Skype: Sports Analytics Advantage The auction format of the Indian Premier League is a 'solvable' problem, with particular reference to foreign players who play in franchise leagues throughout the world. Below is a list of the foreign players signed in 2016 by the various IPL franchises, with their likely playing status in teams, and auction fees:-
Immediately we can see that of the five highest players valued in the auction, four were batting/bowling all-rounders, and the fifth, Jos Buttler, was an all-rounder of sorts, as a wicketkeeper-batsman. Kevin Pietersen, Tim Southee and Dale Steyn were the three highest valued out and out batsmen or bowlers. So who represented value? We can use expectation averages, adjusted for opponent quality, to find out. It makes it much easier if we break down the players by their likely playing style, so this is what I did here. Adjusted batting average/strike rate is against an average worldwide bowler with average venue difficulty. Mean differentials are simply a multiplier of the respective mean T20 figures. Data from 2013-2015 was used, so it was relevant to the IPL auction at the time. Batsmen (sorted by average/strike rate mean differential):-
I added in the three wicketkeeper/batsmen to this sample as they obviously didn't bowl, and in the case of Buttler in particular, he would be used as a front-line batsman. We can see from the batting average and batting strike rate differentials that Buttler was the only batsman acquired in the 2016 IPL auction who had average or above average differentials in both area - in effect he's a very balanced player. Travis Head was a little more balanced here than most, and at a cheap price he wasn't a disastrous purchase. This wasn't the case for Aaron Finch, Kevin Pietersen, Peter Handscomb and in particular, Farhaan Behardien, who had relatively high adjusted averages but mediocre adjusted strike rates. Whilst Behardien came out top in this sample, data like his has limited merit in T20 because he'd need to be surrounded by hitters in his team while he played an anchor role. If there was a team of Farhaan Behardiens, it wouldn't score well. Only in the right context, he could be an asset. Pietersen looks overpriced compared to Head, and as he has aged it looks like his expected strike rate has declined. From an average basis, he's still strong enough, but is that enough to justify almost a £400,000 price tag, almost certainly not. Colin Munro and Sam Billings look outclassed compared to their rivals, as does Handscomb, who doesn't score runs nearly quickly enough to be a useful T20 batsman. All-Rounders, sorted by value added to team using the formula (batting average/strike rate mean differential + bowling average/economy mean differential - 2):-
We can see that with all-rounders, only Thisara Perera was likely to add value to a team both in batting and bowling, whilst big money buys Shane Watson, Chris Morris, Carlos Brathwaite and Mitchell Marsh failed to do so. Certainly, it reasonable to question the sums paid for all of that quartet. Watson's batting was decent enough (average differential 1.12, strike rate differential 0.95) but his bowling (average differential 0.72 and economy differential 1.04) less so. Morris' bowling looks to add value but his batting, an adjusted average of 18.16 at almost exactly the mean T20 strike rate was not expected to. Brathwaite had an incredible batting strike (expectation of over 160) but doesn't add anything else of value, with poor bowling numbers and a low batting average. It's a lot of money to pay someone who can slog for a few overs at the end of an innings. Marsh's stats showed he lacked value in all areas. His batting average differential of 0.91 was his best area, which is a pretty damning indictment of his stats. Ben Cutting (a worse version of Brathwaite) was the worst graded all-rounder purchase. Bowlers (sorted by average/economy mean differential):-
* Not enough data on Joel Paris. John Hastings came out as the top bowler, and considering his batting had an expected average of 17.76 and strike rate 153.48 he is pretty much the prototype of a modern T20 bowler who can bat very usefully down the order. If I was running a franchise, I'd be looking to sign someone like Hastings immediately. Mustafizur Rahman wasn't hugely expensive, and is a bowler of huge ability and potential, whilst Samuel Badree's abilities are well documented. Andrew Tye also showed up surprisingly well as did Dale Steyn, although his 2014-2016 numbers are a fair bit worse than 2013-2015. Given that the franchises obviously wouldn't have known that at the time, it's difficult to criticise the Steyn purchase hugely, but I think it's fair to say he wouldn't justify such a fee if the auction was held now. Adam Zampa was a good, cheap buy, whilst fellow Aussies Marcus Stoinis and Scott Boland had decent data and weren't expensive. However, at the bottom of the list, Kane Richardson, Kyle Abbott and Tim Southee all commanded fees in excess of £200,000. Richardson's data wasn't bad at all, but considering the higher rated cheaper options above, it would be difficult to justify his price. It is very difficult to find any logic behind the Abbott and Southee purchases. Perhaps Southee's reputation was better than his numbers, but almost £300,000 better? As a reminder, the data used to analyse the signings was from 2013-2015, but moving forward to the actual IPL 2016 we can look at these two player's bowling figures. Abbott's figures in IPL 2016 were horrific - 16-0-177-2 (average 88.50, economy 11.06) whilst Southee's were a little better, but still poor - 43-0-329-9 (average 36.56, economy 7.65). Usage of data would have saved Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians, respectively, a lot of money. Many foreign players went unsold at the auction, and that's entirely logical given the fact that only four can play in a team at any one time, and no doubt there is a premium price on quality Indian players due to this. However, it is difficult to argue that the likes of Usman Khawaja, Ravi Bopara, Martin Guptill, Nuwan Kulasekara, Reeza Hendricks, Krishmar Santokie and Evin Lewis - all foreign players who attracted no interest in the auction - are worse players than many of those listed above. They are certainly less well known than many, but they are certainly not worse players than most in this format. Considering the findings above, it is clear that there are huge inefficiencies in both T20 and the IPL auctions. Using data from Sports Analytics Advantage will help cricket teams take advantage of these inefficiencies, saving money in wages while maximising the ability of their squads. |