Moneyball has become a key concept, but is often misunderstood as a long-term, profit-driven approach rather than a short-term, win-now approach.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Oakland A’s took Major League Baseball by storm. Thanks to smart recruitment, the team was able to compete against absolute giants with a shoestring budget. In 2003, Michael Lewis published Moneyball, arguably the greatest sports book of all time, demonstrating how this was possible.
(Non-baseball fans, bear with me for a minute here.)
The book covered the 2002 season, when all logic suggests that the A’s should have been rebuilding. Three key players — Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen — left as free agents in the off-season, heading to bigger, richer teams. The A’s were left with clear gaps in their roster and limited funds. To replace the stars, general manager Billy Beane made some bizarre signings, largely consisting of aging veterans with clear flaws in their game.
The result? The A’s got better, winning a remarkable 103 of 162 games. Only the New York Yankees, with a payroll roughly three times bigger, won as many games in the regular season. Once again, despite losing some key players, the A’s managed to outsmart and outperform the rest of the league for a fraction of the cost.
Over time, the ideas of Moneyball have reached other sports. However, in soccer/football, there seems to be a different interpretation. The public understanding of Moneyball, especially in the Premier League, heavily factors in future profits and resale value. In reality, Moneyball is constant short-term thinking. It’s being in win-now mode every season.
Now, if you follow me on X/Twitter (@charlescerb), some of these ideas might sound a bit familiar. I have done a thread on this in the past, but I’m going to expand on that here using more detailed examples.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion are regularly cited as a Moneyball team for their smart, analytics-based signings. However, Brighton don’t necessarily fit that mold, although some of their signings do. There is a difference between making smart signings and functioning as a Moneyball team.
Take Charalampos Kostoulas, for instance. Brighton signed the 18-year-old striker from Greek side Olympiacos FC last summer for a reported €35 million, and with good reason. Kostoulas, who has already made four appearances for Greece, has long been considered one of Europe’s most promising up-and-coming strikers. In his debut season with Olympiacos, he bagged seven goals.
This is not short-term thinking. At €35 million, Kostoulas was not a cheap signing, and he wasn’t one who instantly bolstered Brighton’s chances to win more games. Now, he certainly showed flashes in his debut season in England, but ultimately made just two starts in the Premier League. That was not the best possible use of funds for the current season. This was not a budget signing; this was a signing with the future in mind.
Going back to baseball: the A’s rarely pursued highly-touted prospects. The logic there was that, if the A’s developed a player to a certain level, big teams would come in and eventually the player would leave, usually in free agency. That means Oakland took all the risks to develop a player into a star but ultimately didn’t enjoy the rewards, barring a trade mid-season. In that case, the A’s chances to win got worse, while strengthening a rival at the same time.
David Justice
The real focus for the A’s was on players who are undervalued, usually because of a perceived flaw in their game. Often, this is related to age. For instance, in 2002, the A’s acquired outfielder David Justice from the New York Mets. Justice was, in his prime, an elite slugger, but at 36, he lost the power he once had. He was hitting fewer home runs and was seen as a negative asset, so much so that the Mets were willing to cover part of his salary to make the deal go through.
That didn’t matter to the A’s, who valued his OBP, or on-base percentage. In short, the stats showed what the eyes didn’t, which is that, at 36, Justice was a player who could get on base, help the A’s score runs and win games. Unsurprisingly, he did just that in Oakland, which proved to be his final season.
James Milner is, or rather was, Brighton’s David Justice. Three years ago, Milner, then 37, joined on a free transfer. Many saw him purely as a locker room guy: the kind of player who is great to have around and help younger players develop, but too old and too slow to still be able to contribute in the Premier League.
However, Milner was more than able to contribute. The veteran midfielder was remarkably versatile and still had his stamina, which is so often overlooked. In fact, in his last season with Liverpool, he covered the most distance per 90 minutes of any Premier League player.
Injuries unfortunately limited his role with Brighton, but when healthy, Milner was a valuable contributor. Last season, he was a regular, making twenty appearances as he helped the Seagulls qualify for Europe.
There are other Moneyball-type signings at Brighton. Danny Welbeck, for instance. Welbeck, once seen as the future of England, joined at 29 following an uninspiring spell with Watford FC. Brighton had younger, more promising options in attack, yet six years later, Welbeck is still by far the best of those players. Last season, he scored 13 goals in the Premier League and arguably deserved a spot in England’s World Cup squad.
Another example: Pascal Groß. Groß joined from FC Ingolstadt in 2017 and spent seven years in Brighton as a top midfielder. In 2024, he returned to his native Germany with Borussia Dortmund, but his age seemingly caught up to him. By January, Groß had made just seven starts, and he was allowed to return to Brighton. The Seagulls valued his versatility and playmaking, and he started all but one game in the second half of the season.
Signings like Milner, Welbeck, and Groß are Moneyball-esque signings. Ones like Kostoulas and João Pedro are not, even though they eventually made the club a lot of money. Not every smart signing is Moneyball, nor every signing that uses analytics. In fact, it’s very hard for any Premier League team to be considered a Moneyball team.
The Premier League
What Premier League fans often don’t understand is that they are the New York Yankees. There is a gap between the Liverpools and the Brightons, but both have an immense amount of money compared to other leagues. Brentford, in their first season in the Premier League, were able to outspend top Bundesliga sides to sign defender Kristoffer Ajer from Celtic.
In this day and age, any Premier League club can sign elite players. Brentford don’t need to take risks on players with clear flaws in their game and look for budget solutions. Now, they can spend a reported €48 million on Mamadou Sangaré, one of the best midfielders in Ligue 1 last season.
Brighton, as discussed, have made Moneyball signings, but are not a Moneyball team. No team on a budget can afford to leave a €35 million signing on the bench for a season to develop. The concept of Moneyball is dependent on overachieving on a limited budget, but no Premier League team really has a limited budget.
The Philadelphia Union
No, to find real Moneyball, you need to look elsewhere. Back in the United States, you could find Moneyball in Philadelphia. In Major League Soccer, the Union were able to consistently be one of the best-performing sides while lacking all of the money and star power that others have. Part of this was down to an elite academy, which is still producing, but the other part is down to recruitment.
Few had heard of José “El Brujo” Martínez outside of his native Venezuela when the Union paid less than €300K to sign the midfielder in 2020. Most fans outside of the United States probably still haven’t heard of him. Philadelphia found him because of his excellent dueling statistics. For four years, he became one of the best midfielders in MLS. Philadelphia made only a modest profit when he left for Corinthians in 2024, but he helped them win games.
Until recently, every signing the Union made was a Moneyball signing. They were signings driven by analytics to find undervalued players who could help the team win games. Some were more successful than others: Kai Wagner made a massive impact while Matej Oravec was unable to make it onto the field. Few of these signings went on to achieve great things elsewhere, but they helped win games.
What a player does after leaving does not matter. It doesn’t matter if a signing looks better in retrospect, only what it means in the moment. It didn’t make the A’s feel better when Johnny Damon became an All-Star after joining the Red Sox. Similarly, whatever Moises Caicedo does with Chelsea doesn’t help Brighton now. The question a Moneyball team has to ask is, will a player help win games now?
In Philadelphia, the answer was yes. The Union won two Supporters’ Shields and reached the final of the MLS Cup, which LAFC and Gareth Bale ultimately won. For a team with that budget and those limitations, all while lacking a Bale or Lionel Messi to make a difference, that is tremendous success.
Unfortunately, the Union have now fallen into the trap of becoming a development club. The signings have become younger and younger, with future profits, not current results, the new goal. The result is that Philadelphia have gone from the best team in the league to one of the worst, despite actually spending more now than previous successful Union teams.
Rayo Vallecano
The good thing about MLS is that in theory, there is some level of parity because of its complex rules. In Europe, and in most leagues around the world, that is certainly not the case. Still, there are teams that are able to punch above their weight thanks to Moneyball approaches. Look at Rayo Vallecano, for instance. The La Liga side have a crumbling stadium and a minuscule budget. They are not known as prolific talent developers like other clubs in Spain.
Yet, Rayo have consistently performed. Rayo have been a yo-yo club for much of the 21st century, but have now finished eighth in consecutive seasons. That’s after losing manager Andoni Iraola, who’s now at Liverpool. Last season, Rayo even reached the Europa Conference League Final, although Crystal Palace narrowly won 1-0.
Along the way, Rayo knocked out Strasbourg, a club with money but little sense. Rayo did this with an experienced squad largely comprised of veterans ignored by much of the world. Both goals against Strasbourg were scored by Alemão, a €4.5 million striker whose experience is limited to his native Brazil, Japan’s second tier, Spain’s second tier, and two months in Mexico. What can he do, though? Put the ball in the net.
Final Thoughts
Moneyball is not actually the most sustainable strategy, because it depends on consistently finding gems and making smart moves. No team can do that forever, because the bigger, richer teams will continue to swoop in and steal the best of the best, on and off the field.
That’s what happened to the A’s in the end. The A’s luck eventually ran out, and the team has seemingly been in limbo since. Other teams have caught up. For a while, though, the A’s were able to compete and gave themselves the best chance to win. That’s something that a lot of teams can learn from.
That’s not to take away from what the Brightons and the Brentfords are doing. Both have become Premier League regulars and even pushed into the top half of the league, challenging the elites, thanks to some incredible recruitment. That deserves its own praise, but it does not make them Moneyball teams.
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Image via @OfficialBHAFC (X).
