Moneyball Critical Analysis

Moneyball is a book written by Michael Lewis when he follow Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane in the summer of 2003 to see about his approach to running a major league organization. He figures out that just because you may not have all of the money in the world, say like the New York Yankees, that you can still win your division and make the playoffs. Billy Beane shows you his approach at how he win’s as many games as he does that no other team was willing to follow.He would pay attention to statistics that no one else did, like on base percentage, amount of walks, and slugging percentage, and made his team into one of the best in the majors. Since his theory has been proven it’s been shown that on base percentage and slugging percentage are better signs of offensive success and avoiding an out is more important than getting a hit.

Oakland had one of the smallest payrolls in the league with $55 million and were forced to get small market players to fill their roster. That meant that every pick they had in the amateur draft counted and couldn’t afford to miss. In the book it talks about how Billy got his idea on why to run his organization like this, and he got it from Bill James. Bill James was a writer and obsessive baseball fan who wrote many books on baseball, but his Baseball Abstract are the ones that had the most impact.James’ books though were laughed at when they first came out and didn’t really make an impact until Billy Beane, who had read every book of James’, ran his organization like James’ had said to. Ever since then almost every club has changed how they go about picking up players and using players. Moneyball is one of the best books of all time and has helped changed the way baseball is looked at and played in many peoples eyes and even in major league organizations.