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Summary: major eye opener onto the field of baseball
Review: This book is about the power of critical thinking. It traces the moves made by a general manager--Billy Beane--who, with the help of statistical geeks, was able to find undervalued players and dish off overvalued players. The author points out that players are commonly misappraised because their value is generally tied to things like "looks" and statistics like "batting average" and "rbis" and "saves" and "fielding percentage" which do not adequately reflect the extent to which a player's performance contributes to value to his team. For example, Mr. Lewis describes formulas which have been derived that accurately predict the number of runs a team will score over the course of a season, and these formulas do not depend on some very commonly used (or misused! stats) After you read this book you will get the point that on-base percentage is 3X more valuable than slugging percentage in the formulas. One drawback of the book is that the formulas discussed are not explicitely stated and their validity is not conclusively demonstrated. Another aspect of the book I also wish was expressed in more detail is the new set of pitching statistics that are devoid of any aspect of luck commonly built into today's commonly advertised stats, like "wins" and "era." In the end, the lesson of the book is that you must always ask, "why, why, why." Why do I care if this pitcher has 30 saves? Why do I care if this outfielder made 10 errors. This books explains in a fun way why you shouldn't necessary care about these questions at all!
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Summary: We're all just numbers
Review: I did enjoy this book although it wasn't what I expected. It was interesting to see how a club with a small payroll can produce on the field. I was impressed to see that the A's would consider players who consistently produce on the field without much fanfare. Rather than concentrating on the hot player who could suddenly go cold after the contract has been negotiated.The concern I have is that each player is essentially turned into a statistic. They plug you into their model and a number is spit out. I understand that major league baseball is no longer "America's pasttime," but a business. If your stats don't cut it, you are gone. The shortfall I see is with the A's is they do not even consider pursuing a great ballplayer just because of the money they rightfully deserve. This may be why they haven't gone all the way. This book isn't about team camaraderie or a rich tradition. It's a little thick on statistics and about being cheap. I'm eager to follow this team and the others that employ this approach to see how far this experiment can go.
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Summary: It's about baseball the way Fight Club is about fighting ...
Review: Michael Lewis has written a phenomenal book here. Like all good non-fiction, Moneyball tells a slice-of-life story that has applications and implications for virtually all areas of life. The overarching theme--that what we know may just not be so, and that value in people, even in what some may consider a trivial pursuit, baseball, is not always subject to the "conventional wisdom"--resonates through every page and through every character. Having watched the Oakland-Kansas City game that capped the A's 20-game winning streak in 2002, but having known nothing of what went into that night, I found the story of Scott Hatteburg to be full of life truths. Ditto Jeremy Brown. Despite its somewhat unfortunate title, Moneyball is not to be missed. You will put it down with a renewed determination to find the things YOU are undervaluing in life because of myths you have been taught. The most likely target of this refreshing approach is YOURSELF.
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Summary: Business Case Study - That Happens to Be a Baseball Team
Review: This is either a great baseball story or a case management study. I chose to regard the book as the later. If you are trying to run a business or enterprise or even some government department or division what should be your goal? Your goal should be to try and maximize return on investment or operating expenses to get the best results, so your "customer" be that a hospital patient or someone purchasing some product or service gets the best experience and best value while you provide that service spending the least money. It is called good management and or called running a winning and effective operation. Many managers in all kinds of businesses lose sight of this basic idea. There are about 120 major professional - top level or major - sports teams in the USA and Canada including football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. In general the "big market" teams with more income per player do better. They do better because the managers sign contracts with the best prospects, or best current players, or best free agents, etc. Unfortunately it translates into spending lots of money without too much thought, but with the general idea that better players will yield better team results - higher win to loss ratio. In general this is true but not always. Yes the Yankees have won the most World Series, and have the biggest payroll, but they do not win every year. During the other years teams with different managers, players, and "team chemistry" win. Now getting to the book. The book is a case management study of the Oakland baseball team in the American league - the same league as the Yankees. It describes how people in Oakland have accepted the idea that they have less money than say the Yankees, about 60% less, but then have said okay, how can we realistically improve our win loss record so the team is competitive. The book is a case study in how to make the operation more efficient by planning and executing at a very detailed level. It seems to involve much more planning and thought and at a more rigorous level than a normal baseball team (my guess). It shows or describes the way all the parts of the team (players) should fit together, the thought process in selecting players, and the results of the hires - the winning team. It is a very nice case management study, with the bonus of being well written and entertaining baseball book about the A's. Jack in Toronto
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Summary: The Calculus of Baseball
Review: Who would have ever thought that taking the romance out of baseball would lead to one of the most engaging books of the year? Lewis is a skilled storyteller with a great gift for characterization. This book documents a fascinating revolution in the philosophy of building a professional baseball team. Moneyball is the best nonfiction I have read since Positively Fifth Street!
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Summary: Please, don't be put off by the title!
Review: This is not (as I mistakenly assumed at first) one of those splenetic rants by a so-called baseball traditionalist, bemoaning how the great game has been destroyed by filthy lucre. It is instead a vastly entertaining account of how one extraordinary man (Billy Beane) used his grasp of the imprecision of conventional measures of possible future baseball prowess to overcome his teams comparative lack of cash and assemble an extremely effective bank of young talent (albeit one that has, so far, failed to triumph in the post-season). The best baseball book I've read since Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" nearly 25 years ago.
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Summary: Great read...
Review: I picked up this book because it was recommended to me by a professor in a corporate strategy class. It brought issues of corporate strategy to life.
An enlightening book that brings theories to life in an enjoyable manner.
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Summary: Good concept, unnecessary language
Review: I enjoyed the concept of looking for objective measurements, challenging traditional views and methods, and choosing what to measure. The locker-room lanquage was not needed to convey this concept.
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Summary: Winning without the green
Review: Michael Lewis is back in fine form with "Moneyball." The book explores two themes: the financial inequities of Major League Baseball, which force small-market clubs to take a unique approach to building their teams; and Billy Beane's passionate and idiosyncratic leadership of the 2002 Oakland A's, a low-budget success story with very few equals. Baseball fans will certainly enjoy the insider's perspective of the A's organization (e.g., why Hatteburg and Mabry were added to the team, why Art Howe was dumped). And non-fans should appreciate Lewis's folksy descriptions of the great American pastime, including both on-the-field and off-the-field anecdotes. My only quibble with "Moneyball" is that the book could benefit from an index, to help readers find references to important characters associated with the team. But that's just window dressing. There's plenty of meat to this well written story, proving that Michael Lewis, despite a couple of recent clunkers, hasn't lost his touch.
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Summary: A Gripping Story and Balanced Analysis Even for the Non-Fan
Review: As a fantasy baseball devotee and a regular reader of Rob Neyer's columns on espn.com, I was excited to see how a non-specialist, Lewis, would react to the quirks of the baseball world. Lewis's reaction is the defining baseball book of this generation. Lewis masterfully weaves together A's GM Billy Beane's personal story and conversion to statistical analysis with theory and reasoning behind that analysis. Lewis also does a superlative job describing the other side: the baseball old timers who distain number-crunching and instead look for intangibles when scouting ballplayers. Why look into how well the hitter controls the strike zone if you can simply see if he has "the Good Face". Imagine an accountant eschewing numbers to see if a company just looked right, just felt right in her gut; well, that's how baseball did, and mostly still does, operate. Not some esoteric tome, but a terrifically engrossing and informative book. I think even my mom would like it.
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