Using Stats?

[Mokes]

Does this even work in football, and if so can someone explain how?

In baseball sure, as much as it's a team sport its an individual sport. Each player has their turn to do their own thing and are not really that effected by how someone else on the team is doing. (Unless the pitcher is useless.... I'm thinking of you Dickey). Stats can be recorded down to 0.000 and give a pretty accurate picture of how a player is doing. All the players are on an even field and playing against the same standard teams (unless they're playing the braves). Very rarely does a player come in from a foreign league unless they are a star.

In football it's completely different, all leagues have completely different playing styles, and random stats mean completely different things.  How can you compare on an excel sheet, how a player performs in say the German league to the Portugese league or the Italian league. (Bryan Ruiz Fantastic in the Dutch league, average at best in England, great in Portugal). There are so many variables in football that stats don't cover. Off the ball movement, team chemistry (Iceland v England), attitude and willingness to play etc.

Then there are stats that can mean anything. A successful dribble for example, Tom Cairney can run through the whole field, or another player can run 5 meters and beat 1 guy and it's the same stat. Pass accuracy,  is Danny Murphy pinging balls at peoples feet from half way across the pitch or is someone playing 90% 3 yard back passes?

[love4ffc]

You do bring up a good point about players playing in different leagues.  As you say a player who does well in one league does not guarantee they will do well in a different league.  Kind of like comparing apples to oranges.  There must be some similarities though that could be used.  Not sure what those would be but would think there are some. 

[justinfromga]

I think Basketball is a better comp than Baseball.  The NBA has been on the cutting edge of statistical analysis for so long it's not even a conversation anymore.  Ten years ago MLB was where football is now and a lot of baseball people (Dusty Baker) still have the "old school" mentality.

It is possible to measure all the many things you talk about and there are services available to do so.  Most teams have in house stats they have developed themselves that are not public as well.

I sound like a broken record on this but the main value in stats is putting a price on the muscle.  You can use stats to not only analyze a players present value but also their future.  Are they progressing or regressing and at what rate?  Then you can put a price tag on that player.  If the scouts and stats both agree on a player but the price is too high this can help keep the club from bad financial decisions

[YankeeJim]

Stats are never wrong. If you count the number of goals for and against, you can always predict the outcome of a match.

[grandad]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/?/why-data-analyst-craig-kline-?/

Very good article

[cmg]

Does this even work in football, and if so can someone explain how?

In baseball sure, as much as it's a team sport its an individual sport. Each player has their turn to do their own thing and are not really that effected by how someone else on the team is doing. (Unless the pitcher is useless.... I'm thinking of you Dickey). Stats can be recorded down to 0.000 and give a pretty accurate picture of how a player is doing. All the players are on an even field and playing against the same standard teams (unless they're playing the braves). Very rarely does a player come in from a foreign league unless they are a star.

In football it's completely different, all leagues have completely different playing styles, and random stats mean completely different things.  How can you compare on an excel sheet, how a player performs in say the German league to the Portugese league or the Italian league. (Bryan Ruiz Fantastic in the Dutch league, average at best in England, great in Portugal). There are so many variables in football that stats don't cover. Off the ball movement, team chemistry (Iceland v England), attitude and willingness to play etc.

Then there are stats that can mean anything. A successful dribble for example, Tom Cairney can run through the whole field, or another player can run 5 meters and beat 1 guy and it's the same stat. Pass accuracy,  is Danny Murphy pinging balls at peoples feet from half way across the pitch or is someone playing 90% 3 yard back passes?

As has been mentioned before the use of statistics in football is as old as the game itself. What is under the spotlight  at present is how statistics are analysed to obtain hitherto unrealised information and the extent to which that information should be allowed to affect the manager's decisions.

Leaving aside the obviously ludicrous suggestion that one of the best knuckleball pitchers in the history of the game and a Cy Young (Best Pitcher of the year) Award winner might somehow be described as 'useless', Mr Mokes' original post is interesting in that it highlights areas in which use of statistics has been or could be valuable.

He says of Baseball that 'all players are on an even field'. This has long been known not to be the case. A pitcher would much rather pitch in Dodger Stadium than he would at Fenway. Through the use of analytics it is now possible to say, with a reasonable degree of confidence that a player hitting 20 home runs at Fenway would probably hit only 14 in the same number of games at AT&T (San Francisco) but would hit 28 in Seattle.
He says that few players come into Major League baseball from foreign leagues. This is true. But there are thousands playing in the Minor Leagues which feed the majors. Until the 80s it was the accepted wisdom in MLB that the numbers recorded by players in the minor leagues were of no use in predicting what the player would hit in the Majors. The scouts would look at a player's swing, his attitude, speed ability under pressure and a whole host of other factors but would disregard his batting Average and other numbers as being irrelevant. There were a number of reasons for this, the major one being the concentration of quality among major league pitchers but laziness and a wish to protect the mystique of the major leagues was also present.
In his 1985 'Baseball Abstract' Bill James showed that by applying some numbers to adjust for the different environments in a myriad of minor leagues, that not only was it untrue that a players' minor league numbers were useless as a predictor of what he would hit in the majors but that they could predict what he would hit with the same degree of accuracy as that provided by numbers put up by existing major league players. This revelation was a major factor in the upsurge of interest in statistics in baseball since and many other things have been 'discovered' some equally counter-intuitive.

I agree that by its nature football is a less likely candidate for this kind of stuff than baseball (I would have thought cricket to be ripe for it). But wouldn't it be nice to know with some degree of confidence what an Eredivisie goal might actually be worth in the PL or in the Championship? It might well that judicious use of numbers could provide that and many other small, but useful, insights.

It's perhaps as well to keep an open mind particularly about things we don't really understand although letting the numbers take over would be a step too far.

[Rhys Lightning 63]

I think there's some argument for it, for instance if you're playing a team that concedes 75% of it's goals from corners, you'd be more inclined to put out a much taller team. And if you concede 60% of your goals from the left wing, and you've got a good right winger on the opposition, you might change your strategy and give your left back some cover.

So I can see the merit, but to base a whole quad PURELY around statistics, I just can't see it working

[sipwell]

I agree that it is much more difficult to assess players in other leagues and other teams. You can learn a lot by using statistics though. It is more than just the percentage of good passing for instance, but the percentage of passes that lead to an open chance or an open play which is relevant, i.e. mixed method rather than quantitative statistics purely. It gives you an insight into the football intelligence.

I think it is best to analyze your own team though, where you can use it to inform players (you never play a through ball even though you had XX % option to do so; you never divert the play to the left side of the field; 85 % of your dribbles do not lead to a chance, whilst striker X makes XX unsuccessfull runs into the box, etc etc). Numbers create a reality whereas feeling creates realities...

[nose]

and how will we asses  kav last night
a left sided player put in at right back for his return to the first team after a long abscence. he made lots of errors to start with and then improved
or steerman who played well and i guess had good stats, except his one bad pass was so bad he nearly cost us the game
or ream and malone not working together for their goal.....  and yet otherwise playing really well...

the game is fluida dn non stop, that is part of the reason the obsesion of using stats to measure the absolute worth of a player is flawed.  in a game like golf/cricket/baseball (i assume)/ darts/snooker... where the game is static at the point the plying takes place (the players are not moving or intefered with) then stats are interesting measures.

in fotball I maty try 30% of my passing going forward trying to get beyond the last defender into the heart of the defence..causing havoc but not 'completing' and still be a thousand times better than somebody witha bunch of tippy tappy stuff sideways and backwards.... we all know that.

The problem we at fulham have is that a person with no experience of football is using a totally unproved methodology to overrule an experienced proven coach.

[Mokes]

Does this even work in football, and if so can someone explain how?

In baseball sure, as much as it's a team sport its an individual sport. Each player has their turn to do their own thing and are not really that effected by how someone else on the team is doing. (Unless the pitcher is useless.... I'm thinking of you Dickey). Stats can be recorded down to 0.000 and give a pretty accurate picture of how a player is doing. All the players are on an even field and playing against the same standard teams (unless they're playing the braves). Very rarely does a player come in from a foreign league unless they are a star.

In football it's completely different, all leagues have completely different playing styles, and random stats mean completely different things.  How can you compare on an excel sheet, how a player performs in say the German league to the Portugese league or the Italian league. (Bryan Ruiz Fantastic in the Dutch league, average at best in England, great in Portugal). There are so many variables in football that stats don't cover. Off the ball movement, team chemistry (Iceland v England), attitude and willingness to play etc.

Then there are stats that can mean anything. A successful dribble for example, Tom Cairney can run through the whole field, or another player can run 5 meters and beat 1 guy and it's the same stat. Pass accuracy,  is Danny Murphy pinging balls at peoples feet from half way across the pitch or is someone playing 90% 3 yard back passes?

As has been mentioned before the use of statistics in football is as old as the game itself. What is under the spotlight  at present is how statistics are analysed to obtain hitherto unrealised information and the extent to which that information should be allowed to affect the manager's decisions.

Leaving aside the obviously ludicrous suggestion that one of the best knuckleball pitchers in the history of the game and a Cy Young (Best Pitcher of the year) Award winner might somehow be described as 'useless', Mr Mokes' original post is interesting in that it highlights areas in which use of statistics has been or could be valuable.

He says of Baseball that 'all players are on an even field'. This has long been known not to be the case. A pitcher would much rather pitch in Dodger Stadium than he would at Fenway. Through the use of analytics it is now possible to say, with a reasonable degree of confidence that a player hitting 20 home runs at Fenway would probably hit only 14 in the same number of games at AT&T (San Francisco) but would hit 28 in Seattle.
He says that few players come into Major League baseball from foreign leagues. This is true. But there are thousands playing in the Minor Leagues which feed the majors. Until the 80s it was the accepted wisdom in MLB that the numbers recorded by players in the minor leagues were of no use in predicting what the player would hit in the Majors. The scouts would look at a player's swing, his attitude, speed ability under pressure and a whole host of other factors but would disregard his batting Average and other numbers as being irrelevant. There were a number of reasons for this, the major one being the concentration of quality among major league pitchers but laziness and a wish to protect the mystique of the major leagues was also present.
In his 1985 'Baseball Abstract' Bill James showed that by applying some numbers to adjust for the different environments in a myriad of minor leagues, that not only was it untrue that a players' minor league numbers were useless as a predictor of what he would hit in the majors but that they could predict what he would hit with the same degree of accuracy as that provided by numbers put up by existing major league players. This revelation was a major factor in the upsurge of interest in statistics in baseball since and many other things have been 'discovered' some equally counter-intuitive.

I agree that by its nature football is a less likely candidate for this kind of stuff than baseball (I would have thought cricket to be ripe for it). But wouldn't it be nice to know with some degree of confidence what an Eredivisie goal might actually be worth in the PL or in the Championship? It might well that judicious use of numbers could provide that and many other small, but useful, insights.

It's perhaps as well to keep an open mind particularly about things we don't really understand although letting the numbers take over would be a step too far.

I'm not disputing the whole stats thing, just trying o get my head around it.

I will dispute, your disputing my claims of Dickey being useless. Years ago when he was playing for the Mets,  he was fantastic. As a Jay he is dire. The only stats he is putting up these days are in the, Most home runs allowed, most runs, most walks columns. His day is done but his contract is too big that he is impossible to trade.

I also get that there are slight variences in ball parks and even the altitude thing at the Rockies, sure that will effect the home runs tally, not sure how it affects infield hits though. That could be skewed by one league having a DH and the other not having it though. What I meant was every at bat is one on one.  Every team plays the same formation, 3 outfielders,  4 infielders a pitcher and a catcher. It's much easier to play fantasy baseball based on stats than fantasy football.

Tom Bradys stats were not great at the combine thing, and 198 players ended up being picked before him and he turned out pretty good in his sport. Shutting the door on a extremely talented player who looks a future star, purely because they don't have enough recorded data to analyse seems ludicrous.

[cmg]

I will dispute, your disputing my claims of Dickey being useless....

Let's just say then that you and I are using rather different definitions of the word 'useless'.
To me 'useless' is not the same as 'not as good as he used to be'.
A useless pitcher does not get in the rotation.

Park effect factors are available for runs, hits, doubles, trebles and walks as well as homers.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Not useless, just less than useful.