Moneyball

[Woodypie]

Now we are not all miserable, I can post this without being accused of being anti owner/coach. Or being accused of being too old to understand modern football.

So, Moneyball. We sign players released by teams higher up the pyramid, coach them, give them playing experience, build their confidence and then flog them back to teams higher up the pyramid for a profit. Isn't that exactly what all teams have been doing for decades?

Apart from Brentford, how many Moneyball players are playing in the Premiership? How much serious money are we really likely to generate doing this?

So, in terms of lower league team academies, if we are replacing local talent with top flight 'failures', using our resources to improve players that have gone through Premiership and Championship youth set ups, will we never see a Tommy Johnson or Mark Draper again?

I know the stattos believe religiously in data, but does that mean managers and coaches can no longer use their experience and judgement to sign players to successfully develop. Like Villa did with Watkins or even Jimmy did with McParland?

Or in fact, is Moneyball no different at all to what's always gone before, just with a sprinkling of data thrown in for good measure?

[laddo]

If all teams have been doing it for decades , Notts haven't been doing it with any success in the past couple.

Probably. Maybe. Certainly less likely now due to th academy system.

How many are playing in the Championship is probably a more relevant question seeing as we are in NL.

[jacobncfc]

will we never see a Tommy Johnson or Mark Draper again?

Probably not. Not because of ‘moneyball’ though, but because the way football sadly now works is that any player who, at 15/16, is showing that kind of natural talent and is in the youth system of a smaller club is signed by one of the big clubs, and there’s nothing clubs like us can do about it.

‘Moneyball’ isn’t really what you’ve described, anyway. It’s more about using data to try and identify players who are for some reason undervalued elsewhere. It is what clubs have always done, but using stats and data rather than the ‘eye’ of a single manager or scout.

The main benefit of putting this kind of structure in place is that it isn’t beholden to one single person. You can still find a great manager or scout who is really good at identifying potential or undervalued players. But they’ll probably move on to bigger things quite quickly, because they’re good at what they do. Notts aren’t going to find a manager to take us through the divisions again, because they’d almost certainly leave after a promotion or two.

If you can get the way you analyse the data right, it’s always going to be there, and the individuals can come and go. Of course you need that system to be good at identifying players in the first place.

[nw6pie]

Now we are not all miserable, I can post this without being accused of being anti owner/coach. Or being accused of being too old to understand modern football.

So, Moneyball. We sign players released by teams higher up the pyramid, coach them, give them playing experience, build their confidence and then flog them back to teams higher up the pyramid for a profit. Isn't that exactly what all teams have been doing for decades?

Apart from Brentford, how many Moneyball players are playing in the Premiership? How much serious money are we really likely to generate doing this?

So, in terms of lower league team academies, if we are replacing local talent with top flight 'failures', using our resources to improve players that have gone through Premiership and Championship youth set ups, will we never see a Tommy Johnson or Mark Draper again?

I know the stattos believe religiously in data, but does that mean managers and coaches can no longer use their experience and judgement to sign players to successfully develop. Like Villa did with Watkins or even Jimmy did with McParland?

Or in fact, is Moneyball no different at all to what's always gone before, just with a sprinkling of data thrown in for good measure?

I posted my thoughts on the Brentford approach on the Doom/Hope thread, so won't repeat them here. Suffice to say that looking for quality young Premiership players is going to be particularly tough at our level, because there are three divisions above us that will presumably snap up the best ones - leaving us with gambles like Ed Francis.

I'd be interested to hear more from the Reedtz bros about their plans for the under-18s. We had the league-winning team last year that was broken up, with just one pro offer made, and now we have no external funding for the youth set-up. (There was talk about the supporters raising £50,000 a month or so back, but I've not heard anything about that since.) We must have a very inexperienced team this season as we seem to be losing to nigh-on everyone we play, including the FA Youth Cup qualifying tie against Aylestone Park - whoever they are.

Hard to imagine us ever benefiting from another Drapes, Tommy Johnson, Michael Johnson or Jermaine Pennant, because they'd be signed by a Premier League team and stuck in their development squad as soon as they showed any promise (a la the players we've sold/lost to Liverpool, Wolves and Spurs over the past few years).

[Hoppie]

I think I like ‘money ball’ and when I say that I draw a large distinction between the recruitment approach and the playing style.

Aside the fact the current team now has multiple players that could play at a higher level and command a transfer fee (when was the last time someone departed Notts mid contract for a fee? not including youth players), the focus on financial returns also draws you to the right type of signing IMO.

To mind there’s broadly three categories of player that you’d think should improve your team:
1. Players that have played at a higher level.
2. Players still capable of playing at higher level.
3. Players that have the potential to play at a higher level.

Notts don’t have the kind of money needed do favour option 2 (a la Wrexham, although I’d argue Marty Palmer fits that description), so do you a) pack your team full of guys that this year aren’t good enough to play in the league above and next year not enough to play at your level either? or b) go for younger players that may not be quite there right now but could develop and take the club with them? Too many teams, Notts included, have pursued option a) in search of immediate success but when I stop and think about it, it stands to reason that the clubs league position is going to follow the trajectory of the playing staff? And then we wonder how 25 years of option A) leads you from the championship to the national league?

So In summary 1 doesn’t work, 2 is unaffordable to what the hell let’s try 3. If I was being critical mind, a bit of 1 and 2 along with 3 wouldn’t go a miss - who knows you could end up with the ability to see a game out 😉

[Rez1862]

I think Brexit has buggered us from utilising the stats based hidden gem approach (such as with Hot Rod) as we will be unable to sign the *next big thing* from abroad.

The best we can hope for is that we sell Rod and Roberts on to championship/league one clubs for a tidy sum and use football radar to sign non-league gems. We then use R&R as examples to others of how we can progress their careers.

[SwalePie]

I think Brexit has buggered us from utilising the stats based hidden gem approach (such as with Hot Rod) as we will be unable to sign the *next big thing* from abroad.

The best we can hope for is that we sell Rod and Roberts on to championship/league one clubs for a tidy sum and use football radar to sign non-league gems. We then use R&R as examples to others of how we can progress their careers.

Are we still able to sign gems from non-EU countries? Perhaps we can cast the Radar net wider if so. Not sure of the regulations. Probably not if the regulations are UK ones of course.

[Rez1862]

Re the youth team - as a FL club, I believe we had financial rewards/punishments (effectively) from the PL clubs in regard to keeping youth teams running so they can pinch players for peanuts under the EPPP. I don't think we get that as a NL club so the financial risk of running the academy vs reward of unearthing a player that we can sell for more than the cost of running said academy is small.

It's great for the fans to sing about 'one of our own' but that from a business perspective it makes little sense.

[jacobncfc]

Another issue we’ve had is that, up until this season, there’d been very little football played below our division for eigh**** months. Which has presumably made it a lot harder to try and find the next Roberts, because there’s not really enough to go on.

We signed Lewis Knight from the north, of course, but I would expect us to sign a lot more from that level and below now it’s back up and running properly.

[Rez1862]

Are we still able to sign gems from non-EU countries? Perhaps we can cast the Radar net wider if so. Not sure of the regulations. Probably not if the regulations are UK ones of course.

It was a struggle to sign non-EU players even before Brexit due to work permit issues. They had quite stringent rules around players e.g. must have played in 75% of their national teams matches in the past 2 years and country must be ranked in the top 60 or something.