Rating: 
Summary: Right on the Money
Review: Life is very different in Billy Beane's world. The much-ballyhooed general manager of the Oakland A's has led a revolution in how major league teams evaluate players and manage their teams. According to Mr. Beane stolen bases are too risky to attempt, 'runs batted in' is a useless stat, and sacrificing is a waste of an out. Five years ago, teams laughed when armchair baseball statisticians suggested that their new stats could give teams an edge in evaluating talent. The laughing has stopped, and stats like OPS, EQA, and VORP are as common at the stadium as hot dogs and foam fingers.The statistical revolution began when Bill James started looking at baseball statistics in a whole new way in the late 1970s. He began to self-publish his "Baseball Abstract", and stats would never be the same. Now, the A's have Harvard educated computer geeks who have never put on a baseball jersey pouring over statistics such as on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS (on-base plus slugging). These Ivy-league whiz kids have just as much, if not more, input than the scouts who have been watching the game since before Sandy Koufax was taking the mound. Faced with the daunting task of documenting the revolution of baseball statistics and explaining those stats to the average fan, Michael Lewis has struck gold. This book reads like a gripping piece of fiction. Mr. Lewis brilliantly weaves humorous anecdotes and bits of baseball history into a documentation of Oakland's season. From draft day to the postseason, "Moneyball" shows how Billy Beane pulls more strings from the front office than Art Howe does from the dugout. This book will change the way you watch baseball. If you don't read "Moneyball" you're going to be left out of the baseball conversation for the next five years.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Book
Review: I'm not much of a baseball fan, but this book is about much more than baseball. While I hate cliche's, frankly this book is about "thinking outside the box". It explores how the Oakland A's have been consistent winners while mainting a low salary. They have managed to do this by figuring out the characteristics of ideal players who can really help the team win. It is fascinating to read about how simple some of these stats are, and yet how elusive they were for the rest of the teams. For the businessman the challenge is clear: figure out ways to win that the competition has overlooked, and success awaits you. An altogether brilliantly written book, I've already given copies to several people in my company to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Misleading!
Review: Very interesting indeed but quite misleading to anybody outside of baseball. It should be pointed out that the biggest reason for the A's success is strong scouting and player development that has produced the core group of players like Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Tejada, Chavez, etc. These guys weren't picked based on some computer printout or webpage, they were selected by their scouting dept. and are now the core of the team. Rick Peterson is also one of the best young pitching coaches in the game and deserves credit. He barely got mentioned in the book. Somehow I don't think that this book came out how Billy Beane would have wanted it to and I would venture to say he is somewhat embarassed. Sure, Hatteberg and Bradford are great signings but only two examples and the team isn't built around them. The draft strategies being emloyed now by Oakland are due to baseball economics and highly risky. We won't know until years down the road wether some of these drafts are a success or a failure. The statistical info. is a neat little discovery by the computer people and Bill James, etc. but it is given far too much credit in the book for the success of Oakland.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Book Makes a Great Life Metaphor
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I agree with some of the previous reviewers who noted that various aspects of the narrative style are distracting and not particularly well executed. But the content of the story is compelling and carries the reader through the 300 pages in a breeze. Additionally, I enjoyed thinking about 'market inefficiencies' as they may pertain to other business and consumer aspects of life in America. Aren't there many domains in which the 'experts' have been doing things their way for eons and no one questions them? I can think of several possibilities. And Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta demonstrate for us how dogged questioning (in the face of stern opposition) and scientific inquiry can bring fresh and new perspectives to light. I recommend this book and expect that it will be enjoyed by baseball fans (not just A's fans) as well as those curious about how capitalism works in a relatively closed, old-boy network business environment.
Rating:
Summary: excellent explanation of market inefficiencies
Review: Michael Lewis, by trade a financial journalist, has brought his knowledge and background in financial markets to bear on the subject of baseball. Lewis saw the Oakland A's do as well or better than many teams whose payrolls were far in excess of that of the A's and he realized a parallel to what arbitrageurs and hedge fund managers on Wall St. do: the A's saw inefficiencies in the market in which they participated--the labor of elite athletes (if baseball players can be considered athletes)--and sought to exploit those inefficiencies to their benefit. A little background is due here. Lewis draws a parallel between the revolution that computing power brought to Wall St.--derivatives, specifically, and the ability to analyze reams of statistical data quickly, generally--and the analysis of baseball statistics. Much like Michael Milken made a killing on trading bonds, or Michael Bloomberg made a killing on developing a computer system through which the Milkens of the world could analyze their data, Lewis insists, quite convincingly, that their are statisitcal analyses much more relevant to and predictive of success on the diamond than the simplistic statistics with which we are all familiar--fewest errors, most home runs, most strikeouts, most steals, etc. It is on these points that Lewis excels. He brings a clarity of thought to bear on these abstractions that is rare for a journalist. His explanation of the theoretical underpinning of the A's success as of late is excellent and is accessible by a layman (of which I am one). However, in an effort to evoke the constant tension between those more theoretical practitioners of the game and the more traditionally-minded 'tools' men--those people for whom strikeouts and homeruns and the most predictive measure of success--Lewis allows his narrative to veer from the clarity of his theoretical explanations. All too often I dinf Lewis' depiction of inside banter to be confusing, if not irrelevant. Rather than try to contextualize a lot of banter, Lewis instead throws reference, discussion, terminology, and name atop one another for extended paragraphs--and then brings this discussion back to the tension which originally intrigued him. What Lewis tries to do, and what I don't find entirely convincing, is evoke through a narrative style the tension between the old and the new. Of course, there is precedent for this: his earlier and more well known book Liar's Poker tried to demonstraste the culture of trading floors in the early and mid-1980s. I recommend the book with the understanding that its dialogue is burdensome and distracts from the rest of the otherwise excellent introduction to how exploitation of inefficiencies in a market can give a poor organization returns disproportionate to the resources that organization has to devote to the market.
Rating:
Summary: Great Pastime Info!
Review: Mr. Beane definitely makes some great points with this
book. He does this at the expense of fellow GM 's though
his points seem to work. He makes too little that he didn't
win it all yet still continually pats himself on the back.
We are a baseball loving family and on the whole this is one of the two best baseball products we bought on Amazon (the other being an incredible video called, "Backyard Baseball Drills"). From someone who tries to make baseball fun with my kids, this book shows the business end of what I always called a "kid's game".
It is very good reading. I recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: For More of Everyone Than You Might Expect
Review: This is a great book for anyone who is in anyway interested in any proffesional sports. It gives great narration through the drafting process and there are many parts in the book that require thinking which is almost always a plus. With the way it is written, it really places the reader in the situation; great writing. You don't need to be an A's fan or evena big fan of baseball to enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Took me out to the ballgame
Review: As a huge baseball fan, I found this to be a very informative book. It gives great insight into how & why players are bought, sold and traded. A must read for the more than just 'casual fan'.
For a change of pace (for laughs), I recommend Lenny Castellaneta's 'No One's Even Bleeding'.
Rating:
Summary: Sabermaticians Rejoice (and Strat-O-Matic players, too)
Review: While Lewis may be at times guilty of, hmm, polishing Beane's buttocks, this book is superb. Those who have stared at collumns of statistics for hours on end will appreciate the approach taken by the A's front office in evaluating the efficiency of baseball offense. The problem, for fans like me, is that the approach taken diminishes--and actually eschews--some really exiting aspects of run production: stolen bases and aggressive baserunning. OH, and defense, too. Contemporary baseball is full of too many guys continually swinging for the fences, and if too many more GM's adopt the approach Beane has taken, all we'll see is walks and three-run homers. But, all in all, the text is superb and Lewis really makes the subject matter interesting. Of course, I love baseball so perhaps I'm biased on that point. However, the really interesting thing is that the book isn't really about baseball: it is about exploiting market inefficiencies to gain a comparative advantage at minimal risk/costs. Still, it makes for a great read for anyone confused as to why the A's can keep losing great talent and still keep putting a pretty competitive team out on the field. Big market owners, beware!
Rating:
Summary: Right on the Money!
Review: I agree with the reviewer who said the book is enlightening and troubling. One thing I would add is that although the book is well-written (Lewis tells a great STORY), the author seems unable to distance himself from his subject, and I found that slobbering annoying at times. Lewis's tone implies that Beane and DePodesta can do no wrong, and everyone else is stupid, ignorant or both. That is inaccurate, but I guess if one is admitted to the inside circle and has access to the major powerbrokers in order to write a book on this subject, perhaps one's judgement might be co-opted. I'm a hardcore A's fan, and believe me I appreciate Beane and DePodesta's work, but it might have helped to do more interviews outside the organization to get another perspective on team-building. Lewis paints a convenient picture of 'Us' vs. 'Them', which I doubt is completely accurate. On the positive side, I can't wait to read Lewis's next book in which he follows up on the 2002 draft class.
| 
