Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

I think I've read Moneyball before I picked up the audiobook in 2019. At least excerpts? That I hadn't read it while also running a baseball blog in the late 2000s was a sort of running joke. I agree with the need for teams to make smarter decisions, and I'd argue for hours with the proponents of outdated methods. But I hadn't quite gotten around to reading the book.

It's quite good 15 years later. The stats are all so familiar now that nothing on the numbers side of things is overwhelming. And Michael Lewis, as he has proven in so many other books since, has a real talent for depicting the little dramas of real life.

I found this a tremendously entertaining read. The section on Bill James is just fantastic, articulating the way sport can be used to think about so much more than just sport. Lewis then goes on to demonstrate how this is done by making this book about more than just baseball. To my mind, it's about overcoming entrenched ways of thinking, how even in the most objective of fields equal opportunity is elusive, and how we shouldn't assume that just because they spend big money, organisations are interested in or even capable of high performance. If baseball, with its tables and statistics and player markets, isn't a meritocracy, then maybe nothing is.

Structurally, the book is beautifully put together, with brilliant pacing, themes that run show more throughout the book and divergences that always last just the right amount of pages. The writing is clear with a level of wit and emotion perfectly suited to popular non fiction. Having said that, as popular non fiction it tends to put forward a particular perspective, rather than present the evidence and help the reader weigh it. I did some research (ie. looked at Wikipedia) and found that some of the criticism of the book pointed to the importance of some scout-identified players to the success of the Oakland As; the lesson of the book is probably closer to "baseball teams haven't thought deeply enough about this" than "THEY'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!" show less

Moneyball is way more entertaining than it has any right to be. It follows the story of the low-budget Oakland A's and their unorthodox general manager Billy Beane as they use statistics and the scientific method to succeed against teams with much larger payrolls.Lewis is a very entertaining writer, at times laugh out loud funny, who has turned what could have been a very dry subject into a real page turner. I read this in one day, which is unusual for me with non-fiction.

What a terrific book! I expected the book to more or less correspond to the movie (which I also enjoyed), but there's a lot of depth to the story that really wasn't covered in the movie version (understandably).

I particularly enjoyed the in-depth stories of the various players that the Oakland A's recruited that literally no one else wanted. Their backstories were fascinating. They were told they would never make it in baseball for one reason or other, and they probably never would have if it wasn't for the A's relentless pursuit of a way to win within their budgetary constraints.

I am a baseball fan, and I do think it helps to have some knowledge of the game to truly appreciate this book. It probably would be dull for those who don't show more understand the basics of the game. But Lewis does his usual extraordinary job of making the story widely accessible even though it talks about business and mathematics.

One of my favorite (but also most disheartening) parts of the book was the afterward. Apparently, after Moneyball was published, the baseball insiders tore Billy Beane to pieces, accusing him of all sorts of things. He went against baseball orthodoxy, and then had the gall to allow the story of his team's achievements to be published in a book. The afterward basically rips apart the vultures. Good for Michael Lewis for defending Beane, his book, and those who cooperated with bringing us this fascinating story. He certainly has the last laugh because literally every baseball team uses analytics today and those insiders who jeered Beane should be embarrassed and ashamed.

Definitely a don't miss read for baseball fans. In fact, this book makes me wonder what other great baseball writing I may be missing. show less

Not since the glorification of the closer - curse you, Tony La Rossa - has any one or two men so fundamentally changed the nature of baseball. [[Bill James]] put together a statistical analyses of the game and published them in a little-known, self-published annual periodical. Billy Beane read them, and then applied them to the wistful, broke Oakland A's. The season that followed saw the team in the playoff contention and also saw them break the consecutive games won record, winning 20 in a row (Typically, the record books list the 1916 New York Giants holding the record at 26, but the team had a tie game in the middle of that run - so, asterisk.) Beane was courted to take over the Red Sox after that season, but turned more money down show more to stay in Oakland.

James is an interesting character - he penned a great true crime book [The Man from the Train: Discovering America's Most Elusive Serial Killer] - and his mind sifts data like no other. But Beane is the real color in this book, and the team of broken toys he used to put together a 103-win season, using James' work.

If you love baseball, read this book - you'll understand so much better the nature of the modern game. If you love statistics, read this book - few other people have ever taken data so far in any arena.

5 bones!!!!!
Highly Recommended show less

The beauty of Moneyball is Michael Lewis' ability to communicate an excellent baseball story that satisfies hard-nosed Sabermetricians, but do in a way that doesn't alienate non-numbers oriented baseball fans. The story of how Billy Beane got to where he is today (as GM of the Oakland As) is quite compelling, and clearly of key importance to the main question Lewis sets out to answer -- how the Oakland As manage to be successful despite their (relative) lack of salary. The politics of Sabermetrics aside, this is a terrific read and a book all baseball enthusiasts should read at least once (if not once a season).

What to say about one of the most influential sports and economics books of the last decade? Like all of Michael Lewis's books, it's eminently readable and full of portraits of all kinds of crazy characters -- Billy Beane, Paul DePodesta, a bunch of major league players going through the grind of the Oakland A's system, other GMs. Great book about guerrilla warfare on an entrenched system, applying statistics to a statistics-based system, and exploiting market inefficiencies for fun and profit. No wonder it is now one of the most referenced and most quoted book whenever anyone starts to talk about baseball these days -- which every single sports podcaster does. Reading an article over on ESPN? See a reference to Moneyball? Read the show more book.

Better than the Big Short -- although the Big Short is relentlessly entertaining -- absolutely recommended to anyone who follows professional sports. Also better than the movie by a long shot as the movie doesn't have the same rich background on these major league players and the Double-A/Triple-A minor league system.

Yeah. You should read Moneyball. show less