Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Book Review: A great read and I'm not a sports fanatic
Summary: 5 Stars
This was just a terrific book, putting an incredibly human face on a game and a financial analysis of success. Book Review: Baseball by the Numbers...Sort of
Summary: 4 Stars
As a lifelong A's fan, I felt obligated to read Moneyball. Many critics have mistakenly gotten the impression that Billy Beane and Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball together. Actually, Beane himself has registered skepticism with Moneyball's simplistic conclusions and its portrayal of him as some sort of boy genius. Joe Morgan, the hall of famer and announcer has been one of the more outspoken opponents of a book he freely admits he hasn't read and he has incorrectly attributed authorship to Beane. In other words, Morgan freely admits he doesn't know what he's talking about and doesn't care to but feels perfectly comfortable registering an "informed" opinion based on his career in the 70's and 80's. Good luck with that, Joe.
The book describes how Beane and his employees on the Oakland A's have spent over a decade (1997-present) trying to apply statistical analysis to talent scouting and, thus, uncover low cost talented players ignored by traditional talent scouts. In other words, they do the math and they pay attention to the small stuff. This statistical reasoning is an attempt to take the guesswork out of scouting. Because this is a talent scouting method, the stats are derived almost exclusively from college and minor league playing. Major League baseball is a different, more sophisticated and much harder game than college or minor leagues. Consequently, stats are not directly applicable but can be used only as fair indicators of success at the highest level. There is no such thing as a statistical crystal ball.
Alas, human beings are unpredictable and talent eventually costs money anyway. Many of the A's "finds" are now using their considerable talent on other, wealthier, teams (Zito, Mulder, Hudson, Giambi, Tejada & Jeremy Bonderman). A team cannot win playoff games without proven talent and proven talent costs money. The A's had a nice little run where they overplayed themselves into the playoffs five times in the last eight years, including two 100+ win seasons. They were bounced out in the first round four straight years. (slide, Jeremey, slide!)
Several of the finds have been slowed by injury (Harden, Crosby) or the simple fact that they never became the top level players they were predicted to become (Chavez, Jeremy Brown, Jeremy Giambi). Even if the numbers tell you a player has a great future on paper, they can't tell you if he will get hurt, if he has mental toughness, if he cares about the game, if he has integrity, if he can hit/pitch at the major league level and other unknowables/intangibles. At the end of the day, there is still a subjective evaluation of whether the player has the mental/emotional ability to succeed at the highest level. There is no way to know how a player will perform at the Major Leagues until he actual does. Quite often, there is at least the possibility that a can't-miss-kid was overvalued and is just simply not that good.
The A's do not have enough money to succeed at the highest level over a sustained period of time. It is just that simple. Money counts and as long as the A's cannot afford more than 1/4 the payroll of the wealthier teams the A's will be little more than a discovery/development center for talented players who go on to play against the team that discovered and developed them in the first place. Life is unfair. Go A's!
Book Review: More than Baseball
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is an awesome story of how the Oakland A's produced great teams on little money. Take baseball out of the story and you will learn some solid business principals! In the midst of telling the story of how a team can compete with or without much money is the story of some great men fighting to become the best they can be. Michael Lewis did a incredible job of telling the story of life in business and how sometimes unpopular decisions bring the best results. Great book for any baseball fan or any business man trying to compete with giants. Great BookBook Review: Moneybook: The art of writing so much words
Summary: 3 Stars
I had high hopes of this book. Would it be another winner's story or would it be about statistics and plain baseball?
Actually, the result is kind of both. The book tells us about taking a different approach at scouting while the club is money-strapped. It makes you look beyond the obvious and I must say I had some great results in the Yahoo Hockey League online. But is this the result you go for?
Moneyball is full of statistics and tells us a nice but not compelling story. You kind of read your way through it and say: "Well, ok, that's nice to know."
If you got any spare time and like baseball or scouting go ahead and read the book. Just don't expect too much as I did.
Book Review: wrong subject
Summary: 3 Stars
The mathematics of sports...not a very good subject...
Given MLewis talent for writing, his effort on the pro sports world seems a waste ... I'd rather see him write about finance, or computer geniuses....This was the least interesting of his books.