Moneyball is about Billy Beane, general manager of the
Oakland A’s, a small money baseball team in a world where teams like the
Yankees and the Red Sox buy championships. The story details strategy for
winning with less money, drafting well, and, as the subtitle says, “the art of
winning an unfair game.”
I was always going to like this one. I’m an avid Reds fan, a team that hasn’t won
a world series since 1990 and hadn’t made the playoffs in 15 years when they
made it in 2010. Which gives me perspective on both small money baseball teams
and teams that don’t win when they have big names (see: Ken Griffey
Junior). It is fascinating to read about
Beane’s strategy in drafting new players, how he makes decisions based on stats,
the fact that he would never keep a player that eats up half of his payroll. Which
of course makes me nervous about the huge contracts that Votto and Phillips
have just signed, but I digress.
Without getting into the extreme details of the book, I’ll
just say that I really enjoyed the read. I loved thinking of how this applies
to my favorite team and players in the game today. I’m not totally sure I agree with everything
that Beane lives by (specifically that he has no interest in defense- I don’t
care how good your pitcher is, no one pitches perfect games every time out, you’ve
got to have someone to field the ball and make outs!), but I will agree that he
changed my mind a little bit, and definitely made me think a lot more about a
sport that I love.
4- definitely one I will read again. And even though it’s
not my usual type of book (non-fiction and full of stats), I think I have to
see what else Lewis has done.
No comments:
Post a Comment