The inside story of the unlikely success of the Oakland Athletics 2002 team at the hands of General Manager Billy Beane and his unconventional talent evaluation methodology that enabled him to field a division winning team at bargain basement salaries. The history of baseball statistics and analysis was actually pretty interesting. I'm no mathlete but the theory behind it was thought provoking. Success on the field is sometimes calculated and ascribed a value that has just as much to do with circumstances outside the players control. Baseball is a sport that is a mix of skill, mystique, and historical lore. Ultimately the reason Billy Beane was successful was that he took a well reasoned but unconventional approach and took an active hand in managing the outcome.

The author did a great job of shedding light on some of the prominent characters, many of whom are not likely to be household names. What I found a little frustrating was when the author injected himself into the story. Pet peeve of mine - I think it disrupts the story unnecessarily. I'm also a little surprised that no other teams were paying attention to OBP before 2002. And he made out Art Howe to be a disgruntled puppet, and that didn't sit well with me. Overall it was very enjoyable but, so far, not my favorite baseball book. And if you are not a baseball fan then this book will likely only have limited appeal.

Non-fiction about how Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane used sabermetrics to develop winning baseball team at less expense than the wealthier teams in the industry. Published in 2003, we can see much of Beane’s philosophy being practiced now throughout the game. There are fewer sacrifices, hit & runs, and steals, and more emphasis on walks and reliance on statistical probabilities in making decisions. On base percentage plus slugging has upstaged the traditional measurements of RBIs, runs scored, and batting average.

The book is part biography of Billy Beane, part homage to Bill James (the father of sabermetrics), part explanation of the (at the time) unorthodox strategies employed by the A’s, and part a case study in resistance to change. Personal stories of a few A’s players are also included. In 2002, the baseball season covered in this book, the A’s won 102 games and finished first in their division.

Lewis has strong opinions about the effectiveness of past methods, and makes no bones about criticizing scouts, managers, general managers, and pretty much anyone that disagrees with him. This can, at times, be grating, as the former regime has certainly had successes in developing star players. Of course, most of this work occurred prior to the computing age, so they did not have the same tools, and, therefore, it is not a level playing field (pun intended) by which to judge. I did not see the need to come down so hard on some individuals, who are hard-working baseball people with good intentions.

Moneyball is written such that a person does not need any in-depth knowledge of statistics, as the author explains the mathematics in a straight-forward manner, possibly over-simplifying to reach a wider audience. With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that baseball has adopted some of the concepts put forth in this book, such as drafting college players more frequently than those in high school and establishing an Analytics Department to evaluate the numbers.

This book will appeal to those interested in the history of baseball or the application of statistical methods to the game. It is a good example of “out of the box” thinking. It will be interesting to see what is next in the drive to gain a competitive advantage now that “analyzing the numbers” is more widely embraced.

Well-written in flashes on a subject that is about as interesting to me as golf, sailing or any other slow, white sport. I stuck with it, though, and will go on to give Michael Lewis another chance in Flash Boys. The sports biographies are on pause for now.

It was a better story before I knew the whole story.

Almost every book on randomness I have read had a reference to Moneyball and I had built up my own version about this story (I had even told a few people that version!) and it imagined everybody doing what Billy Beane was doing, and Billy Beane doing some sort of probability distribution among all players and randomly picking his team, winning emphatically, and thus proving that a truly random pick of players is the equivalent of a true-simulation of the market and just like how no considered selection of stock picks can ever outperform the market in the long run, a truly random representation of the baseball market cannot be outperformed by the interventionist methods of other teams over a long season. That is the story I wanted to hear. My apologies to anyone to whom I have spouted this story - it is not true. It is still probable though, when the next radical Billy Beane comes along in sports.

Interesting - but probably only for those who really like statistics or really like baseball.

This is my Bible.

Thank you Billy Beane, Paul DePodesta, and Michael Lewis.

MONEYBALL is Lewis’ tour de force on the travails of Billy Beane and his Oakland A’s, a small market team seeking to compete against much richer franchises that seemed to dominate the standings in the American League year after year. Beane found a secret weapon in sabrmetrics which he used to replace old-school baseball scouting methods in order to draft and trade for players who were less expensive, but productive enough to allow the A’s to make the play-offs in 2003 and 2004 with a pay roll that was about one third of the Yankee’s.

Beane’s switch from old-fashioned scouting-based player evaluations to sabrmetrics-based evaluations was revolutionary and makes for a fascinating story. MONEYBALL addresses baseball on the field and in the front office with sophistication. The movie based on Lewis’ book is excellent too. I hope that everyone will read the book or see the movie, but both might be best.

4 and a half stars.

From the perspective of a guy whose very first love in the world was the game of baseball- Moneyball is an instant classic & nostalgia overload.

The author gives extraordinary context and background on the main people featured throughout the book. You find yourself rooting for these people to succeed like they are family members.

Beyond taking a deeper dive and a unique perspective into the game of baseball, Billy Beane is what makes this story interesting. Billy is a fascinating, larger than life personality. His story as a ball player and ultimately GM was captured by unprecedented access and reporting that the author took advantage of during his time he got to spend with the Oakland Athletics.

Moneyball may get too much in the boring baseball nerd analytics "weeds" for the average reader. This is highlighted by a couple chapters taking a deep dive on saber-metrics bursting on the scene in baseball. Said portion of the book was a little boring even for the one of most niche statistic geeks (myself). I get why the author had to elaborate in detail, but I had to subtract a "half-star" off of the review.

As a Yankees fan growing up in NY in the early 2000's chapter 7 was one of the best chapters I've ever read. It put me right back in front of my TV set as a kid. The A's took on my beloved NY Yankees and I was afforded such awesome background. The story was told from such a cool angle- An all access look behind closed doors of the clubhouse.

The story telling and examples presented to challenge conventional wisdom and think outside the box are truly the stars of the story. Baseball is known for primarily doing things for over a century just because that's the way they'd always been done. This is true for many of life's avenues & circumstances.

We all can take a lesson from the Oakland A's and ask questions! Why do we do the things we do? What makes us successful? Should we be taking an analytical approach? What can we do differently to gain an edge? How can we increase efficiency? Why should we believe in our processes? How can we minimize risk and maximize potential?

The Oakland A's changed the landscape of sports and the practices they implemented have the potential to change entire processes, through the objectivity of analytics and numbers. Subjectivity often clouds our judgment. More importantly there is an undertone of an important idea- Realizing what your natural gifts are and acquiring self confidence often breeds success. All of us have something (either we were born with or developed through circumstance) to help cultivate accomplishment! Find it. Accept it. Hone it. Trust it. Be thankful for it.

Michael Lewis did a great job giving perspective/ backstory and tying it all together.

Recommend read for anyone willing to tackle conventional wisdom and must read for any obsessive baseball fans.

If you're a baseball fan, you'll really appreciate this book. It is more or less a primer on the way the emphasis on statistics has come to prominence in many circles around the sport, and provides insight into some of the seemingly more arcane terms around the sport, such as OBP, OPS, VORP, etc. It's really quite valuable in that regard.

It has also come to represent the term for the organizations that embrace this approach to scouting, although that assessment is not entirely accurate. The book focuses on Oakland Athletics' General Manager Billy Beane and the way he has been able to field a consistently competitive team despite a lack of resources available to other teams around the league. It just so happens that the approach he used (valuing On-Base Percentage over traditional means of measuring a player's worth, drafting lower ceiling college players as opposed high school players with more upside but also more risk, etc.) was not being employed by other teams. In other words, Beane's approach is to find what is undervalued around the league and exploit that to the benefit of his ballclub. At the time of this book's publishing, that entailed the methods described above. However, these days that is not necessarily the case, yet the specific traits Beane looked for in players at that time has come to be known as the 'Moneyball' approach, whether that is appropriate or not (I lean towards 'not').

Many traditionalists (I'm looking at you Joe Morgan) dismiss the book and Beane's methods, but are erroneous to do so. It's an interesting read and should be required for any true baseball fan, if only to see what all the fuss is about. It's become bigger than it should be--it's no better or worse than some of Lewis's other profile-type books--but is a solid, interesting read.

Amazing.

Baseball is a perfectly dramatic game—at any moment it's clear who's trying to Do The Thing, and whether they succeed or fail. And we read character into everything on the diamond. But baseball is also a game of hard math, of chances and statistics. But that math is, in turn, reflective of character... which is reflective of math.

A story about people who matter, or don't matter, or *do* matter, that seems all the more relevant in the world Big Data built—well-written, daring, gripping, and just plain fun.

Michael Lewis does a great job joining the two unlike worlds of Baseball and Business. He shows the Magic of Billy Beane. Beane himself is like a conservative shopper. If you want to buy read, you buy good bread, not bread with 50 extra elements to it as that is a waste of money. The A's wanted to buy runs, so buying speed and defense was a waste of money. The book will teach you that gems found in the dust are more efficient than gems found in the shining sun.

A wee bit all over the place and rambling but more than made up for by the fascinating subject matter.