The team will work like a clock, with each cog serving its own purpose (no matter how hopeless they may be at another area). This method holds that the skill of individual players aren’t what makes or breaks a team in the long run, the goal is to make sure that each necessary skill is accounted for, whether by one player or four. Sabermetrics, or moneyball, is the practice of crunching copious amounts of data in an effort to build a stronger and smarter team without needing to go after the rock stars of the sport who may cost a team millions. Runs batted in (RBI), batting average (BA), and on-base percentage (OBP) numbers were accounted for in the past by other scouts, but none had done so with the single-minded focus shown by Oakland General Manager Billy Beane and his right hand man Paul DePodesta, a Harvard graduate who had never played pro ball in his life. The Oakland A’s of 2002 thought that this secret lay not with athletic superstars, high-tech gear, or rabid fan bases, but with the mundane and banal data that had slowly been piling up over years of high school, college, and pro-ball competition. The book describes “a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can’t buy: the secret of success in baseball,” and in a sense, that’s true. All of these elements can be found in Michael Lewis’ 2004 New York Times bestseller, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. And above all else, an unprecedented 20-game winning streak that no one saw coming.

Money ball michael lewis