...Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game The Oakland A's, under the management of Billy Beane, found a gap in the baseball skills market that existed because most baseball scouts and managers used traditional methods of selecting players that were outdated and had little relationship with skills that brought success to teams. Traditionally, baseball scouts mainly used batting averages (BA) and Runs batted in (RBI) to sign new players. On-base percentage (OBP) was used too, but it was not given as much premium as RBI and BA. Thus, when looking for players, almost all scouts went for players that scored highly on BA and RBI while ignoring those that scored highly on OBP but had low scores in BA and RBI. However, through analysis of massive amounts of data and reading Bill James’ series of baseball books Baseball Abstracts, Beane and his assistant, Paul DePodesta, found that OBP was the most important factor that determined a team’s success and not BA or RBI. Since OBP was not valued highly in players by most baseball scouts, Beane and DePodesta discovered that they could build a successful team of players with high OBP score but whom, because most top baseball teams had ignored them, could be paid much lower salaries than their counterparts could in big teams such as New York Yankees. Therefore, they could create a successful team on a much smaller budget than their competitors. Thus, the opportunity that Oakland A discovered was set up by scouts placing less premium on...
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...Anthony Rochester BU105 Anita DeSouza Case application 12/4/15 Miller-Motte College Online Case application Anthony Rochester 12/4/15 Anita DeSouza In a general sense, what kinds of decisions are made in baseball? Would you characterize these decisions as structured or unstructured problems? Explain. What types(s) of decision-making condition would you consider this to be? Explain The most important in-game decision a baseball manager makes is when to relieve a starting pitcher. Today managers rely on various things example is a pitchers count this decides when a starting pitcher needs to be relieved. Baseball is full of decisions. Every single pitch is a decision whether it is a fastball or slow ball. The coach must make a decision on which players play on certain days and whether or not to take a pitcher out of the game. Most decisions in baseball are structured problems, they are easily definable.!n a structured problem, the goal of the decision maker is clear, the problem familiar and information about the problem easily defined and complete. for example, if a slugger keeps hitting the fastball, it's time to make the decision of pitching him a curve ball away from him in the strike zone. Is it appropriate for baseball managers to use only quantitative, objective criteria in evaluating their players? What do you think? Why? In my opinion evaluating...
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...and would do anything to stay involved with the sport. He was considered to be one of the best baseball players coming out of high school and decided play professional baseball instead of developing his skills in college. He was haunted by the fact that his ability was hyped and his playing career ultimately became a bust. What did the economist from Yale say should be the criteria? -The economist recommended taking a “sabermetric” approach. This was considered to be an unconventional way of prospecting players at the time because it focused on statistics that were though of as pointless to consider by many scouts at the time. How did the gm implement it? -Amongst much resistance, Beane forced this new method on Art Howe by trading away their really good players. This left Howe with no choice but to play the newly signed, inexperienced players. Was it perfect? -The system was most certainly not perfect, but did prove to be effective in the long run. They had a rough start but ended up winning 20 games in a row which Beane attributed to the sabermetric approach. What resistance did he meet with? -Beane receive much resistance from the entire A’s front office staff. Many of the guys on the Baseball Operations staff were old school and were not willing to accept this new method. They maintained that the system was...
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...in finding undervalued players, but Lewis’ book brought his in depth strategy to the forefront of the sport. In 2011, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill starred in the film Moneyball. The movie did keep the same basic storyline as the book, however there were many differences between the two. One of the biggest disparities between the book and the film that I saw was in the way the film portrayed how the idea of Moneyball started. One of the first scenes in the movie has Billy Beane in Cleveland to discuss trade possibilities with the Indians. Beane notices that one of Shapiro’s (Cleveland GM) assistants is dictating who is tradable and confronts him after the meeting. The movie says this is the first time Beane is introduced to the world of sabermetrics and advanced analytics. While this makes for a good storyline, Billy Beane actually got the idea from former A’s GM, Sandy Alderson, not Peter Brand like in movie. This is a great exaggeration from the book as Brand is basically credited with the entire idea. In fact, Peter Brand was not even the real name of Beane’s assistant GM. Instead it was Paul DePodesta. Another big discrepancy between the two would be how they handled the draft before the season started. The film dismisses completely the drafts discussed in the book. The only mention of any player taken is Jeremy Brown who is used for a metaphor by Brand in the end of the film. There is no reference of him being drafted for his OBP or anybody else for that...
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...STAT 216 - Project 2 (15pts) Due Tue 10/28/2014 Group size is 3-4 people. Points will be deducted for larger or smaller groups. Group members will be assigned for this project. Your report must be typed with accompanying computer-generated graphs (if applicable) for a professional appearance. It should be organized in numerical order according to the questions outlined below, and it should show all of the calculations and/or tables used to answer each question. If data collection is part of the question, your paper should include the data collected in a neat and organized manner. Read the December 3, 2012 Sports Illustrated article entitled “Moneyballsy”. The article was sent to your email address 1. (3 pts) Research Daryl Morey’s career beyond what was written in the article and write a ½ page on how his experiences and education led him to understand the importance of statistics in his career 2. (3 pts) Describe in detail (1/2 page) what Bill James’s Pythagorean expectation formula is and how Morey applied it to basketball. 3. (3 pts) How has Oakland A’s (baseball) General Manager Billy Beane influenced Morey’s career? Recall that Billy Beane was the focus of the motion picture Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. 4. (3 pts) What was the principle statistical reasons Morey acquired James Harden, Jeremy Lin, and Shane Battier? 5. (3 pts) What are the drawbacks of using only statistics to make critical decisions? What other factors are important for success...
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...Melissa Vazquez Journal #2/ Article #2 “Managers tend to pick a strategy that is the least likely to fail, rather than to pick a strategy that is more efficient,” said Palmer. “The pain of looking bad is worse than the gain of making the best move.” – Michael Lewis, Money ball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. That was the quote that came to my mind when and while I was reading this article. But before reading this article, I had no idea how marketing can just like baseball in many ways. Let alone, did I think or believe that you can use the “Moneyball,” method within marketing. But just like baseball, I think you can use that method because at the end you are trying save tons of money while trying to market your product the best out in the field. In order to have your marketing team use a “Moneyball” method you need to able to trust your team, trust your gut and trust your data. I personally believe now after reading the article and seeing the movie marketing and baseball are so likely in many ways. In baseball and marketing, you got to be able to trust your team with the decisions that you guys make. As well as that in both you have to be able to trust your gut with either what player you decide to sign or what you want to market. As well as in both you have to trust your data that you have on either players or what the market tells you about the products that are being marketed out there. In Moneyball, Beane was success in what he did because he trusted his team. He put...
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...Mgt. 110 Business of Baseball Jordan Core 1. Baseball is full of decisions; every single last pitch is a decision, whether to pitch it high, low, inside, outside. The coach must make the decision of which players to play on certain nights and whether or not to take a pitcher out of the game. I think baseball has the most decisions to be made out of all the “big four” sports. Most decisions in baseball are structured problems, they are easily definable. If a slugger keeps hitting the fastball, it’s time to make the decision of pitching him curveballs away from his hotspot in the strike zone. There is a standardized way of handling almost every type of player and situation. Granted, there may be certain decisions that are unstructured problems and are not faced everyday by the manager such as a star player going down with an injury. The manager must make the decision of how to fill the void left by the injury. If you believe in it, luck can be an unstructured problem as well. In baseball all decision makers are faced with either risk or uncertainty. I don’t believe there is any certainty in any sport. Even the best pitchers have games where they falter so nothing is to be expected. To be the best manger you can be in baseball you have to have as much risk as you can and as little uncertainty as possible. Knowing you will never have total certainty you have to make the most accurate decision you can and it seems now the more stats you put into making your decision...
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...major league baseball player who became the manager of the Oakland A’s. It tells the story of how he led the team to success despite their low budget by using computer based analytics to draft players. With the help of Bill James, the Oakland A’s came up with a new plan based on statistics to draft players. He went after players nobody wanted due to their low budget and his new plan. Billy led the Oakland Athletics to a successive win seasons by changing the way he measured players. He abandoned the traditional 5 “tool” the other scouts used and adopted empirical analytics. The abandonment of the traditional assessment of players for the analytical approach led to high victory for the Oakland A’s despite their low budget. By applying sabermetrics to baseball the Oakland Athletics found a way to defeat rich teams. Billy Beane had a different approach, he had metrics he used particular metrics to evaluate and pick players. Those metrics are, on base plus slugging, walks and hits per innings pitched, and base runs. James thought the statistics for baseball were inaccurate. James stated that “statistics were not merely inadequate; they lied. And the lies they told led the people who ran major league baseball teams to misjudge their players and mismanage their games” (Lewis 67). By recognizing this, it helped the Oakland A’s find undervalued players because the other scouts were still judging based on only the statistics of the individual players. Billy knew that the other teams using...
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...The Billy Beane Case Study 1. Based on the “Billy Beane: Changing the Game” case, explain how and why the Oakland A’s economic situation after 1995 shaped its: a) Compensation strategies In the world of major league baseball, the Oakland A’s defied the laws of baseball economics. The team spent only $34 million (the 2nd lowest payroll) had won 102 games and lost only 60 in 2001. On top of this, they finished first in their division and made the playoffs. Major baseball teams would hire high school players rather than college players. This made high school players costly. The Oakland A’s strategy is to hire college players to save on resources. They argued that college players have already gained substantial exposure and competition. Beane would recruit new drafts and sign them for less than the going rate. Because of budget constraints, the Oakland A’s recruited Scott Hatteberg, he played six years with the Boston Red Sox’s. He got injured and lacked the prowess in throwing the ball effectively. Hatteberg was, according to the Boston Red Sox’s, a lame player and did not sign him again. With this, Hatteberg’s monetary value diminished and that is why the Oakland A’s recruited him at a much lower salary (because there were no other takers). Unknown to the other baseball teams, Hatteberg is the missing puzzle in the Oakland A’s team. The Oakland A’s noted that Hatteberg had an uncanny knack for getting on base. Management could no longer afford to pay market or above...
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...ball thrown? On the other hand, recruiting high profile players, building a new stadium, and trying to secure television contracts would be considered unstructured because the factors involved may be novel and untried. 2. Is it appropriate for baseball managers to use only quantitative, objective criteria in evaluating their players? What do you think? Why? Students should see that qualitative criteria are also important because baseball is a sport that involves life-long fans and grudges. Many of the decisions involved in baseball are based fan loyalty and a team’s potential to sell tickets. Not all of these decisions involve objective measures. 3. Do some research on Sabermetrics. What is it? What does it have to do with decision making? Sabermetrics is a quantification decision making aid. By telling decision makers what to pay attention to and by providing weights for those criteria, it is easier to predict winners and losers. 4. Describe how baseball front office executives and college coaches could use each of the following to make better decisions: (a) rationality, (b) bounded rationality, (c) intuition, and (d) evidence-based management. Baseball teams, like any organization, make a variety of different decisions each day. Students should see that high priority decisions should follow rational and...
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...An Introduction to Sabermetrics by Jim Albert What is Sabermetrics? Sabermetrics is the mathematical and statistical analysis of baseball records. To understand the field of sabermetrics, one first should be familiar with the game of baseball. This sport is one of the most popular games in the United States; it is often called the {\it national pastime}. Baseball began in the eastern United States in the mid-1800's. Professional baseball started near the end of the 18th century; the National League was founded in 1876 and the American League in 1900. Currently in the United States, there are 28 professional teams in the American and National Leagues and millions of people watch games in ballparks and on television. The game of baseball The game of baseball is played between two teams, each consisting of nine players. The nine players are a pitcher, a catcher, first baseman, second baseman, shortstop, third baseman, left fielder, center fielder and right fielder. A game of baseball consists of nine innings. One inning is divided into two halves; in the top half of the inning, one team plays in the field and the second team comes to bat, and in the bottom half, the teams reverse roles. The team that is batting during a particular half-inning is trying to score runs. The team with the higher number of runs at the end of the nine innings is the winner of the game. During an inning, a player on the team in the field, called a pitcher, throws a baseball toward a player...
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...Sabrmetrics Sabrmetrics Bill Stewart English Composition – ENG115 April 14, 2010 It has been said many times over that numbers do not lie but they also do not tell the entire story. Baseball is a game that has always been based in numbers and statistics. Now current baseball people, historians, authors, general managers use a new math termed "sabrmetrics" to determine the worth of a player, monetarily and statistically. No longer are statistics viewed as simple as numbers on the back of a bubble gum card. These mathematical equations are being used in business for general purposes, as well as human resources purposes and is now taught in collegiate universities. (Costa 2001) Sabrmetrics is a new way to look at people, players, statistics and to try to predict the futures. The name is taken from the combination of the acronym SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) and "metrics" meaning "measurement". (Albert 1994) Most business leaders are using 20th century metrics to create 21st century success. Business leaders were taught to "manage what we can measure" and, generally, what's most easily measurable are the more tangible aspects of life. In business, this translates to metrics like profitability and cash flow. Like baseball, businesses rely on numbers. (Bradbury 2007) Sabrmetrics can help a company in developing the right performance measures and monitoring tools for different scenarios and then allocate resources optimally...
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...Management, Organizational Culture, Risk-taking, Transformation, Strategising ❖ Synopsis – The book is about a US baseball team, Oakland Athletics and its performance in the year 2002. It is a real-life account of how despite financial constraints, the protagonist, Billy Beane assembles a strong baseball team using innovative techniques and strategies. It is the story of how Billy Beane changed the organizational culture of his organization, and influenced that of his competitors’. He re-invented a system that was working for years. Beane and his assistant concluded that by hiring under-valued players, it was possible to win with less than 40% of the budget of their competitors. They applied analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric approach and thus selected a competitive team. As a result, in the 2001-02 season, the team struck an all-time record with a 20 game-winning streak. Exposing himself and his team to ridicule, how he ignored his detractors and went ahead with his unorthodox strategies to ultimately achieve the winning combination, forms the crux of the book. ❖ Why this book? – The book has been selected to show how good leaders function, that risk-taking, innovation and sometimes even a dramatic overhaul of organizational culture can really bring fruitful results. Leadership Many organisations hold on to tradition and history, and hence find it difficult to adapt to changing times. It takes a...
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...Moneyball Critique YJean Ligon Argosy University, Tampa October 17, 2014 Sabermetric-Based Player Evaluation Shock In the movie Moneyball, the use of sabermetric-based player evaluation was a shock to other executives in baseball because it was not the rule of thumb for evaluating player performance at the time. The executives where accustom to using their personal biases, human rationale, gut instinct and tying things to performance that made no sense such as an ugly player’s girlfriend. Beane relied on objective evidence, explicitly ignoring anything that could be dismissed as "subjective” (Thaler and Sunstein, 2003). They also treat mere coincidences as facts in which a high probability was applied. According to Belkin (2002), the true meaning of the word, coincidence is "a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection." In other words, pure happenstance. Yet by merely noticing a coincidence, we elevate it to something that transcends its definition as pure chance. We are discomforted by the idea of a random universe. Beane’s effectiveness in His Success Beane was more effective in his success because he abandoned the baseball heuristics of his day. He applied a non-conventional method that was not widely used. Since his methodology was not popular he was looked upon as being crazy because he was not using the same old method of that time. He valued winning. Therefore he was always evaluating the...
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...ASSIGNMENT 1 – Individual (1) Movie review An inspiring movie that can relate to entrepreneurial content that I have chosen is Moneyball. A true based story, Moneyball is a movie for anybody who has ever visualised of taking on the system. Its about realistic sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller from a script written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The film is based on Michael Lewis's 2003 non-fiction book of the unchanged name, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane's challenges to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane (Brad Pitt) and assistant GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), faced with the franchise's critical financial situation, take a sophisticated sabermetric approach towards scouting and evaluating players, acquiring "submarine" pitcher Chad Bradford (Casey Bond) and former catcher Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt), and winning 20 consecutive games, an American League record. Columbia Pictures bought the copyrights to Lewis's book in 2004. After a number of years in advance, the film was presented at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was released on September 23, 2011 to a box office success and positive reviews. The movie was nominated for six Academy Awards together with Best Actor and Best Picture. This movie inspiring me in the way ofWhy entrepreneurs should see it: Bootstrapping is Based on a true story, Moneyball is a movie for anybody who has ever dreamed of taking on the...
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