Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, "Review"

[Zeno]

First, thanks to Andy Fox for recommending the book. I just finished reading this baseball themed book and enjoyed it greatly. The book certainly exposes entrenched thinking and ideas that pervade baseball and by analogy many other areas of human endeavor. Rational thinking does not come naturally to humans and Moneyball illustrates this fact well. It is very well written with good character development and descriptions (section on Bill James is an example), and witty dialogue (The book bogs down only in a few small instances). Overall it is an informative book and worth anyone’s time to read, even if you are only vaguely interested in baseball.

Now, if Oakland will just tail off in the second half of the season then the Mariners can coast to the playoffs. Something tells me this is not going to happen.

-Zeno

[Boris]

I'm reading the book right now.

"Rational thinking does not come naturally to humans and Moneyball illustrates this fact well."

I completely disagree. How does Moneyball illustrate this "fact".

[Zeno]

I was referring to how the "traditional men of baseball" view the game and have always done so and most of the fans, media etc. The "new men" brought in a different view and more rational (scientific, statistical) way to approach the game and were greeted with intense opposition. That is what I was referring to. Maybe you will come to a different conclusion after reading the book.

-Zeno

[andyfox]

Maybe substitute "clear" for "rational." Many people, especially in baseball, are guided by the old way of doing things, tradition and common sense. Most common sense in baseball is commonly wrong. As poined out in Moneyball, professional baseball people don't (or didn't) place enough value on walks and extra base hits and placed too much on bating average and stolen bases. Sacrifices are losing plays. Clutch hitting doesn't exist. Hit and runs plays are self-defeating.

"The problem with major league baseball is that it's a self-populating institution. Knowledge is institutionalized. The people involved with baseball who aren't players are ex-players. They aren't equipped to evaluate their own systems. They don't have the mechanism to let in the good and get rid of the bad. They either keep everything or get rid of everything, and they rarely do the latter."