Seibu Lions 3, 4, 5, 6 hitters - Hideto Asamura, Takeya Nakamura, Ernesto Mejia, and sophomore Tomoya Mori - combine for 10 hits and 13 RBIs...
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### Christopher Long

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Who Controls the Pace in Basketball, Offense or Defense?
During a recent chat with basketball analyst Seth Partnow , he mentioned a topic that came up during a discussion at the recent MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference . Who  controls the pace of a game more, the offense or defense? And what is the percentage...﻿
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### Christopher Long

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A Very Rough Guide to Getting Started in Data Science: Part II, The Big Picture
Data science to a beginner seems completely overwhelming. Not only are there huge numbers of programming languages, packages and algorithms, but even managing your data is an entire area itself. Some examples are the languages R, Python, Ruby, Perl, Julia, ...﻿
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People
In his circles
1,524 people
Have him in circles
556 people
Work
Occupation
Sports Analyst and Data Scientist
Employment
• Chanteclair Farm
Data Scientist, 2013 - present
• Houston Rockets
Analyst, 2012 - present
Senior Quantitative Analyst, 2004 - 2014
• Udacity
Analyst, 2012 - 2013
Places
Currently
Versailles, KY
Previously
San Diego, CA
Other profiles
Contributor to
Story
Tagline
"Tick, clong, tick, clong, tick, clong, went the night." - Thurber
Bragging rights
Loved by all animals.
Education
• Rutgers University
Mathematics, 2004
• Rutgers University
Biostatistics, 2004
• Rutgers University
Statistics, 2003
Basic Information
Gender
Male
Other names
clonger
Love this place. Limited menu, but the new chef is outstanding.
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reviewed 2 weeks ago
Very clean, very quiet, about a mile from Opryland. Recommended.
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