Moneyball, cricket and the IPL. Remember this?
ACE ON BASE
Moneyball (The Art of Winning an Unfair Game) is a book about baseball by American sport's writer Michael Lewis.
The thrust of the book is that The Oakland Athletics, a team struggling against the big money advantages enjoyed by the likes of the NY Yankees, Boston Red Socks, Atlanta Braves have been able to stay highly competetive. They could not afford to buy, say, Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson for gazillions of dollars and, instead, had to look extremely closely at the statistics of lesser credentialled players such as Nick Swisher and Scott Hatteberg in an attempt to keep up with the big boys.
How about this?
WINDOW DRESSING
In the same way I'm not against the EPL being big business, I'm not against T20. I don't take much notice of the format, but nor do I take much notice of ice hockey, tennis, horse racing, golf, any motor racing format or large mouth bass fishing. I pretty much contain my interests to AFL, Test cricket, NFL and major league baseball, but all the rest merrily exist without any input from me.
And they are all professional. Just like T20 is now professional.
Someone needs to tell that to the papers; Saturday's headlines were particular gloat-fests. The Herald Sun: Another Poor Return. Aussies win but million dollar batsmen fail again.The Strayan: Money cannot buy runs. Bad Day at the office for cricket's new millionaires.
Perspective, please. The combined total of the T20 Aussie bids was $7.39 million. Tiger Woods can make that in a handful of tournaments. Roger Federer likewise. Same for good AND bad boxers, loads of phoodboll players, and pretty much everyone in the American baseball except for the kid who picks up the bats. You don't see the papers getting stuck into the likes of Woods, Federer, Tom Brady because the make big money.
Mind you, what you do see is the press getting stuck into players who fail to live up to their price tag, which I suppose is what Saturday's papers were doing. It will be interesting to see if the IPL signees live up to their auction value. Imagine if Dhoni Kebab strolls out and makes a string of ducks, drops sitters, or is caught cheating like he might have been yesterday with his cheaty gloves.
That's the "beauty" of professional sport: your reputation is on the line. That's why I love major league baseball. Watching a clutch pitcher or hitter perform when the heat is on goes to the very essence of competitive sport. The same goes for Michael Jordan. He was not a superstar because he could sink buckets with his eyes closed, he was a superstar because he could sink buckets with his eyes closed with half a second left in a big match and everyone in the opposition trying to stop him.
That will be one of the attractions of the T20. Will players deliver? The cricket, from a purist's perspective, will mostly be crap, but big money has cranked up the pressure. Who will crack first?
Now stroll through this fine piece of work from Athers in the Times:
Arrogant IPL owners must admit mistakes
Twenty20 franchises need statisticians to show extent of first-year flops
Are Rajasthan Royals the Oakland A's of cricket? Devotees of excellent sporting literature will need no introduction to Moneyball, a terrific yarn about how the A's, a relatively low-budget baseball team ($41million - about £22million - to spend on players counts as low budget in American sport), consistently outperformed their more illustrious and wealthier rivals by dint of the unorthodox coaching methods of Billy Beane, their general manager.
Initially I thought the post on Moneyball was a dry old piece of work. But the comments are terrific. For the porpoises of this post, make sure you read the ones related to cricket. And read the others because they are good.
Thanks, Gaz.
This just in!
On the radio, Hoggy - Rodney, not Tonguey - just referred to the Punjab Kings as the Poohjab Kings.
Posted by: Tony T | 02 June 2008 at 15:02
I enjoyed Athers' column, but we shouldn't be overstating how clever Rajasthan were. Their great find was Swapnil Asnodkar, a batsman with a loose technique but good domestic limited-over stats - almost a perfect 'Moneyball'-type example player. But they didn't pick him till the fifth game! Before, they were playing guys from the Indian u/19 squad who hadn't played a single first-class game. There's a Moneyball lesson in that - go with proven players - and perhaps Rajasthan eventually learned it, but let's not credit them with great foresight.
I'll be very interested in watching the player trades whenever they happen. Almost all commentators and analysts I've seen are (implicitly or explicitly) massively overvaluing of wickets in T20 - they're saying that Warne had a much better IPL than Murali with the ball, despite Murali going for one run an over less. If player values were set by the Cricinfo or Rediff analysts, then Ashok Dinda would be another bowler undervalued - only nine wickets, but an economy rate of 6.7. He'd be good to acquire if Kolkata don't realise how useful he is. Of course there's the caveat that he might have just been lucky - it's like judging bowlers after four ODI's.... And Dinda hasn't played a domestic one-dayer yet. That should change next season.
Posted by: David Barry | 02 June 2008 at 21:44
Saw Rod Hogg interviewed on the teev the other day. He's a very clever, worldly, cheeky, unpretentious man, from what little I saw of him. Looks like he's still at his playing weight, possibly a tad less.
This all points to one thing.
He's been on the gear, Andrew Johns style. Hoggy!
Posted by: Big Ramifications | 04 June 2008 at 14:25
re: Poohjab Kings.
One day a Geelong team mate passed the ball to David Mensch. As you do.
I’m 99% sure commentator Dermie Brereton said his team mate had "gone the munch." In fact I’m 99.99% sure because I always used the same double entendre whenever he went near the ball fnaw fnaw.
And while I’ve got your attention, some BOZO on the morning news said Sydney was going to get a retrieve from the wet weather. Good Lord.
Thirty seconds later, sports reporter Andrew Voss described someone going straight thru to the semis of the French Open.
As opposed to the meandering passage via the repechage rounds, or losing the quarter final match but being let thru on appeal.
ps: Hoggy!
Posted by: Big Ramifications | 06 June 2008 at 15:30