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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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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| 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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Wall Street Journal, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
Another journalistic tour de force. |
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Washington Post, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
Engaging, informative, and deliciously contrarian. |
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A reader, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
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.
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A reader, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
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.
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Mike Edelman, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
I am not much of a baseball fan, but after reading a review of this book I was compelled to borrow a copy. The story is set against the backdrop of baseball, but it reads more like the solving of a great scientific mystery.
Anyone growing up in America, whether or not they even watch baseball, knows the basic stats that ballplayers are judged by: Batting average, RBIs, ERA and so forth. You can't escape them. And these are the numbers that make or break careers. Want to improve your team? Sell that .280 hitter and bring in a .295 hitter. Get a pitcher with a lower ERA, an so on. This was the received wisdom. To everyone but players of "Rotissiere Baseball", that is.
"Rotissiere Baseball" is a paper-and-pencil version of the game popular with thousands of fans who trade players and play games based on the roll of the dice and statistics that they've compiled- statististics very different from the ones commonly reported. The players- many of them mathematicians, actuaries and others with a mind for numbers. These stats- termed "sabermetrics"- were empirically derived and then validated againt actual player performance. And yet they were completely ignored by the people who could most benifit from them- the owners and managers of the major league teams.
With one exception: The A's Billy Beane. An ex-player himself, Billy didn't have the math skills of those who compiled the sabermetric model, but he did have an uncommon amount of intelligence, and knew a good thing when he saw it. He used the sabermetric model to identify undervalued and overvalued players, and quickly traded his way to a top performing team with a relatively small budget.
Now that wasn't the only reason for the A's success, and Beane's skill went beyond just his utilization of the model, but it's the central issue in this story. The book isn't just about the math, of course; the portraits of Beane and the players he selects are every bit as fascinating. A good read for baseball fans, and a fascinating introduction to an arcane world for the math minded.
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1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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