Primer – How do the Indices work?
If you’re wired for numbers, like I am, it can be hard to deal with people’s feelings and understanding why they think the things that they do. That’s why I’ve decided to quantify the feelings a team generates into five distinct indices: Power, Hope, Panic, Fortune and Disappointment.
Each index has two components. There’s a main mechanism for ranking the teams and some minor tie-breaking stats. The main mechanism typically uses Elo ratings to make an estimation of what we expect from a team, whether or not they are meeting that expectation and what that means for the season ahead. The tie-breakers are statistics used to award a few points here and there to help rank the teams should they have similar mechanism results.
Editor’s note: As much of last season’s material was influenced by The Arc, much of this season’s material owes a debt to SB Nation, including the idea of panic/hope indices.
