Top 25 batsmen all time - ranked!

[Stonigut]

Yes gamma, that is what I am talking bout, however we have to creep before we walk and consistently and cumulatively and using averages measure those things tat are pretty easy to measure, games played, minutes played, goals, assists, shots taken, shots on goal, yc, rc, goal difference ratio etc, I can do that by myself in oe match, passes per player, tackles per play require more resources and is tough to keep up consistently across a poorly funded league, but the other stuff is cheese, as you also say, discipline is a key one and you can really use that to eliminate many Contenders without raising an eyebrow and focus on the fundamentals, much of these nonsense discussions we have about who better, the guy with 10 assists and five goals or the guy With the wicked defense splitting pass he has unleashed once every year. The players know the deal, and it is up to them to improve, argument done!


But just tracking those simple ones consistently is the first and most important step and then we can start measuring apples to apples , I can't even find assists anywhere in any Jamaican stats, the most critical stat for our midfielders, seeing how every body bows down and worships at the altar of the defense splittting pass which is a one in many possibilities, I prefer to stretch the defense With a pass using speed and
Placement you can do that one every two attempts with the fast player and skilled player, the fancy stuff is for the circus or the truly skilled, we don't have too many of the latter, maybe that is why we see hue and Daley as being so good but when they go out there they are not good enough.

[Gamma]

Actually stoni, as long as there is no carrot there is no apparent objective criteria. If age is an issue say so BUT they know that would be nonsense. If it is disciplinary issues, again say so. But I agree, players need to know how they are to be assessed.

On that note there are several football related programmes which can provide some empirical data on more tangible and measurable information related to things like tackles passes and success within those disciplines. JFF should invest in that as it may also be used for continuous assessment. Simoes had someone doing that back in the day but the quality of those programmed have rapidly evolved

[Stonigut]

Alright i like that, but the first part is key, how do you identify and isolate the best, this is the massive issue we are having right now, we probably have 100-200 worthy players to look upon, how do we narrow that funnel wise so the best are sleected based on some performance criteria, now guys are getting a shot at the team and there is no rhythm or rhyme on how some were selected. Set up the criteria and select based on that criteria, so everybody know where them stand.

Man like Tuffy anderson scoring 14 goals, feel like well, he is number one but has no idea of what else he can do to get called, set the criteria if they meet the criteria then they get called and get a shot at a little game and build up from there based on performance with the guys called and how they perform when called for national duty.

This is one of the best things you can do anywhere, especially where humans are working hard to perfect their craft, so that is similar whether in a factory, among Janitors, a football team road construction workers whatever, what are the rules of engagement relative to work, performance and reward.

Set the standard and you will find guys working harder than ever, everybody need a little carrot, but when the carrot is only given to special connections or somehow it is unclear how they got the carrot you are sowing the seeds of dissent and malcontent and your system will not grow.

So agree with all you say but it is the first part of identification of talent based on performance and then the rest as you say.

[Gamma]

11 best or best 11?

[Don1]

Performance measurement?

First see as many interesting (performance wise) players as possible

Select those who appear to fit into your system

Play them as often as possible in different tactical situations simulating your intended competition A game opponents and their betters

Iterate based on your observed feedback of outcomes

Again...Play them as often as possible in different tactical situations matching your intended opponents

Select your best team

Individual player statistics ala baseball play a role...but the SYSTEM RULES..... mi haffi si how the unit operates...that's the bottom line

The combination of the statistically so called "best" players is most often not the "best" team.... that is a situational construct ie.. "best" or "most optimal" varies by circumstance

[Stonigut]

Btw I do this for fun, but truly I want to see change and I feel performance culture is one fundamental and easily achievable and non costly improvement we can make to the football culture, I really want to see the Rspl have al those stats published at the end of each weeks round for every player on every team on a website. So matches played, cumulative minutes played, average mins per match, yc, rc, goals. Assists, shots taken, sog gf, ga, goal differential ratio for team, wins losses and draws, would love more, but that is a start, every round at the end of each round cumulative to that round, we talk to it, know who is doing what etc, they talk about it, we see a youth come in to a country side and start dripping a bunch of assists we say wait, a wha ah Gowan, right now we don't even publish assists data.

[Stonigut]

So talk to me what would you do, you have a Jamaican team playing a sport where the idea of measurement of performance is not highly though of thus the identification, selection, development of athletes is based on a hit or miss system. I have worked with teams in multiple parts of the world engaged in all levels of operations and for me, the best way to get maximum performance is to be able to identify the best talent, train the best talent, set goals for the team, talk goals and measurement of performance constantly and what you get at the end is a high performing team that consistently beats teams they compete against, they ask how you do it and I just smile and thing recruit the best talent which is not easy, you got to know what you looking for, develop, train retain and performance culture. Same thing in football or any other human endeavor, it is not perfect, it is definitely not static as you are thinking, it is constantly evolving so that is why I ask, what are your thoughts, how can we bring performance culture to Jamaican football if we don't measure anything continually. Our strikers have little idea that the top strikers in the best leagues are scoring a goal a game, they are thinking a goal every 5 games is pretty good, we need to be developing strikers that can play at that level otherwise we will continue to be where we are, a little more than a joker team, who when the heat gets real hot cops out. So how do we start that process? Sorry about the jc thing, I was thinking jc from another discussion from way back.

[Don1]

Ok...I hear your plea. My tone may sound harsh but to me it's just plain talk and not personal. This discussion is a useful academic exercise to me.

There is a place for statistics but your approach to me was deterministic with some very rigid criteria based on status... that's not an approach that's workable imho... We can agree to disagree.

I like statistics and performance measurement but cannot use that solely in an evaluation of performance that's as much art as it is science. There is something undefinable and un-measureable about sport...especially team play as opposed to an individual sport like track where measurement and comparison is easy

BTW..mi nuh si what school origin or NW Manley haffi duh wid dis still plus mi ear seh I'm was a Jago man anyway

[Stonigut]

Haha you kill me, you really think saying things make it so, I can bet you that every level that holding played on he showed talent, if it is what you say then what we have is pure buck up and a strong possibility that a holding would never have been discovered, that is exactly what I try to avoid, when you run operations or businesses it can't work on buck up, too much opportunity for misses. My reference to mattock has nothing to do with the table, the table only seeks to look at a limited set of available data points, I certainly do not have the time and resources to build a data set to include every thing, all I am trying to do is to help set some guidelines of performance measurement that is it. As a matter of fact even thelimitedpoints in the setup the Jamaican football setup does not even measure many of those points even though all the major football leagues and countries do that as a matter of common course, your goal seems to be to tear down everything, well you will notice that in life it is easiest to destroy and hardest to build, any one can destroy, very few can build. I have invited you to give some constructive feedback but your focus is on tearing down, I understand sometimes when you cannot build then you must destroy. In your case I have seen many posts and for the most part I have always seen you as a man to try and build, but it seems you have taken a set on trying to destroy the idea of using performance and measurement of the stats that are mostly available to help make us better.

I fully understand if you disagree but you offer no alternative or solution so from my standpoint it is always about being destructive on your part in this argument rather than being constructive. As a jc man and especially one of the people I most admire was nw Manley and what he did to build up the infrastructure of Jamaica which has been eroded every year since he died for the most part, well I expect that you would try to live to those type of ideals as a jc man. I invite you to add some constructive thought to this, how can we better measure performance so we isolate the best faster, how do we institutionalize the performance culture rather than the "feel sey" culture. Think about this try not to be trite and personal about it, it is not about that at all, it is about moving forward. I have little time to waste arguing nth degree detail to prove a point, even though when we meet face to face we can certainly get into that, as I feel we would have a lot of fun in that kind of forum.

[Don1]

Your argument has been shredded so you revert to obfuscation..... but you only expose your argument's contradictions

Fact: Holding was NOT chosen on performance...but on POTENTIAL. His first class career was very slim and his selection a shock. Gardner's selection was on the same basis...POTENTIAL displayed at a critical (very young) age.

Get your facts straight. There is a difference between the demonstrated performance in professional settings you reference in your matrix and potential displayed by the young & gifted

Your reference to Mattocks and his college performance further destroys your matrix... it had zero reference to college level play... You are making things up as you go along and shifting goal posts when exposed. A statistical theory is useless in that environment and must be discarded

Betta yuh juss admit seh you get one rush ah blood and the wrongheaded statistical matrix was the result.

Nuhbaddy naw hold dat gainst yuh

[Peter R]

As a young man nothing wrong when you end up with a lot of "misses" and you should ALWAYS make time for (a lot of) "misses"...

[Stonigut]

Don1 How you love fight so much you all a fight your self, all statistics do is show us what is happening in reality, now when Lloyd or wi selectors pick Holding, they picked him based on his first class cricket record which again was statistical based measurements, can you imagine picking a bowler that is fast and furious but is not smart enough to work his advantage, we have seen plenty of those, you know how we know they are bad or not good enough, no wickets!! Simple, stats. Same thing with Gardner is not just some buck up picks,you notice performance and you look at what the results are and you make a decision on the stats you have. Who or what re you fighting me or the stats, I am easy to fight, the stats speak for themselves, no getting around it and the longer the period of measurement the more evident the truth.

So here is one you might like, I am calling for mattocks inclusion and trial in our WC campaign, he has done little to date in pro level ball but what I have seen is something unusual by the eye test (which I know is your specialty, mine too but only when viewing the opposite sex, just looking still!!!) however what I have to back up that eye test with is his college record where he has been scoring at close to a goal per game so again stats confirms the eye test, can't move forward with intuition unless you do the homework, otherwise you end up with a lot of misses. I especially at work don't have time for a lot of misses so I pay due diligence to the bottom line with a strong gut feeling to balance the whole thing out,especially when picking new and key workers for critical positions. Same thing for ball and everything else in life without the stats you are 'singing' in the wind, if you know what I mean.

[Don1]

Facts foolishly applied in a vacuum can make fools of the wisest of men

Because facts are organized in a mathematically correct system does not make the outcomes of the calculations optimal. This is because in all sports, value judgments can be just as important or even superior to so called facts even if said facts are performance based. Note that the assumptions which are the fulcrum of all statistical ranking systems are necessarily value judgments.... the outcomes are only as good as the assumptions

The impact of experienced insight is incalculable and this type of value judgment expertly applied is invaluable to talent selection. This is a skill NOT subject to quantification by any mathematical system such as those in which you repose complete faith.

Case is point is Clive Lloyd choosing an untested Michael Holding to tour Australia in 1975... none of your type of "facts" could justify such brilliant insight. Simoes choosing Bibi Gardner is another example. Indeed such examples abound in the world of sport.... this common occurrence completely defeats your position of complete reliance on statistics.

So called facts must be leavened by expert value judgments to create optimal player and overall team selection. Absolute reliance on statistics will engender missed opportunities to unearth & expose superior talent and develop the most effective teams.

That's my point

[Exile]

Add to that the blatant thievery, home decisions and racism to some decisions. Think of all those games WI played in Australia and New Zealand, even England and how the hometown decisions affected players averages and careers. It was not across the board either. TV replays and slow-mo has helped us a lot now, so umpires have to be more discreet in their bias.

[Exile]

Wasn't comparing with your table. It is a table for most runs scored in career.