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Comments
Andrew Bruce Smith November 29th, 2011
Have you read the book as well? Well worth it. Then again, any Michael Lewis book is worth the entry fee.
Neil Stoneman November 29th, 2011
Hi Andrew,
It’s on the Christmas list now…
N
Doug Kessler December 2nd, 2011
Agreed — a great post about a movie I haven’t yet seen based on one of the best sports books of all time.
Paul Nerger December 25th, 2011
Agreed – Great book and great post.
But the book really isn’t about Baseball but about management. It’s about looking at things in a different way and finding insight based upon fact rather than instinct. Baseball is the vehicle but using fact and rigor to make management decisions is the message.
I work with lots of managers that make decisions based upon assumptions that are put into a spreadsheet and they see this as fact. When I take those assumptions, associate a probability distributions around them such that I can run a Monte Carlo analysis to understand the risk in the modeled; they typically freak.
Lord Kelvin said that you can not control (i.e., manage) that which you can not measure. The lesson of Moneyball is an old one; come up with a way to measure it and you will get a better result. Don’t be afraid of measurement; do your job and manage which means measurement.
And one last word about business sabermetrics; don’t rest on your laurels. Once everyone figures out that on-base percentage and slugging is more important than batting average, you’ve lost your advantage. It’s time to look for the next metric that will reestablish your competitive advantage.
Don’t believe me — ask Google. Oh, I forgot, unlike Billy Budd, they don’t talk about the metrics that give them competitive advantage:-).
Paul Nerger January 2nd, 2012
Actually, I meant to say Billy Beane and not Billy Budd :-} it was a flash back to my American Lit class in college:-)
Neil Stoneman January 3rd, 2012
Nice one Paul.
There are so many measurement lessons we should be taking on board.
N
Raj Gondhali February 25th, 2012
Nice one, Check out another one out here
http://www.saama.com/blog/bid/78901/Moneyball-A-must-watch-movie-for-the-Business-Analytics-savvy