Moneyball

[RussellEbertHandball]

If you have read the book or know of it, this is a heads up that tomorrow 10th November the movie based Michael Lewis' great book about the Oakland A's 2002 season and the way they recruited new players at the start of it, opens around Oz. Brad Pitt will be playing general manager Billy Beane.

It's a great book about how the little club has to be different and do more with its resources, ie both more efficient and effective, to compete especially in a sport like baseball where there are no salary caps --"with approximately $41 million in salary, were competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees, who spent over $125 million in payroll that same season"

It's a book that every port board member, every executive employee and every senior personnel in our football operations department should be forced to read.

Eddie Mcguire has often talked about the impact the book has had on his thinking and planning.

I will probably go on the weekend. I'm interested to see how well its done and how much Hollywood BS they put into the story.

A few links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball_(film)






And the author's take on the Moneyball legacy for Oakland

Michael Lewis on A's 'Moneyball' legacy

Nine years after the A's season chronicled in "Moneyball," and with the movie making its premiere Monday in Oakland, the author of the best-seller concedes that the book might have had some negative impact on the A's.

"The book probably cost the A's an opportunity or two," Michael Lewis said last week.

Many around baseball believe that Lewis' in-depth look at the way Oakland general manager Billy Beane operated provided too much of a blueprint for competitors, especially when it came to the use by the A's of advanced statistics to help find market inequities to exploit.

"It's like Coke and their secret formula - you don't let the secret formula out," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said when Oakland visited New York last month.

........

Michael Lewis on A's 'Moneyball' legacy

 

[Ford Fairlane]

The book was a fascinating read.

David and Margaret reviewed the film and while both acknowledged they are not sporting buffs really enjoyed the film. David admitted to knowing what they were talking about much of the time but still rated the film highly.

At the Movies: Moneyball

Four star review from Empire magazine too.

Empire: Moneyball

 

[tribey]

It's pretty derpworthy that this holy grailesque competitive advantage was made public.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

It's pretty derpworthy that this holy grailesque competitive advantage was made public.

Its America man, as soon as you do something tell EVERYONE!!!

 

[Andre]

It's a great book about how the little club has to be different and do more with its resources, ie both more efficient and effective, to compete especially in a sport like baseball where there are no salary caps --"with approximately $41 million in salary, were competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees, who spent over $125 million in payroll that same season"

It's a book that every port board member, every executive employee and every senior personnel in our football operations department should be forced to read.

Sydney are the obvious ones who look like they've applied it (well) in the AFL. I don't want to turn the thread into (another) Choco verdict one, but from what I know of Moneyball, I can't help but think Choco read it. However lacking the nous on how to apply it in the AFL, it resulted in us recruiting too many rejects to show he could do the same with us.

 

[Portia]

Moneyball doesn't work anywhere near as well for the AFL, due to the unreliability of statistics, and also the fact that we don't have the same degree of `resets' in our play.

We don't have one hit, a little running, and then next hit. We don't gain five yards and then set up again in the exact same positions again. This interferes with the fidelity of what is recorded, as you get so few exact repeat situations....I' imagine that a significant part of our chipping around the backline has been an attempt to artificially create statistical situations that have been planned to some extent.

And of course, the stats themselves vary from game to game, depending on which teams is recording statistics. When you're talking about vague terms like `contested mark' and `clearance', statisticians are as prone to being blinded by hype as anyone...one players clearance is another's nothing.

And of course we've had an example for years of when stats usually mean nothing in DreamTeam legend Kane Cornes.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

There was an article in the weekend Fin Review a couple of weeks ago about Moneyball in Oz sports. I will type some of it up later tonight when I dig up the article.

Roos was a big believer, but he talked about his "no ********s" policy as an important part of his recruiting

Moneyball - the statistics part of it ie the sabermetric components - isn't applicable to AFL.

What is applicable is that the small teams who have a lack of resources have to be innovate and more efficient and effective than the big teams to compete. The salary cap means you can't compare AFL with MLB but as we have seen the last few years the total spent in football operations expenses has seen a growing gap between the haves and have nots and the spending on extra coaches, extra support staff, extra sports science expenditure.

That is the real essence of the book. The Oakland A's had to do something different. They did and for several seasons won 100+ out of 162 home and away games. People wanted to know why. The MLB Commissioner called them an aberration. But Oakland have now lost that advantage, others copied them and they now struggle to win more than 70 games a year.

Some of it is applicable to recruiting AFL players but the statistics difference is too great to apply a carbon copy approach.

 

[Powerstufff]

Really interesting stuff guys. I'd never heard of Moneyball before but will get the book/go see the film.

 

[philthy05]

i knew about the story and the book but i hadnt gotten around to reading it. looking forward to the movie.

i believe aaron sorkin was involved ( writer of the social network and the west wing), and the class of the actors looks great.

will go see it this weekend.

statistics are very accurate in baseball. its all about the ability to get on base, and the ability to convert on bases to home-runs. simple when you get to it.

aussie rules, basketball and soccer are all free flowing ( well soccer isnt as free flowing) sports where momentum and team "mentality" or maybe you could think of how they function as a unit and fluctuate are really important. there are not any solid stats for those kind of things.

actually that " team control of tempo, and ability to shift or adjust as a unit" has been the biggest shift in afl in the time ive been watching. its really been our version of sabermetrics.

 

[Natman]

I don't know much about the story, but this chatter has got me interested enough to get the book and watch the movie.

Agree that it wouldn't apply a great deal to a random nature game like ours, but it could be applied to cricket I would think, although it isn't a high level seasonal competition with a draft component attached.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Ex Swan Neil Cordy has written an article about Sydney and how they are the Moneyball team in the AFL. I'm not sure of that but, Cordy's justification is that in 2004 Swans Chairman Richard Colless handed the Swans football department the book.

I guess reading the book in 2004 and making back to back GF's in 05 and 06 and winning the first one can be seen as a bit like the Central's President ( blank on his name at the moment) made all his coaches read Dynasty in 1999 and success followed the next year.

Cordy's article that was syndicated in the Murdoch press on Saturday - was in the 'Tiser.

Sydney Swans' AFL finals success comes down to a Brad Pitt movie based on the book Moneyball

WANT to find out how the Sydney Swans have managed to play finals football in 13 of the past 16 seasons? Just watch Brad Pitt's new movie Moneyball.

It is the story of how Billy Beane, the general manager of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, tried to compete with the big boys like the New York Yankees - on one-third of the budget.

Beane thought the MLB draft was a lottery with a very low strike rate for finding successful players. So he found a new way of selecting players who had a better chance of succeeding - a mathematical formula called Sabermetrics, developed by statistician Bill James.

In 2004 Swans chairman Richard Colless handed Michael Lewis' book Moneyball, later adapted into a movie, to Sydney's football department.

The book identified many of the faults then-coach Paul Roos had seen in the AFL draft.

"The concept of the draft is flawed," Roos said.

"How can you pick the 10th best kid in the under 18s?

"You're talking about 17 and 18-year-old kids. Would I have been drafted at that age? I don't know."

In his second full year as coach, Roos put his theory to the test and traded away his first pick (selection 15, Lynden Dunn) in the 2004 draft to Melbourne and signed a second-string ruckman called Darren Jolly.

Sydney Swans' AFL finals success comes down to a Brad Pitt movie based on the book Moneyball


and

"The biggest difference between us and the US sports is their players come out of college at 21 and 22 years of age," Roos said.

"There's less guess work on size, strength, maturity and character. Our draft age is far too low."

Like the Oakland Athletics, the Swans needed to find a way to recruit cleverly to stay competitive.

The Swans' penchant for recycling players is straight out of the Billy Beane playbook.

but this bit makes we wonder if the Swans can be so easily labeled the Moneyball club of the AFL.

There is one area Beane and Roos have different views on: statistics.

Beane employed Sabermetrics, which loosely translates to analysing empirical evidence rather than relying on more subjective measures of how to select players.

"I'm not a stats person, I'm more a visual person who tries to find what the key stats are," Roos said.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

. Roos real thinking about the value of draft picks was set up in 1999 when he had a year off after retireing and toured the US talking to professional sports teams. He also did development work for the AFL with the Aussie REules leagues, teams and players in the US and Canada. And he filed several stories for Ch 7 on Aussie Rules in the US + US Sports, for Ch 7.

From the weekend Financial Review Oct 29-30 pages 52-53

The book that became an Australian game changer

Moneyball showed how being smart about chosing players can help create winning teams. But has its advice run its course?

Jonathan Shapiro

[first half of article talks about cricket how Andy Flower England's coach implement it before last ashes serious and background on book and Oakland A's]

It [Cricket Australia] recentley commissioned a sports peformance consulting organisation, Crank Sports to find Australia's next national cricket coach. Crank Sports, led by former management consultant Craig Mitchell, has a track record in applying a more methodical approach to appointing key sports roles. Mitchell was in involved in the process of picking the coach of current AFL champions Geelong.

[Mitchell was also on the selection panel that picked Primus as our coach in 2010.]

This reflects the book's warning that a good coach is not necessarily the player who has the best batting average.

"The thing about sport is that there's a perception about an individual and much of that is about how they carried themselves as a player and makes no reference as to their skills as a coach.”

Mitchell says, “skills of being a good player are different to being a good coach.”

Mitchell is on the hunt for the Billy Beane of cricket. The Billy Beane of AFL may very well be Paul Roos, the pragmatic, consistent leader of the Swans revival. Roos is contemptuous of the AFL’s draft system failure to assign true value to talent. Both he and Beanes were able to exploit such weakness to recruit players.

The stats aren’t able to measure everything, however.

“You can’t run statistics on a players character,” Roos says. If it’s not the No. 1 important thing it’s certainly up there in terms of success at AFL level.

Roos “no d!ckheads policy” at the Swans is well known in footy circles. There was no place on the Swans roster for egos and troublemakers who upset the team chemistry, no matter how talented.
“No d!ckheads” had its roots in American sport. Before joining the Swans, Roos spent a year in the US and dropped in on some of the largest American football teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago Bears.

“The Scene then was about character,” Roos said “They put a lot of credence on the valedictorian and the college scholar and the smart guy, rather than just the athlete.”

Australian professional sports coaches scour the globe in search of the competitive edge. The codes are fiercely competitive, intensified by the existence of salary caps, where no team’s player payroll can exceed a set amount.

“Teams can only spend certain amounts in terms of salary caps so where is the next level? It will be sports science says Roos.

Australia’s salary caps have driven innovation in sports science so successfully that larger and more lucrative international codes are now interested in local sports technologies.

Last year English football team Manchester United engaged the Swans to buy its software, which tracks players’ fitness and performance. United’s interest shows the Moneyball revolution has spread to the round ball game.

[It then goes on about UK soccer and Arsne Wegner of Arsenal being the Billy Beane of European football. It finishes with quotes from those that dismiss Moneyball or talk about its limits.]

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

If Cordy's justification is that because the swans have made 13 of last 16 finals and one a flag, then its arguable that we beat the swans to the Moneyball principle of trading away picks on unkown and untested kids for known talent.

The only problem was we lost our way and Choco probably read Moneyball in 2004 and started going for these more speculative type players, thinking he had to change.

But 2007 suggested he might have been on his way to succeeding.

We traded away draft picks and players to win a flag before the swans. A cut and paste from a previous thread I posted a few years ago about our draft and trading between 1996 and 2005.
--------

Here is how our premiership team was built

So in our premiership squad we had the following player distribution;

Original Squad - 8.
Wanganeen Uncontracted player

Kingsley Draft pick 37
** pick 37 1996 draft. Gee Traded to PA as Part of Breuer traded and we gave them 2 SANFL kids Hamish Simpson and Cameron Roberts.
Port picked up Adam Kingsley

Lade, Wilson,Tredrea, P. Burgoyne, Dew, James, Zone selections

Drafted - 7
C. Cornes 1997 draft pick 9 – 1st round
Carr 1998 pick 7 - 1st round
Thurstans 1998 pick 39 – 3rd round
S. Burgoyne 2000 pick 12 –1st round
K. Cornes 2000 pick 20 – 2nd round
Cassisi 2000 pick 50 - 4th round
Mahoney 2004 PSD pick 12

Rookie Elevation - 1.
Brogan 2001.

Trades - 6.
Schofield 1998 Traded for Cummings
Montgomery 1999 Traded for Eagleton
Bishop 1999 for pick 42 Melb drafted a M. Clarke – 3rd round
Wakelin 2000 for pick 4 to StK. They used this to trade to Carlton for Hamill, Carlton drafted Livingstone. –1st round
Harwick 2001 for picks 31 - Reynolds and 47 - Welsh. – 2nd round + 3rd round
Pickett 2002 for picks 13 (NM gave it to Freo to get Brown, Freo drafted
Schammer) and 31 Perry - 1st round + 3rd round
------
Other trades we did between 1997 and 2003 draft to build up the strength of our squad.

1997
Trade Chalmers for Downsborough with Adelaide
Trade Naish for Rombotis with Richmond

1998
5 Michael Stevens, received from Brisbane for Heuskes Trade
23 Traded to Essendon for Cockatoo-Collins, they pick Ladhams
Trade Schofield for Cummings with West Coast
Trade Cockatoo-Collins for pick 23 to Essendon

1999
28 Brent Guerra, received from Western Bulldogs for Eagleton Trade
Trade Bishop for pick 42 to Melbourne
Trade Montgomery + pick 28 (use to draft Guerra) for Eagleton with Western Bulldogs

2000
4 Traded to Stk for Wakelin. Stk on trade this with Carlton to get Hamil, Carlton draft Livingstone.
12 Shaun Burgoyne, received from Adelaide for Bode, Traded Bode + 48 for 12
48 Traded to Adelaide as part of Bode deal, they draft Smith

2001
31 Traded to Essendon for Hardwick, they draft Renyolds
47 Traded to Essendon for Hardwick, they draft Welsh
Trade Hardwick for picks 31 + 47 to Essendon


2002
6/8 Steven Salopek, received from Stk for Brooks Trade. Was 8 but Carlton lost 2 first two picks ie 1+2 and others because of salary cap cheating.

13/15 Traded to Kangaroos for Pickett, Kangaroos on traded to Freo for Brown, Freo draft Schammer Was originally 15 but Carlton penalties change it to 13.

16/18 Stephen Gilham, received from Carlton for French Trade. Carlton draft selections cancelled after trade, therefore 18 becomes 16.

31 Traded to Carlton with French for pick 16/18. Carlton loss this pick because of Salary Cap breach.

31/35 Received from Stk as part of Brooks trade, on Traded to Kangaroos for Pickett, they draft Perry. Was originally 35 but Carlton lose 4 picks and it becomes 31.

Trade Cochrane for Michael Stevens with Kangaroos
Trade Pickett for picks 13 + 31 to Kangaroos
Original selections were 15, 31,47,63 but Carlton Salary Cap draft penalty changed
these into, 13, 42 and 57, and also traded picks of 8, 18 and 35 turned into 6, 16 and 31.


2003
34 Luke Peel received from Western Bulldogs for Morgan Trade
39 Robert Forster-Knight received from Stk for Guerra Trade

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

This is the book our board, management and footy ops people should also read. It's what Geelong read after their disastrous 2006 season. And below is the link to their 5 year Good to Great plan they implemented after they lost the 2008 GF.

http://www.footyfullon.com.au/interactive_magazines/good_to_great_200309/

I flicked thru it and read bits and pieces about it 8 or 9 years ago, but I saw an interview with the author Jim Collins on Charlie Rose's interview show last night on Bloomberg TV. He was talking mainly about his new book Great by Choice - why do some companies thrive in uncertainity even chaos and others do not?

Edit: If you want to watch the interview

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11983

 

[Portia]

“No d!ckheads” had its roots in American sport. Before joining the Swans, Roos spent a year in the US and dropped in on some of the largest American football teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago Bears.

“The Scene then was about character,” Roos said “They put a lot of credence on the valedictorian and the college scholar and the smart guy, rather than just the athlete.”

I don't reckon he learned that at the 49ers, considering their reliance on the highly-talented headcase Terrell Owens.

If you're arguing that Choco nearly made Moneyball work in 2007, you may be right, but the potential flaw in interpreting Moneyball/`best available' is that in most sports, certain player types have a greater value than others. Even though Moneyball player analysis is a popular trend in the US, clubs still want a first-round QB - four in the top 15 of the NFL draft just this year.

 

[Andre]

The only problem was we lost our way and Choco probably read Moneyball in 2004 and started going for these more speculative type players, thinking he had to change.

But 2007 suggested he might have been on his way to succeeding.

We traded away draft picks and players to win a flag before the swans. A cut and paste from a previous thread I posted a few years ago about our draft and trading between 1996 and 2005.

A question for you REH (or anyone who follows US sports, as I don't). One of the trends since our early trades used to build a large part of the 2004 team is AFL clubs have become extremely risk adverse to trading. Unless a player wants out and doesn't give the club a choice, anything beyond fringe for fringe is an increasing rarity (GC and GWS enforced trading a short term exception). Clubs are so afraid of 'losing' trades, instead of worrying about whether it improves their list, most won't unless it appears clear to all their fans they've 'won'.

Are the US sports (football, baseball, basketball etc.) as hung up in this regard? Or have they gotten past / never devolved to, the state of immaturity about trades being seen as a pissing contest, that exists here?

 

[Portia]

I'm not sure about the NBA, but in the NFL when a player has signed a contract with a club, they can get traded whether the player wants it or not.

AFL clubs are afraid of `losing' trades for heaps of reasons...because players don't like being thought of as tradebait, and we have a PSD that can ensure that clubs receive no compensation for discontented players (again, a contrast to the NFL, where they have compensation formulae for the loss of players to free agency).

The NFL also has draft day deals, whereby a deal can be agreed by clubs in principle, but only gets triggered if and when Player X is available at Pick Y. By contrast, AFL clubs have much less idea what players will be around when they are trading for picks.

There's other reasons too...clubs being run by `professionals' now, who care more for their ongoing reputation and repeat employability, as opposed to premiership-hungry club men. 10 teams in Victoria skewing the PSD's use to screw clubs.

 

[morell]

Great thread guys, quality reading.

 

[Forzaport]

For those who are interested, here is a fascinating article by the author of moneyball about the human decision making process

Link

The King of Human Error
Billy Beane’s sports-management revolution, chronicled by the author in Moneyball, was made possible by Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. At 77, with his own new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, the Nobel Prize-winning Kahneman reveals the built-in kinks in human reasoning—and he’s Exhibit A.

Link

 

[Natman]

For those who are interested, here is a fascinating article by the author of moneyball about the human decision making process

Yeah, an interesting read - I did the quiz and failed miserably.

Might even get the book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

I wonder whether good footballers are System 1 or System 2 thinkers?

 

[Powerstufff]

I just bought the book. But since I read this thread some months back I'm amazed how often the book/film is discussed.

 

[Dobie G]

Let's hope we uncover a moneyball power forward this trade/draft period to take some pressure off Schulz.

 

[Powerstufff]

Let's hope we uncover a moneyball power forward this trade/draft period ....

But have you read the book? I mean Schulz himself is a Moneyball find.

 

[Dobie G]

But have you read the book? I mean Schulz himself is a Moneyball find.

Have the Blu-ray with Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane, yes we need to find another Jay Schulz.

 

[Powerstufff]

Have the Blu-ray with Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane ....

I must see that. Hard to imagine how the film could set up the various aspects of the book yet I hear nothing but good things about it.