Or you can put it out there, live and die by the results, and have people judge you accordingly. Looking back at his rankings for previous seasons, he's done well above average.
I can appreciate the frustration, and I even mentioned that I'm interested to see how Pierre-Louis ranks as a better athlete than Shazier, but I don't think he's under any obligation. It's kind of like Awsi with his betting formulas. If I remember correctly, he had a radio show in Vegas (I think?), but he never divulged trade secrets. Awsi, please feel free to correct me here.
In the early going, late '80s, I made the mistake of blurting out too much. You want the audience to think you know what you are doing. I made the mistake of giving away my system of betting against any home underdog that had won its previous game straight up as home underdog, as well as a few other trends. A well known football/basketball writer and handicapper named Dan Gordon from New York was in the audience at the Stardust. He treated me to lunch the next day and warned me not to make the same mistakes he had. Gordon developed the zig-zag theory of betting the NBA playoffs. Basically you take the straight up loser of the previous game. Now there is an adjustment in the betting line for that trend, but Gordon discovered it prior to the adjustment. The public was actually betting it the other way so Gordon had a huge edge until he allowed the secret to spill. Gordon told me that based on the systems I had mentioned on the radio show it was obvious I had done lots of work uncovering them, so it was foolish to give them away on a public forum. This was before I used a computer so it was indeed tons of work by hand alone.
Larry Ness of the Jim Feist sports handicapping service took one of the angles on NFL totals that I had mentioned and used it as a tip on the weekly televised tout program. At least Ness was honest about it. He was a friend of mine from my early months in Las Vegas. Ness pulled me aside and said he used the angle on the show and hoped I didn't mind. He said Feist wanted trends like that but he didn't have any. The funny thing about that angle was that it had a fantastic percentage, well above 70% for many years, then almost immediately it flopped to barely above 50% as soon as I gave it out. I never understood that one. It had something to do with a road game after a string of division games going over the total.
One time in the same time frame I mistakenly gave out an angle and chief oddsmaker Michael Roxborough wrote it down and said, "Thanks. I'll make sure you never make any money on that again." I felt like a moron because it was one of my best systems. At that point I more or less shut up until one mistake many years later. I gave out a trend involving the Jeff Sagarin power ratings. My friend Dave was on the radio panel that night. When we went to commercial he smacked me on the leg and said he would kill me if I ever mentioned Sagarin again on that program. Using the Sagarin ratings was his pet method for not only betting, but figuring out which way the line would move.
So yeah, I can't really blame this Patriots fan for maintaining the formula as his own. It's so early in the metrics process in regard to the NFL draft there is potential for recognition and profit if you get the jump on something. ckparrothead told me he is working on a collaboration with a guy who used to post here and now writes metrics articles for rotoworld.
Anyway, regarding the numbers and conclusions, I've long been intrigued by Kareem Martin since I'm convinced there are hidden gems on any team recruited by Butch Davis. I attended the Miami/North Carolina game on Thursday night in Chapel Hill last October. They flashed athleticism all over the field.
Frankly I had forgotten that Ben Gardner was in this draft. He got hurt late last season. I bet Stanford all the time and I know that Gardner is very popular and well respected on that team. Based on those metrics numbers I'd have to put him near the absolute top of the all-underrated list. He could be available in a late round. I read the Stanford school paper online last night after finding those metrics numbers. The article said Gardner had lost 15 pounds leading to the draft to improve his pass rush potential.
I've been skeptical about Khalil Mack since I seldom like a guy who was rated low out of high school and now is atop the ratings. Based on all the metrics evaluations that place Mack extremely high, I'm probably off base on that one.
