Documentary on ‘ money ball ‘

[Major Isewater]

 

[BarnzFM]

Love the concept of money ball, not sure it can work for football though.

havent watched the video btw

[Lrrr]

4 minutes ago, BarnzFM said:

Love the concept of money ball, not sure it can work for football though.

havent watched the video btw

'Moneyball' was supposedly attempted by Liverpool when they bought Henderson, Downing and Carroll. Henderson had one of the best passing success rates in the league, Downing one of the best crossing and Carroll goals from crosses. The problem of applying moneyball to football though is that football comprises of open skills whereas baseball comprises of closed skills. The whole thing about moneyball was that it was trying to find undervalued players through highlighting essential KPI's, again harder in football because of variation of tactics etc.

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, hodge said:

'Moneyball' was supposedly attempted by Liverpool when they bought Henderson, Downing and Carroll. Henderson had one of the best passing success rates in the league, Downing one of the best crossing and Carroll goals from crosses. The problem of applying moneyball to football though is that football comprises of open skills whereas baseball comprises of closed skills. The whole thing about moneyball was that it was trying to find undervalued players through highlighting essential KPI's, again harder in football because of variation of tactics etc.

....and then they played Downing right wing and Maxi left wing!

[pride of the west]

4 minutes ago, hodge said:

 The whole thing about moneyball was that it was trying to find undervalued players through highlighting essential KPI's, again harder in football because of variation of tactics etc.

This. Far too many variables in football for it to given a real go. Hence why the game see the likes of Newport beat Leicester and Middlesbrough.

[Lrrr]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

....and then they played Downing right wing and Maxi left wing!

Pretty much like the movie then trying to get Chris Pratt playing first base 

[Lrrr]

3 minutes ago, pride of the west said:

This. Far too many variables in football for it to given a real go. Hence why the game see the likes of Newport beat Leicester and Middlesbrough.

It can have some value in recruitment you just need position specific KPI's that fit with your system, however this should only give you a pool of players rather than basing signings on the stats, it is then the visual confirmation through scouting/watching clips which ascertains whether they could work in your system. 

[Davefevs]

7 minutes ago, hodge said:

Pretty much like the movie then trying to get Chris Pratt playing first base 

The book is really good.

[reformed_red]

Basically as a concept moneyball works. But then it falls down if everyone tries to do it. Only one person can win the lottery, just as there has to be a team who will finish bottom.

Also, I’ve not heard much about the data of the mind. Cue the classic MA “DNA” quote. Attitude and application can’t always be quantified by numbers. 

Additionally, a player may have inflated stats due to teammates. E.g. how good does Lovren look now he has VVD alongside him. If a player has Andy Carrol in the box likely he will have more “successful” crosses as opposed to a player crossing to Aubameyang.

 

Moneyball sounds clever. But football is a hybrid of art and science. More art for me though. And in my opinion, LJ is about to paint his masterpiece.

[Davefevs]

46 minutes ago, reformed_red said:

Basically as a concept moneyball works. But then it falls down if everyone tries to do it. Only one person can win the lottery, just as there has to be a team who will finish bottom.

Also, I’ve not heard much about the data of the mind. Cue the classic MA “DNA” quote. Attitude and application can’t always be quantified by numbers. 

Additionally, a player may have inflated stats due to teammates. E.g. how good does Lovren look now he has VVD alongside him. If a player has Andy Carrol in the box likely he will have more “successful” crosses as opposed to a player crossing to Aubameyang.

 

Moneyball sounds clever. But football is a hybrid of art and science. More art for me though. And in my opinion, LJ is about to paint his masterpiece.

Moneyball works in Baseball, because of the repetitive nature of the game and each play starts in the same way.

The likes of John Henry was a successful player of Fantasy Baseball because he understood from his financial analytics his to spot flaws in the model and how to exploit. 

[Lrrr]

44 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Moneyball works in Baseball, because of the repetitive nature of the game and each play starts in the same way.

The likes of John Henry was a successful player of Fantasy Baseball because he understood from his financial analytics his to spot flaws in the model and how to exploit. 

Think cricket trying to use a similar method would be interesting, selecting an England XI for different tours/pitches vs what the selectors come up with

[Lord Northski]

Arguably City have already adopted some of the principles of Moneyball. We know that forwards with a proven goal scoring record are extremely expensive, if not unaffordable. Indeed we’ve benefited from this as we’ve sold a striker for £10M who may not have been worth a fifth of that without having spent one season up front banging in the goals. 

Evidently and somewhat conversely it appears that defenders /centre halves that reduce the number of goals you need to score are nowhere near as expensive, and arguably offer much better value for money. Clearly in the perfect world a team would want both proven goal scorers and defenders capable of stopping others scoring. In reality the cost of being able to achieve this on a standard Championship budget is unaffordable, unless you have parachute payments or unencombered payments from a benefactor, but the latter has been stopped under the financial fair play rule. Whereas, perversely parachute payments are allowed, but appear bloody unfair to those not entitled to them. 

So teams like City have to cut our cloth accordingly, and we’ve strengthened our defence to become one of the most effective units in the football league. Whereas our forward line is arguably weaker that it was last year. But we are achieving better results by simply needing to score less goals than we required last year to get points. Yes it can be argued that Kalas isn’t actually one ours and is only on loan, to which I would retort that he is ours for the season because of the financial deal we did with Chelsea. 

I believe that the original Moneyball concept was about objective analysis of what is actually required to achieve a certain outcome and doing this by exploiting the financial disparities that exist in the player market (these disparities in many cases are based on subjective, and not objective analysis of the benefit certain players or positions offer to a team) In effect, Moneyball’s principal is to offer the user a logical way of getting more bang for your buck. In essence, City have less bucks and needed more bang, so why on earth wouldn’t you apply the principal. 

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, Lord Northski said:

Arguably City have already adopted some of the principles of Moneyball. We know that forwards with a proven goal scoring record are extremely expensive, if not unaffordable. Indeed we’ve benefited from this as we’ve sold a striker for £10M who may not have been worth a fifth of that without having spent one season up front banging in the goals. 

Evidently and somewhat conversely it appears that defenders /centre halves that reduce the number of goals you need to score are nowhere near as expensive, and arguably offer much better value for money. Clearly in the perfect world a team would want both proven goal scorers and defenders capable of stopping others scoring. In reality the cost of being able to achieve this on a standard Championship budget is unaffordable, unless you have parachute payments or unencombered payments from a benefactor, but the latter has been stopped under the financial fair play rule. Whereas, perversely parachute payments are allowed, but appear bloody unfair to those not entitled to them. 

So teams like City have to cut our cloth accordingly, and we’ve strengthened our defence to become one of the most effective units in the football league. Whereas our forward line is arguably weaker that it was last year. But we are achieving better results by simply needing to score less goals than we required last year to get points. Yes it can be argued that Kalas isn’t actually one ours and is only on loan, to which I would retort that he is ours for the season because of the financial deal we did with Chelsea. 

I believe that the original Moneyball concept was about objective analysis of what is actually required to achieve a certain outcome and doing this by exploiting the financial disparities that exist in the player market (these disparities in many cases are based on subjective, and not objective analysis of the benefit certain players or positions offer to a team) In effect, Moneyball’s principal is to offer the user a logical way of getting more bang for your buck. In essence, City have less bucks and needed more bang, so why on earth wouldn’t you apply the principal. 

Yes based on what squad they needed to achieve the playoffs for the least cost....tiny budget versus some Franchises.  Billy Beane met a lot of resistance because he brought in computer “geeks” who could work out likelihood of success from the data, rather than relying on scouts eyes....who were prejudiced by looks.  Beane himself was the perfect example.  The all-American jock, the good looking, perfect specimen, who excelled in college baseball, but in reality his stats had got worse, season on season.  But still he made to be a pro, and of course he’d come good eventually, it was obvious, it was just temporary poor form.  It wasn’t, he never reached the heights everyone expected.

So when the geeks found players by a set of different importance stats that the scouts had turned down because they were overweight, or ran with a limp, or in the case of one pitcher, pitched underhand in effect, nobody touched these players from the “minors”.  Beane recruited them, and they repeated what the stats told them.  The geeks recognised the importance of getting on 1st base, no matter how they got there, by hitting the ball or getting “walked” there, that was the key batting stat.  They found the players that could get there, and over time, other clubs employed the geeks as they realised they were focusing on the wrong stats!!

Ultimately, Beane didn’t win anything, losing in the playoffs / finals.  The geeks calculated success by getting to the playoffs over a 160+ game sample - the league season - a large enough sample to smooth the ups and downs.  The finals over 7 games was statistically too small a sample, and Beane failed.

[robin_unreliant]

37 minutes ago, Lord Northski said:

We know that forwards with a proven goal scoring record are extremely expensive, if not unaffordable. Indeed we’ve benefited from this as we’ve sold a striker for £10M who may not have been worth a fifth of that without having spent one season up front banging in the goals. 

Evidently and somewhat conversely it appears that defenders /centre halves that reduce the number of goals you need to score are nowhere near as expensive....

So teams like City have to cut our cloth accordingly, and we’ve strengthened our defence to become one of the most effective units in the football league. Whereas our forward line is arguably weaker that it was last year. But we are achieving better results by simply needing to score less goals than we required last year to get points. Yes it can be argued that Kalas isn’t actually one ours and is only on loan, to which I would retort that he is ours for the season because of the financial deal we did with Chelsea. 

Webster allegedly could cost £8m and Kalas might cost similar on a permanent deal. So not exactly cheap options, even compared to what we got for Bobby Reid who was one of the top scorers last season.

[Lrrr]

12 minutes ago, robin_unreliant said:

Webster allegedly could cost £8m and Kalas might cost similar on a permanent deal. So not exactly cheap options, even compared to what we got for Bobby Reid who was one of the top scorers last season.

Webster's £8m is clause dependant, we have no idea what the clauses are, could be number of appearances, could be us reaching the premier league, could be Webster playing for England. Think £3.5m was the rumoured initial fee? For someone who looks top draw at this level that is relatively cheap.

[Lord Northski]

Agreed, and I think I’m right by saying that the Boston Redsox offered Bean a contract to move to them from the Oakland A’s for a sum that would’ve made him the highest paid GM in baseball,  based on his ability to recruit undervalued players and recognising the value of achieving certain disaplines and ignoring one’s that don’t help to achieve the required outcome, despite existing dogma perhaps saying the opposite. 

Clearly the big question is how can these principles be translated to football? but evidently disparities exist in the game. The exponential cost of players in certain positions and especially those of a proven quality compared to those without that perceived X factor, and ones in other positions that may not have that cache. Whether it works for us in the long run is yet to be established. But given Johnson’s adoption of the Marginal Gains concept, together with his broader willingness to embrace ideas beyond those conventionally employed by a traditional football gaffer. Anyway, hopefully by hook, or by crook he can come up with a cunning plan that can make the impossible dream a reality  

 

[SydneyCity]

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

[Lord Northski]

6 hours ago, SydneyCity said:

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Certainly conventional thought believed this to be the case. However, as I understand it, Billy Bean discovered people who were able to count the uncountable, so to speak, and in so doing provide a greater objective understanding of certain aspects of a game that had previously been thought to be unimportant or impossible to analyse. What he was able to do, was to objectively translate how to use this analysis into building a team of undervalued talent to complete with teams with a larger budget who were buying talent that costed a lot more.

Today, the modern football coach has access to a whole gamete of data on players in pitch performance that simply wasn’t around a few years ago, probably  as a result of the sucsess of Bean’s work. The question now is if all clubs have access to this data, and they all accept its value. How then can they achieve an advantage if all the teams have access to the potential advantage? And I guess the answer is that you simply have to do it better than the others, and those that can be bothered will probably achieve more than those who can’t, and so on. Same as in life itself, I suppose. 

[Drew Peacock]

Isn't the Brentford chairman a big fan?

Didn't he make his money by using similar principles in whatever industry he came from?

[Davefevs]

@Lord Northski

I guess there are football examples of the Baseball approach. 

Even our own Bristol City might’ve realised that it’s generally cheaper to buy defenders that can keep balls out of the net at a better rate than strikers scoring them at the other end. 

Its not an exact science though!

[Cowshed]

1 hour ago, Lord Northski said:

Certainly conventional thought believed this to be the case. However, as I understand it, Billy Bean discovered people who were able to count the uncountable, so to speak, and in so doing provide a greater objective understanding of certain aspects of a game that had previously been thought to be unimportant or impossible to analyse. What he was able to do, was to objectively translate how to use this analysis into building a team of undervalued talent to complete with teams with a larger budget who were buying talent that costed a lot more.

Today, the modern football coach has access to a whole gamete of data on players in pitch performance that simply wasn’t around a few years ago, probably  as a result of the sucsess of Bean’s work. The question now is if all clubs have access to this data, and they all accept its value. How then can they achieve an advantage if all the teams have access to the potential advantage? And I guess the answer is that you simply have to do it better than the others, and those that can be bothered will probably achieve more than those who can’t, and so on. Same as in life itself, I suppose. 

Keeping up is necessary. Its unfathomable that a Professional club would not use technology. Even kids clubs are using GPS to improve performance. Keep up or … Well send out a team that can be physically, technically, tactically and psychologically ill prepared and thus inferior.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Interesting documentary- watched it yesterday.

This side of the game is really moving on, progressing at some pace.

13 hours ago, Davefevs said:

....and then they played Downing right wing and Maxi left wing!

As we see often, wingers often play on different sides now- cutting in, creating space etc. For a more orthodox approach of crossing to Carroll though- well interesting way forward...

[Lord Northski]

Agreed, and I accept my example was basic albeit illustrative. Perhaps the most effective example of its worth was that of Bobby Reid who was highlighted as a potential striker by one of City’s analysts rather than the managerial team. They were hunting the form books for a player capable of scoring 20 goals and doing a job for us. When an analyst pointed out we’ve got one already. Most of us hadn’t seen it, but evidently the data exists to back up this prediction, and so it came to pass that we created a £10 million pound Premiership striker from a mediocre championship midfielder who struggled to maintain a first team place. 

[Davefevs]

16 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Interesting documentary- watched it yesterday.

This side of the game is really moving on, progressing at some pace.

As we see often, wingers often play on different sides now- cutting in, creating space etc. For a more orthodox approach of crossing to Carroll though- well interesting way forward...

Yes, they have done for years....Carroll would do better getting crosses from the traditional right footed winger on right side, etc...but they never did that.  

In McClaren’s first couple of games in charge on England he played Gerrard wide right and Downing wide left, with Crouch and Defoe up top.  The crossing was top notch.  Crouch in particular looked a real threat.

[Cowshed]

1 hour ago, Lord Northski said:

Agreed, and I accept my example was basic albeit illustrative. Perhaps the most effective example of its worth was that of Bobby Reid who was highlighted as a potential striker by one of City’s analysts rather than the managerial team. They were hunting the form books for a player capable of scoring 20 goals and doing a job for us. When an analyst pointed out we’ve got one already. Most of us hadn’t seen it, but evidently the data exists to back up this prediction, and so it came to pass that we created a £10 million pound Premiership striker from a mediocre championship midfielder who struggled to maintain a first team place. 

One of the measurements was Bobby Reids cardio vascular capacity. It would be difficult to see that as a fan. That can be measured very very simply in training and match play.

Off at a tangent there are now kids with what would be considered adult level fitness measurements. Those measurements can go into national data bases. Analysts study that data as they do adults to help shape what the player can/could become. 

 

 

 

 

[downendcity]

9 hours ago, SydneyCity said:

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

It's no good quoting Dianne Abbott on here!

 

[downendcity]

11 hours ago, Lord Northski said:

Arguably City have already adopted some of the principles of Moneyball. We know that forwards with a proven goal scoring record are extremely expensive, if not unaffordable. Indeed we’ve benefited from this as we’ve sold a striker for £10M who may not have been worth a fifth of that without having spent one season up front banging in the goals. 

Evidently and somewhat conversely it appears that defenders /centre halves that reduce the number of goals you need to score are nowhere near as expensive, and arguably offer much better value for money. Clearly in the perfect world a team would want both proven goal scorers and defenders capable of stopping others scoring. In reality the cost of being able to achieve this on a standard Championship budget is unaffordable, unless you have parachute payments or unencombered payments from a benefactor, but the latter has been stopped under the financial fair play rule. Whereas, perversely parachute payments are allowed, but appear bloody unfair to those not entitled to them. 

So teams like City have to cut our cloth accordingly, and we’ve strengthened our defence to become one of the most effective units in the football league. Whereas our forward line is arguably weaker that it was last year. But we are achieving better results by simply needing to score less goals than we required last year to get points. Yes it can be argued that Kalas isn’t actually one ours and is only on loan, to which I would retort that he is ours for the season because of the financial deal we did with Chelsea. 

I believe that the original Moneyball concept was about objective analysis of what is actually required to achieve a certain outcome and doing this by exploiting the financial disparities that exist in the player market (these disparities in many cases are based on subjective, and not objective analysis of the benefit certain players or positions offer to a team) In effect, Moneyball’s principal is to offer the user a logical way of getting more bang for your buck. In essence, City have less bucks and needed more bang, so why on earth wouldn’t you apply the principal. 

Its not just the need to score less goals, it is our game management that has made a huge difference and this has come from being much more solid and strong defensively.

Just look at QPR's last 2 games where they have lost to goals in added time, whereas we have only conceded one goal in the last 15 minutes of games this season. Having Bobby Reid's goals last season ( and his pressing role up front) didn't help to hold out for draws or wins in the way we seem abel to do this season.

[elhombrecito]

10 hours ago, SydneyCity said:

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.

[Prinny]

Measurable intangibles. Marginal gains. Statistical analysis. The eye test. DNA. Self scouting.

You need to do as much as you can to get signings right and manage the current squad. We seem pretty much on top of things as a club. I know people hate the coach speak and clichés but we're seemingly doing most things right with regards to recruitment.

And sometimes no-one wants a goalkeeper and none of your attempted signings work out, and he turns out to be pretty damn good. Sometimes you meet a striker in a hotel in Dubai. Sometimes players play incredibly well for you then as soon as they sign they stop playing.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Cowshed said:

One of the measurements was Bobby Reids cardio vascular capacity. It would be difficult to see that as a fan.

It’s usually a simple “is he blowing out of his arse or not”

That can be measured very very simply in training and match play.

Off at a tangent there are now kids with what would be considered adult level fitness measurements. Those measurements can go into national data bases. Analysts study that data as they do adults to help shape what the player can/could become.