Has anyone seen the film Moneyball http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/ It's an incredible film and one of probably few of a sporting context to have been nominated for awards The gist of the film is that the Oakland A's lose a few star players and have the daunting task of replacing them knowing they cannot afford the signing on fees and the wages to cover what those great players gave to the team They decided that they needed players to hit x runs per season Applying that to football, could it be done. Can you build a squad to guarantee Premier League safety using a similar theme of clean sheets, goals and assists. Are there players available that would generate the required number of the above that are either ageing pros or players who are out of favour either due to reputation, recent injury or some other trait that would mean wages are pushed down rather than upwards (via demand) Apologies to anyone who has not seen the film - you might not get what i'm on about. To those who have seen it - I'm sure you've given it similar thought. Any ideas of a 22 man squad to complete this Premier League survival From a personal perspective I would think that looking at the Premier League table you would need a team to score 50 goals and concede under 60 goals, and at a guess 10 clean sheets. I'll add a name or two; Titus Bramble - worth 1 clean sheets and 2 goals Jermaine Pennant - worth 4 assists Richard Dunne - worth 1 clean sheets and 1 goal Dean Whitehead - worth a clean sheet and 1 goal Thomas Hitzelsperger - worth 2 assists and 2 goals Zoltan Gera - worth 2 goals and 3 assists Emmerson Boyce - worth 1 assist and a clean sheet etc
love that film as I love baseball but not sure it would work. stats are far more predominant and important in the game of baseball. not sure it could apply. In baseball getting on base is important to scoring a run. But in football scoring a goal can come from so many different ways. It's like saying, well torres = 3 penalties a season on average but having a penalty doesn't guarantee a win I think it also doesn't work because in moneyball they don't really take defending into consideration. Defending in football is quite a bit more important.
Yeh, I mean it could be applied but only to some extent I think the issue is that 1 run in baseball doesnt = 1 goal. because one batter can score a home run all on his own, but you'd be hard pressed to go past 11 eleven players on your own.
The main problem is that football is a team game, rather than a team of individuals game. When a batter steps up in baseballl, it is him versus the pitcher, with the rest of the field having very specific individual duties which do not overlap. In football it is 11 against 11 in all sort of mutually dependent configurations. Take Andy Cole as a great example. He wasn't worth much by himself, but give him Beardsley and he was a goal scoring machine. He struggled at United until Dwight Yorke came in. It is much more about combinations than individuals.
Arsenal try to do it, and I assume that because Liverpool are now owned by John W. Henry (owner of the Boston Red Sox and Sabermetrics/Bill James fan) that they do too. I also think Swansea do it. There was also something said about AVB turning up to Chelsea with big folders of stats trying to change things up and that's why he didn't last long. I would assume he thinks this too. Although I reckon Arsenal and Tottenham are trying to work out a way of guaranteeing Champions League Football rather than survival. I think you could. But I don't necessarily think those are the stats you would be looking for. For example, Liverpool have one of the highest level of assists and goals scored this season, as well as a decent defensive record, but didn't finish that high considering. You want to be asking other questions and looking for other stats. Or at least that's what I think. For example, Suarez has a shot to goal ratio of 1/8 (his best so far) which is one of the worst in the premier league. You could suggest that the majority of key passes Liverpool created (more than any other team), were wasted by Suarez and that they would actually be better with someone who has just played for one of the relegated teams, because those strikers often have vastly superior shot to goal ratios. The idea of Moneyball is that there are players that are undervalued because of other circumstances such as the way they look, or the fact they do something strange. These players are good but ignored, which makes them great for smaller clubs. For this to apply to football you would have to figure out some way of analysing players in the lower leagues and working out how they would perform in the premier league and trying to spot players other teams ignore. As it is, players in the Premiership aren't really undervalued/ignored. You would have to look elsewhere. Somewhere no one has looked before, or won't look. You should read the book, it's a much better insight into the idea of Sabermetrics. You'll probably like whoscored.com
