Moneyball The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game Essay Example
By now, the A’s analytical tactics have widely been adopted by Major League Baseball, but back in 2002, the strategy was mocked by almost everyone inside the league. The godfather of advanced statistics is Bill James, founder of the self-published statistical compilation Baseball Abstract. Lewis rightfully devotes an entire chapter to James and his acolytes, many of whom were hired by various Major League teams. In honor of the MLB postseason, I am resurrecting a book review that I wrote back in 2009 on another website.
Beane’s front office team, having absorbed James, understands that on-base percentage and total bases are far more determinative of a team’s success than the traditional measures. Perhaps even more important eur is the shift to a reliance on objective statistics, as opposed to more subjective measures of performance such as the strength of a player’s arm, his speed afoot or the beauty of his swing.
As he tore apart the As organization, he got rid of the scouts who were still insisting on signing Apolloesque ballplayers and sold off overpriced talent. For the statistical approach sometimes referred to as “moneyball”, see sabermetrics. Beane is a fascinating character – charismatic but ruthless, a baseball insider who thinks like an outsider, a man obsessed with his team who refuses to watch the team he runs actually play a game. At the forex analytics heart of the book is Billy Beane, a former player who never fulfilled what others believed was his potential. Lewis was given incredible access behind the scenes of the A’s management team as they prepared for a draft and throughout the 2002 season as Beane wheeled and dealed his way to improving his team at every turn. Lewis set out to answer the question of why the Oakland A’s consistently outperformed teams with much higher budgets.
Really enjoyed this, partly because reading a baseball book in October when your team is in the playoffs gives you a great high and partly because I was surprisingly and honestly fascinated by the science of sabermetrics. Science and math have never been my strong points, but like Jurassic Park or The Martian, I was nevertheless intrigued. Coupled with the handful of recognizable players scattered through the book, I had a good time with this one. I also remember seeing the film a few years ago; gotta watch it again. It’s not nearly as accurate to the book as it should be, but that’s an adaptation for you. Moneyball was originally published in 2003, and has since been made into a motion picture. It’s interesting to read it now, in light of all that has transpired.
They love to see a stolen base, even if it seems, by the numbers, to be counter-productive. What these geek numbers show―no, prove―is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Along the way, Lewis offers wonderful vignettes about odd duck players such as Jeremy Brown, a short, fat, slow catcher from Alabama who, according to Lewis, no one else wanted, but who is progressing rapidly in the A’s minor league system. These sections of the book are terrific, and the stuff on James and the movement he inspired is compelling. Many traditionalists (I’m looking at you Joe Morgan) dismiss the book and Beane’s methods, but are erroneous to do so. It’s an interesting read and should be required for any true baseball fan, if only to see what all the fuss is about.
Beane’s List
Jerry Crasnick, who wrote the ESPN story, noted, “The mixed bag of results is more a testament to the draft than Oakland’s approach.” Trying to evaluate amateur talent in high school and college is a dicey proposition. For over 30 years, we have partnered with authors, publishers, and businesses to get books to speaking and training events, business conferences, and into company book clubs and reading lists—moving books and ideas into the business world every single day. Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane plays a different game than the rest of Major League Baseball. By ignoring traditional performance yardsticks (batting average is bupkes!), Beane has built one of MLB’s top teams with one of its smallest payrolls. Lewis (Liar’s Poker) takes an inside look at Beane’s operation, from a trading session worthy of a pickpocket to a draft-day scenario in which he baffles his peers by choosing lumpy catchers over sleek thoroughbreds. With much of baseball in financial chaos, Moneyball serves as a how-to for any ball club looking for that elusive combination of victory and solvency. Nor are the A’s the only small-market team to win with a modest payroll.
George has a love of science that drives him to find better ways to communicate and teach science. He moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game is curator of the blog, Science Book a Day, co-runs the Big Ideas Book Club in Melbourne every month.
Other Players
The story of the Oakland Athletics and their salvation through sabermetics. I have never been a baseball fan, but Moneyball inspired me to look deeper into the conjunction of America’s favorite passtime and statistics.
For this assignment we had to pick and choose a book related about business or economics. I chose to read the book “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis.The book discusses some of the business side of the Oakland Athletics (The A’s) during their historic 2002 season in which they won 20 consecutive games.
- Another factor may be due to the notion that high school players are usually placed in lower levels of professional baseball than college players, which in turn may even the offensive statistics.
- But still, he was the first general manager in baseball to attempt it, so his story is unique.
- That skill is as valuable to a reporter as a baseball player’s on-base percentage was to the Oakland Athletics.
- The best parts of Moneyball may be when Lewis explains the archaic thinking that is guiding the Major Leagues’ managers.
- Perhaps even more important is the shift to a reliance on objective statistics, as opposed to more subjective measures of performance such as the strength of a player’s arm, his speed afoot or the beauty of his swing.
- Sometimes, I bet you can sense author’s brutal honesty in depiction and his gutsy approach in narration.
What this study attempted to illustrate was how an organization with a low budget produces quality baseball players using a new philosophy unorthodox to the norm of baseball . From a financial standpoint, the authors believe there are two mindsets regarding the lack of significance. However, even though the comparison is not significant statistically, the statistics may be significant to an organization/coach, which is playing the Moneyball way of baseball. A small market organization may want to pay less for college players who average .432 , .344 and .776 than pay more for high school players who average .396 , .332 , .728 over a four year time period. Even though slugging percentage is the only significant difference, the college players have better statistics from a baseball playing perspective. This difference may be the rationale as to draft cheaper players based on the Moneyball statistics and play the Moneyball way of baseball, especially for small market teams. More research, both qualitative and quantitative needs to be completed before making a conclusion regarding the Moneyball way of drafting and playing professional baseball.
moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game By Michael Lewis (
On base percentage plus slugging has upstaged the traditional measurements of RBIs, runs scored, and batting average. The story follows the Oakland A’s during the 2002 baseball season, which was when their general manager, Billy Beane, was following a different set of principles for assembling a team than the majority of the league. Beane and his assistant, Paul DePodesta, were applying sabermetrics, which meant they were looking for players with certain qualities that the rest of the league had undervalued. This was critical because the Oakland A’s had very little money — back then their payroll was about $40 million, compared to the New York Yankees payroll of $126 million. The stats Beane and DePodesta were most interested in were a player’s on-base percentage and slugging percentage. So why is major league baseball so reluctant to embrace the philosophy of Moneyball? ”Anti-intellectual resentment is common in all of American life and it has many diverse expressions.” For instance, preferring high school players in the draft over college players, even though statistically college players do better.
Thirty pages into book I knew this book is going to be completely different from movie version only time to decide if it’s engaging or uncompelling. So I thought I would find a way to supply my patience fuel for another thirty pages or so, then I shall confidently decide on quitting or no because after all, this was not the story I fell in love with after watching the movie. Lewis also gives little attention to what happens when other teams do begin to realize the importance of on-base percentage.
Quotes From Moneyball: The Ar ..
I don’t mean to pick on Collins, but his comments came after he made several decisions in the face of a pile of data to the contrary that probably cost his team at least a better chance to win the World Series. Baseball is still filled with owners, GMs, and managers who believe that home runs and RBIs are the most important statistics and the best way to win championships. They did win the pennant, but still fell short of winning a world championship. To my eye, they are a more complete offensive ballclub than Houston or Toronto and will be contenders again this year, but not because they hit a lot of home runs. He asked for a job in the As front office, and that began an odyssey in search of those players who were ”ballplayers”, not pretty head cases, not players that hit home runs and created RBIs, but players that could control the strike zone.
This isn’t to say that Beane was wrong in the premises, only that the game of baseball will always remain unfair. I loved this book because I’m a fan of baseball, but the book had a much bigger impact on me. I started thinking about and applying Billy Beane principles to my own business. We are a company mired in traditions and traditional thinking and long overdue for an overhaul in philosophy to meet new challenges. Like all companies, we need to become more efficient, more lean, more targeted to what wins ball games rather than what creates a big splash. I’m buying copies of this book for the rest of the management staff, and we are going to talk about singles and doubles and managing our outs.
Another factor may be due to the notion that high school players are usually placed in lower levels of professional baseball than college players, which in turn may even the offensive statistics. Lastly, college baseball players may have the opportunity to gain more experience with the wooden bat when competing in collegiate summer leagues.
Articles Featuring This Book
Statistics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th-century view of the game and the statistics available at that time. Before sabermetrics was introduced to baseball, teams were dependent on the skills of their scouts to find and evaluate players. Scouts are experienced in the sport, usually having been players or coaches. The book argues that the Oakland A’s’ front office took advantage of more analytical gauges of player performance to field a team that could outsmart and better compete against richer competitors in Major League Baseball . It is hypothesized that because of more experience, more rich statistical data, and better competition at the college level, the college baseball players will have better offensive Moneyball statistics than the high school players. Since then, real statistical analysis has shown that on base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success — that avoiding an out is more important than getting a hit. Every on-field play can be evaluated in terms of expected runs contributed.
Beane assembled a list of twenty players they would draft in a “perfect world”; meaning if money was no object and they did not have to compete with the other twenty-nine teams. Lewis has acknowledged that the book’s success may have hurt the Athletics’ fortunes as other teams accepted sabermetrics, reducing Oakland’s edge. When the Mets hired Sandy Alderson – Beane’s predecessor and mentor with the A’s – as their general manager after the 2010 season, and hired Beane’s former associates Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi to the front office, the team was jokingly referred to as the “Moneyball Mets”. Like the Oakland A’s in the 1990s, the Mets have been directed by their ownership to slash payroll.
Considered one of the most progressive and talented baseball executives in the game today, Beane gives a behind-the-scenes look at his “Moneyball” philosophy, which made the Oakland Athletics one of the most trading strategy winning teams in baseball. His methodology has also helped organizations of all sizes—across all industries—to more effectively, efficiently, and profitably manage their assets, talent, and resources.
Moneyball is written such that a person does not need any in-depth knowledge of statistics, as the author explains the mathematics in a straight-forward manner, possibly over-simplifying to reach a wider audience. With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that baseball has adopted some of the concepts put forth in this book, such as drafting college players more frequently than those in high school and establishing an Analytics Department to evaluate the numbers.
Under Alderson’s tenure, the team payroll dropped below $100 million per year from 2012 to 2014, and the Mets reached the 2015 World Series (defeating MLB’s highest-payroll team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, en route). Moneyball traces the history of the sabermetric movement back to such people as Bill James and Craig R. Wright. Lewis explores how James’s seminal Baseball Abstract, published annually from the late 1970s through the late 1980s, influenced many of the young, up-and-coming baseball minds that are now joining the ranks of baseball management. Women’s opportunities for competitive physical activity were limited in America until Federal Legislation, commonly referred to as Title IX, became law. It required American society to recognize a woman’s right to participate in sports on a plane equal to that of men. Prior to 1870, activities for women were recreational rather than sport-specific in nature.