The Cleveland Browns have embraced analytics. However, some think that means they have embraced Moneyball. Find out why the Browns are not doing Moneyball.
The common misconception surrounding the Cleveland Browns states that they are taking a Moneyball approach in the NFL. Of course, surrounding this misconception is the question: can the Browns make Moneyball work in the NFL?
The Moneyball question started when the Browns hired Paul DePodesta as chief strategy officer. DePodesta is, of course, famous for his use of analytics in Major League Baseball. It was only natural for people to begin assuming the Browns and the newly hired DePodesta would take a Moneyball approach to rebuilding the team.
Ironically, in 2002, Oakland A’s fans were hearing almost the exact same questions that Browns fans are hearing today.
“I don’t read books like that. I didn’t read Bill James’ book, and you said he was complimenting me,” Hall of Famer Joe Morgan said when asked about the book, Moneyball. “Why would I wanna read a book about a computer, that gives computer numbers?”
The implication, of course, is that computers and statistics are not an effective means of evaluating the performance of baseball players. We’ve seen how this has played out in Major League Baseball over the past decade.
Browns fans hear the exact same argument now. According to Pro Football Talk, Brian Billick, whose former team recently hired a director of football analytics, told ESPN’s Mike & Mike:
“One of the most common questions I get is, can you do Moneyball, for lack of a better term, in the NFL? And the answer is, No, you can’t, you can’t quantify the game of football the way you do baseball. It’s not a statistical game. The parameters of the game, the number of bodies and what they’re doing in conjunction with one another.”
These questions fail to recognize a very important fact – that Moneyball is different from an analytical approach to organizational structure, strategy and team building. Moneyball is one aspect of analytics. It was created in a specific place and time to solve a very specific problem. If Moneyball is not analytics, then what exactly is Moneyball?
Next: What is Moneyball?
Moneyball is the name given to the approach pioneered by Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta in Oakland. In the best-selling book Moneyball, financial journalist and economist Michael Lewis tells how the financially strapped Oakland Athletics used economics to restructure their team. The goal: win an unfair game.
The problem for Beane and DePodesta was economic. They did not have the financial resources of other teams in Major League Baseball. They needed a way to not only level the playing field but also create an advantage. Lewis describes that, similar to selling stock derivatives for more than the price of the whole, the Oakland A’s decided to see baseball from a statistical perspective and take advantage of market inefficiencies. The inefficiency they decided to exploit: on-base percentage in hitters and ground ball to fly ball ratio in pitchers.
Exploiting market inefficiencies, the Oakland Athletics rebuilt their team in a new image. Instead of the traditional speedy leadoff men followed by power hitting corner players, the A’s decided to stock their team with market cast-offs who could get on base. They also brought in pitchers who could induce ground ball outs. With this, Moneyball was born.
The A’s were wildly successful come the end of the first season of Moneyball. They won 20 consecutive games at one point, tying them for fourth all time for consecutive wins. However, success did not come immediately that season. What went wrong and how to Beane and DePodesta fix it?
Next: From Moneyball to Analytics
Initially, the newfound Moneyball approach did not work. A purely statistical approach could not account for what would become the greatest obstacle for the 2002 Oakland A’s – the human element.
At the beginning of the season, the Oakland Athletics were not winning games. The group they assembled were not functioning the way the statistics predicted they would. What was the problem? The problem was buy-in. The manager and players either did not understand or actively rejected the vision Beane and DePodesta were trying to create.
Beane and DePodesta resolved the problem by expanding statistical analysis from simply a tool for creating a roster, to an all-encompassing vision around which the entire organization from the major league team to the lowest minor league team would be structured.
The vision changed from exploiting market inefficiencies to the creation of an entirely different way of building a baseball organization built on statistical analysis. The statistic of on-base percentage became a lens through which players at all levels were evaluated. Coaches were taught the vision, then expected to buy in and teach that vision to players.
Players were taught the value of taking pitches in order induce walks and tire out the pitchers at all levels of the organization. The A’s started drafting players that fit their vision. The A’s were now actively structuring their organization from top-down around a specific style of playing baseball.
What started as a way of exploiting market efficiencies by a small market team became an all-encompassing vision for structuring a MLB organization. At this point Moneyball, defined as exploiting market inefficiencies to win an unfair game, was incorporated into a larger scheme. This new scheme? An analytical approach to drafting, roster construction, and organizational strategy and structure.
At the center of the birth of analytics in MLB was DePodesta, who will now try to win with Moneyball in Cleveland.
Next: Moneyball and the Browns
With the hiring of Paul DePodesta, the Cleveland Browns have brought an entirely new approach to the NFL. The question now is: Can Moneyball work in the NFL? The answer to this question is simple. Moneyball, the process of exploiting marking inefficiencies to compete in an unfair financial game, will not work in the NFL. It does not even make sense to try.
That’s because the game is not unfair. The NFL has a salary cap that puts all teams on a level playing field. Each team only has a certain amount of money it can spend. The real question, when it comes to the salary cap, is how to spend the money effectively.
Second, the game of football is different from baseball. Baseball has nine players on defense who can be evaluated statistically as individuals. Generally speaking, the way a second baseman plays is relatively independent from all other positions. Statistically, one can evaluate a second baseman in isolation from everyone else.
However, this is not the case in football. Football is different in that all 11 players must work collectively in order to produce results. This is true both offensively, defensively and on special teams. As where baseball is basically a static game, football is a dynamic event.
Moneyball was a specific answer to a specific question: how to win at a financially unfair game. However, the Cleveland Browns are not asking that question. The answers to how to win in baseball categorically do not apply to football. Of course Moneyball will not work in the NFL, it was designed to work in MLB. If Moneyball will not work in the NFL, then what are the Cleveland Browns up to?
Next: Analytics and the Browns
The Browns are not doing Moneyball. The Browns have done nothing this offseason to suggest they are applying a Moneyball approach to their roster.
There is no identifiable market inefficiency that can be gleaned from the free agents the Browns let go or from any that the Browns have signed. The Browns are not banking on the idea that there are undervalued free agents on the market. The difficulty of identifying players with market inefficiency is first identifying a player’s scheme fit on the market. The free agent must first fit the scheme before one can identify if the market of overlooking them. This is a second level problem that baseball markets do not encounter.
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Unlike baseball, football is not only a complex matrix of interaction from whistle to whistle, football also has a secondary abstract level in which coaches shine as the star. The coaches determine the scheme or plan of attack for each given team. Each plan of attack is in itself complex, requiring very specific types of players.
For example, a 3-4 defense requires players with completely different shapes, sizes and skill sets than a 4-3 defense. Any foray into the free agent market is already limited by scheme. Any Moneyball approach to football would have to identify any market inefficiencies in, for example the available 3-4 scheme fit players. This reduction of the field makes such an approach tenuous.
The Browns have shown nothing to suggest they are taking a Moneyball approach. In fact, the opposite seems to be occurring. Personnel decisions can be attributed to effective salary cap management and scheme fit for head coach Hue Jackson‘s offense and defensive coordinator Ray Horton‘s defense.
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This is not to say the Browns are taking a traditional approach. No, the Browns are taking an analytic approach to organizational structure, strategy and team building. However, the Cleveland Browns are not playing Moneyball.