Methods · shared CORE philosophy
One name, three mathematics
CORE is what every sport's flagship impact metric is called. It is a promise about how the
metric behaves, not a formula that travels between sports.
What the name promises
- Context first. Opponent, teammates, role, and situation are adjusted for before anyone gets credit for raw totals.
- Rate, not volume. CORE measures impact per standardized opportunity; cumulative value is a different metric with a different name (FORGE in football, CROWN in baseball, CORE WAR in basketball).
- Role stays visible. Opportunity is never laundered into skill.
- Status is explicit. Every CORE carries its registry status — concept, scaffold, research, provisional, or validated — and none of the three is validated today.
What each sport actually built
| Product | Expansion | Approach | Own registry status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Court Signal | CORE (flagship impact estimate) | Lineup-adjusted rate impact fit from play-by-play possessions, with transparent shrinkage priors | provisional |
| Gridiron Signal | Contextual On-Field Rating Estimate | Context-adjusted player impact; the QB pilot's promotion was reversed by the independent audit (RETAIN_BASELINE), and no public values exist | scaffold (no lane above scaffold) |
| Hardball Signal | Contextual Outcome and Role Estimate | Context-adjusted rate impact per role-standard workload across batting, pitching, baserunning lanes | concept (lanes: research) |
A 90 in one sport does not equal a 90 in another. No validated cross-sport percentile layer exists, so no page in this family will compare CORE values across sports.