Moneyball Review

The new approach helped the Oakland A’s succeed because it was ethical. Billy Beane used numbers to evaluate the players. Numbers matter but can be misleading. By looking closely and understanding what he was doing Billy made good decisions based on numbers. The old approach was unethical because it misjudged the players. In the “old fashion statistics of the players some key important factors were left out. For instance the old statistics did not mention the number of walks a batter earned. This left out information misleads coach’s judgments and resulted in scouts undervaluing players.

In the offseason, a number of Camden Depot (http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2015/01/appreciate-what-miguel-gonzalez-is.html) writers (http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2015/01/looking-at-miguel-gonzalezs-clutch.html) wrote articles discussing how Miguel Gonzalez has outperformed his FIP. This year has turned out to be no exception so far as he has an ERA of 3.33 and an FIP of 4.60 (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2015&month=0&season1=2012&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=7024) based mainly upon a .235 BABIP (2nd best out of 106) and an 82.2% LOB (7th best out of 106).

Therefore Billy Beane decides to set an unconventional strategy in order to be able to compete with other wealthy teams “out there”. His goal setting is based on the strategy he sets for his game in what he calls “an unfair game”. Manager Billy knows that decreasing cost is the main concern of the top executives of his team. The main shareholders and stakeholders have set their goals based on their conservative approaches. To be more specific, the top manager of Oakland Athletic is not willing to take any risk in order to pay more money to recruit better players.

From chapter 6-3: Does Baseball Need a Salary Cap? by Neil deMause Perhaps no two words in baseball generate as much controversy and emotion as "salary cap. " Depending on whom you ask, a salary cap would either save the game, destroy the players' union, provide hope for small-market fans, pervert the free market, or create a tangle of red tape that would turn every trade deadline into a battle of wits among dueling "capologists. " Whenever owners and players have to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement -- the next tussle is scheduled for after the 2006 season -- discussion of a cap is sure to follow.

Batting average was the norm adopted by other baseball teams. But training for Oakland was focused on the player’s ability to obtain on-base scoring. The team relied more on selecting players by their on-base percentages. According to Sabermetrics model, teams always win with players having attained high on-base percentages.

What it comes down to is the difference between the need to do something and the option to do something. None other than Bill James, a widely known baseball writer, noted that the perceived “strategy” is actually very “trite, predictable, and actually nonstrategic.” Instead of manager's deciding on what substitution, or lack thereof, can give their team an advantage, they are forced with situations in which they must bunt, must pinch hit, and must double switch. As James notes, "the American League game allows a true option, and thus true strategy." This means that whatever AL managers decide to do when it comes to offensive batting substitutions, they do so to benefit their team, not because they are forced to do so (Meehan, 2013). These substitutions, including the commonly used “double switch” - where a pinch-hitter is substituted for the pitcher and the next inning is substituted again for a relief pitcher, take up time in the game. It is significantly a problem in the MLB where the longevity and the slow pace of the game has caused many fans to get bored sitting through a full nine innings. Especially with the addition of instant replay, the game continues to get longer and it has become a challenge for many fans to watch an entire game. Brian Costa, sports reporter for the Wall Street Journal, wrote an article about the reasons for the length and slow pace of the game. He mentions that it has become normal for fans to complain about hitters stepping out of the batter's box, pitchers pacing around the mound and pitching changes. Red Sox Chief Operating Officer Sam Kennedy even states that this problem is one of the most critical issues facing baseball as we move forward into the next three, five, seven years (Costa, 2014). Joe Sheehan also wrote an article about the increasing

Traditional methods of attracting players involved 'throwing money' at top talent that had been recruited based upon the speculative 'eyeing' of a scout. However, the Oakland A's low payroll and surprising success record seemed to defy the wisdom of this technique. Billy Beane used the technique of Sabermetrics, which argued such controversial positions such as the fact that that errors were overly subjective as a way of 'grading' players and that clutch hitting was overrated as a judge of someone's ability to turn a game around. Beane emphasized statistics over scouting.

This paper will explore the effect of team chemistry on performance in Major League Baseball (MLB). In the 2000s, the Yankees were a team of great individual talent, however, their lack of team unity was noticeable. In the playoffs, when heart, guts, and team chemistry matter greatly, the Yankees fell short and were easily eliminated each year. It wasn’t until 2009, when the Yankees acquired jokester Nick Swisher, prankster AJ Burnett, and fun loving C.C. Sabathia that the chemistry of the team improved drastically. Shaving cream pies to the faces of players who got the game winning hit, and various other team pranks became the norm in the once tense Yankee clubhouse.

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

How did Beane’s approach to baseball change the game? A: He changed the way Teams looked at people. He looked at people’s potential, instead of just looking at the qualities they had, he looked at the qualities they could develop.

He goes into detail about Beane to have a better understanding of the present, including Beane’s coworkers. Lewis then examines Beane’s strategies for recruiting and his style of play and goes into detail about a certain strategy Beane utilizes. This strategy is known as Sabermetrics. Sabermetrics is simply the analysis of baseball by looking in to detailed statistics. It was invented by fans but was not widely accepted by Major League Baseball as an effective way to examine success. Lewis then focuses on Bill James, a dominant sabermetrician, and one of Paul DePodesta’s influences as

Under the protection of Major League Baseball’s (“MLB”) longtime antitrust exemption, Minor League Baseball (“MiLB”) has continuously redefined and reshaped itself according to Baseball’s overall needs. But while MLB salaries have increased dramatically since the MLB reserve clause was broken in 1975, the salaries of minor league players have not followed suit.

One of the most debatable topics in Major League Baseball (MLB) is whether a salary cap should be implemented for each team in the league. A salary cap is an agreement between teams that places a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on player salaries (Britana). Of the three American major professional sports, football, baseball, and basketball, Major League Baseball is the only one that does not have a salary cap. There is more competitiveness with baseball than any other sport. As Demause states, “Depending on whom you ask, a salary cap would save the game, destroy the players’ union, provide hope for small-market fans, pervert the free market, or create a tangle or red tape that would turn every trade deadline into a

This is why Major League Baseball players are so special; their mental capabilities exceed the average person’s and allow them to beat the wall of failure standing right in front of them. What got the best of Beane is a common thing in baseball and the mentally weak players allow this horrible thing to consume them thus lowering their level of play even more. This “thing” is called a hitting slump. Batting slumps are a scary thing for baseball players because when they are in one, it reiterates how difficult baseball actually is (Kurkjian). Even extraordinary hitters such as Albert Pujols, who is one of the greatest players in league history, is prone to a slump. Slumps are proven to cause great mental strain on players because they are constantly thinking about what they are doing wrong and wondering how to fix it, which in turn causes players to lose sleep (Kurkjian). This is where one can see the biggest difference between baseball compared to football or basketball. Unlike football or basketball, baseball players can go on a hot streak and then suddenly plummet to the bottom (Kurkjian). Batting slumps are a horrible thing for fans to watch and even worse for the player enduring it; but when that slump is

Before Billy Beane, baseball teams used subjective methods of recruiting new players that looked at statistics such as the ability to hit, run, and throw. Beane broke this orthodox by taking on an objective style of recruitment in which he broadened his horizons past the typically examined stats and hyped up players. By doing so, Beane was able to gather together a group of ragtag baseball players that became more successful than