Disposal efficiency - the most useless stat in footy

[Freak 100]

As much as i'd love to name players' names, i won't. But people on here seem to list someones disposal efficiency when talking about how good a players disposals are. This can be dangerous for the following reasons:

- a successful short kick in the back line that goes side ways or backwards is considered to be AS EFFECTIVE as a successful 60metres spearing pass into the corridor.

- an unsuccesful kick in the backline is alot more risky than an unsuccesful kick deep into our forward line YET both are considered to be equally as ineffective.

- A player that is a bad kick may have a good option in the corridor or up forward yet due to his bad foot skills he may opt to take the easy option and therefore kick sideways or backwards. So whilst he records a effective disposal stat next to his name, he has restricted his team from getting the ball into the corridor and limited their chances of kicking a goal.

-Players that are receivers and play quarter back roles should have high disposal efficiencies simply because (more often than not) they are kicking under no pressure. Ultimately, there is no reason a 100% efficiency rating shouldnt be obtained by a player that has nothing more than 30metre kicks in open wide spaces. On the contrary, an in and under player that has plenty of pressure on them as they are disposing of the ball should be excused for slightly lower efficiency ratings for obvious reasons.

- Handballing is easier to hit the target than a kick, mostly because the distance is usually only 1-10 metres. A player with many handballs should have higher disposal efficiency ratings. People wonder why stefan martin records high disposal efficiency ratings most weeks. its because he handballs alot and his few kicks are usually under 30metres.

- If your disposal rating is 90% or above every single week it shows that you're either a freak of nature or that you simply don't take enough risks. It's mostly the latter. Good players like Goddard, Hodge, Gilbee etc try to get their team into a better position by utilising their footskills whereas less skilled players instead just try to hit a target that may be in an equal or often worse position. Yet, once again, both would record an effective disposal stat for their efforts.

So when listing a players disposal efficiency take this into account

[Gorgoroth 12,712]

Spot on, the likes of Morton playing that sweeper role across half back should have a better disposal rat than McLean or Jones who are in the middle of the packs when they get half of their possessions.

[e25 5]

that's why we have stats like 'inside 50s', 'rebound 50s', 'goal assists' and 'involvement in scoring chains' to further clarify a player's impact.

Even 'metres gained' which is very popular now, mostly because it doesn't reward sideways and backwards movement.

At the same time, having good peripheral vision and switching at a crucial time can open up the game and be very damaging.

Usually only in transition though, when players get caught well out their zone position.

[Dappa Dan 2,188]

So if you combine metres gained with effective disposal would that make the stat more useful? I think Morton had some ridiculous amount of metres gained last week... But I guess you could put that down to how many more stats he had, as well as how high your ratio of kicks to handballs were.

Still. I wouldn't call it a COMPLETELY useless stat. I think people have now gone past basing their opinions COMPLETELY on stats, because players like Carrazzo would look like brownlow medallists... however, if you take them for what they are they CAN still be useful in certain specific situations...

The kicking efficiency stat is no different to just about any other stat in this regard.

[beelzebub 23,200]

For mine , most stats are totally useless as they offer nor require contextual qualification to be entered.

Only one aspect of the game is really immune from context and thats the scoreboard..everything else is dependent upon something else.

[agent 99 71]

You can find a Stat to prove anything!

85% of everyone knows this.

[JACKATTACK 17]

Disposal efficiency like any stat has it's faults but it is not useless. Used in the correct way in support of a a point you are making it is a powerful representation of a facet of a player's game.

Stef Martin is a perfect example of this, I cited in another thread that his disposal efficiency was quite high, but at no point did I suggest that because of it he was a good kick. The interesting thing about Stef is that he is someone who knows his limits. His disposal doesn't look pretty and can often seemingly put a player under pressure but I am always surprised that the ball somehow seems to get free if he was involved despite the possession being contested (from memory his contested posession count is actually quite high).

So in the case of Stef Martin; the story here is that he defends well and has a cool head under pressure, supported by the stats of a high ratio of contested possessions and effective movement of the ball. Exactly what you want in a tall defender.

[titan_uranus 24,656]

For mine , most stats are totally useless as they offer nor require contextual qualification to be entered.

This is a debate that could rage on for days. The simple fact is that we have little other way to judge a person's performance than on his stats, especially if we don't see the game. Many stats are misleading (and I would agree with Freak's argument that the effective disposal statistic is terribly misleading) but I would say that some (e.g. score assists, contested marks and contested possessions) can be a lot more concrete.

[H_T 3,032]

I think the statistic that you are relating to Freak, is pretty efficient myself.

[durango 1,989]

I think the statistic that you are relating to Freak, is pretty efficient myself.

I think only one stat matters in any team sport whether you win or lose, the final score.

[beelzebub 23,200]

This is a debate that could rage on for days. The simple fact is that we have little other way to judge a person's performance than on his stats, especially if we don't see the game. Many stats are misleading (and I would agree with Freak's argument that the effective disposal statistic is terribly misleading) but I would say that some (e.g. score assists, contested marks and contested possessions) can be a lot more concrete.

This is essence of it.. The best indication of what or how a player affects a game is visual. Seeing picks up all the nuances of the passage of play. Stats cant. Stas by their nature are exclusive and the passage of a ball is an inclusive event.

I dispute that if one cant watch it then you can rely on stats.. You cant

[deanox 9,678]

i think the problem with the stat is that people don't understand what it means.

my understanding is that a kick that goes over 40 metres to a 50% or better contest (ie 1 on 1) is considered effective. shorter kicks have to go to a free man, or be marked, for them to count.

in that way, you can have 20 effective disposals, where every kick is turned over, but as long as it is long and to a 50-50 contest it counts.

It is a measure of whether players are picking the better options (long kicks, to advantage or short safe kicks), or the poor options (bombing it long to a mountain of defenders or kicking short high risk to a contest).

[John Dee 445]

In baseball the stat that is regarded as the most important when evaluating a hitter is OPS, which stands for on-base plus slugging. It is the percentage of plate appearances that result in him getting safely on-base plus the number of bases he gets per bat (I am doing this from memory and the slugging percentage may be a bit out).

We need to come up with something similar for football; where's Teddy Hopkins when you need him. The idea of some amalgam of metres gained per disposal plus kicking efficiency would seem to have merit.

BTW, in MLB OPS's of 1.6 are good, 1.8 very good and 1.9 elite.

[beelzebub 23,200]

In games where things are relatively cut and dried such as baseall stats are somewhat more relevent. Ours is a game of almost infitnite variability. Its not cut and dried and so the application of stats is to be done with utmost care. Simple stats..how many kicks..marks..handballs...etc. are easilly tabulated and accounted for.. assigning a quality to these is I think so abitrary as to render it useless. There is no ONE single gauge of effectiveness etc. So it all becomes moot surely

[Pello 1]

Every coach analyses their players stats and their opposition stats each week so clearly they think they are important.

I agree that stats on an individual kick or handball may be misleading or irrelevant. However, over the course of a game and a season the stats will sort themselves out and the "swings and roundabouts" principle will come into play.

[John Dee 445]

In games where things are relatively cut and dried such as baseall stats are somewhat more relevent. Ours is a game of almost infitnite variability. Its not cut and dried and so the application of stats is to be done with utmost care. Simple stats..how many kicks..marks..handballs...etc. are easilly tabulated and accounted for.. assigning a quality to these is I think so abitrary as to render it useless. There is no ONE single gauge of effectiveness etc. So it all becomes moot surely

Possibly, but there is never any harm in research. There is a great book about this sort of thing called Money Ball, recommended reading even if you know nothing about baseball. It is the story of how the Oakland A's ceo, Billy Bean?, came up with a well researched new metric to evaluate baseball players and kept it to himself and his team This enabled his team to make out like bandits for many years by recruiting and trading in a manner that was counter-intuitive to others. Billy was smart enough to cash in with the book, but only after the system they were using started to become known.

[deanox 9,678]

Possibly, but there is never any harm in research. There is a great book about this sort of thing called Money Ball, recommended reading even if you know nothing about baseball. It is the story of how the Oakland A's ceo, Billy Bean?, came up with a well researched new metric to evaluate baseball players and kept it to himself and his team This enabled his team to make out like bandits for many years by recruiting and trading in a manner that was counter-intuitive to others. Billy was smart enough to cash in with the book, but only after the system they were using started to become known.

is that the same system that was recently adapted to AFL? someone did a study of all the stats to work out which ones were linked best with success. I think one of the outcomes were that teams with running bounces were likely to be successful.

Whether that means that teams that create space and take on the game win matches, or otherwise I am not sure. Clearly running around in circles bouncing the ball won't change anything. Bouncing as soon as you get it, to try and bring up your average doesn't help either. Which means that this stat may be invalid as soon as coaches try to employ it.

interesting none-the-less.

[titan_uranus 24,656]

This is essence of it.. The best indication of what or how a player affects a game is visual. Seeing picks up all the nuances of the passage of play. Stats cant. Stas by their nature are exclusive and the passage of a ball is an inclusive event.

I dispute that if one cant watch it then you can rely on stats.. You cant

I didn't mean that you can rely on stats. What I meant was that, if you don't see a game, and you pick the paper up, basically your only option when assessing the game is to look at (all) the statistics. This isn't the best option, obviously, but, coupled with a knowledge of the players and their positions/possible match ups, it can at least give some insight into performance.

But the overall problem remains that statistics don't take into account each individual passage of play.

[JACKATTACK 17]

I would like to see stats shown a bit more like NFL, I know we already have distance gained but I would like to see stats represented differently for different player types. I know this is difficult because a player's position on the ground is not fixed, but would still be interesting and would make comparing similar types of players across teams a bit easier.

I would also like to see more stats regarding direct oponents (if there are any), again almost impossible becasue of zoning but I would like to see how many marks have been taken on our respective oponents and how many were converted and so on.

[Vipercrunch 2,820]

- an unsuccesful kick in the backline is alot more risky than an unsuccesful kick deep into our forward line YET both are considered to be equally as ineffective.

Not sure if this is a good example of the point you are trying to make Freak. Both kicks cost goals. The bad kick in the backline can lead to a goal to the oppisition. A bad kick into the forward line can cost your own side a goal. I get just as annoyed when someone duffs a kick to a wide open player 20m out as I do when someone does a bad kick-in directly to an oppisition player.

[Rogue 585]

This is essence of it.. The best indication of what or how a player affects a game is visual. Seeing picks up all the nuances of the passage of play. Stats cant.

Stats are certainly not worthless, particularly since they're more objective.

However, they are often used as the premise for a conclusion that doesn't logically follow from the given stat.

[beelzebub 23,200]

Stats are certainly not worthless, particularly since they're more objective.

However, they are often used as the premise for a conclusion that doesn't logically follow from the given stat.

more objective than what ??

Stats without context or qualification are meaningles numbers

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

This is slightly off topic but I find the idea of a "one percenter" stat the most useless.

The whole idea of a one percenter is a player doing something (a bump, tapping the ball forward etc.) that contributes to the team but would otherwise not get put down as a statistic.