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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (平装)
by Michael Lewis
| Category:
Baseball, Sports, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Business |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
This engaging saga of the Oakland Athletics by Michael Lewis is about baseball, of course, but also about entrepreneurship and leadership. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 15 items |
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Weekly Standard, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
May be the best book ever written on business. |
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San Jose Mercury News, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
An extraordinary job of reporting and writing. |
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Dan Ross, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
You need not be a baseball fan to appreciate Michael Lewis' MoneyBall. Lewis tracks Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, who built a series of powerhouse ballclubs with a major handicap. Despite having a payroll that was petty cash to teams like the Yankees, Beane's clubs excelled. A series of excellent finishes, culminating with a playoff series that took the Yankees to the limit, solidified Beane's reputation. But how did he do it?
Beane's unconventional methods were the key. Using Bill James (of Baseball Abstract fame) as an inspiration, the A's GM hired the best and brightest statisticians and dispensed with the conventional wisdom of opinionated scouts. So what if a college catcher had a "bad baseball body"? Beane didn't care. He was concerned with metrics like on-base-percentage, which turns out to be much better at predicting major league success than a scout's biased opinion.
Dealing with players as business units, each with measurable ROI (return on investment), Beane bought low and sold high. If a closer cranked out a bunch of saves, Beane figured he could trade the pitcher for higher value than he was really worth. Saves were a misleading statistic: strikeouts, walks, and home-runs-allowed were really the only true ways to measure a pitcher's performance. A "superstar" was simply a stat-generating machine and if the same amount of money could be leveraged on someone else that could yield similar stats, why not make a trade?
In retrospect, like all great ideas, Beane's tenets are remarkably simple. It's just interesting that it took baseball over a century to figure out that stats like ERA and RBI were pretty much meaningless. What mattered were stats that historically proved to be predictors of baseball victories: on-base-average and slugging average for batters, for instance. A quick, fascinating read, MoneyBall is an elegant look at a smart GM and his godfather: Bill James. |
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Trevor Seigler, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
In Moneyball, author Michael Lewis sets out to show how you can win as a major-league franchise when your roster looks more like the Bad News Bears than a professional outfit. Whether or not he convinces you the reader of his purpose is up to you (I don't necessarily agree with it), but it makes an interesting and illuminating read.
In many ways, it is an alternative history of baseball in the modern era: in a time when home-run sluggers are prized above all else (nevermind how they got those homers), the Oakland A's of Billy Beane take a different tact. Smallball is king in Beane's view, one that he formed while as a member of the Oakland management team. Beane's own brief career is documented by Lewis, as well as the rise of baseball stats guru Bill James and the cult of numbers he helped inspire (sabremetrics). Beane is one of the few baseball men who not only reads James's theories, but tries to apply them to his team.
The story almost speaks for itself: at the time of writing, the A's had managed to continuously appear in the playoffs. Doubters will scoff that Beane's methods fail in the long run: where are the World Series rings? The fact that a small-market team like the A's can manage a run like they have, with the limited resources they have, seems to be overshadowed by that glaring lack of wins when it counts.
And so, without denying the veracity of James's arguements as they are presented in the book, I personally didn't buy Beane's approach. Too often, it seemed, Beane and his cohorts were reducing the game on the field to a series of continuous data sheets, typing out the player's ability to get on base over their ability to hit home runs or run the bases. While it's good to try and overthrow some of the baseball "traditions" that have actually served to harm the modern game, Moneyball offers a solution that is almost "scorched earth" in its approach: throw out the old rules and concentrate on stats previously ignored.
On some level, Moneyball doesn't necessarily champion Beane's approach, but Lewis plays into the hands of the A's by (inadvertantly by his postscript account) making Beane out to be a wizard at figuring out the game. This is the same Beane who traded Johnny Damon to the Red Sox (readers in the post-Red Sox Series win last year could be forgiven for laughing a little at Beane's short-sightedness). This is the same Beane who traded two of his "big Three" pitchers in the past offseason. This is the same Beane who struggles to manage what little cash he has, and he is prone to mistakes. While Lewis doesn't shy from that side of the equation, he almost never addresses the failures of Beane's system as much as its successes. There is something unique about Beane's approach, that is for sure. But Lewis almost destroys his own arguement by leaving out those details that don't fit with his hypothesis.
Also, for a baseball book Moneyball is totally lacking in terms of giving the reader a "feel" for the team in question. Beane and his hired helpers are (rightly or wrongly) the focus of the tome, to the exclusion of players like Barry Zito or Tim Hudson. In a way, it's misleading to list it as a "sports book"; it would be a more accurate fit on the business list.
All in all, Moneyball is a flawed but necessary read for those wondering what modern sports culture is all about. You come away from it feeling some sympathy for the way Billy Beane has to run his business, but you don't get a feel for the players affected by that business. You never really see the success on the field; you just get Beane and Lewis telling you "it works". That part of the equation keeps me from endorsing this as accurate or solid. But it will challenge your view of our nation's pastime for the better, as you learn what smaller teams have to sacrifice in order to surivive. |
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Phil, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
Rarely do you come across a book on pro sports like this one, that manages to infuriate one group, enlighten another, and, at the end of the day, have a significant impact on the sport it covered. Moneyball essentially is a baseball how-to guide on constructing a team through maximizing the talents and abilities of low- to medium-cost players, rather than building one by overpaying for high-priced talent or marquee names. It is also a study of how one man - Oakland A's GM Billy Beane - and his followers go about finding these low-cost players, and what qualities and statistics they look for and value the most. Overall, it brings to the forefront a debate that has already played itself out in Major League Baseball in the 1-2 years since this book hit the shelves - old-time, traditional scouting vs. statistical analysis and theories.
Michael Lewis is provided a great deal of access to the Oakland A's mid-season, and it's surprising to me that Beane allowed so many of his ideas to be publicized while he is still in a competitive position. Lewis portrays Beane as restless, not satisfied with mere wins, but seemingly moreso with constant tinkering with and improving the team. The actual game on the field is of little use to him, but the numbers that flow in once the games are over are his main course. Beane challenges what he perceives as the outdated scouting machine across the league, the idea that a player's value can be assessed by watching him throw or hit, looking at his frame and how he can fill out physically, and "meaningless" stats like batting average and RBI. Instead Beane ignores a prospect's physical attributes (see Jeremy Brown), and focuses instead on a player's ability to draw walks and get on base. Lewis deserves a great deal of credit in taking all this information, analysis, and statistics and writing it all in a way that readers can easily understand.
As for Beane's theories themselves, several of them have worked their way into the game already. The Red Sox built their 2004 squad with Moneyball in mind (GM Theo Epstein is one of Beane's disciples) and won the World Series employing OBP guys like Mark Bellhorn, and buying low on plenty of middle-tier free agents in the past two years, most notably slugger David Ortiz. But there are also a bunch of his ideas that are a little puzzling, and quickly have been tossed aside by baseball minds. The idea that the dominant closer is a myth (and that any journeyman can close out something like 98% of leads in the 9th inning) has quickly gone by the wayside - even by Beane and his followers (Oakland and Boston have both invested in high-priced closers in the past two seasons). And Florida quickly disspelled Beane's staunch belief that bunting and stealing bases are counterproductive and meaningless, by merely winning the World Series in 2003 through speed and aggressive baserunning. And I wonder what Beane has to say about the impact of Dave Roberts on last year's ALCS.
Whether you buy into what Beane is selling or not, whether the introduction of "rotisserie"-type analysis and team-building is upsetting to you or not, the book is great, and on top of that, it's had a significant and increasing impact on Major League Baseball. |
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Cathy Goodwin, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
Okay, I admit I rarely watch baseball. Like many unknowledgeable viewers, I find the game slow. Sure, my friends say, there's lots of strategy. But it's not the kind of game you can just watch a few times a year, like football, and still get involved.
But this book is only secondarily about baseball. As a career consultant who helps clients navigate tough decisions, I'm fascinated by the psychology of decision-making, and I read everything I can find. All the research comes to the same conclusion: statistics win over experience, every time.
And that's the story of Money Ball. A contrarian GM looks at the numbers to choose undervalued players. To Billy Beane, each player is an asset in a portfolio. His goal is to buy undervalued assets and sell overvalued assets.
The difference: Investors just hold assets in their portfolio. Billy Beane is more like a real estate investor who fixes up houses or waits till the world comes to his small town. After buying undervalued players, he showcases their true value by setting them on the playing field. A pitcher who "looks funny" turns out to be a star. An over-the-hill player thrives in a new position.
So what's the lesson for the rest of us?
First, Lewis raises the question of valuing people who do different kinds of jobs, where results aren't measured as easily. Ultimately, we're all assets. Employees working for a large firm need to regard themselves and their employees with the same kind of detachment. Investments in HR programs either raise the value of their assets or they're a waste of money.
And there's an inadvertent lesson here, too. Statistics help Billy Beane choose undervalued players so he can win division titles with a smaller budget than the competition. But when Billy faced his own big decision - accept a Stanford scholarship or go pro immediately - he had no statistics. We still need a method to make those kinds of decisions, and that's why I enjoy working with my career changing clients. You need more than a comparison of pros and cons |
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Kevin Seeger, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
This is one of the most entertaining books I have read on any subject. I love baseball, so I may have enjoyed it more than most, but I do not believe a love for the game is necessary to appreciate Moneyball. My wife will judge a book's merits by opening it up and reading a random paragraph to see if it piques her interest. She declared this book a winner after reading about gaudy save totals and inefficiencies in the market for closers. Even someone who has only a cursory knowledge of the game can understand that concept.
Lewis gives a good overview of the history of Sabermetrics and all the characters who helped derive the new formulas for evaluating performance. He also invokes Jim Bouton's BALL FOUR by introducing us to some of the characters in the game. Scott Hatteberg comes out smelling like roses, and will be remembered long after his undistinguished playing career has ended.
Billy Beane is the main character in the book, and he is represented as a tortured revolutionary. The point is well drawn that as a general manager, Beane is consumed by the task of discovering his own antithesis, since Beane himself was a failed prospect of the antiquated methods of player evaluation.
Moneyball is a crash course in modern baseball and how the management of the game is changing during the present era. Scouts are being replaced by statisticians; field managers are sent to the top dugout step to appear commanding while awaiting orders from the general manager and his consortium of number crunchers. There is also a great analogy of the changing game of baseball in the '90's with the changes that Wall Street went through a decade prior, as the inefficiencies in the market were discovered and exploited.
There were several instances in reading this book that I was moved to laughter. Lewis has such a great command of his straightforward business style, that it comes as a surprise when he decides to point out an absurdity lurking just below the surface. This is a book for the shelf, to be enjoyed more than once. It will prove an enduring touchstone for future baseball executives, players, and fans, and possibly even stock brokers. |
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Chris Griffen, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
Michael Lewis deftly inserted himself into the A's front office to find out how a professional baseball team with a $40 million payroll can win 102 games and consistently 90 or more wins in subsequent years and compete with teams like the New York Yankees who have payrolls exceeding $130 million.
What he reveals is that by approaching baseball in a more rational, analytical way and doing away with all the traditional conventions, you can compete with anyone who doesn't do the same. Too many GMs and coaches are seduced by speed, home runs, and batters who swing at bad pitches when the simple truth of it is that in baseball the most precious thing you have are your three outs per inning. Anything that risks losing one or more of those outs is something you should avoid. As a long-time fan of the game, it's hard for me to swallow some of the anti-traditional things Lewis describes in this book. But the proof is in the pudding as they say and the A's success over the past several years is hard to argue with.
The focus of the book is A's GM Billy Beane, a former A's player himself who had a world of talent but could not transform that talent into a Hall of Fame career. He didn't have certain intangibles that are needed. Beane now recognizes those talents in the players he drafts, recruits and trades for. Beane's obsessive personality and unorthdox ways make for interesting reading. He's a man who seems horribly tortured by the game and yet thrives on his success in the game as well.
There are excellent mini-biographies in the book including one on A's first baseman, Scott Hatteberg, a Red Sox catcher who was thought all but done with baseball after he ruptured a nerve in his throwing arm. The A's reclamation project recognized a diamond in the rough and brought him aboard to train him as a first baseman, mostly so they could benefit from Hattie's shrewd batting.
Chad Bradford, the A's middle relief pitcher with the unorthodox pitching style and uncanny ability to get outs, is also profiled. A's minor league phenom Jeremy Brown, a former University of Alabama catcher who broke all sorts of NCAA records but wouldn't get a look from most pro teams, is also profiled. You get the sense from this book that there IS no traditional upbringing for a pro baseball player. The A's unusual collection of "misfits" all came from different backgrounds and most have taken a rather odd path to success.
This book is a great insiders look at a pro baseball team and how they approach the game from a very unique perspective. The most fascinating thing of it is, the A's didn't invent what they're doing at all. They're exploiting baseball wisdom that was anyone's for the taking for the past 30 years. You just need to know where to look.
If you're a baseball fan or just someone who can appreciate creativity and ingenuity in a world that promotes imitation, you'll enjoy this book.
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Ed Garea, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
Ever since free agency became integrated into baseball culture, the current wisdom has always been that the small-market teams must finish at the bottom because they don't have the resources to compete with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago White Sox. The 1997 Florida Marlins spent their way to winning the World Series, but had to conduct a fire sale the next year in order to avoid bankruptcy. This, say the pundits, is in keeping with the current wisdom.
But there is an exception, and a rather large one at that. The Oakland A's, for years the epitome of the small market team, sharing a small market with the National League San Francisco Giants, have managed to win more games (553) from 1998 through 2003 than any other team save for the large market New York Yankees (598) and the Atlanta Braves (594). Now here's the kicker: In 2002, Oakland won 103 games, as many as the Yankees and two more than the Braves, with a payroll ($42M) only one-third the size of the Yankees ($133M) and half that of the Braves ($94M). Is this merely the exception that proves the rule, or is something else going on here?
"Moneyball" provides some of the answers. It is an in-depth look at how the Oakland A's, without the money of the Yankees, managed to win as many games by just looking at the baseball universe in a different way. The old rule was "you gotta spend money to make money." The '97 Florida Marlins spent their way to the World Series, and lost about $30 million in the process. They were forced to dump salary the next year and ended up alienation an already small fan base, which cut attendance even further. Billy Beane, the GM of the Athletics, realized early on that you can't spend what you don't have; thus consistency is the ideal. In this case, consistency is gained by getting the best players for the least money. To achieve this, Beane just looked at the same thing in a different way. Judge players by the things they can control rather than the things they can't control.
This is vividly illustrated in the case of Jeremy Brown, a catcher with the University of Alabama who was pooh-poohed by major league scouts, including Oakland's, as a "bad body catcher." But when Beane and his staff looked at Brown, they saw the only player in the history of the SEC with three hundred hits and two hundred walks. For Beane, the ability to control the strike zone was the best predicator of future success, and the large number of walks was an indicator of how well Brown was able to control the strike zone. The same held true for a pitcher. The speed of his fastball wasn't as important as the ratio of walks to strikeouts. Brown may have been slightly overweight and slow afoot, but he understood the strike zone. The same with pitcher Barry Zito, another overlooked Beane discovery. Zito may not have had that blazing fastball, but he knew how to manipulate the strike zone. What Beane and his staff did was simple: take statistics that already exist and rank them differently. If the game from the hitter's view is not to make outs, then the stat of on-base percentage becomes the best indicator of plate success.
What Beane and his staff knew that the others didn't was that, when humans are involved, the physics of baseball changes dramatically. There are an almost endless variety of books on the physics of baseball, illustrating the Newtonian principles of the curve ball, but when the human factor is computed the game comes down to probabilities. Newton ceases to reign. Heisenberg rules. While Beane's methods do not assure absolute success they do cut down on the probabilities, and that for the serious baseball fan is what the game is all about.
The paperback edition contains a beautifully written postscript entitled "Inside Baseball's Religious War." It is a counter-attack against the critics of the book and at the same time a devastating example of why baseball is in the mess it's in. The critics missed the point, seeing "Moneyball" as an exaltation of Billy Beane instead of as an examination of his system and why it has worked as well as it has. If baseball is to prosper, it has to forego the myopia that plagues it, and that is the real point Lewis is making.
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The New Yorker, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
The Oakland Athletics have reached the post-season playoffs three years in a row, even though they spend just one dollar for every three that the New York Yankees spend. Their secret, as Lewis's lively account demonstrates, is not on the field but in the front office, in the shape of the general manager, Billy Beane. Unable to afford the star hires of his big-spending rivals, Beane disdains the received wisdom about what makes a player valuable, and has a passion for neglected statistics that reveal how runs are really scored. Beane's ideas are beginning to attract disciples, most notably at the Boston Red Sox, who nearly lured him away from Oakland over the winter. At the last moment, Beane's loyalty got the better of him; besides, moving to a team with a much larger payroll would have diminished the challenge. |
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