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| Billy Beane can’t get enough of soccer after revolutionising baseball | Billy Beane can’t get enough of soccer after revolutionising baseball |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| “Quite frankly, I can’t get enough of soccer,” says Billy Beane. “I tell my jingoistic friends in the United States there’s a reason why it is the world’s No1 sport. The rest of the planet can’t be wrong.” | “Quite frankly, I can’t get enough of soccer,” says Billy Beane. “I tell my jingoistic friends in the United States there’s a reason why it is the world’s No1 sport. The rest of the planet can’t be wrong.” |
| Yes, this is the Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team and the unassuming lead character in Michael Lewis’s best‑selling tome Moneyball – which, since its release in 2003, has became a sort of Book of Genesis for sports analytics proselytisers; shining a light on terrain once shrouded in darkness and superstition. | Yes, this is the Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team and the unassuming lead character in Michael Lewis’s best‑selling tome Moneyball – which, since its release in 2003, has became a sort of Book of Genesis for sports analytics proselytisers; shining a light on terrain once shrouded in darkness and superstition. |
| An aside: when Beane’s wife heard that Brad Pitt had been signed up for the 2011 film she said to him: “Brad Pitt’s playing you? I feel like I’m being ripped off.” Beane, meanwhile, calls Pitt a “wonderful guy, bright and intuitive”, although they did not delve too deep into advanced metrics. “Who wants to get really granular with sabermetrics when you’re going to see a two-and-a-half-hour Brad Pitt movie?” he asks. “You don’t go to the cinema for a maths lesson.” | An aside: when Beane’s wife heard that Brad Pitt had been signed up for the 2011 film she said to him: “Brad Pitt’s playing you? I feel like I’m being ripped off.” Beane, meanwhile, calls Pitt a “wonderful guy, bright and intuitive”, although they did not delve too deep into advanced metrics. “Who wants to get really granular with sabermetrics when you’re going to see a two-and-a-half-hour Brad Pitt movie?” he asks. “You don’t go to the cinema for a maths lesson.” |
| Beane’s wife was also inadvertently responsible for his late-blooming passion for football. In 2003 he bought her plane tickets to London for her birthday; and while in the capital he got sucked into the bubble and high-energy pop of the Premier League. He never played as a kid, or showed much interest in his early adult years. Now, though, Beane tries to watch three Premier League matches shown live on US TV on Saturdays, the earliest of which kicks off at 4.45am Pacific time. | Beane’s wife was also inadvertently responsible for his late-blooming passion for football. In 2003 he bought her plane tickets to London for her birthday; and while in the capital he got sucked into the bubble and high-energy pop of the Premier League. He never played as a kid, or showed much interest in his early adult years. Now, though, Beane tries to watch three Premier League matches shown live on US TV on Saturdays, the earliest of which kicks off at 4.45am Pacific time. |
| “If I don’t get to watch a match live, I tape it,” he says. “Even if I know the score I go back and watch. I find it fascinating. I love the sport. I love the business. I love the fact there’s such a dichotomy between, say, the Emirates and Turf Moor. It’s an education for me.” | “If I don’t get to watch a match live, I tape it,” he says. “Even if I know the score I go back and watch. I find it fascinating. I love the sport. I love the business. I love the fact there’s such a dichotomy between, say, the Emirates and Turf Moor. It’s an education for me.” |
| On Monday night Beane enjoyed dinner with Liverpool’s chairman, Tom Werner, and owner, John Henry. He occasionally speaks to Arsène Wenger and knows Ivan Gazidis. And when you ask whether he would be tempted to become a director of football in England when his contract with the Oakland Athletics runs out in 2019 he says: “Oh, yeah, absolutely.” | On Monday night Beane enjoyed dinner with Liverpool’s chairman, Tom Werner, and owner, John Henry. He occasionally speaks to Arsène Wenger and knows Ivan Gazidis. And when you ask whether he would be tempted to become a director of football in England when his contract with the Oakland Athletics runs out in 2019 he says: “Oh, yeah, absolutely.” |
| But there is a caveat: “I say that with a tremendous amount of humbleness and respect for people who do the job already,” he adds. “I say it humbly because there are challenges unique to soccer that I wouldn’t be privy to until I was there.” | But there is a caveat: “I say that with a tremendous amount of humbleness and respect for people who do the job already,” he adds. “I say it humbly because there are challenges unique to soccer that I wouldn’t be privy to until I was there.” |
| Nor would he promise any quick fixes. “Remember, when I started in baseball, a lot of it was low hanging fruit with inefficiencies going on, and those inefficiencies usually evaporate pretty quickly.” | Nor would he promise any quick fixes. “Remember, when I started in baseball, a lot of it was low hanging fruit with inefficiencies going on, and those inefficiencies usually evaporate pretty quickly.” |
| While Beane, 52, confirms he has never been approached by an English club, he does sometimes wrestle with whether his methods could work in football. Certainly what he has achieved in 17 years at the Oakland A’s speaks for itself. | While Beane, 52, confirms he has never been approached by an English club, he does sometimes wrestle with whether his methods could work in football. Certainly what he has achieved in 17 years at the Oakland A’s speaks for itself. |
| Since 2000 the A’s have reached the play-offs eight times despite having the fifth or sixth lowest budget among the 30 teams in the major leagues. This year they did so again, only to lose a one-game play-off 9-8 to the Kansas City Royals a fortnight ago. The Royals have since swept into the World Series – which begins on Tuesday against the San Francisco Giants – leaving Beane to lick his wounds and plan yet another rebuilding job. “The hardest thing for us is the continuity,” he says. “It doesn’t exist here. Our roster will turn over about a 30% clip every single year, and it’s very hard to regenerate year after year. But there is certainly a lot of satisfaction. And being a smaller team gives us some creative licence to do things compared to say New York or Chicago.” | Since 2000 the A’s have reached the play-offs eight times despite having the fifth or sixth lowest budget among the 30 teams in the major leagues. This year they did so again, only to lose a one-game play-off 9-8 to the Kansas City Royals a fortnight ago. The Royals have since swept into the World Series – which begins on Tuesday against the San Francisco Giants – leaving Beane to lick his wounds and plan yet another rebuilding job. “The hardest thing for us is the continuity,” he says. “It doesn’t exist here. Our roster will turn over about a 30% clip every single year, and it’s very hard to regenerate year after year. But there is certainly a lot of satisfaction. And being a smaller team gives us some creative licence to do things compared to say New York or Chicago.” |
| There is no parallel to what the A’s have achieved in English sport. Imagine Southampton, having sold so many of their established names in the summer, finishing in Europe this season – and doing it every other season during the next 17 years. That hints at the scale of Beane’s success. | There is no parallel to what the A’s have achieved in English sport. Imagine Southampton, having sold so many of their established names in the summer, finishing in Europe this season – and doing it every other season during the next 17 years. That hints at the scale of Beane’s success. |
| So how do the A’s play a big-money game of Buckaroo without falling off? Eyelids can droop at terms such sabermetrics, but the underlying concept of Moneyball is simple to understand: it is about using data and detailed analysis to find value. | So how do the A’s play a big-money game of Buckaroo without falling off? Eyelids can droop at terms such sabermetrics, but the underlying concept of Moneyball is simple to understand: it is about using data and detailed analysis to find value. |
| Sometimes a player is valued incorrectly because he is perceived as too injury prone or defensively weak. On other occasions an organisation finds a way of measuring player performance – and likely future success – that is better than their rivals. | Sometimes a player is valued incorrectly because he is perceived as too injury prone or defensively weak. On other occasions an organisation finds a way of measuring player performance – and likely future success – that is better than their rivals. |
| As Beane puts it: “Our aim is to properly allocate credit and blame to a player. In baseball you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet when you look at a historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity it is a hit. So because a superior defender caught it on that play, you should probably credit the hitter in some way and take away from the pitcher. Traditional stats don’t do that. They only credit outcome. They don’t credit process.” | As Beane puts it: “Our aim is to properly allocate credit and blame to a player. In baseball you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet when you look at a historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity it is a hit. So because a superior defender caught it on that play, you should probably credit the hitter in some way and take away from the pitcher. Traditional stats don’t do that. They only credit outcome. They don’t credit process.” |
| But it is harder to implement Moneyball in football, Beane concedes, for several reasons. The game is more fluid and interdependent, which makes it more complicated to track and analyse. The distance between rich and poor clubs is wider – Beane gets the Deloitte report into football’s finances and says he is “absolutely amazed at how large the gap is; even greater than in the US in some respects”. | But it is harder to implement Moneyball in football, Beane concedes, for several reasons. The game is more fluid and interdependent, which makes it more complicated to track and analyse. The distance between rich and poor clubs is wider – Beane gets the Deloitte report into football’s finances and says he is “absolutely amazed at how large the gap is; even greater than in the US in some respects”. |
| It is also arguably riskier for an English manager to place huge faith in statistical analysis because, unlike in American sport, there is relegation. | It is also arguably riskier for an English manager to place huge faith in statistical analysis because, unlike in American sport, there is relegation. |
| “You don’t have a lot of time to be right in football,” he says. “So ultimately, before you mark on anything quantitative, you have to make sure you have scrutinised the data and have certainty with what you are doing, because the risk is very high.” | “You don’t have a lot of time to be right in football,” he says. “So ultimately, before you mark on anything quantitative, you have to make sure you have scrutinised the data and have certainty with what you are doing, because the risk is very high.” |
| Yet there are fundamentals that do cross the Atlantic. Crucially, Beane believes, you have to run a club along business lines, particularly when it comes to recruitment. That means detailed and lengthy analysis of potential targets, not falling into the familiar trap buying someone because they played well against your team. It also means thinking long term wherever possible. | Yet there are fundamentals that do cross the Atlantic. Crucially, Beane believes, you have to run a club along business lines, particularly when it comes to recruitment. That means detailed and lengthy analysis of potential targets, not falling into the familiar trap buying someone because they played well against your team. It also means thinking long term wherever possible. |
| “When I first came into baseball people didn’t want to hear that a team was a business,” he says. “But it is. And the better the business is run, the healthier the team on the field is going to be. That is why I admire Arsenal. If I’m buying stock in a football team that’s the one I buy. They’ve got revenues. They’re successful. They pay down their debt. And ultimately in today’s world that’s the best way for a long-term success.” | “When I first came into baseball people didn’t want to hear that a team was a business,” he says. “But it is. And the better the business is run, the healthier the team on the field is going to be. That is why I admire Arsenal. If I’m buying stock in a football team that’s the one I buy. They’ve got revenues. They’re successful. They pay down their debt. And ultimately in today’s world that’s the best way for a long-term success.” |
| Beane also stresses that sporting organisations must continually be open to new ideas. In one of the more memorable lines of Moneyball, Lewis writes: “It was hard to know which of Billy’s qualities was most important to his team’s success: his energy, his resourcefulness, his intelligence, or his ability to scare the living shit out of even very large professional baseball players.” A decade on, however, Beane prides himself for another quality. “Being the dumbest guy in my own room.” | Beane also stresses that sporting organisations must continually be open to new ideas. In one of the more memorable lines of Moneyball, Lewis writes: “It was hard to know which of Billy’s qualities was most important to his team’s success: his energy, his resourcefulness, his intelligence, or his ability to scare the living shit out of even very large professional baseball players.” A decade on, however, Beane prides himself for another quality. “Being the dumbest guy in my own room.” |
| “I’ve got brilliant staff,” he says. “One of my right-hand guys, Farhan Zaidi, has a PhD in behavioural economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He never played much baseball. He followed American sports when his dad was working for the Asian Development Bank.” | “I’ve got brilliant staff,” he says. “One of my right-hand guys, Farhan Zaidi, has a PhD in behavioural economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He never played much baseball. He followed American sports when his dad was working for the Asian Development Bank.” |
| Isn’t that a disadvantage? It would be hard to imagine many English clubs doing the same. “Yes, but he has no experience-bias when he comes to my office, so he is able to question the obvious,” says Beane. “A guy like myself, who has been in the game his entire life, may not be able to spot when the emperor is not wearing any clothes.” | Isn’t that a disadvantage? It would be hard to imagine many English clubs doing the same. “Yes, but he has no experience-bias when he comes to my office, so he is able to question the obvious,” says Beane. “A guy like myself, who has been in the game his entire life, may not be able to spot when the emperor is not wearing any clothes.” |
| I tell Beane that there are performance analysts at English football clubs who, when one manager departs and another one arrives, can be left burrowing away in a distant office – their methods and analysis completely ignored. How can that change? | I tell Beane that there are performance analysts at English football clubs who, when one manager departs and another one arrives, can be left burrowing away in a distant office – their methods and analysis completely ignored. How can that change? |
| “Someone at the top has to sponsor their ideas, give them muscle in meetings and to believe in them,” he says. “It’s hard in football, though. Two weeks ago I was listening to 606 and I heard some Liverpool fans questioning Brendan Rodgers – a man who nearly won the Premier League title this year – and I was thinking: ‘Really?’ But that’s the challenge and noise you face. | “Someone at the top has to sponsor their ideas, give them muscle in meetings and to believe in them,” he says. “It’s hard in football, though. Two weeks ago I was listening to 606 and I heard some Liverpool fans questioning Brendan Rodgers – a man who nearly won the Premier League title this year – and I was thinking: ‘Really?’ But that’s the challenge and noise you face. |
| “What also makes it difficult is that every year between a third and 50% of league managers leave. As the old saying goes, no plan interrupted is ever successful.” | “What also makes it difficult is that every year between a third and 50% of league managers leave. As the old saying goes, no plan interrupted is ever successful.” |
| But those same managers – spouting the same cliches, making the same mistakes – get hired and fired and hired again. The story is familiar to Beane: it describes the major leagues two decades ago. “The advantage I had was being a former player,” he says. “I was the Trojan horse. Because I came up in the locker room that gave me a big advantage.” It bought him time: not just to develop and improve, but for his ideas to congregate and congeal. Time is not something English football cares a lot about. | But those same managers – spouting the same cliches, making the same mistakes – get hired and fired and hired again. The story is familiar to Beane: it describes the major leagues two decades ago. “The advantage I had was being a former player,” he says. “I was the Trojan horse. Because I came up in the locker room that gave me a big advantage.” It bought him time: not just to develop and improve, but for his ideas to congregate and congeal. Time is not something English football cares a lot about. |
| But Beane believes that across sport the winds of change are blowing. In ice hockey last summer many of the best amateur analytics bloggers, often crunching numbers in their bedrooms, were signed by NHL clubs. Beane says that anyone keen on soccer analytics should create their own blog, because if you’re good the clubs will find you. | But Beane believes that across sport the winds of change are blowing. In ice hockey last summer many of the best amateur analytics bloggers, often crunching numbers in their bedrooms, were signed by NHL clubs. Beane says that anyone keen on soccer analytics should create their own blog, because if you’re good the clubs will find you. |
| “It is not uncommon for a blogger’s post to show up in a general manager’s Twitter feed – a level of access unheard of a decade ago,” he says. “But even in the embryonic stages of the internet, in 1997, my assistant Paul DePodesta and I would take ideas and information from this little underground website called Baseball Prospectus. | |
| “One of its writers was Nate Silver [now a US election polling guru] and he gave me ideas. Sometimes we would be getting ready to do a deal based on our analytics and they would post an article with the same conclusions as us. We wanted to shout: ‘Stop!’” | “One of its writers was Nate Silver [now a US election polling guru] and he gave me ideas. Sometimes we would be getting ready to do a deal based on our analytics and they would post an article with the same conclusions as us. We wanted to shout: ‘Stop!’” |
| These days when Beane dips into Moneyball he says it “feels like I am watching an episode of the Flintstones” but he agrees that its impact still reverberates. “The best thing about the book was that it blasted the door open for people who were really bright,” says Beane. “Baseball is no longer sort of a closed-insiders’ club where you had come up through the business or be a player to be part of it. | These days when Beane dips into Moneyball he says it “feels like I am watching an episode of the Flintstones” but he agrees that its impact still reverberates. “The best thing about the book was that it blasted the door open for people who were really bright,” says Beane. “Baseball is no longer sort of a closed-insiders’ club where you had come up through the business or be a player to be part of it. |
| “Because of that, it became a lot smarter. And that’s great. Sports should be a meritocracy just like everything else. I live right here in Silicon Valley – Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter – they are all right down from the street from my office. Yet I’m lucky that people will come and work for less money just to get involved in sports.” | “Because of that, it became a lot smarter. And that’s great. Sports should be a meritocracy just like everything else. I live right here in Silicon Valley – Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter – they are all right down from the street from my office. Yet I’m lucky that people will come and work for less money just to get involved in sports.” |
| Can he see something similar happening in English football? “Our situation was public because of the book, but in football, data is already permeating more decisions than you probably know,” he says. “And once its effectiveness is shown in a high-profile situation that will only accelerate.” | Can he see something similar happening in English football? “Our situation was public because of the book, but in football, data is already permeating more decisions than you probably know,” he says. “And once its effectiveness is shown in a high-profile situation that will only accelerate.” |
| Beane knows there are still sceptics who believe stats are hokum, or that it is a sort of sacrilege for a game imbued with such emotion, drama and beauty to be reduced to spreadsheets and numbers. He is too polite to say it, but he has no time for such flat-earthers. | Beane knows there are still sceptics who believe stats are hokum, or that it is a sort of sacrilege for a game imbued with such emotion, drama and beauty to be reduced to spreadsheets and numbers. He is too polite to say it, but he has no time for such flat-earthers. |
| “Numbers are essentially just facts,” he says. “And ultimately every sport is about numbers. How many points you get, how many wins you get – all numbers. It’s like watching a card‑counter in Vegas playing blackjack. Once you have learned how to count cards, why would you ever go back to doing it on a hunch?” | “Numbers are essentially just facts,” he says. “And ultimately every sport is about numbers. How many points you get, how many wins you get – all numbers. It’s like watching a card‑counter in Vegas playing blackjack. Once you have learned how to count cards, why would you ever go back to doing it on a hunch?” |