Michael Salfino
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Michael Salfino (born November 4, 1963 in Paterson, New Jersey) is a New Jersey-based nationally syndicated newspaper and web columnist who uses statistical analysis to predict player and team performance for fans of the NFL and Major League Baseball and, espeically, fantasy sports enthusiasts.
His writing is featured nationwide throughout the Comcast SportsNet network and he regularly offers analysis on the New York professional baseball football seen for SNY.tv, the online home of SportsNet New York, a network owned primarily by the New York Mets. Those sites along with newspapers in other markets offer daily fantasy baseball and football rankings and analysis featuring Salfino and, mostly, David Ferris along with other writers employed through his family-owned company, Meadowlands Media Group.
His work has appeared in print in newspapers nationwide, including The Rocky Mountain News, The Boston Herald, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, The Birmingham News, The Grand Rapids Press, The Ventura County Star, The Providence Journal, The Tacoma Tribune, The Spokesman Review (Spokane), The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), The Bucks County Courier Times (suburban Philadelphia), The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, The Manchester Union Leader, The Post-Standard (Syracuse), The Desert Sun, The Express Times, The Argus Leader (South Dakota), the West Central Tribune (Minnesota) and the Bangor Daily News (Maine).
Salfino uses sabermetric analysis, which focuses on statistics that best demonstrate the core skills that provide the foundation for future performance. He writes that looking beyond conventional statistics allows for better performance projections.
His NFL Stat Power Index attempts to do the same with team performance in the NFL by focusing on how teams perform in five statistical categories, net yards per pass attempt, net points per pass attempt, net red zone possessions, move net (runs plus pass completions), net third-down efficiency and net interceptions. He claims that these stats most closely correlate to winning and losing and ranks each team each week in each of these categories, best to worst. The sum total of their ranks provides the Power ranking in the Stat Power Index. In 2006, the New England Patriots were the top team with an Index score of 26, the Tennessee Titans the worst team with an Index score of 164. This was the first time a team with a .500 record finished last in his rankings. The World Champion Indianapolis Colts finished fourth with 36 index points, but were second best behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the two categories that Salfino cites most frequently, net yards and net points per pass attempt.
In 2006, Salfino's Baseball By The Numbers columns focused on topics such as the science behind claims that a humidor used to store baseballs could significantly alter hitting stats at Coors Field (conclusion: it could not), whether parks that employ the QuesTec pitch tracking system favor hitters (there was no statistical support for such claims), the relative importance of pitching vs. hitting, home-run rates on fly balls relative to career averages for various pitchers and hitters, net on-base plus slugging percentage as a team predictive tool, the science behind the baseball steroid debate (Salfino claimed the science is lacking).
His Football By The Numbers columns looked at the relative importance of success on first downs versus thirds downs, what generally happens when the great defense matches up with the great offense, how passing and rushing success on both sides of the ball correlate to winning and how yards from scrimmage typically result in points. These columns are linked on his website as well as on various client newspaper websites.
Various other people contribute to the site, most notably his wife Catherine Schetting Salfino, The Football Widow and football and baseball expert Scott Pianowski, who exchanges e-mails weekly with Salfino in a column where they discuss the finer points and subtle trends of each NFL week. Salfino and Pianowski provided fantasy football content in 2002 and 2003 to USA Today's Sports Weekly.
Salfino's work is also featured on RotoWire.com, a pay site. He has been a frequent guets on XM Satellite Radio on the RotoWire Fantasy Sports Hour with host Chris Liss.
