An introduction to the application of Moneyball Statting to Fantasy Football

This is a small introduction for something I am trying to develop, however I am still waiting on a book from a retailer to help me develop the formula over the next few weeks. I have still been doing some other reading about statistics and their importance so this is a small representation of what I have found. I will also be outlining how I will be developing this process and what it will mean going forward. I will not be abandoning the weekly previews and reviews far from it this will run alongside those once I develop the formula.

For those who do not know Moneyball is the application of economics to baseball data, it was the term given to Billy Beane and Bill Jame’s attempt at beating the big money teams in the league with less than half the budget. They did not win the league but they set a record winning streak of games, Boston Red Sox then took on that model and broke their hoodoo and won the World Series 2 seasons later. Ever since then sports teams have been trying apply and replicate this process with varying degrees of success. Statistics have become massive business in football these days, with teams now employing many analysts and making full use of companies like OPTA who try to quantify every action on the field. There are also managers like Roberto Martinez who have OPTA’s full software package wired up to a TV in his study in his home, and although it is harder to make sense of the statistics because football is a dynamic game but the day is coming closer that the game is cracked. Now let us take a closer look at how the accumulation of these statistics can help us and make our point accumulation more efficient.

First of all I ask that you keep an open mind, we can all have cognitive biases when watching football, but what I am about to show you is that some of these biases are myths and that not to let them influence your squad selection. One of the early statistics to be analysed is that of corners, in England a corner is celebrated nearly as much as a goal it is a supposed awesome goal scoring opportunity, the thinking behind it is that corners lead to shots, shots lead to goals ergo corners lead to goals. However this is not the case, a detailed study of the 2010-11 season showed the exact opposite, one in every five corners leads to a shot on goal. Then that of these one in five shots only one in 9 lead to a goal, the actual statistic is that a corner is worth 0.022 goals and that on average team score from a corner once every ten games. The lesson that this little analysis teaches us is do not pick someone on the basis that they take corners for a team, or pick say a defender because he goes up for corners. I am sure I am not the only one who has been burned by picking Branislav Ivanovich this year for his aerial threat from corners as well as clean sheet potential.

I will be revisiting these statistical nuances throughout the season as there are quite a few and challenging the biases that we may have, however the real reason for this blog is edition of the blog is being put together is to look at value but in a slightly different way. The starting point for this is a simple equation, player value/points scored, this simple equation will show you how much value you are getting for each point scored. Let us take for example Jamie Vardy, he is worth 6.7m currently and has 52 points (£6.7m/52=£128,846.15) and is currently worth just over 128k per point scored. Now let us compare that with say Wayne Rooney (£10.2m/22=463,636.37), he is worth over £463k per point scored that is a difference of over £335k. You can do this with any player across any position and you will get his value per point scored, you have a budget and have to use it wisely. This basic formula can be applied weekly, monthly, seasonal or whatever you choose.

Players form will change and of course higher value players will always have higher equations, and of course the top players are always worth buying I was one of the lucky ones who had Aguero and captained him but the aim of this is too get the best value points out of the lower end of the market so you can buy the big boys and also knowing when is the right time to take the point hit for the extra transfer.

Going forward I am expecting a book anytime called Pay As You Play which analyses the value of player transfer’s since the premier leagues inception in 1992, and also accounts for inflation. I will be then applying their mathematical methods to fantasy football and either through Excel or SPSS create a living breathing database of player value. I will then blog every week or 2 alongside my previews and reviews about the findings and also predictions it can give off, University, Work and Family Life permitting. But the above equation is going to be the basis of my work, which I now give to you all to play with, I am not saying that I am the only who has ever thought of this but after watching Moneyball and reading through Soccernomics and The Numbers Game this is something I feel that needs to be done. Also if anyone is worried about my ability to work with statistics I have a psychology degree which is pretty stat heavy and that is how I honed my knowledge of SPSS. I hope this gave you a brief flavour and although that as in depth as some of my other stuff but I also hope that you found it somewhat interesting the shortness reflects the need to not be to dry with it all I will be doing this for both the FPL and FiT games respectively. I will always try to keep improving, so if you have any comments please feel free to use Twitter, Reddit or Facebook thank you for reading.