Category: 2 – BUY it! (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)
Comments: Another Michael Lewis masterpiece. I saw the movie before I read the book. The book was really interesting. Many of the baseball terms and statistics went a bit over the head as I’ve never watched baseball. However, the story and insight were fantastic.
Top 3 Learnings:
1. Value is created when you understand market inefficiencies and exploit them. In the case of baseball, the whole player measurement system was flawed and based on the look of a player rather than statistics that actually contributed to the team. Billy Beane simply went ahead and used these inefficiencies to cause a revolution in the way players were scouted.
2. If you HAVE to do a deal, you are doing to pay too much for it.
3. My favorite insight was Beane’s approach of building a baseball team rather than a collection of players. For example, Beane and his team identified that a play off team needed to score 900 runs to qualify for the play offs (if I remember right). So, they went about building a team that would score the runs together building on each other’s strengths. Focus on the whole, not on the parts. Don’t replace players.. Replace their statistics with one or more players. Top draw insight!
Book notes here.
Marler's Observatory 