Blaze Sports Intel Coach Intelligence — Methodology

How the Coach Intelligence Score is computed.

Transparent weights, peer-reviewed citations, and the limits Blaze Sports Intel publishes alongside the rank.

The Formula

CIS is a multi-criteria decision analysis composite, not a regression-validated prediction. No peer-reviewed paper has isolated a clean single-coach causal effect at the MLB level — the famous "Mazzone Effect" lived in popular press, not in a peer-reviewed journal, and failed to replicate in Baltimore.

CIS =   Development Outcomes        (w1)
      + Methodology / Communication  (w4)
      + Reputation                   (w3)
      + Longevity                    (w2)
      + Playing Résumé Modifier      (w5)
      + Level Difficulty             (w6)
      − Safety / Overtraining Risk   (w7)
      − Uncertainty Penalty

Tier-varying Weights

Methodology and communication carry the most weight at youth (40% pitching, 42% hitting) and the least at pro (20% pitching, 22% hitting). Outcomes invert the curve.

Pitching Weight	Youth	College	Pro
w1 Development outcomes	0.25	0.35	0.45
w2 Longevity at level	0.10	0.10	0.10
w3 Peer reputation	0.05	0.10	0.15
w4 Methodology & communication	0.40	0.30	0.20
w5 Playing-résumé modifier	0.05	0.05	0.05
w6 Level difficulty	0.15	0.10	0.05
w7 Injury-risk penalty (cap)	−0.20	−0.10	−0.10

Standings vs Power Rankings

Standings = CurrentScore (clean monthly rank)
PowerRank = 0.75 · CurrentScore + 0.25 · Trend90

A coach can be #2 in Standings and #1 in PowerRank when their last 90 days of verified athlete outcomes are trending sharply upward. The UI shows both.

Hierarchical Bayesian Shrinkage + 95% Bootstrap CI

Per-pitcher outcome variance is large. Blaze Sports Intel applies hierarchical Bayesian shrinkage to all outcome metrics — small-sample deltas pull toward the population mean. Final scores are bootstrapped (n = 5,000 resamples) to produce a 95% credibility interval. Coaches with overlapping CIs are displayed as ties, not ranked off each other.

Sensor Noise Floor

Below these thresholds, the model does not credit a coach with a delta:

~1.5 mph velocity (pitching) or bat speed (hitting)
~1° release-point or attack-angle change
~3 percentage points strike rate

Source: Kusafuka et al. 2022 (Sensors, PMC8879135). Blast-class sensors have ICC ~0.78 for speed, ~0.58 for angle. Below floor → marked unverified, not credited.

Honest Gaps

Causal attribution is permanently underdetermined. No peer-reviewed regression has isolated a clean MLB pitching-coach effect. CIs displayed prominently.
Spanish-language Caribbean and Latin American pipelines are largely invisible. Estimated 30–50% of South Florida elite youth instruction is invisible to current ingestion. Phase 3 priority.
NPB / KBO / Taiwanese pitching development is off-radar. Phase 4 International bracket addresses.
Travel-ball middle-layer dilution. Rate the individual coach, not the franchise.
Injury data on private youth coaches is essentially absent. w7 invokable only for coaches with identifiable high-risk methodology. Unknown rates → w7 = 0, visibly flagged.
The Mazzone Effect is partially fictional. Bradbury's 0.64 ERA staff effect was popular-press, not peer-reviewed; failed to replicate in Baltimore.

Legal Posture

Blaze Sports Intel ranking output is first-party editorial speech with no Section 230 protection. Defenses include opinion doctrine (Milkovich v. Lorain Journal), this transparent disclosed methodology, factual accuracy of inputs via the verification stack, and a 5-business-day correction-and-takedown SLA. Youth/HS coaches treated as private figures (Minnesota v. McGuire 2019) — verification is non-negotiable. SafeSport Centralized Disciplinary Database cross-check is mandatory before publication of any youth-tier coach. No exceptions.

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