Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game | Michael Lewis

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game | Michael Lewis | Enlightening

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Moneyball: The Art...

	Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Michael Lewis W. W. Norton & Company, 2004 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 382 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Changed How I Viewed the Game

I thought this was going to be a rant about how free agency killed the game of baseball, but it ended up surprising me by pretty much being just the opposite: how free agency has opened the door for innovative leaders who leverage technology and analytics to capitalize on market bias to beat the other teams. It completely changed the way I watch and assess baseball. I only wish there were updates available on what ultimately happened to all the people who played a role in the story. Highly recommended for anyone with an open mind and a love of baseball and/or markets.

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Enlightening

You always hear about the vast amounts of money that are spent in the world of baseball, but are teams getting their money's worth? Conventional wisdom would have us believe that teams that spend the most money get the best results. However, in the world of baseball this is not the case. This book focuses on the Oakland Athletics, one of the best performing teams in major league baseball, and also one of the lowest paid teams. How do they do it?

According to this book, this is possible through exploiting inefficiencies in the market. Baseball, through its years of tradition, has built up a way of evaluating players that doesn't really address how they actually perform. This leads to undervaluing talent and skills that actually lead to success. The trick is to be objective and look at things as they really are. There are many things that people take for granted in every field, and this leads to market inefficiencies.

This is more of a baseball book than a business book. It is not presented as a road map to success, but rather as a story of a baseball team fighting against the odds. If you're a fan of baseball, you'll be able to enjoy the story and learn a few things that you might be able to apply to your own business. However, if you don't like baseball, you many not find this to your liking.

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Makes you look at baseball differently

Lewis somehow manages to make a book about statistics and payrolls interesting by turning it into a character piece. Makes me wish Billy Beane was the GM of my favorite team. My only criticism is that the book applauds the Oakland A's for signing players who overperform, but in hindsight, we know half the Bay Area was juicing during the period the book was written.

A worthwhile read even for non sports fans

I've never followed baseball much, but have always been fascinated by the obsession with statistics in the game. The curious disconnect, which Lewis addresses in fascinating detail, is how it's taken so long for those managing the teams to put all of this raw data to use.

So much of the spirit of baseball is romance, intuition and emotion. But these days the stakes are too high with many millions invested in a team to compete without every edge available at your disposal. Billy Beane and the A's have forever changed the game of baseball, and it's great to read about when and how the revolution started.

A true investigator, Lewis also recognizes the weaknesses of Beane's breakthrough approach to baseball and how, even though it may greatly increase the odds for a winning season, the strategy comes somewhat unraveled at playoff time.

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Worth the price, engaging, entertaining, relaxing

I agree with the reviewer who said this is a good baseball book for the casual baseball fan. This book gives the best, least complicated explanation of sabermetrics that I've read. I take this book with me on plane rides, because I find the first two-thirds engaging and relaxing. (The last third fawns over Beane and his team of undervalued players -- the part about how Ken Williams is hesitant to take Billy Beane's phone calls, for fear of what sneaky trade the wily Billy Beane is going to trick Williams into taking -- a bit annoying, especially to a Sox fan, so I never read that part.)

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