Rating: 
Summary: Michael Lewis is one-of-a-kind
Review: Without a doubt one of the best books I've read in a long time. Michael Lewis has a tremendous gift for explaining complicated financial issues simply, elegantly, and succinctly. He is also a conceptual thinker of a high order, which is why his books seem more revolutionary than they are: he just explains things better and more provocatively than anyone else. Moneyball is no exception. Drawing upon the work of a generation of new-age baseball statisticians, Michael Lewis chronicles the uncanny success of general manager Billy Beane and his budget-strapped Oakland A's. In a story that reads far more breazily and interestingly than you might think, Lewis explains how Beane used complex statistical analysis to revamp his organization and catapult the A's to the top of the American League. Beane's success demonstrates convincingly that "conventional baseball wisdom" is an oxymoron. That is, the stuff that really matters in terms of winning baseball games is not the stuff that baseball insiders have been focusing upon for the last hundred-plus years. Beane employs the cold calculation of a Wall Street maverick to the poetic, metaphoric, and staid world of baseball. And in the process, not surprisingly, he offends a helluva lot of baseball sensibilties. (You need only read some of the crappy reviews on this website to see that). But the fact remains that Beane is right, and the future of baseball is Beane & Co. No doubt Lewis' bestselling book will usher in that future far sooner than might have been the case-- which is precisely why Michael Lewis will go down as one of the most important and influential writers of this generation. He is Tom Wolfe and Warren Buffett wrapped into one, and his book is a true joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Numbers never lie
Review: Michael Lewis writes another deceptively simple book, telling a simple story in a compelling manor and confirming the strategy behind the Oakland A's success. The book is an easy read and never gets as complicated or complex as baseball can get at times. An interesting read from page 1. This book pretty much turns baseball upside down, exposing the traditions of baseball for what they are, ignorant sheep-like mentality. That is, people doing something because someone else does it. Amazing it has taken this long for the foolishness to be exposed. But that's baseball as they say I can't imagine the main character in the book Billy Beane is very popular these days. For the most part, he has made his peer set look ridiculous, which is, everybody involved in running a baseball team. But our national pastime has always required a healthy sense of humor, when you consider what the fans are forced to put up with; ticket prices, player strikes, off field antics, owners in the limelight, etc. The list goes on and hopefully Beane has started something that will fundamentally improve, perhaps save the game. You don't have to know baseball to enjoy this book, but it does help. An understanding of statistics and the value of money are just as important, and if you read this as a business book, MoneyBall is incredibly thought proving and probably applicable to most any business.
md
Michael Duranko
www.bootism.com
Rating:
Summary: Great thought-provoking book for all baseball fans
Review: Moneyball is simply one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. It's primarily about baseball, but its lessons transcend sports. Through the examples of Bill James, Dick Cramer, Voros McCracken, and AVM Systems, it shows how Billy Beane has been able to maximize the market of talent with a minimum of spending. It also gives a great insight into Beane, a classic five-tool player in high school who couldn't convert it into a successful major league playing career. Beane took the lessons learned the hard way from his playing days and has applied them as the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. The point of this book is: Think For Yourselves! While most of Beane's philosophy makes sense, I disagree with his disdainment of stolen bases, and his idea of the manager as a figurehead with little independent decision-making ability. Otherwise, as I said, a very fascinating read.
Rating:
Summary: Root for the Little Guy
Review: I was very surprised when I read this book. I knew that the Oakland A's had a low payroll and an excellent team. I figured that it all had to do with management and thier decisions on players. But I had no idea of the elaborate system that the A's used to find players and how they were able to land them so cheaply. It is truely facinating. The tactics of getting good players for less money than they were worth was eye-opening. Some of the players on the A's were people who no one else wanted because they were not the "typical looking player." The A's took player who were sometimes too fat, too short, and too slow. Everyone continually writes them off becuase they don't do things the conventional way. The thing is, they can't do things the conventional way because they don't have the money.
They have come up with a system that is widely based on the use of statistics and computers and a very strict philosophy on the type of player to draft. This might sound strange now but it is so well explained that at the end you should become a ravid Billy Beane and Oakland A's fan. You will suddenly wish to follow everything that they do.You will understand that thier record 20 game winning streak was deserved and that all the critics were wrong. Moneyball shows that a small market team, when run in a unique way, can be incredibly sucsessful and can give its high priced oppentents all that they can handle.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, doesn't tell the whole story
Review: "Moneyball" is extremely well-written. It is a quick read and a good read. However, there are some problems with the information presented here. Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder are all unbelievable pitchers and have much to do with the success of the low-budget team in Oakland; however, they are barely even mentioned in the book. Michael Lewis spends more time on finds like Scott Hatteberg. However, most of the A's success is due to the Big 3. And Billy Beane deserves a lot of credit for finding and drafting those guys. It's just not spelled out in this book. To read this book and have no knowledge of baseball, you would think that all other GM's were idiots. Guys who just didn't get it. After reading this book, I'm not sure how Billy would find guys like Vlad, Sammy, Pedro, Ichiro (well, basically foreigners who wouldn't fit his statistical model). Sometimes, relying on scouts is a good thing. And sometimes drafting high schoolers (Griffey, Kerry Wood, Josh Beckett) is also a good thing, even if it is a bigger roll of the dice. But Beane does have an admirable plan. All in all, this book is a worthwhile read, even if it does have the noteable ommission of Hudson, Zito, and Mulder.
Rating:
Summary: Geeks' revenge
Review: Who knows baseball better - the jocks or geeks? Well, it appears that you can't rid the front office of jocks, but you're screwed if you don't let the geeks in. Lewis has written a book that ultimately proves that careful statistical analysis is often superior to conventional wisdom in finding out what makes good baseball players and teams. Moneyball tells the story of the A's general manager Billy Beane and his assistant Harvard grad Paul DePodesta and their quest to build an A's team armed with the smallest budget in baseball and a new approach to baseball stats. The success that they achieve proves once again that people cannot accept the fact that science is superior to intuition and conventional wisdom in many circumstances. Beane is a former major leaguer whose promising career never really took flight despite everyone's high expectations. Fortunately, he found his niche in the front office of the Oakland A's, a team he transformed by deemphasizing the conventional wisdom that had falsely predicted the outcome of his own major league career. Inspired by the sabermetrician Bill James whose Baseball Abstracts were appreciated by only a handful, Beane and DePodesta decided that the best way to spend the tiny A's budget was to draft or trade for players who were undervalued in the baseball market but whose stats told a different story. For example, they realized that on base percentage was worth more than home runs or batting average. They wanted players who could get on base whether by walk or hit. After all, a home run is worth a lot more if previous batters make it on base. Beane and DePodesta also realized among many other things that good fielding stats were overrated, errors were often meaningless, and luck plays a huge role in the outcome of a baseball game. The beauty of this book is that it reminds us again and again that no matter how strong your subjective notions are, don't forget that statistical analysis is an objective enterprise largely devoid of emotional attachments and preconceived ideas. Of course, choosing players based completely on refined statistical analysis while ignoring other nonquantifiable factors is foolish, but the A's are proof that this new approach is extremely effective. Very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Baseball and Truth
Review: Moneyball tells the story of Billy Beane and his radically different (and effective) understanding of baseball as a matter of statistics. The success of the Oakland A's, despite one of baseball's lowest payrolls, attests to the efficacy of the strategy. This book is about much more than Beane or baseball; it describes the uphill battle that truth fights against the safety of conventional wisdom. You do not need to know the difference between a fastball and a fly ball in order to enjoy this book, or find its message relevant.
Rating: 
Summary: Take a Number . . .
Review: Moneyball is about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's efforts to use statistics to get a competitive edge that translates into more runs scored versus the opponents and more wins. If that's all the book was about, it would be a bore. The story is enlivened a little by the fact that Mr. Beane has less money to work with than most other clubs, so we've got an underdog to root for. But Mr. Beane also turns out to have a volatile temper and a mindset that makes it hard for him to make good decisions in the heat of battle. Those problems kept him from having the "all-star" career that many expected for him as a player. So ultimately the book is about a man getting grips on himself so he can be more successful. Now, that story (if was the entire focus) would have been fascinating . . . but Mr. Lewis clutters the book up with unnecessarily long and boring nonmathematical descriptions of mathematical issues . . . and hurts his story. That said, chapter two ("How to Find a Ballplayer") has some of the funniest dialogue in it that I have ever read. I had to stop reading the book every so often to stop laughing long enough for the pain in my abdomen to go away. I kept racing through the book to find something else as funny or as good . . . and didn't find it. Mr. Beane believes that he needs to maximize on-base and slugging percentage for his club and the percentage of strikeouts and ground balls hit by opposing batters. So he focuses on finding players who are good at creating these results. Some of his searches take on a comic character when he finds players who are very deficient in fielding or speed. This book will appeal most to those who admire Mr. Beane and those who run fantasy baseball teams on the Internet. Such readers will enjoy understanding more about the practical issues involved in applying statistics to baseball in the big leagues. I was extremely surprised that Mr. Lewis did not briefly show someplace the statistical analyses that favor the quantitative ideas expressed in the book. This book could have been an entry point to interest young people in statistical analysis, but the book's content falls far short of that level. I mention that point because I did a science fair project as a youngster based on Branch Rickey's writing about what factors influence winning pennants. That article, although vastly out-of-date, probably did more good than this one will to encourage the statistical study of human behavior. One of the better parts of the book is the chapter on Scott Hatteberg (chapter 8) which describes how he came to focus on batting discipline . . . which made him attractive to the A's after his catching career was over. I would have enjoyed understanding more about how disciplined hitters came to be that way. Instead, the book provides much too much information about why most hitters are undisciplined. If you have never dreamed of being a general manager of a baseball club, you will probably find this book to be a little below average as a sports story. As I finished the book, I wondered what it would take to stimulate millions of people to start doing these same sorts of measurements and analyses for reducing poverty, housing the homeless, conquering illiteracy and many other social ills. Now, that would be a book!
Rating:
Summary: If you're not a baseball fan, please give this book a pass
Review: First of all, I must admit that I have been one of Lewis' fans since his classic Liar's Poker. How could I miss this one which Tom Wolfe described on the inside back cover as Lewis' grandest tour de force yet? However, being a Chinese trader who's ignorant about baseball, I could only complete the first two chapters (42 pages out of 288) and put it down. The large amount of baseball jargon and player name just stopped me from reading onwards. In fact, this review is written with the sole purpose to warn fellow Lewis' fans that this book, unlike his previous ones, require readers of certain knowledge and interest of baseball. If you're not a baseball fan, I strongly suggest you to give this book a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: Nerds, start your calculators!
Review: If Lewis had decided to play devil's advocate instead of lap dog, and scrutinized some of the assertions being made, then this might've really been something. As it stands, the narrative's defining quality is negligence. That's why the 2 stars. It's already been said here, but the A's were very fortunate in that they had three young pitchers get very good very quickly, insuring several years of productivity before facing the prospect of free agency. In the playoffs, it comes down to pitching, defense, and timely hitting, only one of which Beane and co. have deemed to be important, which may explain the wall they hit when they get there. Their biggest oversight might be their devaluing of producing in clutch situations. In the last 4 playoffs, the A's opponents have gone 9-0 when facing elimination. I guess guts DO count for something, huh Billy? I give credit to Beane for at least trying something different. Given the cash-strapped A's, their mangled stadium (courtesy of Al Davis), and lukewarm fanbase, this is not an organization that can win going toe-to-toe, even if I don't necessarily buy into their 'brave new world' of organizational philosophy. Ignore the scouting department and have Harvard economists surf the internet...I don't think the emperor is wearing any clothes, but I guess we'll see.
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