Finally! a good Moneyball article

Jeff Carlisle over at ESPN wrote an informative and definitely-worth-a-read article on the work to port statistical Moneyball concepts to soccer. He focuses on the pros and cons of the process all while giving real examples of how the analysis works for coaches and players. He explains that soccer-sabermetrics is not new to the sport as many Euro clubs have been using third party data collection companies for years. Also, all of our MLS clubs have contracts with the Emeryville, CA company Match Analysis. So in reality, the Moneyball ideas were already in place before Billy Beane had the opportunity to associate with the Quakes. But because he has a high-profile status within the “field,” his involvement gains a little bit more scrutiny and perhaps some unnecessary wrath among a few football purists.

Carlisle does talk about Beane’s interactions with Doyle and Yallop but despite Beane’s insistence that “[he tries] not to get in their way” and Carlisle’s comment “mention the word Moneyball to Doyle and Yallop, and the urge to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights suddenly takes over,” he does confirm that the Scoobies spent much of the night before the Expansion Draft huddled in the Match Analysis offices (which on a side note is only a few blocks from my house and, yes, I totally checked to see if there were job openings on their website). But Beane is working to develop soccer-sabermetrics, specifically with Leeds University Business School professor Bill Gerrard, to design a working system that can adapt to the fluidity of the sport. So I think no matter how entrenched soccer already is with this analysis, Beane is now the de-facto figure in the movement.

Category: Local Love, Management

Tags: Billy Beane, Local Love, Management

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