Posted by I have been amusing myself these last weeks with some statistics from the current Plus Liga season. Yesterday I wrote about the blocking in position 2. Who are the best setters and opposites at the skill of blocking. The answer is Lukas Kampa (depending on how you measure it) and Jakub Ziobrowski. The details are here. Now we will switch our attention to position 4 blockers. As always we are using Science Untangled apps, this time the blocking app plus a few excel spreadsheets. Included are matches up to 13th November.
Here is position 4 blockers ONLY against attacks in their zone. That is, including attack from position 2 and 1, but NOT including pipes and first tempo.
| BLOCKER’S NAME | OPPONENT KILL% | OPPONENT EFFICIENCY |
| SEMENIUK | 34.9% | 14.7% |
| ROUSSEAUX | 35.3% | 13.7% |
| FORNAL | 36.8% | 11.3% |
| DEPOWSKI | 38.1% | 16.7% |
The ranking changes a little there depending on which number you choose, but the 11.3% efficiency when Fornal is blocking seems pretty impressive. Once you dig down into the different types of attack, the sample sizes get small, but Fornal against position 2 has an opponent efficiency of -2.6%. And Depowski against position 1 is -11.8%. It is interesting to note blockers who are much better or worse at blocking against position 2 and 1. But I won’t go into that for now.
Blocking against position 2 and 1 is only one part of the blocking job of the position 4 player. He must also know when and how much to help against the first tempo and pipe and when to make a triple block. You could argue that position 4 blockers have a more complex set of decisions to make than middle blockers. What if we include all block actions of the position 4 blocker?
| BLOCKER’S NAME | OPPONENT KILL% | OPPONENT EFFICIENCY |
| ROUSSEAUX | 34.9% | 15.7% |
| FORNAL | 37.9% | 16.5% |
| SEMENIUK | 37.9% | 20.1% |
| SZYMURA | 38.4% | 13.6% |
The next group of blockers include guys like Orczyk, Louati, Zalinski and Sliwka. All of this prompts the question, how much do the individual blockers contribute to the other blockers. Does the middle make position 4 better? Does position 2 make the middle better? Does the coach’s system make all the blockers better? Are some players just better blockers? The answer is probably a combination of everything. For example, one team has position 4 blockers at 1st, 5th and 39th in this ranking. They are playing with the same middles and the same tactics, so individual quality must be important. Interesting stuff…
Tagged Volleyball Analytics, Volleyball Statistics, Plus Liga, Science Untangled, Blocking Statistics, 2020-21 Plus Liga
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