A bit apples to oranges but I think what has happened in baseball suggests that the edge won't disappear when every club embraces analytics, at least not completely. We're far enough along in the data revolution in baseball that every team leans on data at this point, so the edge now is less "do you use data" and more "how well do you use data." The most successful teams are both rich and smart (e.g. Dodgers, Braves) but the poor and smart teams (e.g. Rays, Brewers, Guardians) have still been able to outpace the rich but dumber teams (e.g. Angels, Mets).
The only caveat I'd add (as I'm sure you well know) is baseball has a soft cap so not sure how well this comparison translates to a rich soccer/football team being both the richest and smartest where the only upward limit is FFP or its equivalencies. But this was kind of along the lines I was thinking too in that the most advanced analytically is definitely baseball (or at least they were the earliest to embrace statistical analysis) and it hasn't turned into yankees versus dodgers every year. There's always a next frontier to cross and the game is never "solved".
Yeah, that's a good point about the soft cap/luxury tax and along with that, young players' salaries being artificially suppressed by pre-arb + arbitration makes it easier for poorer teams to compete too. Plus, the financial gap between baseball teams is much smaller than in soccer, and the nature of baseball's postseason means you don't need to be the best team (or even a top-5 team) to win the championship. All that to say if soccer goes the way of baseball, I do think we would see the rich teams do better than in MLB. But like you said, there's always a next frontier to cross. Even if United work to catch up to where Brighton is now, Brighton's getting smarter at the same time. There can still be an edge.
hahaha I was 'this close' to including a comment about salary depression via arbitration. And yeah, I'm with you. Even with analytics on equal footing, there's a certain advantage that comes with being a smaller club (added to the litany of disadvantages) . To bring this analogy full circle, Brighton can take risks on guys like Mitoma and more recently Minteh and give them space to develop and make mistakes or not work out. Teams/clubs always in a competitive window like the dodgers and united don't really have that luxury. But then they do have the loan system. Like you said at the start, comparing apples and oranges...
I can confirm Barca Hub was industry leading at the time Antoine Griezmann as signed and can confirm that Antoine Griezmann was a political signing
I’m glad you have shared your thoughts because I was thinking along the same lines
There is no real negative side discussed about Klopp and I was wondering if there would be in the final third but given it finishes in 2020/2021 unlikely
The Keita information was interesting as I felt he contradicted his earlier opinion in the book later on in the book
I think football betting markets models have been updated based on the work people have done in football data in the past 20 years
I think at clubs, this is still not the case, they may have access or people working in the space but the decision making is more Rodgers than Klopp
The problem with analytics when implemented by huge teams is the goal of the analysis stops being about maximizing winning and quickly becomes about maximizing profit. In European football, the two are much more closely correlated than in America, where the rise of analytics has coincided with a rise in shameless tanking to improve draft position and various scams to suppress player salaries (such as in MLB where teams now keep star young players in the minor leagues for the first part of the season as a way to get an extra year of team control.)
I don't think many of the groundbreaking number-crunchers realized their creations would be hijacked with the goal of making extremely wealthy owners even wealthier.
One thing that occurred to me reading this book (and alluded to in Grace’s review) is just how much luck as well as buy-in that’s needed. I know some Manchester United fans who constantly seem to believe that all they need to do is sign the right “manager” and everything will be as it was. Graham’s experience suggests there are lots of mistakes to be made and it takes a very long time (it took Liverpool 10 years to win the league) even when you have most of the right pieces in place from the start. It’s certainly going to take more than just have JR in charge of the football side.
“But even if you agree with Graham, what’s the end game? Let’s say a bunch of smart teams keep massively overperforming, then what happens? Everyone will heavily embrace analytics.”
I understand why you would think this Grace, but this is not the experience in my main profession. In various professions edges are found and people benefit for a while, but they’re inevitably competed away. But there is no end game where nobody profits, people just find different edges.
Even in the book, the limits of data are highlighted by Graham. For example, at Spurs Graham rated Modric as “ok” whilst Edwards thought he was Spurs’ best player based on video analysis. What Graham realised was that their data didn’t pick up how Modric could operate in small spaces and relieve pressure on the team. Data is available to measure that now, but it was an evolution. Similarly, he highlights the difficulty in evaluating defenders and the “Liam Ridgewell Problem”. My point is that the game will always evolve, and data often needs to catch up. It’s also nuanced a lot of the time and open to different interpretations. This is not the “End of History”.
I can see the first (excellent) comment alludes to this with baseball, and I’d echo the sentiment, and perhaps at some point there will be a genuine hard salary (remuneration really to account for bonuses) cap at the squad level. Then it really would be a resource allocation argument and one that’s a little more subjective.
I do get your point, but I'm not sure in this case. Liverpool, Brighton and Brentford exploited edges because most clubs are wildly incompetent. If almost every club implemented Graham's methods, even as some edges would remain, I think they'd be far smaller than the are now, and certainly much smaller than financial gaps.
A bit apples to oranges but I think what has happened in baseball suggests that the edge won't disappear when every club embraces analytics, at least not completely. We're far enough along in the data revolution in baseball that every team leans on data at this point, so the edge now is less "do you use data" and more "how well do you use data." The most successful teams are both rich and smart (e.g. Dodgers, Braves) but the poor and smart teams (e.g. Rays, Brewers, Guardians) have still been able to outpace the rich but dumber teams (e.g. Angels, Mets).
The only caveat I'd add (as I'm sure you well know) is baseball has a soft cap so not sure how well this comparison translates to a rich soccer/football team being both the richest and smartest where the only upward limit is FFP or its equivalencies. But this was kind of along the lines I was thinking too in that the most advanced analytically is definitely baseball (or at least they were the earliest to embrace statistical analysis) and it hasn't turned into yankees versus dodgers every year. There's always a next frontier to cross and the game is never "solved".
Yeah, that's a good point about the soft cap/luxury tax and along with that, young players' salaries being artificially suppressed by pre-arb + arbitration makes it easier for poorer teams to compete too. Plus, the financial gap between baseball teams is much smaller than in soccer, and the nature of baseball's postseason means you don't need to be the best team (or even a top-5 team) to win the championship. All that to say if soccer goes the way of baseball, I do think we would see the rich teams do better than in MLB. But like you said, there's always a next frontier to cross. Even if United work to catch up to where Brighton is now, Brighton's getting smarter at the same time. There can still be an edge.
hahaha I was 'this close' to including a comment about salary depression via arbitration. And yeah, I'm with you. Even with analytics on equal footing, there's a certain advantage that comes with being a smaller club (added to the litany of disadvantages) . To bring this analogy full circle, Brighton can take risks on guys like Mitoma and more recently Minteh and give them space to develop and make mistakes or not work out. Teams/clubs always in a competitive window like the dodgers and united don't really have that luxury. But then they do have the loan system. Like you said at the start, comparing apples and oranges...
Thanks for covering this book Grace.
I’m about two third through it at the moment.
I can confirm Barca Hub was industry leading at the time Antoine Griezmann as signed and can confirm that Antoine Griezmann was a political signing
I’m glad you have shared your thoughts because I was thinking along the same lines
There is no real negative side discussed about Klopp and I was wondering if there would be in the final third but given it finishes in 2020/2021 unlikely
The Keita information was interesting as I felt he contradicted his earlier opinion in the book later on in the book
I think football betting markets models have been updated based on the work people have done in football data in the past 20 years
I think at clubs, this is still not the case, they may have access or people working in the space but the decision making is more Rodgers than Klopp
The problem with analytics when implemented by huge teams is the goal of the analysis stops being about maximizing winning and quickly becomes about maximizing profit. In European football, the two are much more closely correlated than in America, where the rise of analytics has coincided with a rise in shameless tanking to improve draft position and various scams to suppress player salaries (such as in MLB where teams now keep star young players in the minor leagues for the first part of the season as a way to get an extra year of team control.)
I don't think many of the groundbreaking number-crunchers realized their creations would be hijacked with the goal of making extremely wealthy owners even wealthier.
One thing that occurred to me reading this book (and alluded to in Grace’s review) is just how much luck as well as buy-in that’s needed. I know some Manchester United fans who constantly seem to believe that all they need to do is sign the right “manager” and everything will be as it was. Graham’s experience suggests there are lots of mistakes to be made and it takes a very long time (it took Liverpool 10 years to win the league) even when you have most of the right pieces in place from the start. It’s certainly going to take more than just have JR in charge of the football side.
“But even if you agree with Graham, what’s the end game? Let’s say a bunch of smart teams keep massively overperforming, then what happens? Everyone will heavily embrace analytics.”
I understand why you would think this Grace, but this is not the experience in my main profession. In various professions edges are found and people benefit for a while, but they’re inevitably competed away. But there is no end game where nobody profits, people just find different edges.
Even in the book, the limits of data are highlighted by Graham. For example, at Spurs Graham rated Modric as “ok” whilst Edwards thought he was Spurs’ best player based on video analysis. What Graham realised was that their data didn’t pick up how Modric could operate in small spaces and relieve pressure on the team. Data is available to measure that now, but it was an evolution. Similarly, he highlights the difficulty in evaluating defenders and the “Liam Ridgewell Problem”. My point is that the game will always evolve, and data often needs to catch up. It’s also nuanced a lot of the time and open to different interpretations. This is not the “End of History”.
I can see the first (excellent) comment alludes to this with baseball, and I’d echo the sentiment, and perhaps at some point there will be a genuine hard salary (remuneration really to account for bonuses) cap at the squad level. Then it really would be a resource allocation argument and one that’s a little more subjective.
I do get your point, but I'm not sure in this case. Liverpool, Brighton and Brentford exploited edges because most clubs are wildly incompetent. If almost every club implemented Graham's methods, even as some edges would remain, I think they'd be far smaller than the are now, and certainly much smaller than financial gaps.