The Tuesday Ticker: Buy the Dip?

 

Welcome to the first ever Tuesday Ticker! This weekly piece will quickly inform readers on the overall performance of the WRBL(NA) League and allow fans to follow their favorite contestants and track their different statistical performances. Lets kick this baby off!

The standings will continue to be posted on Sundays but for ease of analysis, they will be posted here as well. Here is where we "stand" (see what I did there).

This past week was a huge opportunity for many individuals to make huge leaps in the table. The league as a whole however struggled mightily contributing to limited movement in the standings. The most important bit of movement in the table came from Tyler who gained 22 points in one week to catch me at the top of the standings after I scored a mere 10 points. Poods ceded second place to Tyler as a result of his lackluster 12 point performance. The middle of the standings stayed much the same with Buddy, Teddy, and Luke staying in lockstep with their previous weeks rankings. Blake continued his fall from grace with the leagues worst performance to date with 5 points this week and relinquished seventh place to statistical anomaly Brent. Brent continues to perform well in the win column but cannot break through with big point performances. Ben stayed firm in his ninth place position leaving Dalton to heat the rest of the league house from the basement for a record third time in a row this season. Many missed opportunities this week, but the gap continues to close between first and last with only 40 points now separating the two with 4 weeks to go. Its still anybody's game.

League Performance:

As previously mentioned, the league struggled. Like, really struggled. Let's take a look at some league performance statistics.

After a strong week 4 performance which brought the league to near 50% levels in Win% and % of Total Points accumulated, we decided to throw a wrench into our performance. A league wide 41% winning percentage after the previous weeks 54% dropped the league to 47.2% for the season. This number represents the exact value Vegas wants to see across the board from its gamblers. How should we respond to this concrete gambling statistic? I'll quote Dalton on how to responsibly proceed...

In terms of points, the league amassed a mere 187 out of 550 possible. That is abysmal to say the least and will hopefully only be a blip on the radar moving forward. Here is a trendline representing our league wide points/week.

And things were looking so promising...

Points Table:

This is where the points table will be located from now on instead of the Sunday article. We have a few interesting tidbits to dissect. Here it is.

I'd like to point out the new feature to the table being the "Points/Win" row. This number should act as one of the more important metrics moving forward to project the eventual winner of the Golden Busch Light NA Can. A high pts/win number shows a player is most likely correctly picking games worth more points, which should shield them from catastrophic performances most of the time. A low number here can mean one of two things. Either the player is not correctly picking many games in the first place or they are picking games right, but missing on the games worth the most points. (See Brent).

Last week 4 individuals were averaging above 6 pts/win (myself, Teddy, Tyler, Buddy). As you can see, currently nobody is at that number right now and anybody who can reach a mark of 6 or greater will in my estimation win the league. Tyler and Teddy are closest right now and sit at 5.92 and 5.91 respectively. As you will see from everybody's individual graphs later in this article, Tyler and Teddy have achieved this by staying relatively steady every week. Luke by the way is right at the league average of 5.52. Nice.

The inverse of Tyler and Teddy is Brent. Brent is one of only four players with a record above .500 at 26-24 but is also the only player whose pts/win is below 5. He's not even in the same area code as the next lowest average as he is a full .37 points behind Blake's 5.18. How do you explain that you say? I'll let my friend Leo enlighten us again...

It really is a stunning feat. Brent has amassed a record of 12-28 in games he has wagered 5 or more points as well as being 4-10 in 9 and 10 point picks. That's a tough pill to swallow and right now its the most interesting stat in the league.

Stock Watch:

This is the main purpose of The Ticker. We will take a quick peak at each individual in the league and their weekly trendline and I will choose to either buy, sell, or hold each player for the coming week as if they were a company on the S&P 500 (thank God we're not).

Alec: Buy

Buy the f***ing dip! In my case it's not so much a dip as it is a slide into oblivion but I have been the victim of some super bad beats of late. I expect my performance to right itself as I begin to reap the other side of these close outcomes. I'm 15-10 in games where I wagered 6 or more points including 7-3 in 9 and 10 point contests. Rumors have been speculated as well that I had a team meeting with myself yesterday to block out the outside noise associated with my prior performances, to which I say, "I'm ready".

Blake: Hold

I'm going to hold onto my shares of Blake. He's on the slide right now but before last week when he amassed an 0-5 record in games he wagered 6 or more points on, he sat at 10-10 in that category and 6-6 in games worth 8 or more points. It may look bleak right now, but I think Blake will have something to say about who sits at the top by seasons end.

Poods: Buy 

I'm going after the dip again! Ethan has performed at or above the league average in each week except for this past one when he was just down right terrible. Before last week, Ethan was 11-9 in games that he wagered 6 or more points. Even after his horrible performance, his past showings were strong enough to keep him in 3rd place. I think Ethan will come back to his averages and be a strong contender for the title. 

Teddy: Buy.

Teddy is Mr. Consistent. I'd equate him to a safe investment sitting in your portfolio guaranteed to bring you 3-6% returns a year. I was going to "hold" my shares of Teddy the first time I saw his performance graph but after a deeper dive I'm absolutely buying what I can now. As previously mentioned, Teddy has the second highest pts/win average in the league at 5.91. He only sits at 12-13 in games where he's wagered 6 or more points but here's the metric boosting his pts/win and why I'm now so bullish on this guy. Teddy is 8-2 in games worth 9 or ten points! The man knows what he's doing folks. I guess that's what an Economics degree from Mendoza will do for you.

Luke: Sell.

I'm just going to be honest and say that as an investor looking to put my hard earned confidence points into the market, I don't trust Luke one iota. Since his first week performance of 41, Luke has has been under the league average each of the past 4 weeks. At 12-13 in games where he has wagered 6 or more points he hasn't performed horribly, but a 4-6 record in games worth 9 or 10 is not very reassuring. The main reason that I am selling Luke as fast as I can however is simply because he has not picked Northwestern even one time this year. I am not about to incur the wrath of the all powerful Pat Fitzgerald and the fighting Reece Davises and it’s probably to late for Luke.

Ben: Sell.

This one was easy. Ben has outperformed the league average only once and it was because the league did terrible. Simply put, I'm not buying into you Ben when you haven't had a single week above 26 points. If you are the type of person that only wants to put all of your well earned money into Treasury Bonds, Ben is for you.

Tyler: Buy.

I'm all in on the only Graber doing anything for the Graberkamps. In the mind of this blogger, Tyler is the best buy in the league right now. His dips are tolerable and the potential payout is generous. Tyler has outperformed the league average three times and along with myself, does so by a margin 0f 4.48 points a week. The difference between Tyler and myself however is that Tyler has never scored below 23 points in a week. He has the highest pts/win average at 5.92 which is the result of  a 14-11 record in games where he wagered 6 or more points along with a 6-4 mark in 9 and 10 point contests. Tied for 1st with one fewer win than me, its a good bet Tyler will be near the top the rest of the way.

Brent: Sell.

Brent's struggles to pick up points compared to his record are already well documented. He has the lowest pts/win average by a wide margin at 4.81 and his horrible record in games worth 5 or more points is concerning. After having outperformed the league each of the last three weeks, I'm going to collect what I can from my shares in Brent and get the hell out.

Buddy: Hold.

I was going to buy Buddy for the same reason I bought Teddy in that Buddy has a stellar record in high point games. Like Teddy, he is a fantastic 8-2 in 9 and 10 point contests. He also sports a respectable 14-11 record in games he wagered 6 or more points on. The only number that is keeping me from buying Buddy is his 5.76 pts/win average. That is a full .15 pts lower that Teddy. Buddy's numbers are also inflated by a huge week 4 that at the moment stands as an anomaly. So with that said, I will be holding my shares of Buddy until more data is available.

Dalton: Sell.

Let's compare Dalton's data with the stock market crash of 1929 and its aftermath...

Well, that's enough for me.

And there you have it folks. The first Tuesday Ticker is in the books. I leave it up to you now who you want to cheer for in the final four weeks of the season. Choose wisely and be sure to tune in Wednesday for the inaugural Big Ten power rankings! Teaser, Nebraska is last😊.