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Does Football Need More Statistics?

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Does Football Need More Statistics?
• Can we finally decide whether one player is better than another?
• Is it possible to accurately predict a team’s final league position?
Baseball, Cricket and American Football. What do they have in common? They are all driven by stats. For example, the best Starting pitcher in baseball is usually the one with the best ERA (The average amount of earned runs given up by a pitcher per 9 innings). In Cricket the best batsman usually has the highest average. In American football, top 5 quarter backs are usually the ones with the highest Quarter Back ratings. They allow fans to see who the best player is by advanced statistics, rather than something simple such as goals or assists. They give fans a deeper …show more content…

WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is a statistic used in Major League Baseball to show how much more effective the current play is than a replacement player (who isn’t in of major league quality). This shows fans (and teams) how valuable a player is. It also then allows teams to work out how much ear player is being paid per win. For example: A player paid $16million per year has a WAR of 4.0. This means that the player is being paid $4million per extra win he gains the team that they wouldn’t have got if a replacement player played in his position.

In baseball, WAR = (Batting Runs + Base Running Runs +Fielding Runs + Positional Adjustment + League Adjustment +Replacement Runs) / (Runs Per Win) (according to Fangraphs). Obviously, this doesn’t apply to football, so a new equation would have to be made. The problem here is that it would be different for every position. For example, a strikers WAR would have to focus mainly on scoring goals and creating chances to create a final figure, whereas a defender would have to focus on blocking shots and winning headers.

Therefore, it wouldn’t be easy to compare players of different positions. However, it would allow fans to see who is better in a certain position, answering that old question of

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