After reading the recent back and forth I think we should re-title this thread, "How to make Wondo's goal scoring feat sound boring".
Well, 1) the data has to have statistical significance and 2) there should be some kind of credible underlying premise / hypothesis that is behind the research. We could look at Wondo's scoring rate on even numbered days vs. odd numbered days, but would we believe the underlying premise there, that even or odd is relevant to his goal scoring rate? The sample might be statistically significant but the underlying premise is not really credible. In the case of Wondo's scoring rate vs. top, mid, and lower table teams, I'm not sure that the difference in the quality of the defenses is necessarily statistically significant, especially comparing say top to mid tier. And then I'm not sure what the underlying premise would be. We see that Wondo's scoring rate dips for mid-tier teams, but I would be hard-pressed to even "back fill" a premise / hypothesis as to why that is the case.
Another interesting thing to look at in goals scored is the "importance" of goals. I.e. game winning goals, game tying, etc vs. late goals in a blow out. Wondo likely really exceeds in this category considering his breaking of the game winning goals record.
1) Significance is relative. 2) Playoff teams vs non-playoff was too broad a line to cut in my mind, because the difference between playing, say, KC's defense or RSL's defense and LA or NY's defense, is 25%-43% more goals conceded. Which nicely falls into that 30% range for Lassiter that you guys want to handicap his numbers with. Cutting into into thirds brings that range down a bit, although admittedly it's not perfect - ideally you split the teams into 3rds based on GA. And I again don't see why a hypothesis has to exist before looking at the numbers, or one needs to be added back in afterward. It's possible to look at something just to look at it from a different angle and see if anything can be learned, without coming at the information with bias or expectation.
Statistical significance - a determination as to whether your observations reflect a pattern rather than just chance. It is not "relative" - there's a quantitative field of study called statistics that deals with these kinds of things. Sure, you can "back-fill" a hypothesis. But there should at least be some reasonable chance that you might be able to do that. If we found that Wondo scored more goals on even-numbered days, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a hypothesis to explain that. It's almost certainly just a random occurrence / chance, and suggests that the sample size is probably too small. If I flip a coin 10 times, I might get heads 8 times, but if I flip it 100 times, it's probably going to even out. Same goes for goals scored against top, mid, and low level teams, though to a lesser extent. I think it's the "8 heads out of 10 coin flips" effect, and even if it wasn't, I'm not sure what hypothesis I would back-fill to explain the data.
In your example of statistical significance, your way of determining whether something is chance or pattern is by comparing outliers to an expected pattern or result - I hate to go all dictionary on you, but...#5. Anyway, you think I'm wasting my time; and I don't. I don't think looking into something requires following someone else's approval and formula for acting on hunches, nor does it require a nice, clean explanation/rationalization for why it happened in order for it to be interesting; and you do. Let's leave it at that.
Wondo breaks the MLS record for most passes to Ike Opara instead of taking the game saving shot with 1.
He is a good but not a national team player. I never thought he was anyway. There isn't anything wrong with that . I mean there are top scorers in many leagues around the world who are great club players or goal scorers but are not really meant to play on national teams as you only have so many chances to play with them.
The last time we were in the playoffs (2010)I do recall a dramatic goal at NYRB that ousted them from the playoffs.
Well, I suppose a meteorite could hit him during the off season, but, the fact that he is still under contract with the Quakes leaves me to believe we will see him playing many more games for San Jose.
Doesn't he have European ancestry? Maybe after getting hit by a meteor what's left of his body will be buried there.
Wondo is Polish as was Danny Szetela who tried and failed in both Poland and MLS and is out of the game at 24 years of age..... European ancestry though means nothing at 30 years old especially in January.....