Moneyball - Michael Lewis

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Category: Sports, non-fiction Acquired: Suggested/loaned by Ben Z. at work Read: July 2008 Briefly: Unique ways of judging player talent keep the Oakland Athletics perennial contenders in the AL West, despite having one of the smallest payrolls in the Major Leagues.

Comments: I've always been a little skeptical of baseball statistics, particularly the ones popularly used to compare players, but which clearly don't tell the whole story. For example, a pitcher's W-L ratio can have as much to do with his team's offensive performance as it does his own pitching skill. A player's batting average fails to reward those who get on base in other ways - walks, in particular - which are just as useful as hitting singles.

This book, written by a Bay area author, describes how A's GM Billy Beane developed his own ways of judging talent, ignoring traditional metrics and even setting aside the traditional wisdom of his scouting staff. He shocked the Major Leagues by drafting and trading for players who were unimpressive by conventional standards. As a result, he was able to get maximum mileage from his salary budget, for which the numbers are impressive - typically half that of most teams.

While there's no doubt that the A's have been a team to reckon with for the past 10 years or so, it's a little hard to say that it's been specifically because of this approach. The proof just isn't there. Nonetheless, this book is an interesting read because of the insights it gives into how teams choose players, and how they wheel and deal in their back rooms when it's time to trade. There are also a few nice character studies of players who were chosen against all odds, and who did indeed become the contributors that Beane predicted.