Moneyball Thesis

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

In baseball a common factor for determining the quality of a player is batting average. (# of hits/# of bats) This statistic helps to show a player's ability to successfully make contact with the ball, which leads to RBI’s (runs batted

Saberemtrics is the foundation of Beanes whole organizational philosophy, he tries to get players that take pitches, get on base, walk, and hit for extra base hits. Beane doesn't believe in steals because it's too risky or the sacrifice bunt because it's conceding an out. These beliefs are from Bill James formula "runs created". James measures "runs created" as (hits + walks) X Total Bases / (at bats + walks). This formula proved that conventional wisdom about how to measure offense was wrong because there was not enough emphasis on walks and extra base hits and too much value on expensive but not as important statistics such as batting average and stolen bases. (Lewis pg.77-78) Billy Beane has made a livelihood by concentrating on these important but less expensive statistics as a means of competing against bigger market teams.

Players are now tested randomly for performance-enhancing drugs. On January 10, 2013 MLB and the players union reached an agreement to add random in-season human growth hormone testing (Weber, 2014). A first failed test results in a 50 game suspension, a second is 100 games, and a third is a lifetime ban. This is real proof that the MLB truly realizes that this is a problem, because just 10 years ago they started to test the players. Ten years ago the penalty for testing positive was far less severe. For instance a player’s first offense of testing positive for performance enhancers was just a 10 day suspension that’s not even games its days, basically a slap on the wrist. The second offense of testing positive was a 30 day suspension. The third offense was a 60 day suspension, and finally the fourth failed drug test is a one year suspension (Weber, 2014). Many people criticize the testing program. They say that it is not accurate enough and very easy to dodge. Especially now with the emergence of (HGH) human growth hormone you can only get caught if you take your injection within two

Everyone has a specific skill set that they are good at. Some people are good with numbers, others have a gift for writing. The same is true in sports. The Buffalo Bills are very good at losing and disappointing their fans, while the Patriots are fantastic at bending the rules and winning Super Bowls. In baseball, each team is built around a specific group of players in order to create the best possible chance to win the World Series. Some of the greatest players have created seemingly unbreakable statistics. Joe DiMaggio had a hit in fifty-six consecutive games. Barry Bonds hit seven hundred and sixty-two home runs over his twenty-two-year career. Statistics like these only come about once in a generation. Teams are comprised of various talent. Some are like Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera always has a batting average over .300 with at least 25 home runs. These types of players are considered great hitters. Other’s, like Stephan Drew, get a hit less than 20% of the time they have an at bat. Players similar to Drew’s skill set have a job because they are very good at defense and their value on defense out ways their value on offense to their specific team. Baseball is sport rich with statistics. Almost anything one can come up with, has a statistic. In the last ten years alone, top executives, such as Billy Bean, have constructed teams based on advanced statistics and have been fairly successful, like the 2002 Oakland Athletics. Other teams, like the Houston Astros,

This is important for players trying to achieve a higher BA will occasionally chase poorly thrown pitches, which in turn can cause a player to have a higher strikeout rating. One important stat which this writer was not aware of is that the BA does not consider the number of on-base walks (Birnbaum, n.d.). However, those numbers are calculated in a player’s on-base percentage along with showing player’s patience at the plate for better pitch selection to achieve a hit. Conversely players with higher on-base percentages forces the opposing pitcher to throw better pitches, tiring the pitcher’s throwing arm, and the avoidance of a quick outing at the plate (Birnbaum, n.d.). This does not mean having a higher on-base percentage is better than having a high BA nor the opposite, nevertheless, players with higher BA are more sought after by team earning player’s higher

Below is a table and scatter plot displaying David Ortiz’s home runs earned during the past five years with the Boston Red Sox. The data collected is based off of David Ortiz’s home runs earned over the course of that correlating baseball season. The table organizes data into the amount of times David Ortiz was at bat, the amount of earned home runs, as well as the percentage of hits that resulted in home runs. In addition to the table, summary statistics were created to show the mean, variance, standard deviation as well as median of earned home runs. These values show that David Ortiz has been consistent with home runs earned with little variance.

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.

Attention Getter- Ironically, Billy Beane is a prime example of why using his strategy is such a good idea. B. Thesis- Billy Beane changed the way of the sport of baseball and in doing so changed the technique of business recruitment through the use of sabermetrics. C. Preview-

“I aspire to be a GM for a sports team,” this comment would surprise my classmates who know me better as a musician and thespian. However, my passion for researching statistics, assessing talent, and discussing the business behind sports provides the impetus for my career choice. Possibly, I will be the next innovator to Major League Baseball, like GM Billy Beane who pioneered the use of applied statistical analysis to player evaluations and changed the whole concept of recruiting.

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

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.

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.

and analyzing vast amounts of baseball data. Then came the boom in baseball players’ salaries: this dramatically