I want to start off by saying that I don't really like baseball, and I never have. It is unbearably dull to watch on TV, and unbearably expensive to watch in person. Nothing much really seems to be going on most of the ten or twelve hours it takes to complete a single game. College Basketball - now there's a sport. Those guys are unbelievable athletes, performing feats of amazing physical skill and agility for a solid forty minutes.
At least, that's how I felt when I started reading Michael Lewis's Moneyball. He sets out to tell the story of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's, and to try to shed some light on how a team with one of the lowest payrolls in professional baseball can consistently win more games in the regular season than just about any other team in the Majors.
I know - it still sounds extremely dull.
And since we have a real war going on, we don't really need sports so much right now anyway, do we? Why in the world would I want to take up an interest in a new sport, one that is only slightly preferable to golf and has a season that lasts almost three quarters of every year?
At least, that's how I felt when I started reading Michael Lewis's Moneyball. He sets out to tell the story of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's, and to try to shed some light on how a team with one of the lowest payrolls in professional baseball can consistently win more games in the regular season than just about any other team in the Majors.
I know - it still sounds extremely dull.
And since we have a real war going on, we don't really need sports so much right now anyway, do we? Why in the world would I want to take up an interest in a new sport, one that is only slightly preferable to golf and has a season that lasts almost three quarters of every year?
I'll tell you why- arbitrage. That's right, I said it. Why, I've been waiting to use that word in a sentence since the mid-nineteen-eighties, when Mickey Rourke's character said it in the movie 9 ½ Weeks. I've been wondering what that word means for twenty-five years, but my love of wasting time has prevented me from looking it up until now.
Arbitrage is all about exploiting inefficiencies in the marketplace. Back before widespread computer synchronization of the various trade exchanges, it was actually possible for a commodity to be selling for more on one exchange than it was on another, allowing you to buy in the cheap exchange while simultaneously selling the same thing in the higher priced exchange, thereby realizing an instant profit!
That's actually pretty interesting, you say - what does that have to do with baseball?
Arbitrage is all about exploiting inefficiencies in the marketplace. Back before widespread computer synchronization of the various trade exchanges, it was actually possible for a commodity to be selling for more on one exchange than it was on another, allowing you to buy in the cheap exchange while simultaneously selling the same thing in the higher priced exchange, thereby realizing an instant profit!
That's actually pretty interesting, you say - what does that have to do with baseball?
Well, Billy Beane and the Oakland A's believe that they have found a similar discrepancy between the traditional player valuation models used by everyone else in baseball, and the Oakland A's player valuation models - used by no one else in baseball. And that is how the Oakland A's have been able to win so many games with so little money - they commoditize new recruits, develop them into stars worth significantly more on the open market than they were purchased for, and trade them. Or sometimes they keep them - who cares? They are the only team in baseball who can accurately model success, so they are always uncovering diamonds in the rough, and consistently wind up with a significantly better group of players than they should have been able to afford.
Believe, me, this is a fascinating story - it even had me watching a little baseball this year. And interestingly enough, the Boston Red Sox finally won the world series in 2004, after hiring some of Billy Beane's staff away from him, and combining the A's ideas about measuring efficacy of players with one of the largest payrolls in baseball.
Believe, me, this is a fascinating story - it even had me watching a little baseball this year. And interestingly enough, the Boston Red Sox finally won the world series in 2004, after hiring some of Billy Beane's staff away from him, and combining the A's ideas about measuring efficacy of players with one of the largest payrolls in baseball.
This is the story of one man's struggle to recognize his own value, and to see past the unrealistic expectations others had for him. It is also the story of one team's struggle to overcome seemingly insurmountable financial odds and field a winning professional baseball team. And it is a story about seeing through denial - about having the courage to do what you know is right in the face of tremendous peer pressure to do otherwise.
This is David and Goliath set in the locker rooms of America's favorite pastime. And I have to admit that in addition to spinning a wonderful number-crunching adventure, Lewis really managed to touch me with the human side of his tale as well. The fast paced journey of discovery of the flaws in baseball's analysis of itself eventually had me re-examining the way I evaluate my own life and performance in various arenas. I kept thinking that if they could be that wrong about the most analyzed sport in history, what else could "they" be wrong about? What else have I been wrong about?
This is David and Goliath set in the locker rooms of America's favorite pastime. And I have to admit that in addition to spinning a wonderful number-crunching adventure, Lewis really managed to touch me with the human side of his tale as well. The fast paced journey of discovery of the flaws in baseball's analysis of itself eventually had me re-examining the way I evaluate my own life and performance in various arenas. I kept thinking that if they could be that wrong about the most analyzed sport in history, what else could "they" be wrong about? What else have I been wrong about?
