Has the sabremetrics thing worked?

[Mattshark]

i am not very "up" on the world of stats and all the associated terminology, so could someone help me out here...
if the stats show that downing [for example] has made x number of crosses then that shows that downing is making a worthwhile contribution.
if there is not striker getting on the end of them then its an issue with the strikers or invisible runners from midfield.

do the stats take in to account the quality of the crosses. are they being delivered long enough to reach the strikers.
maybe sometimes a cross needs to be more intelligent, and cut back to the players who are running in [hopefully] from midfield, so they cannot be intercepted by the defenders. maybe some of our players are a little to basic in their understanding of the game... too much hit and hope, and not enough understanding of how they should be developing the play, and runners creating space, or running on to balls.
i see AC standing in the box waiting for a ball to be put on his head, rather than rushing the goal area trying to get on to the end of these crosses
there seems to be an issue with many of our players not being able to get a cross past the first defender.

That is just raw data and is pretty meaningless because it can be highly misleading and misrepresentative. That is not analising anything, that is where I think people are confused here. The club may have looked more indepth I don't know. But I seriously doubt this is the method we used.

[CJ]

i am not very "up" on the world of stats and all the associated terminology, so could someone help me out here...
if the stats show that downing [for example] has made x number of crosses then that shows that downing is making a worthwhile contribution.
if there is not striker getting on the end of them then its an issue with the strikers or invisible runners from midfield.

do the stats take in to account the quality of the crosses. are they being delivered long enough to reach the strikers.
maybe sometimes a cross needs to be more intelligent, and cut back to the players who are running in [hopefully] from midfield, so they cannot be intercepted by the defenders. maybe some of our players are a little to basic in their understanding of the game... too much hit and hope, and not enough understanding of how they should be developing the play, and runners creating space, or running on to balls.
i see AC standing in the box waiting for a ball to be put on his head, rather than arriving late, and rushing the goal area trying to get on to the end of these crosses. standing still allows the defender to mark you too easily
there seems to be an issue with many of our players not being able to get a cross past the first defender.

i dont think that by itself the fact that downing makes x number of crosses does show he makes a valuable contribution. i think there needs to be other data sets matched to it etc.

[Craig_H]

Has the sabremetrics thing worked?

Has Downing beaten a man yet?

[Tee]

Has Downing beaten a man yet?

No, but he has beaten a woman (allegedly)...

[baitman]

Has Downing beaten a man yet?

he did clip his bird, but still couldnt beat her

[slaine]

I read this is how the process works.

1. Kenny tells Commolli what he thinks the team is lacking ie. width, finishing etc.

2. Commolli compiles a list of players and then shows it to Kenny.

3. Kenny looks at the list and chooses which player/s from the list he wants.

I have in good authority that what actually happens is...

Kenny sits at home with his crayons, and draws pictures of the players he wants. He then passes these pictures onto Comolli, who gets a local seamstress to make up anatomically correct rag dolls from the sketches.

Once all the potential signing's dolls are made, then both Kenny and Comolli retire to the play room, where they try out each of the dolls in a simulated game of footy.

However last year, the usual doll maker wasn't available during the transfer windows, so they used a different one, and the results weren't very good when the play session came along.

Kenny and Comolli assumed that it was down to the inexperience of the doll maker, and thought no more of it.
Unfortunately, the fact the new signings kept falling over, couldn't score, and were generally pants was a true simulation... How they laughed when they realised their mistake...

True story!

[baitman]

I have in good authority that what actually happens is...

Kenny sits at home with his crayons, and draws pictures of the players he wants. He then passes these pictures onto Comolli, who gets a local seamstress to make up anatomically correct rag dolls from the sketches.

Once all the potential signing's dolls are made, then both Kenny and Comolli retire to the play room, where they try out each of the dolls in a simulated game of footy.

However last year, the usual doll maker wasn't available during the transfer windows, so they used a different one, and the results weren't very good when the play session came along.

Kenny and Comolli assumed that it was down to the inexperience of the doll maker, and thought no more of it.
Unfortunately, the fact the new signings kept falling over, couldn't score, and were generally pants was a true simulation... How they laughed when they realised their mistake...

True story!

this may yet be used as a legitimate excuse by kenny and comoli once the fsg axe gets sharpened.

[danperkins]

Sabremetrics can go and **** off!

[el matador]

That is just raw data and is pretty meaningless because it can be highly misleading and misrepresentative. That is not analising anything, that is where I think people are confused here. The club may have looked more indepth I don't know. But I seriously doubt this is the method we used.

Matt, Lec...

i dont think any of us are actually clever enough to understand exactly how sabermetrics works because of the level of mathematical complexity involved. You need to have a seriously advanced level of understanding of maths to have even a vague idea how this works. They create equations for certain types of query's that then give them a particular result for that question. I dont think its like who created the most chances last season, or who had the highest chance conversion ratio. I think it goes way beyond that.

I saw moneyball the movie and although they literally skimmed the algorithms they use, you could see from the little they showed it was in depth stuff.

Ultimately, its about finding undervalued talent in the market and exploiting that value in the short term realising the potential value of that asset in the long term.

buy cheap sell high.

[Mattshark]

Matt, Lec...

i dont think any of us are actually clever enough to understand exactly how sabermetrics works because of the level of mathematical complexity involved. You need to have a seriously advanced level of understanding of maths to have even a vague idea how this works. They create equations for certain types of query's that then give them a particular result for that question. I dont think its like who created the most chances last season, or who had the highest chance conversion ratio. I think it goes way beyond that.

I saw moneyball the movie and although they literally skimmed the algorithms they use, you could see from the little they showed it was in depth stuff.

Ultimately, its about finding undervalued talent in the market and exploiting that value in the short term realising the potential value of that asset in the long term.

buy cheap sell high.

Sorry mate, but no you don't, it is pretty simple maths, it is no more complex (probably less so) than what you would do in a science degree for example.

And that is moneyball, not sabermetrics in the last 2 paragraphs.

[Red_Polo]

I think numerous quotes have made clear we're utilising sabremetrics to some significant degree.

From the outside it is nigh on impossible to tell exactly what metrics were valued to what extent - the idea we used chances created alone suggests a very stripped down simplistic methodology. I'd like to think we'd be smarter than that, though I can't see how else we've ended up with the signings we have.

I don't know baseball particularly well, but I should imagine football is endlessly more complex in terms of statistical analysis. Sound idea, but perhaps more difficult to replicate in football than first envisaged?

[RedReet]

But we bought players that scored goals for the clubs they were at.

How do you use Sabermetrics to find out if a player that scores goals in Holland, or for Newcastle, won't do the same for LFC.

It's been an ongoing theme for lfc too, we buy goal scoring strikers that when they sign for us forget how to score even the most simplest of chances.

After all these years, there must be more to it, our strikers have been woeful in front of goal, except for one that shall remain unamed, and even he went sour..

Thing that gets me is, we bought Kuyt and Suarez, players that were not just goal scorers, they were prolific goal scorers, now i know they've moved to a harder league, but that should mean it's harder to get so many chances, it should'nt mean they can't hit a cows arse etc etc when a simple chance presents itself, and yet they have done this time and time again, so much so that it saw Kuyt taken out of the striker role for his LFC career.

It's happened to others too, noit just Kuyt and Suarez, even Morientes missed absolute sitters during his short spell here, Crouchie chipped in with a few, but after a drought of epic proportions, and Rafa sticking with him whatever.

What the hell is going on with our Strikers! It's sooooo annoying, because we ARE and mostly always have created chances for all of them.

Funny thing is, the one player that did score lots of goals, and even broke some of our records.....was'nt even a prolific goal getter before we signed him.

Or maybe it was to accommodate Gerrard who Rafa didn't think was suited toa deeper midfield role.

[Alex]

Sabremetrics can go and **** off!

Pretty well thought out response there

[fred_plasticine]

I think numerous quotes have made clear we're utilising sabremetrics to some significant degree.

From the outside it is nigh on impossible to tell exactly what metrics were valued to what extent - the idea we used chances created alone suggests a very stripped down simplistic methodology. I'd like to think we'd be smarter than that, though I can't see how else we've ended up with the signings we have.

I don't know baseball particularly well, but I should imagine football is endlessly more complex in terms of statistical analysis. Sound idea, but perhaps more difficult to replicate in football than first envisaged?

isn't that the whole idea behind sabermetric, to find stats that are actually meaningful?
don't know what the big deal is anyway, comolli said using stats is just one of the tools they'll use when looking for new players. which i reckon a lot of clubs do to some degree.
it's not like they look at some random stats and decide to bring players in based solely upon that.
whatever it is they do, it needs to improve

[Mattshark]

I think numerous quotes have made clear we're utilising sabremetrics to some significant degree.

From the outside it is nigh on impossible to tell exactly what metrics were valued to what extent - the idea we used chances created alone suggests a very stripped down simplistic methodology. I'd like to think we'd be smarter than that, though I can't see how else we've ended up with the signings we have.

I don't know baseball particularly well, but I should imagine football is endlessly more complex in terms of statistical analysis. Sound idea, but perhaps more difficult to replicate in football than first envisaged?

Well I'm pretty sure we looked at stats under Rafa, whether it is sabermetrics is another thing though.

I would agree, there are considerably more variables in football than baseball.