MoneyBall- An excellent book on how undervalued low-budgeted people win in Baseball consistently.
Professional sports is dominated by teams who spend the most to win. Most leagues do not have the concept of a salary cap to even the playing field. Hence teams like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Real Madrid, AC Milan, LA Lakers, Ferrari etc. dominate their sports. However in professional baseball or MLB, one team despite having one of the smallest payrolls has succeeded in reaching the MLB playoffs the last 5 years. Is this actually possible? Can David beat Goliath in the real world?
In fact, this team has succeeded in winning as many games as the New York Yankees over the last few years. This despite the fact that this team has less than one third of the resources of the Yankees(Yankees annual salaries cap is currently about $200 million).
The team I’m referring to is the Oakland Athletics.
In the NY Times best seller, MoneyBall:The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis discusses the various management techniques used by the management of the Oakland Athletics to be so successful. The Oakland A’s management team includes GM Billy Beane, his assistant Paul DePodesta(currently with the LA Dodgers) and the scouting team with JP Ricciardi(currently the GM of the Toronto Blue Jays).
Here’s a list of a few chapters and a brief description, followed by My Take:
The Curse of Talent -
Billy Beane, the current GM of the A’s was once a highly touted high-school baseball player. He had the physical skills, but he struggled to make it in the major leagues.
How to find a Ball player
This is a chapter which goes into how the Management and the scouting department scouts Ball players. Its very similar to an Interview process. Only difference is they look at stats and skills of the player, unlike the applicants resumes.
The Enlightenment
Here it talks about Billy Beane’s failure as a player. It also introduces Sandy Alderson as the new GM for the Oakland A’s. The chapter discusses the retooling of the A’s with a change in the management. The change forces them to become a low-budget team. Also Bill James the statistical guru who revolutionized the use of statistics like OPS(On base percentage) to determine the value of players.
The Jeremy Brown Special
Jeremy Brown and Nick Swisher are 2 players who are undervalued, but terrific prospects who when taken in the higher rounds can be had for a bargain. The catch though is to get them while warding of the Managers of the other 28 teams.
It gives insight into how Billy Beane shrewdly managed the draft process, getting what the other teams wanted but getting things much more valuable.
The Science of winning an unfair game
This is the meat chapter or the entree of the book. To quote from the book, a survey was conducted by Bug Selig the head honcho of MLB, which asked 2 questions:
’’1. If poor teams were in such dire financial condition, why did rich guys keep paying higher prices to buy them?
- If poor teams had no hope, how did the Oakland A?s, with the second lowest payroll in all of baseball, win so many games??’’
This meant that consistent winning in the game of baseball was not based on Financial strength alone. You just cannot buy top players using your checkbook and expect to win. Teams like the New York Mets, St.Louis Cardinals and Red Sox were examples of how to be burned by big money failures. How did the Oakland A’s under Billy Beane, then have an ace up their sleeve?
It shows the use of AVM systems a statistical company which used a highly innovative technique of removing the element of luck out of the game statistics, to give accurate numbers.
The Trading Desk
During the course of a season, things change, you need players at certain positions. Or certain players get injured or go down in slumps. Hence often a trade is necessary, like the trade of A-Rod or Beckham or Rooney.
Billy Beane has been known as a notoriously shrewd bargainer. As a GM he has got the car salesman kind of skill to trade players. However its a one-way street, there are only 29 teams, so he needs to be careful about burning bridges. Hence here it talks about how he gets Ricardo Rincon, while paying the costs by trading a couple of minor leaguers to the Mets for some prospects and cash.
My Take:
Anyone reading this book might ask ’’Do I need to know baseball to understand this book?’’.
The answer is ’’depends’’. This is an excellent book talks a lot about management in baseball. However the larger picture is, it gives fertile ideas about how innovative you can be with limited budgets. Real life stories of how Billy Beane’s management techniques are a great read. Its very witty, with a lot of details about a game, yet transcends the game and goes into the fight that goes about running a small low budget organization in a very competitive arena where the competitors have lots of cash to spend. Beyond all this, this book shows the determination of the management of the A’s to create change,
In the ways the team is built.
In the ways the players are scouted
In the way the team plays the game of baseball.
All this in the face of tradition and common techniques. That is the concept of Moneyball teams.