Billy Beane Research Paper

The book Moneyball by Michael Lewis is about a former major league baseball player who became the manager of the Oakland A’s. It tells the story of how he led the team to success despite their low budget by using computer based analytics to draft players. With the help of Bill James, the Oakland A’s came up with a new plan based on statistics to draft players. He went after players nobody wanted due to their low budget and his new plan. Billy led the Oakland Athletics to a successive win seasons by changing the way he measured players. He abandoned the traditional 5 “tool” the other scouts used and adopted empirical analytics. The abandonment of the traditional assessment of

Baseball statistics are meant to be a representation of a player’s talent. Since baseball’s inception around the mid-19th century, statistics have been used to interpret the talent level of any given player, however, the statistics that have been traditionally used to define talent are often times misleading. At a fundamental level, baseball, like any game, is about winning. To win games, teams have to score runs; to score runs, players have to get on base any way they can. All the while, the pitcher and the defense are supposed to prevent runs from scoring. As simplistic as this view sounds, the statistics being used to evaluate individual players were extremely flawed. In an attempt to develop more

He was not going by the proper way to scout players. Other scouts were getting mad he was not doing this. Billy believed in the statistics. As the 2002 Oakland Athletic team started off strong with three straight wins in the beginning. As the season started going, the A’s started a 20 game winning streak. Billy was praised for finding these players that were all pulling in the same direction. Not one player had an ego that would set back the team. Just like Billy, the players were focused on one thing winning, winning the World Series. Billy lived by this quote, “The problem,”‘ wrote James, “is that baseball statistics are not pure accomplishments of men against other men, which is what we are in the habit of seeing them as. They are accomplishments of men in combination with their circumstances” (Lewis 71). Billy just did not focus on the stats rather he also focused on what the player actually accomplished throughout their years of playing baseball. This is what made him one of the best general managers in the league at the time. After the A’s did not make it past the first round of the playoffs all of the criticism waiting for the Billy to fail for the first time started to pour in. Billy simply responded “We’ll be back.” Billy was not viewed as a real general manager in the beginning, but after he succeeded he gained

MLB teams are finding new innovative ways to use analytics, one way is to use the statistics for a more effective way to evaluate free agents. “Astros employed an analysis based on the TrackMan system to acquire an unaccomplished pitcher called Collin McHugh, because of his fast-spinning curveball” (“Every Step They”). “They then told him to throw that pitch far more often during the next season, and he blossomed into a star” (“Every Step They”). General Managers and coaches can use these analytics to scout areas they have never scouted before. Analytics gives teams more resources and more assistance to evaluate players. “For example, by comparing the number of strikes called for a catcher in relation to every other catcher in the league, the data can illustrate how good any one catcher is at getting umpires to call strikes” (Nadler). “Additionally, general managers and scouts can use

There’s always some people hating on the fact that MLB players are paid millions of dollars, but never have anything to back up how they are overpaid besides saying that it is ridiculous how much their paycheck is. Little do they know, that some of the money comes from fans, ticket sales, endorsements, and how well they perform. There is a lot more that goes into how they EARN that money.

There have been many famous figures that have made a significant impact in the sport industry. One person, who was hired in 2002 at the age of 28, is one of those people. Theo Epstein has made monumental waves in the sport industry since he became the general manager of the Boston Red Sox in 2002. Since then, Epstein has gone on to revolutionize baseball in hiring young, educated, talented minds with knowledge and understanding of sabermetrics to lead their organizations. Epstein was one of the first general managers to receive the title who had no professional baseball playing experience. As a model of success, other Major League Baseball franchises have begun hiring young intellectuals like Epstein to run their teams.

1. Based on the “Billy Beane: Changing the Game” case, explain how and why the Oakland A’s economic situation after 1995 shaped its:

Baseball is considered America's pastime as it is steeped in history and prestige. However, due in part to the emergence of alternative sporting events such as skateboarding, snowboarding and competitive biking, the profits previously garnered within the industry are not growing as fast as they once where. In fact, in many instances, individual player salaries are outpacing the growth of ticket and television revenue. Table 1 within the appendix was constructed by Michael J. Haupert, a professor at the University of Wisconsin. The table depicts TV revenue (excluding local markets), average ticket price, and average player salary from 1964 to 2002. For your convenience the pertinent information is highlighted in yellow. As depicted from the chart, total television revenue from 1964 to 2002 increased nearly 1000% on an inflation adjusted basis. During this same period however, player salaries have increase by over 2500%. Likewise, average ticket prices have not increased by this magnitude either (Haupert, 2010). Futhermore, according to the Forbes, every team in baseball with the exception of one (The Florida Marlins) spent at least 80% of their revenue on baseball operations last year. These operations include player salaries as well. The percentages vary and ranged from the Detroit Tigers who spent 116% of their revenue (operated at a loss), to the Marlins who spent 68%. Seventeen teams spent 90% or more on baseball operating expenses (Pasnanski, 2010). To many individuals,

The A's recent success is attributed to the innovative approach taken by Billy Beane in assembling a baseball team with a very limited amount of financial resources. Billy Beane has built a successful ball club because he has found an efficient and cost effective way of measuring baseball talent thus essentially creating a loophole in this unfair game because winning percentage is a result of talent not

The 10 year contract which Tom Hicks and his team proposed for Alex Rodriguez was one of the biggest ever in the history of Baseball. It was a major Investment decision for the group. The Group had taken over the Dallas Stars few years earlier and spent on buying quality players. This worked wonders for the team and Dallas Stars went on to lead the group. Tom Hicks had a policy of spending 50-55% of team revenue on team payrolls. If that is maintained he always gains an operating profit of 10-15%.

Moneyball The film Moneyball is not just about baseball, rather it is how two individuals, Billy Beane and Peter Brand, apply economic concepts to create an affordable, competitive team. The Oakland Athletics is a small market team with a limited budget. The general manager, Billy Beane, is faced with the challenge of replacing three key players: Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen with a constraining budget. Furthermore, Billy states, “The problem we are trying to solve there are rich teams and there are poor teams

George et al.,(2007) provide the importance of an authentic leadership. A key focus of the article is that the leader should not only understand his values, but practice them as well. One of the most interesting values described by Billy Beane is his value of education. Major League Baseball would recognize him as one of the top high school talents in the country during his youth. He valued education so much, that he informed all Major League Baseball teams that he would not sign any professional contract so that he could attend Stanford. Even upon being convinced to sign with the New York Mets, he made his intentions of taking classes in the off season quite clear. This may have been his undoing as a player, as he did not value where his natural talents could take him in baseball. This would lead him to develop values regarding life decisions. He swore after that sequence of events he would never make a decision based on money ever again. This is a value he has stayed true to, as he turned down the opportunity to be the highest paid

Sabermetrics is a systematic statistical approach in evaluating teams and players. Based on this science it was found out that this basis for judging the performance of the player should be on-base percentage. The Oakland A’s recruitment would prioritize college players rather than high school players. This was due to the fact that college players have already played more games against better competition. Beane was convinced with the fact that “a young player” is not what he looks like, or what he might become, but what he has done. The bottom line is what the player has produced in college. Beane and DePodesta believed that they could forecast future performance of college players more efficiently than high school ones.

In the off-season, the Athletics realize that they will not have the payroll to resign their two best players – Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon. This leads to the first major negotiation in the film, between the Athletics’ scouts and their General Manager, Billy Beane.

Major League Baseball is known as America’s favorite pastime, and MLB teams spend an extensive amount of money in the excess of a billion dollars with the ultimate goal to win the World Series. This learning team’s focus throughout this descriptive statistics paper is the MLB players’ performances, salaries, salary caps, and winning percentages. Though salaries will by no means be a trade for wins, the goal is to use the less experienced players and pay them a lower salary. Research has been done on whether or not player’s salaries and wins are connected.