A Game of Numbers, Small Numbers

Usually, the top players in a game have the best chance of winning. That’s why when picking teams in a schoolyard game; the best players tend to get selected before the weaker less experienced ones. Prior to reading Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, I believed that this remained true at all levels of games through the professional leagues. As someone who grew up in New York, watching the all powerful and might Yankees win World Series after World Series, it seemed pretty instinctual to me as a sports fan to realize that teams who have money to spend on talent are successful, end of story. While there are certainly several instances where that very basic formula fails, for the most part, success is achieved by the teams with the most amount of talent. So, the question remains, how can small market teams in professional sports stand a chance to compete with the wallets of GMs in places like Boston, New York or Los Angeles? Generally, the answer is not well, as the majority of big time sports dynasties have come from big time cities across the United States. 

            However, after reading about the 2002 Oakland Athletics and the brilliance behind Billy Beane’s methods and strategies, I realize that there are ways for these out-of-market teams to compete, it just takes a lot more brains to make up for less talent or really lack of capital. Throughout the novel, the reader learns of several methods that Beane and his management staff use to attempt to rate incoming players and free agents from around the league. No method however, has anywhere near the success as the revolutionary sabermetrics. This system of statistics takes into account different aspects of the game of baseball than traditional statistics does. Sabermetrics essentially created the categories of slugging and on-base percentage, as it has become one of the firm foundations of MLB statistics. As the book continues, different players who seem to shine in sabermetrics categories are able to be signed for much cheaper than their value according to the scouts new methods of statistics. By strictly abiding by a new revolutionary way of player judgment, Billy Beane took a big chance in complete and utter failure. But, instead, he assembled a very cheap and very ambitious group of young players with nothing to lose and found a formula to create winning baseball. The 2002 A’s went on to have a magical year that year, using their $41 Million salary and taking that group of guys and challenging the high powered $125 Million Yankees for the league pennant. 

General Manager of the Oakland Athletics Billy Beane

            After reading, while still being amazed by the ideas behind sabermetrics and the ways of the Oakland A’s front office, I began to wonder why this formula worked for the A’s. I then thought back to a lecture by Brian Coppola, in which he explained how in his opinion, the most successful way for a game to work is by using statistics with small numbers. Applying that to the novel, the A’s decided that rather than focusing on the 30+ categories worth of statistics that are currently recorded and used to determine player talent, they would rely on strictly two categories that took about ten different aspects of the game into account. What this allowed for was for the management to focus on the aspects they felt needed improvement on their ball club and then had the ability to pick out the best suitable players for their situation. Moreover, by assembling a team made up of guys with smaller salaries and in accordance, smaller egos, the A’s were able to build up team chemistry unlike any other team in the league because they lacked the superstars who butt heads with each other over the spot light. By combining smaller pieces together, especially in a game in which depth and chemistry is of utmost importance, it is possible to compete with teams with three times the payroll and double the talent. This book provides evidence that an underdog story is possible when the right small pieces are put in place. While teams fight in free agency over the top $100 Million per year players, maybe they should take a look back at what Billy Beane has accomplished in Oakland, especially when they first began to turn around in 2002 and they implemented the system of sabermetrics into their scouting resources. If not, maybe they should call Brian Coppola a call, because he at least convinced me that the most vital aspect of a game is statistics of small numbers and that will lead to ultimate success.