Rating: 
Summary: Moneyball?
Review: I got the impression from reading reviews and snipits from Moneyball, that the book would give me a "fantastic" new behind the scenes view of the A's front office and Billy Beane. The book had it's moments(specifically when Lewis went in depth about the A's "new philosophy" and how things went down before the trade deadline), but the thing I took from the book more than any other, is that Lewis is a master of filler. I got the impression that he went in-depth about the family-life/history of Chad Bradford and Scott Hatteberg because he wanted to make his book a more respectable length, because lets face it, the fact that Chad Bradford throws side-arm, or the fact that he was taught to throw sidearm by his highschool coach/preacher has absolutely nothing to do with the economics of the game and he loosely tied Bradford in with Voros who makes the miraculous discovery about how pitchers don't consistantly give up the same number of hits year-in and year-out(I'm not trying to demean the discovery).I've seen some of the reviews saying "WOW THIS IS THE BEST BASEBALL BOOK I'VE EVER READ", if that's the case, baseball books are in a equally sad state on par with the game and it's economics. It wasn't a bad book, but out of the 5 books I've read in the last three weeks, it falls in at number five from best to worst. As a baseball fanatic(and self-proclaimed stat nerd) I can't even fathom how this book could possibly be interesting to the average fan or baseball novice.
Rating: 
Summary: Not ONLY about baseball
Review: In the interests of full disclosure, I don't even particularly like baseball. However, I found this book absolutely fascinating! While nominally about baseball, Lewis' book is really about how marketplaces place a level of "value" upon goods/skills/individuals/etc. Understanding how to properly measure something is crucial not only to baseball, but to other areas, such as the social sciences or stockmarket. Lewis does a great job at making his message (and the world of baseball statistics) accessable to the average reader. Plus, it is a compelling story! I can't recommend this book enough!
Rating:
Summary: Well done
Review: Just finished reading the book over two days. Well done for what it is. As I watched the A's play on TV last night I really enjoyed knowing some of the background on some of the players I watched. I also enjoyed a new insight to the game of baseball that I'd not had before reading this book. The book made me laugh at times and had a "page turning" energy that I hadn't expected.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful
Review: Michael Lewis is a good storyteller, although for non-fiction writing he tends to embellish quite a bit or even make things up (I've read some of his other books where I am quite familiar with the subjects), but this is still an insightful account of how A's general manager Billy Beane built a competitive team in spite of one of the smallest payrolls in professional baseball. Particularly fascinating is the way Beane and his cohorts evaluate baseball talent. They challenge a lot of the typical assumptions that many in the game have about what makes for a good prospect. Often the player who looks the part ("looks good in a baseball uniform" as Beane puts it) or has the big fastball ends up a bust, while, for example, the small or slightly overweight player who gets on base a lot or makes the opposing pitcher throw a lot of pitches ends up being successful. Likewise the pitcher who doesn't look big enough (Tim Hudson) or was written off as not having enough heat (Barry Zito). Beane is certainly not right about everyone (e.g. the high school prospect Jeremy Bonderman, now in the starting rotation for Detroit) but his alternative analysis born of the necessity of limited money brings some fresh thinking to how to evaluate baseball talent and potential. So this makes the book insightful, even if the reader has no interest in the Oakland A's or Billy Beane in particular.
Rating:
Summary: Moneybook
Review: This book has a lot of funny moments, and makes some interesting points, but it is just an extended article that doesn't prove a point, and seems to be more about the author exploiting baseball fans ...than giving them something memorable. We learn about Billy Beane's mania and that OBP is important to scoring runs, and signing guys that walk a lot is cheaper than signing 5 tool players with good jawlines. So what? The A's win a lot of games because they have 3 great, not good, starters. This could not be disproven by any of Bill James' suckup labrats. How is winning 100 games during the regular season not to Hudson, Zito, and Mulder's credit, but losing to the Twins is Hudson's fault? The A's are like the Braves from the previous decade. Like the Braves, the A's don't hit that well. Unlike the Braves, they probably won't keep the 3 star pitchers around, and guys like Scott Hatteberg can not walk their way to championships while giving up 8 runs a game. Theories are great, but who has more World Series rings, Sparky Anderson and Joe Morgan put together, or Bill James and Billy Beane put together? Just as Billy Beane uses a relief pitcher's hot streak to temporarily inflate his value, Lewis has used the A's 2-year hot streak to inflate the value of his ideas and to sell books. Not that it's a bad book, it just isn't convincing.
Rating:
Summary: You won't look at baseball the same way again
Review: For any baseball fan, this is required reading. The novel follows the Oakland A's front office as they try to change the way baseball is played. Author Lewis' main point is that the way that the history of baseball has been recorded is flawed, that the stats every fan has read for their whole lives do not paint an accurate picture of the game. Lewis spends the first few chapters setting the stage, how A's General Manager Billy Beane was a prototypical can't miss prospect who failed miserably, how statistician Bill James' gospel reached the masses. The book really picks up steam when Lewis goes in depth of how Beane and his staff implement their vision, epecially in the chapeters on the 2002 draft and 2002 trade deadline. My main flaw is that Lewis tends to take a very pro-Beane perspective, rarely accounting where his decisions did not pan out. For example, in the 2001 draft, Beane physically berated a scout for wanting to draft Jeremy Bonderman, a high school pitcher. In 2003, Bonderman is playing in the Major Leages. In the 2002 draft, Beane ridiculed the Mets for drafting hight school pitcher Scott Kazmir, who has torn through the Mets system and is rated as one of the top prospects in baseball. For all his flaws, Beane has come up with a system that has allowed him to challenge the rules that allow rich teams to compete at the highest levels.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but lacking a bit...
Review: Moneyball was a good read in many aspects. It was interesting to get a insight of how a baseball GM works. The best part of the book was reading about how the front office processed who they should choose in the among all of those eligible in the draft and the scouting of reliever Chad Bradford and the signing of Scott Hatteberg. You got a sense that Beane and the A's always had constraints concerning player transactions, and they had to be careful with every move because there is not any disposable money to throw around. Moneyball also had brief passages describing several baseball theorists, that Oakland uses when looking at potential ballplayers. It gave you something to think about, if you are a big baseball fan.
However, I thought the book lacked in a certain area. It never talked about any of Billy Beane's "mistakes". There had to be at least one move that backfired on him! Moneyball almost made it seem like these theories are bulletproof. Yes, they work in baseball, but it made it seem that if you subscribed to these scouting techniques, everything WILL work for you.
That being said, I still enjoyed Moneyball. It actually gave me something to think about when I watch baseball.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book will really appeal to hardcore baseball fans who've embraced the conclusions of Bill James and his proteges. Lewis has a very readable style, and he doesn't shy away from some of the more complicated aspects of baseball analysis. He includes a nice history of cutting edge thinking on the subject of baseball analysis that reveals that Bill James wasn't (and isn't) the only voice crying out in the desert. Also, there are anecdotes involving contemporary players and coaches that demonstrate the gulf between how players and analysts view the game. As you may have heard, Billy Beane doesn't come off in the most flattering light, but it's a credit to Beane that he didn't seek to edit unfavorable content as well as to Lewis for keeping this content in the book. It's a fast read and interesting to boot.
Rating:
Summary: Not just for jocks or nerds ...
Review: I received Moneyball in the mail yesterday and read it today. It moves along faster than the game ... and the message is applicable all over the map: people (and things) are overvalued or undervalued for reasons that have more to do with tradition and unproven paradigms than with relevant qualities. Anyone who manages or hires, anyone who thinks there's something wrong with the current "system" (for doing whatever) can gain tremendous insight from Lewis's book. "If professional baseball players could be over- or under-valued," writes Lewis, "who couldn't?" Skip this book at your own peril. It's inspirational, in the best way: it doesn't ask you to believe in anything but the idea that we still can learn a better way.
Rating:
Summary: Portrait of a sly genius
Review: Reading through this book, one gets the impression that arcane baseball stats that most major league GM's don't care about but should, coupled with the sly and shrewd businessman that Billy Beane appears to be has been a winning combination for the Oakland A's. A team that virtually everyone counted out after the 2001 season came back to win over and over in 2002. Although I'm not an Oakland A's fan, I found myself grinning at the moves that Beane makes again and again to not only keep his team winning, but spend as little as possible in the process. Lose your three best players? No problem. Just reload with cheaper replacements. Lose more players after the season? No problem..cheaper replacements are on the way. The A's and other small market teams like the Twins who also are winning poke a huge hole in Bud Selig's contention that these "small market teams" should have been contracted just a year or two ago. Another thing I noticed about this book is how Beane dispenses with the conventional wisdom of running a baseball team in favor of his own method. So far it obviously has worked, and worked well. And yet only two other major league teams as of the book's publishing have embraced this method. The other teams seem insistent on running a team as inefficiently as possible. All the better for Beane to continue to work his magic. Numerous folk have commented in reviews of this book that it will be harder now for Beane to continue to be successful because this book shows how he has managed to do this. I don't think so, in fact I think in some ways he wants the rest of the world to know how he has done all this. He secretly wants recognition for the way he has managed to beat "the system." Not only a look at an unconventional way to run a baseball team, but this book is also a look at an unconventional way for anyone to successfully run any business. A fascinating read.
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