If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend reading the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael M. Lewis.  This book details the true story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team and their General Manager, Billy Beane, who was the first GM to question long held biases in recruiting and use only objective analysis in picking undervalued talent to win ballgames.

Between 1997 and 2008, under Beane’s watch, the A’s compiled a 976-804 (.548) record, which was the third-best record in the American League, and fifth best in all of baseball during that time frame.  In addition, the A’s won four American League West titles (2000, 2002-03, and 2006) and secured one AL Wild Card spot (2001).  Over the last nine seasons, dating back to the 2000 campaign, the A’s have compiled an 815-641 (.560) record, which is the third-best record in the American League and fourth-best mark in the Majors.

How did Beane accomplish this?  It wasn’t with large sums of money.

“The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts, and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed.  Statistics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th century view of the game and the statistics that were available at the time.  The book argues that the Oakland A’s’ front office took advantage of more empirical gauges of player performance to field a team that could compete successfully against richer competitors in Major League Baseball.

Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the A’s became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.  These observations often flew in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many baseball scouts and executives.

By re-evaluating the strategies that produce wins on the field, the 2002 Athletics, with approximately $41 million in salary, are competitive with larger market teams such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, who spend over $100 million in payroll.  Because of the team’s smaller revenues, Oakland is forced to find players undervalued by the market, and their system for finding value in undervalued players has proven itself thus far.” (Wikipedia: Moneyball)

That was in 2002.  And the A’s record of wins didn’t really begin to falter until 2007, when at least ten other teams began to copy the A’s formula for successful recruiting.

And what is that formula?  It boils down to this:  The strategy is to find players who have the highest on-base percentage.  They really don’t consider hitting percentage – They go as far to say, “We don’t care whether they even look like an athlete.”  If they are good enough to play at the college or minor league level, get on base, and then know how to work the count to get a lot of walks…they want them.

This new way of analyzing baseball players is called:  Sabermetrics (the analysis of baseball through objective evidence).

“Moneyball has made such an impact in professional baseball that the term itself has entered the lexicon of baseball.  Teams which appear to value the concepts of sabermetrics are often said to be playing ‘Moneyball’.  Baseball traditionalists, in particular some scouts and media members, decry the sabermetric revolution and have disparaged Moneyball for emphasizing concepts of sabermetrics over more traditional methods of player evaluation.  Nevertheless, the impact of Moneyball upon major league front offices is undeniable. 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 Indians, and the Toronto Blue Jays have hired full-time Sabermetric analysts.”  (Wikipedia: Moneyball)

The question for all of us is this:  What subjective and flawed assumptions have we all accepted without questioning regarding sourcing, recruiting, coaching and agent performance?

Those brave enough to question the status quo through statistical analysis may find ways to succeed that were never previously discovered… 

Editor’s Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you’re an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the “comments” link below.