Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Lesson 1. Introduction.

Michael Monroe Lewis is the best-selling author of The Undoing Project, Liar's Poker, Flash Boys and Moneyball. Since 2009, he has also been a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, mainly writing articles on business, finance, and economics. He is known for his non-fiction works, especially his reports on the financial crisis and behavioral finance. 

Lewis' Moneyball, released in 2003, completely changed the status of the Major Baseball League forever. This is an interesting historical document that not only records the evolution of Major League Baseball but also promotes this development.

This strategy is based on the ideas of baseball writer Bill James, who has been advocating statistical processing of baseball since the 1970s, which he called "sabermetrics." A large part of this book is used to describe Oakland's actions in the 2002 Amateur Draft. For this reason, the team had an unprecedented seven draft picks, in the first round. Despite being a small market team and outspent by tens of millions of dollars by clubs like the Yankees, the Oakland A’s managed to be extremely competitive from 1999 through to 2006. They did this when their general manager Billy Beane embraced a new type of baseball statistics called sabermetrics.

There are a lot of things in this book about how Beane uses analysis tools to select players, and most of the others in Major League Baseball think they have little or no value. The book argues that Oakland A's front office uses player performance analysis indicators to build a team that can surpass and compete with wealthier competitors.

Lesson 2 : what is sabermetrics?

Sabermetrics or SABRmetrics is the empirical analysis of baseball, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. In simple language, it's basically the use of advanced statistics to find processes that result in winning games. The term was coined by Bill James, a baseball historian, and statistician. James called sabermetrics "the search for objective knowledge about baseball." Sabermetrics became mainstream through Moneyball, where they kept a winning team without investing much money.

Sabermetrics has changed the old way of thinking, where scouts have watched players and judged them based on their appearance and athleticism. The front office of many major league teams has adopted the statistician approach. Billy, now regarded as the most famous sabermetrician showed that money is not the only way to be successful in the league. J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta were the notable followers of this formula and were assistants under Beane before going on to