Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

One part of the story Lewis tells has to do with the rise of personal computers in the late 1970s and 1980s. Analyses of baseball statistics really took off once people had access to PCs. What’s another industry that the growth of PCs affected in a big way? Describe what it was and explain the effect PCs had.

Why doesn’t sabermetrics always work? What are some factors that get in the way? Think of what the author covers in the book and anything else not addressed. The events took place 20 years ago now. Has anything changed? Has the sabermetrics method gotten more or less effective? Why?

Billy Beane took his failure as a player as a life lesson in order to succeed in the same sport by going in the opposite direction. What’s another example of someone following a similar path and changing a field or industry based on an earlier failure?

The New England Patriots football team also focuses on the “aggregate” results from often unheralded players rather than huge plays by a few star players. Compare and contrast the Patriots with the Oakland A’s. How are the teams’ approaches similar and how are they different?

Bill James was an outsider who brought great insight to baseball. Why does insight and change often require an outsider? What is another example in a different field or industry?

The author’s description of Beane’s wheeling and dealing in Chapter 9 reveals certain strategies that might be considered “mind games” of a sort. Analyze how Billy Beane uses psychology in his dealings with other GMs regarding trades.

One of the themes of the book is thinking outside the box and how that changed the game of baseball. What is another example of how thinking outside the box fundamentally changed a field or industry? Explain in detail what happened and how such thinking led to the change.

In the 20 years that have passed since the book was published, have more teams adopted Billy Beane’s approach to managing a team? Analyze the state of Major League Baseball in the context of sabermetrics and whether it is more widely adopted today.