Effectively Wild Episode 1478: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Soccer and Rugby)
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2019
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the fourth installment of a special, seven-episode series on the past, present, and future of advanced analysis in non-baseball sports, Ben Lindbergh talks to StatsBomb managing editor Mike L. Goodman about soccer and then professor and soccer/rugby analyst Dr. Bill Gerrard about rugby (27:20), touching on the origins of sabermetrics-style analysis in each sport, the major challenges, big breakthroughs, and overturned misconceptions, the early adopters, the cutting-edge stats and tech, the level of acceptance within the game, the effects on the spectator experience, the parallels with baseball, and more.
Audio intro: Slade, "Give Us a Goal"
Audio interstitial: Jim White, "Counting Numbers in the Air"
Audio outro: The Temptations, "Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today)"
Link to StatsBomb
Link to The Double Pivot Podcast
Link to The Double Pivot’s Patreon page
Link to Mike on the adolescence of soccer stats
Link to Mike on soccer’s left-handed-pitcher problem
Link to Neil Paine on soccer analytics
Link to The Numbers Game
Link to Mike on Expected Goals (Part 1)
Link to Mike on Expected Goals (Part 2)
Link to Deadspin on soccer analytics
Link to article on Alex Cora and Liverpool
Link to Bill Gerrard’s Winning With Analytics site
Link to article on Bill’s work with Saracens
Link to article on Bill’s work with Billy Beane
Link to Bill on how analytics are changing rugby
Link to order The MVP Machine
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 1478 of Effectively Wild, a Facebook podcast from Vengrax presented |
| 0:22.1 | by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:23.8 | I am Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer and today we are continuing our seven episode series, |
| 0:29.0 | Multi-Sports Sabermetrics Exchange. |
| 0:31.4 | This is episode 4. |
| 0:32.6 | If you missed the start of this series, we have already covered American football, basketball, |
| 0:36.8 | hockey, cricket, tennis, and golf. |
| 0:39.1 | Again, the goal here is to provide a primer on the past, present, and future of advanced |
| 0:43.6 | analysis in each of these sports. |
| 0:45.5 | And today we're talking about soccer and rugby. |
| 0:47.8 | Two team sports played on pitches in which one can kick the ball. |
| 0:51.1 | I guess one can kick the ball in many sports, but in soccer and rugby it's something players |
| 0:54.9 | try to do. |
| 0:55.9 | But we'll start with soccer and I am joined now by Mike L. Goodman, who is the managing editor |
| 1:01.1 | of Statsbom. |
| 1:02.1 | He co-hosts the Double Pivot podcast and he has worked and written for most of the same |
| 1:07.0 | places that I have worked and written for, including ESPN Insider and Grantland and 538 |
| 1:12.8 | and The Ringer. |
| 1:13.8 | Hey Mike, how's it going? |
| 1:14.8 | It's going well. |
| 1:15.8 | We really have a whole bunch of different spots. |
| 1:18.4 | Yeah, I don't know who's following who. |
... |
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