‘Moneyball’ might be the most influential sports books of the last 20 years. 15 years since it was first published, Moneyball is still synonymous with the ever-growing movement to use big data to improve the performance of professional sports teams.
Lewis set out to answer the question of why the Oakland A’s consistently outperformed teams with much higher budgets. He found a much bigger and more fascinating story about a sub-culture of baseball nerds both inside, but mostly outside, the sport who were determined to see the game as it really was.
At the heart of the book is Billy Beane, a former player who never fulfilled what others believed was his potential. Lewis was given incredible access behind the scenes of the A’s management team as they prepared for a draft and throughout the 2002 season as Beane wheeled and dealed his way to improving his team at every turn.
Beane is a fascinating character – charismatic but ruthless, a baseball insider who thinks like an outsider, a man obsessed with his team who refuses to watch the team he runs actually play a game.
The book is utterly engrossing. Lewis is the master of explaining complex and insider ideas to a layperson. Despite having a limited interest in baseball, I found the book easy to follow as Lewis leads the reader through the thought process of Beane and the various ‘sabermetricians’ who think more about baseball than anything else.
At the heart of the story is Bill James, a statisician who self published baseball statistics slowly building a fanbase and eventually influencing the next generation of General Managers. Not being a baseball fan, its hard to grasp just how obsessive James and his followers are. Being a fan of fantasy football does help me realise how obsessed a fan can become with watching certain players and being desperate to figure out what players are likely to outperfomr others.
Moneyball is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the future of sport or anyone interested in a good story. It’s the story of an underdog who out-thinks and therefore out-plays the bigger richer teams. It’s a great book not just for sports fans, but for anyone who likes stories about disrption and people trying to shake up an established way of doing things.
As well as being a great read, Moneyball has had a significant impact on professional sports since its publication. Many an article has been written on this over the last 15 years.
Reading Moneyball is a different experience than when I read it over 10 years ago. Knowing broadly how the draft picks and other players mentioned in the book panned out changes how you experience the story.
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