MODIFIED MONEYBALL OUR WAY FORWARD

[David-Lee]

So here's my plan (yes,I realise every reader on here is titilated just reading my name and thus with baited breath proceed):


Assumptions:

1. We aren't going to fire AR..we can't afford to pay him out so...
2. AR and Co. will lay blame on assistant coaches and 2018 will result in mass exodus.
3. The board aren't going anywhere - they actually believe they are doing better than anyone else can.
4. We need 1-3 key players in almost every position onfield
5. There are top quality players not in the AFL who could be an asset.
6. We must be willing to trade or let go ANY players not able to record ongoing improvements either in recovery from injury or statistically in game time.

Premise:
1. We can build a successful team within a very reasonably short amount of time and for a greatly reduced TPP....which means we win 14-18 games a season and regularly compete for the Grand Final berth.


Process:
1. We hire a director of football to oversee game day plan, to
hire assistant coaches, review game day player selection, to
monitor AR and mentor him.
2. We must hire a Moneyball recruiting team.
3. The team consists of :
a.data collectors...statistics
b.Interviewers - meet players personally and collect history (
medical, mental health, criminal, relational, etc)
c. Recruiting (fire all current recruiters regardless) fresh set
of eyes at games gathering and processing real time info
looking at statistical impact over "star quality"
d. Collators- putting all the info together and determining
value via a set formula and then ranking players from best
to worst.

Outcome:
We replace: up to 50% of our current players with players who statistically outperform regardless of age of where they come from...we need at least 2-3 players to trial in every position based on performance based contracts.

We allow the assistant coaches to guide them with our winning culture and succeed. AR direct game day following the plan set out with director of football.

I believe we can do this and win.

Yes, analytics and data are diagnosed now and statistical info is looked at but no one can tell me AR and selectors look at our team and select based on their statistical ability to win in their position. We have players on field who aren't even ranked in the top 250 AFL players!!! Paddy and Longer are ranked in Supercoach ( which is a very good statistic data algorithm) in the bottom 25 players out of 469 the entire AFL!!! But they keep getting games...because we hope somehow they will produce tomorrow what they fail to have today. We CAN have a few development players like Paddy if the rest of the team is performing well.

We have guys in the VFL out performing every week.
There's players sitting on the interchange benches of other clubs who get more possession than our starters.

Today's loss has to be the point of no return. We have to make a change.

[ausfatcat]

Billy Bean never won a world series

[bigred]

Yeah Moneyball doesnt work.

Will get you lots of wins through the season but wont get you the big one.

[David-Lee]

Actually...it does work. All 4 major USA sport codes employ the money ball systems Billy Bean collated ( I say this because all the methods he used like sabermetrics were employed in part but not together).
He may never have won but many teams who use these methods consistently win...the New England Patriots only sign Free Agents they moneyball. People on the outside scratch their heads as to why they sign average looking players...then they win everything year after year.

Momeyball or more accurately the system of critical data analysis has completely reshaped American sporting codes forever.

It's not just the moneyball system that creates wins we need culture shaping board and a director of football with a bevy of switched on assistant coaches.

[Joffa Burns]

Yeah Moneyball doesnt work.

Will get you lots of wins through the season but wont get you the big one.

I'll take the lots of wins please.

[vacuous space]

Paddy and Longer are ranked in Supercoach ( which is a very good statistic data algorithm) in the bottom 25 players out of 469 the entire AFL!!!

I enjoy playing SuperCoach, but ranking points are awful as a measure of player performance. It's based on a model from two decades ago when games had about 200 less disposals in them. It's biased towards long kicking, because that's what the consultants liked in the 90s. It gives way too many points to midfielders for not screwing up and not nearly enough points to peripheral players doing their jobs well. Defenders get nothing for a spoil and forwards get nothing for a pressure act, unless it's an effective tackle, which most pressure acts aren't. Key forwards get less points for their contested marks than defenders do. There's all kinds of problems with the way rucks are scored. The system could use an overhaul.

So, yeah, Paddy isn't rated too highly by Champion Data. For perspective, though, Josh Kennedy - who's basically the player we want Paddy to become - last year was rated roughly equally to guys like Luke Dunstan and Jack Steele and a bit behind Dylan Roberton. He was quite a bit behind Seb Ross and Seb Ross wasn't in the league's top 20 midfielders according to CD. Lance Franklin was the 53rd ranked player on average, placed between Stephen Coniglio and Ben McEvoy. So I'm not really concerned if Champion Data have Paddy rated behind, say, Trent Dumont.

I'm all for an evidence based approach to recruiting. I'm all for trying to exploit inefficiencies in the system. To me, that's what the US analytics crowd is all about. I don't think it will happen. In the current AFL climate, anything that doesn't win is wrong. If you're doing something different and you're wrong, you're fired. If anyone could do things a little differently, Richo might be the one thanks to his contract. Given that our gameplan seems to be to push the forwards up high and then kick to where they used to be, I'm not expecting much from Richo except some pleasing yeah nahs.