What Makes a Team's Winning Percentage Deviate from the Pythagorean Relationship?

Areas of Science	Pure Mathematics
Difficulty
Time Required	Average (6-10 days)
Prerequisites	Basic knowledge of Microsoft Excel and statistics
Material Availability	Readily Available
Cost	Very Low (under $20)

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Abstract

What makes a winning team? Getting all the best players? Good coaches? Good chemistry? This project will show you how you can use math to help you test your hypothesis about what makes a winning team.

The Pythagorean relationship is a fundamental one in sports: it correctly predicts the records of 98% of all teams. But in 2% of cases, it fails. Why does it fail? Find teams that deviated substantially from their expected Pythagorean record (this information is available for baseball teams on www.baseball-reference.com. Then look at their situational statistics (this information is available on ESPN.com) and determine what they did that resulted in more or fewer wins than they otherwise should have had. Determine what the teams have in common.

Credits

Gabriel Desjardins

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MLA Style

Science Buddies Staff. "What Makes a Team's Winning Percentage Deviate from the Pythagorean Relationship?" Science Buddies, 28 July 2017, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Math_p005/pure-mathematics/team-winning-percentage-pythagorean-theorem. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff. (2017, July 28). What Makes a Team's Winning Percentage Deviate from the Pythagorean Relationship? Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Math_p005/pure-mathematics/team-winning-percentage-pythagorean-theorem

Last edit date: 2017-07-28

Experimental Procedure

For this science project you will need to develop your own experimental procedure. Use the information in the summary tab as a starting place. If you would like to discuss your ideas or need help troubleshooting, use the Ask An Expert forum. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions and offer guidance if you come to them with specific questions.

If you want a Project Idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk (*) at the end of the title.

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What Makes a Team's Winning Percentage Deviate from the Pythagorean Relationship? *

Abstract

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