A Data Investigation Blog

Double Trouble

visualizations
food
The McDonald’s Big Arch burger has likely gotten even more than McDonald’s has been expecting, albeit via the less than flattering reaction to a now viral tasting of the new…
Mar 26, 2026

Backup Option

NFL
visualizations
sports analytics
The 2025 season is over, the NFL Combine has come and gone, and preparations for the upcoming season are at full throttle. This period is vitally important to the many teams…
Mar 2, 2026

Anyone Here a Doctor?

public health
Over the past few months, I’ve seen a fair amount of discussion regarding the possible effect of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to be enacted as part of the OBBB signed on…
Oct 9, 2025

Built Different

NFL
data analysis
sports analytics
non-parametric tests
The NFL has been presented as a model of competitive parity for professional sports. Their use of hard salary cap and revenue sharing works to keep teams on a more level…
Jul 25, 2025

Got Room for Boba?

ETL
GIS
spatial analysis
LLM
food
In recent years, Berkeley has been touted in marketing campaigns as the Boba Capital of the Bay Area. It doesn’t sound that farfetched given that one neighborhood…
May 30, 2025

Take It To The Bank

exploratory data analysis
NFL
data analysis
sports analytics
data linkage
Player compensation in the NFL can be quite complicated, with one often having to navigate through a number of payment provision types (e.g. base salary, signing bonuses…
Apr 16, 2025

Hard to Pass Up

visualizations
football
NFL
sports analytics
As I begin this project, 15-2 Lions have just fallen out of the NFL playoffs, done in by an upstart Washington Commanders squad in the 2nd week of the playoffs. While there…
Feb 22, 2025

What to Expect When You’re Expecting

machine learning
visualizations
soccer
data linkage
sports analytics
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, so it’s no surprise that analytics to better understand the game are of great interest to the public. Expected goals (xG)—the…
Jan 28, 2025

Rough Ride

visualizations
Given the amount of travel done across the state, it should be no surprise that injuries from traffic accidents represent a substantial amount of medical morbidity. Just how…
Sep 4, 2024

Library Renewal

visualizations
Recent circumstances have spurred my curiosity as to how people’s usage of the library had changed throughout the progression of the pandemic. Have things more or less…
Aug 2, 2024

Star Power

analysis
machine learning
BSTS
time-series
causal inference
basketball
soccer
Caitlin Clark has been a bit of a headline grabber since her ascent into the upper echelons of scoring for women’s and men’s NCAA basketball. Given the amazing traction…
Jul 3, 2024

Zoom Zoom

analysis
machine learning
CatBoost
XGBoost
F1
This project originates from a Kaggle challenge issued by Nick Wan, sports analytics professional (and generous coding knowledge sharer via Twitch stream) to predict F1 lap…
Jun 12, 2024

Pitch Perfect

machine learning
lightGBM
visualizations
baseball
MLB
ensemble
sports analytics
Hitting a game-winning homer is a classic childhood dream. But for me, most of my childhood baseball fantasies came not with a bat in hand, but from the mound. In my…
Apr 24, 2024

A Kicker Predictor

machine learning
regression
deep learning
KNN
SVM
ensemble models
XGBoost
random forest
NFL
data analysis
sports analytics
While they say that “necessity is the mother of invention,” frustration is surely a paternal grandfather. And as a long-time fantasy football participant, I’d say one of its…
Jan 14, 2024

Ravens QB Comparison - Causal Methods

analysis
NFL
causal inference
causal forests
sports analytics
As we saw in the previous post, circumstances faced by the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley could have contributed materially to their differences in…
Aug 28, 2023

Ravens QB Comparison - Data Visualizations

visualizations
NFL
analysis
sports analytics
At the height of contract negotiation tension between Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens, many teams had to have been speculating about the value he could provide if he…
Aug 21, 2023

Peeking Under the Hood of an NFL Expected Points Model

visualizations
NFL
sports analytics
I was looking for an excuse to make some data visualizations to test how the interactive features of Plotly figures work on Quarto. And, given that football season fast…
Jul 28, 2023

Welcome To My Blog

news
Welcome to Numbers in Figures! Pardon my dust, as I contemplate the future of this blog and it’s place in the world, as well as trying to wrap my head around how to publish…
Jun 27, 2023
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