✉️ PTB ICYMI
✉️ PTB ICYMI
What you might have missed at Plot the Ball over the last three months
In addition to the regular Saturday newsletter, every three months this year I’ll also be sending subscribers a brief recap of all the work that has recently been published at Plot the Ball — in case there’s anything you’ve missed.
⚽️ Football
Looking at all of these pairs of seasons by goalies and categorising them based on how close the second year’s performance was to the first, we can see how uncertain our grasp on goalkeeping skill is.
The league’s salary-cap rules will make it difficult for the Spirit to create anything like such a talent advantage for Giráldez in the NWSL — even with the financial backing of majority owner Michele Kang.
🏏 Cricket
The different styles of cricket manufactured in the sport’s two biggest T20 competitions are evident, then. What’s more, we can be pretty confident that these differences are not down to the batting talent on display.
Another way to look at this is that — despite having played only eight career matches — Jaiswal has already scored the fifth most runs in men’s tests of any left-handed Indian opener.
🏀 Basketball
According to BPM, so far in 2023-24 he has been playing at roughly 50% of the level he hit during his 2008-09 peak — and is having considerably more impact than he did as a rookie.
According to the preferred all-in measure of Cleaning The Glass — Points scored per 100 Shot Attempts, or PSA — he never ranked better for his position as a scorer than the 61st-percentile mark he recorded in 2017-18.
🏉 Rugby
Taking those five seasons since 2019 together, the Panthers have eight players who played at least 60% of all possible regular-season minutes for the team. On average, other NRL teams had just four each.
⚾️ Baseball
Take all of this together, and you can see why the Dodgers rate Yamamoto’s chances of success. Public analysts also agree: FanGraphs is projecting him to be a top-10 pitcher in his first year in the Majors.
Also covered: ⚽ Mo Salah’s off-ball anticipation; Mary Earps’ club performances; Barcelona’s promising young core; 🏏 Phoebe Litchfield’s power game; England’s risk-reward trade-off; Shafali Verma’s touch game; 🏀 Caitlin Clark’s playmaking; Sabrina Ionescu’s playmaking; Victor Wembanyama’s passing; 🎾 Carlos Alcaraz’s ball-striking; Iga Świątek’s serve; 🏈 Josh Allen’s tolerance for risk; the Kansas City Chiefs’ defence; ⛳ Rose Zhang’s ball-striking; Scottie Scheffler’s putting; ⚾ Shohei Ohtani’s popularity; 🏒 the USA’s sources of ice hockey talent; and 🏉 the Crusaders’ pre-season tour.
The next edition of My Week in Sport(s) will be published on Saturday April 6th.