Moneyball
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Moneyball is a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money rumor has it that can’t buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places tok look would be the gront offices of major leauge teams and the dugouts. But the real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected over the years by a weird brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors.
In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Huge Money, like Goliath, is permanently supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?Amazon.com Review
Billy Beane, all-purpose manager of MLB’s Oakland A’s and protagonist of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that’s smaller than that of nearly every additional team. Conventional wisdom long held that huge name, highly powerful hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Agreed this information and a forceful budget, Beane defied tradition and his own inspection department to erect winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans.
Lewis was in the room with the A’s top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane bought nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by additional teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to buy a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most appealing character is Beane himself. A speedy powerful can’t-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar’s Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane’s economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. –John Moe
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Mr. Lewis wrote this book for the sole purpose of getting your money. The leader could care less about the game of baseball.
Don’t waste your money or your time on this poorly written book.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Michael Lewis seems unaware that the A’s front office is hamming it up in front of him. Poor television journalism if he couldn’t figure it out.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The most vital number in baseball is World series won. How many does Beane have…none. He hasnt even made it to the pennant games yet and they way things are going the A’s never will if Beane is the GM. Thier window of oppurtunity passed when the “overpaid” and polished fielding (which doesnt matter to Beane) Derek Jeter threw out the overweight and slow Jer. Giambi at the plate on a fantastic play in 2001. The As would be bottom rung if not the the 3 hammers they have in the rotation, non of whom were selected out of the crowd by Beane. Everyone knew that Hudson, Zito and Mulder would be very excellent. Groupthink has obviously taken a hold of most of the reviewers, who all seem to say the same things. “OBP is vital, Ks are vital, not building an out blah blah” and so on as if everyone in the baseball world doesnt know that. Looks like Beane pulled another quick one on all the people who rushed and bought his book.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The huge controversy in baseball recently is the fact that there is a huge disparity in the wealth of teams. The New York Yankees, for example, can afford to spend about 140 million dollars a year to buy their players, while teams in smaller markets, such as the Oakland A’s, only have about a quarter of that. Despite this, and unlike additional tiny market teams, the A’s have been consistently competitive for the last several years. This book, Money Ball, attempts to clarify why.
It concentrates primarily on the A’s young all-purpose manager, Billy Beane, and the new thoughts he’s brought to the game as they regard evaluating talent. There are a couple of excellent ones. He concentrates, for example, on on-base percentage as opposed to simple batting average; the theory being that the more regularly you get on base–in any way–the less regularly you’re building an out. In evaluating players, he looks for persons who have already accomplished something, as opposed to persons who merely have potential. The leader then shares with us this gem, which is nearly astonishing for its blatant obviousness. “Every batter should also possess the power to hit home runs, in part because home run power forced opposing pitchers to pitch more cautiously, and led to walks, and high on-base percentages.” To the extent that these are the qualities that made Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds the best players in the history of baseball, it would be kind of hard to argue with this proposition.
In fact, except for a couple of excellent points here and there, the book is pretty much empty of insight, and monotonously dull as well. There is a chapter in which ancient time scouts chat about players they wish to draft, and how they are outfoxed by Billy and Billy’s computer addicted assistant. Woo. There is a chapter having to do with the pro baseball career of Billy Beane, which mostly took place in the minor leagues, and which was about as undistinguished as it gets. There is a chapter on the men who revolutionized the way baseball statistics are kept–among them Bill James and his Baseball Abstract–in the early seventies. Now, if reading about men who compile baseball statistics sounds exciting, by all means, run out and buy this.
The writing style is pedestrian and displays zero wit. Indeed, and incredibly, the leader really uses the f-word in his narrative on occasion. He may as well hold up a sign: I’M NOT CLEVER ENOUGH TO THINK OF A BETTER WORD.
The worst aspect of the book is that the fantastic and cunning machinations of the remarkable Billy Beane can’t be judged. It’s too early. The leader goes into fantastic detail about the players he selected in the 2002 draft and how he outwitted the Neanderthals in the rest of the league to get them. Beane is gleeful at its end because he was able to get most of the players on his wish list, and we are meant to be awed by his skill.
Except, as of today, nobody has ever heard of these guys. I don’t judge any are in the major leagues yet, and I can only find one of them on the A’s Triple-A Sacramento team: Nick Swisher, who as of today is arresting .264, with 20 home runs and 87 walks. Of course, some or all of these guys might be fantastic some day–and Swisher certainly looks promising–but as of now, who can tell? It’s like praising one’s selections in a horse race before the race is over. What’s the point?
Again, there are a couple of excellent observations here, and one can’t deny that the A’s have been a excellent team, but the case made here is not compelling enough–not yet anyway–and the prose is dreadful. Maybe, some day, the book will be worth the money. Not now.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
There is a adage “If you torture the data long enough, you can get it to admit to anything”. Michael Lewis starts with the premise that Billy Beane is the best and smartest GM in baseball, then butchers the statistics to make it seem so.It’s simple, the A’s don’t win so many games with a minimal payroll because of their on base pct. or because Billy Beane outsmarts his fellow GM’s constantly. They win because they drafted (before Beane) three of the best youngs starting pitchers in baseball.A fact that gets amazingly small mention in the book.
Predictions:A) When Zito, Mulder, and Hudson become free agents; Beane will will become a free agent right along with them and place. B)When the before mentioned pitchers place, the A’s will stink, no matter how many pitches Scott Hatteberg takes.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5