Moneyball o/t

[Danishfurniturelover]

So lovefilm finally stopped sending me foreign langauge gonad*s and sent me moneyball this week(no idea where they get some of the films they send me)

Once i stopped marvelling at how alike myself and brad look i got into the movie even though it was based on a tossy american sport(no offence to the americans on here, i love your country but your sports are crap)

Can moneyball work here? different principles i guess, though i have to say i know fudge allabout baseball except it is a brick version of cricket which is inself a crap sport.

Obviously a lot on here think that modric and bale might be off and we have all been suggesting about the players we might be able to replace them with. From what i can tell in baseball it is all about figures so maybe more able to do a moneyball system.

But if i said something like ricahrd dunne had more clearances for villa this season then gallas has done this season should we replace gallas with dunne if his wages are less?

Im guessing we really need to have a general manager i hate to say director of football after the debacle last time, but we need someone who can spot players whose values are oddly low like the fat kid in the movie does because we clearly can not compete on the same level as othrs.

Really interesting bit in the movie for me was when they were all sat around talking about players to draft(think is the term they used) and one of the scouts said i dont want him he has an ugly girlfriend, meaning that the player had no confidence. Wonder if harry and his scouts ever talk like that about pllayers he is looking at.

 

[yiddo2786]

The idea of moneyball when the A's did it in 2002 was that, due to the nature of a 162 game season, players who get on base enough will average out enough wins over the course of a season to get you to the postseason (where the A's failed miserably because their averages can only work on a sample size larger than 5 games). There are too many variables in a continuous sport like football to allow the theory to work; namely players running all around a pitch for 90 minutes. In baseball there is a turn-based element; the pitcher repeatedly throws the ball at the batter, so a batter's stats will be reflective of his ability pretty much wherever he goes. Take Stewart Downing, for instance, who had a high number of assists when in a team that had Young, Milner and him in a three behind Bent to prod home in the box, but did fudge all in a Liverpool team with no movement in the box and a brick midfield. Footballers can look very different ability wise in different teams, so there is a much greater need for players that compliment each other, which Beane didn't have in Moneyball; so he could piece together whoever he wanted.

I will also point out RE the A's, that their idea and its implementation was great and all, but spending brickloads of money wins World Series', and being a small market team doesn't. Beane is still at the A's 9 seasons after the season in the film and has never been to a World Series.