February 12, 2024
We have probably all heard about the statistic plus/minus in hockey. It’s a simple calculation that tells you information about which players are on the ice when you score a goal minus the players who are on the ice when a goal gets scored against you. If you are plus, you were on the ice for more goals scored by your team as opposed to those scored by your opponents. It’s a great stat to measure success rate by player and typically has players near the top of the rankings that can score AND play defense.
So how does plus/minus relate to volleyball? We could look at points scored on the court the same way. However, we don’t have that data and don’t think it is collected anywhere. It would be interesting to see an individual’s impact for each team and if they are on the court for more points that your team scores than gives up. But our analysis on plus/minus does not have anything to do with points scored on the court.
The staff was brainstorming tonight and came up with a new statistic for volleyball. It looks at two different categories/factors.
#1 What percentage of your team’s attack are devoted to any individual player. It will typically represent who is getting set the most and least and the appropriate percentages but there will be some minor exceptions.
#2 What percentage of total kills for your team came from individual players. So, who is scoring on your attack opportunities, as represented by a percentage.
#3 Subtract #1 from #2. This appears to us to be a magic number. If it is positive, the player will be scoring at a rate higher than the opportunities he is provided. If the score is a minus, the player is not fulfilling on opportunities to score at the percentage of sets. It is meant to measure over and under performers.
If a player gets set 33% of all attacks but scores 38% of all points scored by the team, they are a plus 5. On the other hand, if a player gets set 40% of the time but only scores 33% of the teams’ points, they receive a -7.
The other data that this analysis reveals is the out of whack percentages some teams have for one or two players compared to a balanced attack. Let’s take a look at some of those situations (noting these will happen on teams that are in lower 20% quadrant of the ratings).
Nate Davis of Sarah Lawrence scores an astounding 69% of his teams kills. He gets set 51% of all attacks. He is a resounding +18, scoring at a much higher rate than his distribution.
Lavi Friedman of Yeshiva is the leader in the category with a plus 21. He scores 45% of his teams’ points despite only getting 24% of the sets.
For teams in the top 20, we see some expected names in the mix. Andrew Kim of Hobart was the first player we thought of, but Dan Sappia is playing so well, it made Andrews numbers very normal at a plus 6. Ryan Kagan from NYU, Chase Olsen from Benedictine, Nick Gustafson from MIT, Ian Rauh from St. John Fisher, Mitch Hester from NCC, and Jared Piontowski of Misericordia all get very positive grades.
There are a number of bigger names on the negative list that are getting opportunities through sets but may not be taking advantage of those opportunities as reflected by the points they are scoring on kills.
This analysis also gives Coaches an opportunity to evaluate players who are under/over performing (as if they need more input, LOL). and adjust accordingly.
Please let us what you think of this report and its value through DM on IG or at insidehitter@gmail.com.
2 analyses noted… the first is by plus/minus top down, the second is by team.
BY PLAYER
BY TEAM