Orb Analytics Week 8 Recap – Performance & Results
The Orb models had mixed results in week 8. They had a solid performance against the spread, going 3-2, 60% but once again struggled on moneyline picks, going just 5-4, 55.6%. The Orb’s performance against the spread is our main focus and North-Star goal each season, but it is still less than ideal that this is the third recap in which the tone of a winning performance against the spread is dampened by a losing one on moneyline picks. Through this point last season, we saw a strong positive correlation between the performance of one model with the other. Generally speaking, when the spread models did well, so did the moneyline and vice versa. It is interesting to see a big discrepancy between the two so far. The main reason the moneyline has been disappointing is that the Orb has had a very successful season so far in its main purpose against the spread, but I feel like a lot of the write-ups have had to include a note on losing moneyline performances.
We saw two cool data points this week that I want to highlight. The first is that our season accuracy against the spread essentially matched our accuracy for week 8. The models came into this week within half a percentage point of 60% accuracy on the season. They then hit 60% of their picks over the weekend. I believe I have talked about it before, a 3-2 performance over a weekend isn’t anything to write home about but if you were do to that every week and ended with a 60% record ATS over a whole season, you would be one of the most accurate handicappers in the game. From the research I have found, a 60% hit rate over a large enough sample size would put you in the top 1-3% of handicappers. So while a 4-1 weekend was on the table heading into Monday night, I will never be disappointed with a winning week ATS. One of the modeling strategies for this season and why I replaced the old Model C was to use model types that complement each other better and theoretically could lead to more consistent and steady positive results, rather than bigger ups and downs like we had last season. The other interesting thing to point out is that we saw our own trends of Sunday vs. non-Sunday performance flip. The Orb had a great Sunday going 3-1 ATS in the main slate of games and completely missed on its Thursday night moneyline pick, as well as its Monday night picks as our models boldly predicted the Giants not only to cover the 5.5-points but to upset the Steelers in Pittsburgh. Our winning streak of premium spread picks comes to an end at 9 in a row and failed to reach double-digits.
Here is how each of our model’s picks performed in week 8:
Spreads:
Patriots +7 ✅
Titans +11.5 ❌
Bills -3 ✅
Raiders +9.5 ✅
Giants +5.5 (MNF - Premium) ❌
All spread picks: 3-2, 60%, +0.727 units
Moneyline:
Vikings (TNF - Premium) ❌
Bengals ❌
Packers ✅
Ravens ❌
Lions ✅
Bills ✅
Broncos ✅
Chiefs ✅
Giants (MNF - Premium) ❌
All moneyline picks: 5-4, 55.6%, -2.38 units
Overall a -1.653 unit performance.
Week 8 Model Performance:
Favorites covered 7/16 games (43.8%) and won 10/16 outright (62.5%).
Weekly spreads:
Weekly Moneyline:
Season-To-Date Model Performance:
Not including week 1, favorites have covered 56/107 games (52.3%) and won 68/107 (63.6%) outright this season.
Season spreads:
Season moneyline:
Official Orb Picks Season Results:
Season spread picks: 25-17, 59.5%, +5.7 units
Season moneyline picks: 39-24, 61.9%, -2.0 units
Confusion Matrix:
As you can see in the visualizations above, our model is performing really well this season on spread predictions. I think our unsustainable success through 10 weeks last year may have unfairly raised even my own expectations for the Orb. Again just to ground us, the goal is to use data and predictive modeling to gain a 2.4% edge over the sportsbooks and bring our hit rate from that of an average gambler (50%) to being profitable over a large sample size (52.4%). Out of the 7 weeks of our Orb season, 5 have been +unit ATS with only weeks 2 and 7 not going our way. This is a really positive sign as it means the models haven’t just canceled out a large number of losing weeks by getting hot one or two Sundays but rather been winning consistently.
While I always would be happy with the models predicting even better than they are, a 59.5% hit rate heading into week 9 is a huge accompaniment and hopefully a more sustainable record moving forward than where we were with the crazy start last season.
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