Customers find the book very insightful, describing it as a compelling dissertation that provides great life lessons. “…book that Michael Lewis writes seems to be more fascinating and well researched than the previous ones….” Read more Customers find the book informative and thoroughly researched, appreciating its good data-driven insights and depth.
Customers say
Very thought provoking not only about baseball but about how it is possible to rethink concepts and views that have long been deemed to be definitive and valid beyond question. In this book, the author criticizes my friend, Ms. Dani Mabry’s father, John calling him a so called “bench player”. I will use the book as a reference as this year’s playoffs are played. His descriptive writing allows Beane and the others in the lively cast of baseball characters to come alive.
“…This is the best so far. Informative and funny, easy to read, and enjoyable. Oh I’ve seen the movie, Well you still have to read this book….” Read more “You will need an understanding of Baseball but very interesting read about how MLB works and different approaches to decision making” Read more “…Not very pretty but very interesting. This book is a wonderful read both the 1st and the second time around.” Read more
Editorial Reviews
Lewis has acknowledged that the book’s success may have hurt the Athletics’ fortunes as other teams accepted sabermetrics, reducing Oakland’s edge. Given the heavily publicized salaries of players for teams like the Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees, baseball insiders and fans assume that the biggest talents deserve and get the biggest salaries. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games?
Reviews with images
Customers find the book fantastic, great, and fascinating. Readers also mention that Michael Lewis did a good job balancing the main storyline with flashbacks. They also appreciate the story, saying the author has a way to tell it that makes every subject interesting. A speedy athletic can’t-miss prospect who somehow missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball, Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters.
The Oakland A’s began seeking moneyball the art of winning an unfair game players who were “undervalued in the market”—that is, who were receiving lower salaries relative to their ability to contribute to winning, as measured by these advanced statistics.
More Books by Michael Lewis
“This was a great book. It has been a long time since I read a book that was hard to put down but this definitely qualifies as being in that category….” Read more Additionally, customers appreciate the sports content, noting it’s about more than just baseball, and consider it worth the price. Moreover, the book offers great life lessons and teaches about both business and baseball, while being well-written with excitement. Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer – no Kindle device required. Representatives Barbara Lee and Mark DeSaulnier with the intended purpose of having MLB teams that move 25 miles from their former home cities, including the Athletics, to compensate them.citation needed
No customer reviews
Beane maintains that high draft picks spent on high school prospects, regardless of talent or physical potential as evaluated by traditional scouting, are riskier than those spent on more experienced college players. It describes the team’s sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team on a small budget. “His constant chatter was a way of keeping tabs on the body of information critical to his trading success.” Lewis chronicles Beane’s life, focusing on his uncanny ability to find and sign the right players.
- This is because Beane’s method doesn’t work in playoff series, when so few games are played.
- The author explains why this success has been so unlikely given the small budget the team has to work with compared to other teams like the New York Yankees.
- Lewis was in the room with the A’s top management as they spent the summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding play-by-play.
- In the 2019 and 2020 seasons, the Tampa Bay Rays were considered masters of Moneyball, reaching the 2020 World Series with a payroll prorated at $28.2 million, the third-lowest of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams.
- In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard).
“Interesting and detailed, but unlike what I heard from some people before reading it, it is largely the same as the movie…so if you have seen the…” Read more Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge―insights that will give the little guy who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.
- Under Alderson’s tenure, the team payroll dropped below $100 million per year from 2012 to 2014, and the Mets reached the 2015 World Series—en route defeating MLB’s highest-payroll team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
- Lewis (Liar’s Poker; The New New Thing) examines how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team.
- Actor Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, while Jonah Hill plays fictional character Peter Brand, based on Paul DePodesta; Philip Seymour Hoffman plays A’s manager Art Howe.
- His descriptive writing allows Beane and the others in the lively cast of baseball characters to come alive.
There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.
Nevertheless, Moneyball changed the way many major league front offices do business. Baseball traditionalists, in particular some scouts and media members, decry the sabermetric revolution and have disparaged Moneyball for emphasizing sabermetrics over more traditional methods of player evaluation. Lewis explores how James’s seminal Baseball Abstract, published annually from the late 1970s through the late 1980s, influenced many of the young, up-and-coming baseball experts that joined the ranks of baseball management in the 1990s. Moneyball traces the history of the sabermetric movement back to such people as Bill James (then a member of the Boston Red Sox front office) and Craig R. Wright.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
We meet Jeremy Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever. In the Epilogue, Lewis describes catcher Jeremy Brown’s success with the A’s and how he perfectly embodies their approach to the game. The next chapter shows Billy Beane’s approach to trades, which he used effectively to position his team better for the second half of the season.
He calls this method sabermetrics. In Chapter 4, Lewis details the work of the baseball writer and analyst Bill James. Despite his promising start—and the conviction of the baseball insiders that he had the right stuff—his career was rather disappointing. Chapter 1 describes Beane as a sports star in high school and his road to signing with the New York Mets right after graduation.
“…Lewis is a great read and enhanced both my enjoyment and appreciation of baseball. I was interested in reading the book after seeing the movie….” Read more “I really liked it. Michael Lewis is an excellent writer and it was a good story. I read one chapter weeping with laughter and it wasn’t a comedy….” Read more “Great writing. Makes the book an easy and good read. I’m not a crazed fan of baseball, or its stats, but I did really like the “Moneyball” movie….” Read more “Excellent book. Michael Lewis’ approach to the subject was interesting. Making data crunching an interesting read, can be a challenge.” Read more “…This has been a great read to learn how to understand the fundamentals of a game and it’s success and how to obtain it with limited resources.” Read more
Products related to this item
In the 2019 and 2020 seasons, the Tampa Bay Rays were considered masters of Moneyball, reaching the 2020 World Series with a payroll prorated at $28.2 million, the third-lowest of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams. In its wake, teams such as the New York Mets, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, and Toronto Blue Jays have hired full-time sabermetric analysts. Bonderman had all of the traditional “tools” that scouts look for, but thousands of such players have been signed by MLB organizations out of high school over the years and failed to develop as anticipated. College players have played more games and thus there is a larger mass of statistical data on which to base expensive decisions. Lewis explored several themes in the book, such as insiders vs. outsiders (established traditionalists vs. upstart proponents of sabermetrics), the democratization of information causing a flattening of hierarchies, and “the ruthless drive for efficiency that capitalism demands”. By re-evaluating their strategy in this way, the 2002 Athletics, with a budget of $44 million for player salaries, were competitive with larger-market teams such as the New York Yankees, whose payroll exceeded $125 million that season.
Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required. The final chapter details how the A’s lost to the Minnesota Twins in the first round of the playoffs despite having the better record and better team overall. He writes how they expect their rational approach through sabermetrics to play out methodically.
Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as a wonderful and fascinating read, particularly for baseball fans who enjoy the movie adaptation. Customers find this book to be a wonderful and engaging read, particularly for baseball fans, with thorough research that goes beyond just statistics. The book is parodied in the 2010 Simpsons episode “MoneyBART”, in which Lisa manages Bart’s Little League baseball team using sabermetric principles. They argued that the book ignores the pitching trio of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito, and position players such as Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada, all of whom were discovered via traditional scouting methodology and were key contributors to the success of the 2002 Athletics. Lewis explores the A’s approach to the 2002 MLB draft, when the team had a run of early picks. Lewis cites A’s minor leaguer Jeremy Bonderman, drafted out of high school in 2001 over Beane’s objections, as an example of the type of draft pick Beane would avoid.
“True story about true people and true events and a lot of baseball! Inspiring to think differently and to not be afraid to stand out.” Read more “…Seeing as how the book is about baseball, this may be my fault, but I ultimately thought that Lewis just put way too much importance into a…” Read more “The book is an easy and very interesting read. Michael Lewis is a great writer….” Read more “…account of the paradigm shift coming to baseball in America is a fascinating story of a few individuals challenging conventional wisdom and, in an…” Read more Customers praise the book’s storytelling, appreciating its personal narrative and complexity, with one customer highlighting its engaging epilogue. “EZ to read but with a lot of jargon and numbers. FUNNY! Very informative, well written. You don’t need to be a fan to enjoy this book….” Read more
In the next chapter, he narrates a game in September 2002, in which the team is attempting to win their 20th consecutive game, which would be a major league record. “…Just a great story about how The Oakland A’s with a tiny budget was able to consistently outperform teams with tons more money to spend on players…” Read more “…is baseball, this book and this story are a great read and a great lesson.” Read more
