Moneyball by Michael Lewis
If Jackie Robinson’s appearance in Major League Baseball as the first African American player was a revelation of US baseball history, then Moneyball, The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis will give you a mesmerising adventure through the art of modern baseball marketing and economics.
This nonfiction piece is framed around the story of Billy Beane, a hot prospect who never succeeded in the majors of the Oakland A’s in 1997. However, after Billy Beane has become the General Manager (GM) of the Oakland A’s at a young age, the Athletics has consistently performed as one of the best in the country while having one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Mathematically, how is this even possible? The book includes how Beane, along with a few other associates, begin to look at the game of baseball in a totally different aspect. Instead of trusting old scouts’ intuition and traditional baseball approaches, the A’s begin to focus on statistics from computers, attempting to find data that no other team can find. This method allowed Billy Beane to construct winning teams using players that were either overlooked, discarded, or disregarded by other teams, which significantly lowered the value of that player, allowing financially disadvantageous teams to snatch up these gems.

As seen by the graph, the Oakland Athletics seem to be extremely cost efficient compared to the amount of salary they had to pay players.
In order to dig further into these wondrous moments of “Billy Beane Baseball,” a scrutinisation of his trading method is essential to look into. One of the chapters of the novel, “The Trading Desk,” goes into great depth about how Billy Beane attempts to acquire the players he wants through his cunning mind and exploiting the mentality of other general managers. “The trick was to persuade other teams to buy his guys for more than they were worth, and sell their guys for less than they were worth,” quotes Billy Beane from the book. For example, Beane wants replacements in his closing pitchers, since his pitchers are Mike Magnante, is 37 years old who is losing steam for the big leagues, and Mike Venafro, who is seen as dispensable from the club. Therefore, Beane sees Ricardo Rincon, a Cleveland Indian pitcher, as an “A class pitcher.” Billy Beane, through a series of phone calls with the Indians, Mets, Giants, and Expos, is able to acquire Ricardo Rincon in a way that fits perfectly with his principles; selling his players for more than their value and buying players for less than their value. Even though Beane seldom goes towards the extremities when trading players, he tried whatever he can in order to boost the team’s quality, therefore has earned a threatening reputation amongst other general managers. Through these “A class trades,” Beane has brought up the Athletics to a world series challenging team.

The impact “Moneyball/Billy Beane Ball” has brought towards the baseball society is too immense. “Moneyball” changed the way many major league baseball teams’ front offices do business. General managers got a more significant role in the baseball society, and suddenly, numbers was the big deal. Sabermetrics, the empirical analysis of baseball, especially stats that measure in game activity, was regarded important compared to the first time it was coined. Statistics was thoroughly researched by sabermetric analysts to find the best gems of baseball. A famous sabermetric analyst is Paul DePodesta, current New York Mets general manager, and former Oakland Athletics front office assistant. DePodesta researched worthy numbers with his computer and convinced his front office that numbers are now more superior than instinct. It was a revolutionary time of baseball marketing.

The story of “Moneyball” and Billy Beane is astounding, innovational, a revelation. Michael Lewis has provided the story of “Moneyball” in a way that intrigues baseball-pro people with its endless and flooding information about baseball. On the other hand, the book also grabs the attention of baseball-con readers, since they can learn about the human values of determination, choice, and regret that Billy Beane experiences. For example, when a job offer comes to Beane for the general manager of the Boston Red Sox, the story dives deeply into Beane’s feelings, choices, and eventually his decision.
In the afterword section of this novel, Michael Lewis writes that his inspiration for this book came from a simple question of baseball executives’ managing ability, and expanded his shallow knowledge of baseball through books, and often going to the Athletics’ clubhouse and meeting Billy Beane and Paul Depodesta. Even though on some occasions Michael Lewis was kicked out of the clubhouse, and seemed indifferent to the front office people, Michael Lewis eventually his created masterpiece; “Moneyball.” Billy Beane is a hero, creating a high quality baseball team in an innovative manner, but Michael Lewis should also be considered a hero, for his boldness and desire for more knowledge he wishes to pass onto his readers.