Particularize Books During Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Original Title: | Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game |
ISBN: | 0393324818 (ISBN13: 9780393324815) |
Edition Language: | English |
Literary Awards: | Casey Award (2003), Listen-Up Award (2011) |
Representaion As Books Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans.Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. --John Moe
Details About Books Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Title | : | Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game |
Author | : | Michael Lewis |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 317 pages |
Published | : | March 17th 2004 by W. W. Norton Company (first published 2003) |
Categories | : | Nonfiction. Sports. Baseball. Business. Economics |
Rating About Books Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Ratings: 4.26 From 94861 Users | 4820 ReviewsJudge About Books Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Moneyball is a book that shook the world of professional baseball, but not necessarily in the way it should have. Let me explain...Moneyball is framed around the story of Billy Beane, a hot prospect who never panned out in the majors, who became general manager of the Oakland A's in 1997. Since that time, the A's, while consistently having one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, have been one of the best teams in the game. How is this possible? The book details how Beane and a few trustedBilly Beane raises his right hand up- There are rich teams, there are poor teams, there is 50 feet of crap and then there is US. reaches the table level. Thirty pages into book I knew this book is going to be completely different from movie version only time to decide if its engaging or uncompelling. So I thought I would find a way to supply my patience fuel for another thirty pages or so, then I shall confidently decide on quitting or no because after all, this was not the story I fell in love
I know next to nothing about baseball, and less than that about statistics, but this book about applying new statistical thinking in baseball to the selection of a winning team (the Oakland A's) was absolutely riveting reading for me. Michael Lewis is just that good.
I read Moneyball at a time when I wasn't reading too much besides preschool kids books and reread it for the baseball book club I am a part of on good reads. Michael Lewis follows the story of general manager Billy Bean and his 2002 Oakland As, a low budget baseball team that managed to win their division going away. What is remarkable is that Bean built his team focusing on sabermetrics, not home runs and RBIs. He knew he did not have money to compete with the Yankees of the world and assembled
I found this book extremely interesting, especially since I didn't read it until eight years after it came out, meaning I knew how all the draft picks and other players mentioned in the book panned out (a topic on which a good deal has now been written). Only my rule of always reading the book before seeing the movie prompted me pick it up now, a decision I don't regret.The book had some interesting tidbits I wasn't aware of, such as where the term sabremetrics came from ("The name derives from
This is a good book, but not as good as I thought it was going to be. Sometimes I find technical writing to be a bit repetitive and this definitely leans more toward technical non-fiction than biography (I was hoping for more of a human interest story here)because even though Billy Beane takes up a large chunk of the story, it isnt really a story about Billy Bean per se.Moneyball was published in 2003, only a year after John Henry bought the Boston Red Sox. Before that time, very few people in
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