Michael Lewis has long been one of my favorite non-fiction authors. From his 1989 novel
Liar's Poker which discussed his four years as a bond trader at Solomon Brothers, through
The New New Thing, an autobiography of Jim Clark, the only man to found three billion dollar companies, through Next, an analysis of how technologies like the internet and TiVo change society, his books remain insightful, entertaining, and to a large degree inspiring. When finishing one of his novels you are left reluctant to start reading a new book since you need to digest and savor what was just read.
Moneyball, Michael Lewis's attempt to answer the simple question of how the Oakland A's win so many games with one of lowest budgets in baseball, is no exception.
To answer that question Lewis spends much time interviewing and working with A's general management, especially their GM Billy Beane. Beane was a can't miss high school phenom who made it to the majors but never quite reached his superstar potential as a player, quit, and at a very young age become a scout. Unlike other scouts who were old school in their scouting techniques (he's fast, has a great arm, we can teach him how to hit), Billy Beane tried looking at things from a scientific and statistical perspective So what if he is overweight, he's got a .560 on-base percentage).
The book discusses the origins of sabermetrics, the origin of rotisserie baseball, the establishment and goals of companies like Stats, Inc., the rise of baseball geniuses like Bill James, and the role of the internet in fostering communication on the science and analysis of baseball statistics. Most interestingly though, this all occurred in a seemingly parallel world to actual Major League Baseball general management and scouting. In fact it still is a parallel world. Most teams and scouts to this day apparently don't read, look at stats in new ways, nor draft according to science rather than gut or instinct.
Billy Beane and his staff learned, from studying and doing their own analysis ideas such as:
- Players drafted out of high school so rarely make the majors compared to those drafted out of college that they're a waste of money. (During the draft covered in the book those present in the A's clubhouse cheered when a different team...a sucker...drafted a high school player because that increased the likelihood of their choices still being available.)
- Saves are the most over-rated and hence over-paid for statistic in baseball. Beane said players are like stocks and relievers the most volatile. 30 years ago a SAVE meant coming in to a one-run game with the bases loaded and nobody out. Today it means coming in fresh with nobody on base with a lead and being the 4th pitcher a batter has faced. Beane would put mediocre pitchers in the closers spot, they'd get their 20 to 30 saves, and then trade them for multiple top draft picks and money.
- Walks and On Base Percentage were more meaningful...and cheaper to buy offensive statistics than RBIs, Average, or Home Runs.
- Teams that used sacrifice bunts and stolen bases didn't score more runs.
Obviously, if you don't find the above examples that interesting you might not love the book. But watching Beane draft, trade, and assemble play-off teams for one-fourth or one-fifth the budget of big-market teams was fascinating. It was also frustrating if you're a fan of teams other than the A's because the story illustrated numerous examples of Beane making the GM of your favorite team look like an idiot.
I can go on forever summarizing anecdotes from the book. My not-so-brief review doesn't really do the book justice. I'd just recommend that if you're a baseball fan, let me rephrase...a real baseball fan... that appreciates baseball as thinking man's sport, you should definitely read this book.
Let me also take this opportunity to send a quick cyberspace Congratulations to Keith Law. After the 2001 season the Toronto Blue Jays wanted to emulate Oakland's intelligent winning style so they hired Oakland's director of player development J.P. Ricciardi. According to the book the first thing J.P. Ricciardi did after he took the job was hire Keith Law, a twenty-eight-year-old Harvard Graduate who had never played baseball, but who wrote lots of interesting articles about it for baseballprospectus.com. About two pages after reading the above it hit me...Hey, I know Keith Law. He went to the same high-school as I and while I didn't know him well in high-school we had some brief professional correspondence in the summer of 1997 when I was with commissioner.com...a rotisserie baseball stat service.
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