Andre Gray may have left Brentford but the Bees may yet be better off, if they are able to secure the replacements they want at the club.
Of the players to leave the club this summer, the striker is clearly the one most likely to be missed given his 18 goals last season in all competitions.
There have been plenty of Moneyball references regarding Brentford in the past few months given their fresh approach to the game and the sale of these players is no different to what happened in Michael Lewis' excellent insight into the world of baseball.
In pictures: Andre Gray's Brentford career
In the 2002 season, which is the year Lewis wrote about, the Oakland A's had lost their best players; first baseman Jason Giambi to the New York Yankees, lead-off hitter and centre fielder Johnny Damon to the Boston Red Sox and relegated designated hitter Olmeido Saenz to the bench.
General manager Billy Beane had decided that the key performance indicator of a baseball hitter was their ability to get on base. On average, the trio reached base 364 times out of 1,000 which is what the A's set out to recreate.
Oakland replaced these star hitters with Giambi's younger brother, Jeremy, as a short-term option before his extra-curricular activities got the better of him, Scott Hatteberg, whose catching career was over and Yankees outfield David Justice, who was an aging slugger.
All three of them had a talent to get on base and, in the case of Hatteberg especially, in non-dramatic ways.
Despite having lost their best two hitters, they defied doubters and won even more games than they did the previous season, including an American League record of 20 in a row with Hatteberg hitting the dramatic walk-off (game winning) home run in the bottom of the ninth.
The A's also lost their closing pitcher (someone to pitch when in a winning position with an inning or two left) Jason Isringhausen to the St Louis Cardinals.
Closing pitchers are judged on how many 'saves' (sealing the game) they acquire. Given the normal situation for them is pitching in the final inning with three outs needed and nobody on base, Beane believed he could put an above average pitcher in there, allow them to accumulate saves before trading and making a profit.
It is Isringhausen, I'm going to compare Gray to because strikers, by and large, are judged on goals.
Gray's trademark move is picking the ball up with his back to goal, spinning the defender to get the ball onto his right foot before powering a shot past the keeper. However, we need to look behind the numbers
Gray attempted 106 shots last league season (according to Squawka) with 44 of them on target, 38 off target and 24 blocked. Of those 44 on target, 17 of them resulted in goals, all of them with his right foot.
Gray's proportion of Brentford goals
Using those numbers, Gray needed 6.2 shots in order to score his goals last season.
One of the hallmarks of the Bees last season was the number of chances created and, by and large, squandered. According to WhoScored, the former Luton man has missed 28 clear cut chances since the start of last season.
To find a better replacement, Brentford would, assuming they create as many chances, need to find a striker who needs less shots per goal and/or wastes less clear cut opportunities.
Goals are also hidden statistics as when you look at the number it doesn't necessarily reflect the 'skill level' involved.
A classic example of this would be David Nugent's solitary goal for England in his only appearance against Andorra.
Steven Gerrard's delightful ball over the top found Jermain Defoe, whose shot was trickling in after hitting the goalkeeper. Nugent, like any striker would, applied the final touch from the goal line to claim the goal.
Gray's typical goal is obviously more skilful than that but he also benefited from some wonderful build-up play from the squad; just he is given more credit for it leading to the inflated fees for strikers.
Replacing Gray, though, will be a more difficult job for the club as they will come up against clubs keen to extract the largest possible fee for their talent as they can, knowing the Bees have this money in the bank.
Under Matthew Benham's ownership, the Bees will use statistics and mathematical models to try and replace and improve on what Gray did for the side, before taking the traditional scouting method and there will already be targets lined up.
Phil Giles and Rasmus Ankersen are intelligent people and will have been working on replacements all summer, in the expectation Gray would go.
You can bet your bottom dollar that they would also have goalkeeping options lined up were David Button, who is one of the best, if not the best, goalkeeper in the Championship, to leave or suffer a serious injury.
Giles said: “We will continue to work up till September 1 and beyond in order to make the squad as strong as possible.
“Andre worked tirelessly for Brentford last season and did very well for us in the first two games this season. We wish him well at Burnley and thank him for his efforts at Brentford."
Statistics won't be the determining factor either. Beane, seen as the pioneer in running a sports team in a more scientific way, accepted sometimes statistics didn't marry up with what a player actually produced.
New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter was lampooned by the 'sabermetric' (statistics) crowd, who claimed the five-time champion was among the worst fielders in baseball.
The shortstop, though, dramatically improved his fielding numbers in the 2009 season, to be seen as one of the best.
Beane admitted in Ian O'Connor's biography of Jeter, 'The Captain': “My whole front-office career I've been waiting for Jeter to slow down, and this year he's as good as ever.
“(I admire) his grace and elegance in everything he does, and his ability to be the same exact guy today that he was the day he stepped into the big leagues, is just incredible. It's hard to have a negative thought about the guy even as you are competing against him.
He went on: “One guy I'll never criticise if the metrics don't match up with the player is Derek Jeter. It's like someone saying they don't like the mole on Cindy Crawford's face...
“As someone who believes in metrics, I'm here to give you the good news: I still think Jeter is an incredible player.”
Last season, the Bees could only afford to splash out relatively small sums but with this financial windfall, the club are now able to make larger investments in players.
The club could make a profit exceeding 2,000 per cent on what they originally spent on Gray. Were they able to replicate that with a more expensive signing, then that would be incredible business.
Time will tell but, for the present, the Bees must work on replacing their attacking talisman.
