We're all sleeping on Michael Pittman

[Hottoddies]

Does breakout age or dominator rating actually have any statistically significant predictive value, or is it more of a “flipped heads 8/10 times, so heads is 80% odds to hit” type of thing? Serious question.

It just means that 80% of the players that hit had good dominator ratings and early breakout ages(not surprising). Not that 80% of the players that checked those boxes make the grade. So breakout age and dominator rating in of itself does not have a predictive value. I'm pretty sure that the majority of all the college players that checked these boxes don't even get drafted.

[PR0v3]

Does breakout age or dominator rating actually have any statistically significant predictive value, or is it more of a “flipped heads 8/10 times, so heads is 80% odds to hit” type of thing? Serious question.

It just means that 80% of the players that hit had good dominator ratings and early breakout ages(not surprising). Not that 80% of the players that checked those boxes make the grade. So breakout age and dominator rating in of itself does not have a predictive value. I'm pretty sure that the majority of all the college players that checked these boxes don't even get drafted.

So what is the mathematical reasoning for why anyone should care about Pittman’s breakout age?

[AkaliWarrior]

Does breakout age or dominator rating actually have any statistically significant predictive value, or is it more of a “flipped heads 8/10 times, so heads is 80% odds to hit” type of thing? Serious question.

It just means that 80% of the players that hit had good dominator ratings and early breakout ages(not surprising). Not that 80% of the players that checked those boxes make the grade. So breakout age and dominator rating in of itself does not have a predictive value. I'm pretty sure that the majority of all the college players that checked these boxes don't even get drafted.

I'm not a true believer in breakout age, but I will admit that this isn't correct. The breakout age truthers will tell you that you have the highest statistical chance at predicting an elite player at the NFL level, when you take into account their 'dominator rating'. The dominator rating takes into account the breakout age and team target share. Since breakout age is a main aggregate in the formula, it's extremely important to them. They suggest that the higher the dominator rating, the younger and higher the target share a player has, is directly correlative to their predictive NFL success.

I'm personally not a slave to the breakout age, but it's something interesting to take into account in order to break ties, IMO.

[Zacsby]

I'm not a true believer in breakout age, but I will admit that this isn't correct. The breakout age truthers will tell you that you have the highest statistical chance at predicting an elite player at the NFL level, when you take into account their 'dominator rating'. The dominator rating takes into account the breakout age and team target share. Since breakout age is a main aggregate in the formula, it's extremely important to them. They suggest that the higher the dominator rating, the younger and higher the target share a player has, is directly correlative to their predictive NFL success.

I'm personally not a slave to the breakout age, but it's something interesting to take into account in order to break ties, IMO.

Dominator rating does not factor in breakout age. It is simply the percentage of the total offense that player accounted for. A "break out" is hitting a certain DR threshold. What age they hit it at is BA.

I do understand it, which is why I’ve asked if there is a legitimate study posted anywhere! All I’ve ever seen posted or discussed anywhere on this topic ever is “hur durr, heads flipped 8 times in a row, next one is heads again.”

This stuff is literally no different than playing blackjack. Just because you play blackjack by the book doesn't mean you're going to win the hand you're currently dealt. But if you play it by the book, every single hand, it increases your chances of winning in the long run. Unfortunately what it seems like you're looking for (which in blackjack would be the equivalent of counting cards I guess), does not exist in football. If you still don't understand then I don't know what more to tell you. Lol

[OhCruelestRanter]

We’re approaching the point where we just have to admit that we can explain it to you, but we can’t understand it for you.

So what is the mathematical reasoning for why anyone should care about Pittman’s breakout age?

And we’re there. I tried in good faith. This guy apparently wants proof that there’s a mathematical certainty that you can apply to breakout age.

Here’s his argument another way:
Us: Men who smoke are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
PR0v3: isn’t this just a “the coin flipped 8 times thing?” How do you know that’s the real probability?
Us: no, this is data from many years and a large population
PR0v3: WHERE’S TEH MATH THAT SAYS I SHOULDNT SMOKE?

Sometimes people just aren’t going to understand things, and that’s fine.

[PR0v3]

We’re approaching the point where we just have to admit that we can explain it to you, but we can’t understand it for you.

So what is the mathematical reasoning for why anyone should care about Pittman’s breakout age?

And we’re there. I tried in good faith. This guy apparently wants proof that there’s a mathematical certainty that you can apply to breakout age.

Here’s his argument another way:
Us: Men who smoke are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
PR0v3: isn’t this just a “the coin flipped 8 times thing?” How do you know that’s the real probability?
Us: no, this is data from many years and a large population
PR0v3: WHERE’S TEH MATH THAT SAYS I SHOULDNT SMOKE?

Sometimes people just aren’t going to understand things, and that’s fine.

Bruh. I’m just asking for the damn study so I can read it. Where the hell is it? It’s like you haven’t read any post I’ve made. Where the hell is the damn study so I can read it for myself and not have to just take your word for it? I can find 100 million peer reviewed studies online about the damages of smoking, can’t find a single one about breakout age.

[OhCruelestRanter]

We’re approaching the point where we just have to admit that we can explain it to you, but we can’t understand it for you.

So what is the mathematical reasoning for why anyone should care about Pittman’s breakout age?

And we’re there. I tried in good faith. This guy apparently wants proof that there’s a mathematical certainty that you can apply to breakout age.

Here’s his argument another way:
Us: Men who smoke are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
PR0v3: isn’t this just a “the coin flipped 8 times thing?” How do you know that’s the real probability?
Us: no, this is data from many years and a large population
PR0v3: WHERE’S TEH MATH THAT SAYS I SHOULDNT SMOKE?

Sometimes people just aren’t going to understand things, and that’s fine.

Bruh. I’m just asking for the damn study so I can read it. Where the hell is it? It’s like you haven’t read any post I’ve made. Where the hell is the damn study so I can read it for myself and not have to just take your word for it? I can find 100 million peer reviewed studies online about the damages of smoking, can’t find a single one about breakout age.

You want a peer reviewed study now? Like in the Journal of Dynasty Fantasy Football?

[PR0v3]

And we’re there. I tried in good faith. This guy apparently wants proof that there’s a mathematical certainty that you can apply to breakout age.

Here’s his argument another way:
Us: Men who smoke are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
PR0v3: isn’t this just a “the coin flipped 8 times thing?” How do you know that’s the real probability?
Us: no, this is data from many years and a large population
PR0v3: WHERE’S TEH MATH THAT SAYS I SHOULDNT SMOKE?

Sometimes people just aren’t going to understand things, and that’s fine.

Bruh. I’m just asking for the damn study so I can read it. Where the hell is it? It’s like you haven’t read any post I’ve made. Where the hell is the damn study so I can read it for myself and not have to just take your word for it? I can find 100 million peer reviewed studies online about the damages of smoking, can’t find a single one about breakout age.

You want a peer reviewed study now? Like in the Journal of Dynasty Fantasy Football?

So we’re dressing up in our statistician costume and playing make believe? Nothing backed by legitimate process? That’s cool if that’s the way it is, let’s just stop pretending like any of it actually matters.

[Shankopotamus]

Planting my flag that Pittman will be a stud despite a low percentage profile.

[Mike from Canada]

Here is a good walkthrough.

https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/20 ... tor-rating

Here’s my take away from reading that article:

The person took breakout age hit rates and then used those hit rates to give a % chance that Bryan Edwards or Tyler Johnson hit.

That’s not how stats work.

Is this really all that people are doing? Just counting 10 coin flips and taking whatever the results are to guess the next coin flip? Why are people placing so much value on this stuff?

Most importantly, what you learn from doing this stuff is that the chances of these guys breaking out aren’t as different as we’d like to think, and frequently the answer is to just trade back and get more picks, and then use the late round picks to supplement your rosters with undervalued veterans.

Sorry if I messed up the quotes. Anyway, regarding the bold part - I imagine you mean this for a startup but for a rookie draft do you usually trade your picks or keep them?

[AkaliWarrior]

Dominator rating does not factor in breakout age. It is simply the percentage of the total offense that player accounted for. A "break out" is hitting a certain DR threshold. What age they hit it at is BA.

You're right. I said it backwards.

[AkaliWarrior]

Bruh. I’m just asking for the damn study so I can read it. Where the hell is it? It’s like you haven’t read any post I’ve made. Where the hell is the damn study so I can read it for myself and not have to just take your word for it? I can find 100 million peer reviewed studies online about the damages of smoking, can’t find a single one about breakout age.

You want a peer reviewed study now? Like in the Journal of Dynasty Fantasy Football?

So we’re dressing up in our statistician costume and playing make believe? Nothing backed by legitimate process? That’s cool if that’s the way it is, let’s just stop pretending like any of it actually matters.

This is the single best article I've come across to explain breakout age, why it matters, and links to the "studies" in which they came to the conclusions they did.

https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/20 ... tor-rating

[Jigga94]

Planting my flag that Pittman will be a stud despite a low percentage profile.

The thing is, I don't feel like he has a low % profile. I just think him being drafted as WR6 this year is about right. In other years he could be a top 3 guy

[ericanadian]

The biggest criticism I have of the dominator rating/breakout age/early declare grouping as they are currently used is that every single one of them piggy back on draft position. The problem with this is that draft position is not a static dataset, nor is it an exact stand in for talent level. You’re building a correlation on a correlation and throwing around exact likelihoods of success.

At best, you’re identifying inefficiencies in the NFL talent evaluation process. The problem with banking on something like that is that the NFL decision making process is always developing as is their player development strategies. What didn’t work one year, may have been corrected in a future year. I don’t have the data on hand, but are we seeing teams draft less guys with a late breakout age? They may have weeded out some of the problems that were causing the inefficiency and then your model is worthless and its back to draft position. I believe Prov is looking for some sort of proof that these stats link directly to success and not just a higher success rate at any given draft position.

Even for what it offers on its own, I don’t like the illusions of precision. Breakout age uses the age of the guy at the beginning of a given season where he “breaks out”. How did we come to this as a conclusion? Why is it acceptable to project a full season for a guy that misses games (DJ Moore being the most recent example I can think of), but not carry over games between seasons? We’re basically admitting that a full season of data is not necessary, and yet this hasn’t taken the next logical step of taking blocks of say ten consecutive games (even across seasons) instead of single seasons. Taking Pittman as an example, his breakout age would drop almost a full year if you took the last five to seven games of his 2018 season and carried it into 2019. Cutoffs like this are arbitrary and really undermine the statistic.

[Cameron Giles]

The biggest criticism I have of the dominator rating/breakout age/early declare grouping as they are currently used is that every single one of them piggy back on draft position. The problem with this is that draft position is not a static dataset, nor is it an exact stand in for talent level. You’re building a correlation on a correlation and throwing around exact likelihoods of success.

At best, you’re identifying inefficiencies in the NFL talent evaluation process. The problem with banking on something like that is that the NFL decision making process is always developing as is their player development strategies. What didn’t work one year, may have been corrected in a future year. I don’t have the data on hand, but are we seeing teams draft less guys with a late breakout age? They may have weeded out some of the problems that were causing the inefficiency and then your model is worthless and its back to draft position. I believe Prov is looking for some sort of proof that these stats link directly to success and not just a higher success rate at any given draft position.

Even for what it offers on its own, I don’t like the illusions of precision. Breakout age uses the age of the guy at the beginning of a given season where he “breaks out”. How did we come to this as a conclusion? Why is it acceptable to project a full season for a guy that misses games (DJ Moore being the most recent example I can think of), but not carry over games between seasons? We’re basically admitting that a full season of data is not necessary, and yet this hasn’t taken the next logical step of taking blocks of say ten consecutive games (even across seasons) instead of single seasons. Taking Pittman as an example, his breakout age would drop almost a full year if you took the last five to seven games of his 2018 season and carried it into 2019. Cutoffs like this are arbitrary and really undermine the statistic.

Good post. I understand the logic behind breakout and dominator, and they are useful stats for fantasy purposes. However, I think pigeonholing yourself into either gives you a really limited picture of things, even if you can still hit on prospects.

Valuing players who produce at a high level at an early age is practical, but there's so much grey area before that.