Moneyball – Australian Style.

Huh?

For those of you not aware of the concept that is Moneyball, I’ll give it a quick run through here. It is the idea that the majority of perceptions of a player (by scouts, managers and backroom staff) are fundamentally flawed and subjective and that detailed statistics are a better judge of a players true worth, or value. Now this works very nicely for baseball, where statistics can be used to define a players ability well due to the nature of the game, however it hasn’t been successfully transferred to other sports. In saying this, sports analytics themselves have taken off in a big way, its a huge buisness in the NBA, and even if you don’t follow the sport I’d strongly recommend reading this, a detailed look at the analysis provided by the Toronto Raptors  analytics team to see arguably the most detailed statistical analysis of a few seconds of basketball that you’re ever likely to see, its also worth noting that front offices in NBA circles aren’t entirely on board with this just yet, as the article indicates. The only negative to come out of this is that the statistical community, which used to be a bunch of people on forums explaining ideas, has quickly become a closed door, with each organisation snapping these people up to be part of larger teams.

So what on earth does this have to do with sport in Australia and more importantly, Football? 

Moneyball became a bit of a cliche that was thrown around when talking about AFL footballers who were payed less then their worth, or performed better after moving sides, while this isn’t right in the strictest sense of the term, it can give good insight into how it can be applied in a game where statistics are yet to be able to define a players worth (an attempt was made here, although the results are preliminary, they’re not overtly convincing)  . But the example of AFL-style Moneyball is an interesting one, players that have moved due to a lack of opportunities and gone on to star, Sydney have been a good proponent of it, Shane Mumford and Josh Kennedy are stars of the game, but were unable to get a game at their respective clubs due to the depth at their positions, but what Hawthorn supporter would deny Kennedy a spot in their side now, did he not get a game due to ability, or to not risk the status quo? If its the later, this is the essence of what Moneyball sought to erase and more importantly, take advantage of.

For gods sake, get to how this relates to the Melbourne Heart football club.

Right. Well with the season ending and players coming off contract at a great rate, this is where Melbourne Heart should look at finding players which fit this adapted version of Moneyball, rather then in the traditional sense of it. The Central Coast currently find themselves with a glut of good Strikers, McBreen, Ibini-Isei, Duke, Strejovski and Fitzgerald, now you can see how not all of these players can be on the park together, Mitchell Duke has produced some great football when he’s been on the park, but he’s never going to displace Ibini or McBreen, could he be tempted with the offering of being a first team player? Brisbane has a wealth of central defensive talent that saw Matthew Jurman forced out, replaced by Jade North, he was part of an incredibly stingy defence which conceded more then 1 goal only 6 times during the regular season, now while coaching plays a pivotal role in this, he was deemed good enough to be part of this defence for a long time and was forced out when an older, more experienced player came along, at 23, he’s still maturing as a player. These little anomalies are abundant throughout the A-League (we saw one ourselves this year, with Andrew Redmayne coming in to the dismay of a lot of supporters, but more then proving his worth as he moved incumbent Clint Bolton out from between the sticks) and while fans will scream at the prospect of taking other teams ‘rejects’ its something Melbourne Heart, and all football clubs, need to seriously look at.