When Moneyball came out in theaters a few weeks back I was there on opening day. I hadn't read the book yet so I went in with an open mind. I was actually entertained and thought it was neat how like us on the tabletop Oakland A's GM Billy Beane was looking for new ways to value players. If you like baseball, you should check out the movie.
Then I had surgery last Monday October 3rd and my daughter Alexei bought me the book Moneyball. Knowing I'm not an avid reader but she was hoping with my time off from work I would delve into the book and learn more about the topic.
So far to her surprise, I've already reached page 142 and I'm currently reading the chapter about filling in Giambi's hole in the lineup. As expected the book as been a lot better due to the fact a book can go into detail.
Some highlights so far:
Bill James played tabletop
In chapter four:
"As James later admitted, the desire to win these games had been a chief motive for his original rethinking of the game. Before the sophisticated baseball fantasy leagues there had been sophisticated table-top baseball games. I used to be in a table-game league, James confessed to hit readers a decade later. This was ten, twelve years ago....It was during this period, in trying to win that league, that I became obsessed with how an offense works and why it doesn't work sometimes...with finding what information you would need to have to simulate baseball in a more accurate way. I had thought about these things before, of course, but to win that damn [table league] I had to know."
Stealing could be riskey
In chapter six:
"True, he stole some bases, but stealing bases involved taking a risk the Oakland front office did not trust even Johnny Damon to take. The math of the matter changed with the situation, but, broadly speaking, an attempted steal had to succeed about 70 percent of the time before it contributed positively to run totals.
Make the Big Trade
In chapter nine:
"By the middle of June, six weeks before the tradling deadline, he was walking into Paul DePodesta's office across the hall from his own and saying, "This is the time to make a fucking A trade." When asked what was meant by a "Fucking A trade," he said, "A Fucking A trade is one that causes everyone in the business to say 'Fucking A.'''
A's draft Jeremy Brown from Hueytown, A.L. where the Legend is stationed
In chapter eleven:
"Especially Brown, the bad body catcher from Hueytown, Alabama. Everyone had laughed when the Oakland A's drafted Brown in the first round. Every day Brown was more interesting to Billy."
ESPN Baseball Podcaster Host Keith Law
In chapter twelve:
"The first thing J.P. Ricciardi did after he took the job was hire Keith Law, a twenty-eight-year-old Havard graduate who had never played baseball, but who wrote lots of interesting articles about it on baseballprospectus.com."
I'm made my daughter Alexei proud and finished this book on October 20th from cover to cover. She says she might have to frame it. I'm glad she challenged me to read it. It was interesting, funny and very imformative.
