Thursday, April 17, 2008

What's Your Favorite Baseball Book

The best baseball book I have read is Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. The book details the change to the current trend of statistics-oriented scouting in baseball, rather than the "good ol' boy" network that has existed for so long. It is basically the story of Billy Beane's rise to success as General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. As a 5-tool player himself, he was a "sure thing", a "can't miss" type of player - who basically fell way short of expectations as a Major League Player.

As a computer and stats guy myself, I couldn't put this book down. Very few books have this effect on me. I enjoyed reading about Billy Beane's scouting team, led by the laptop-toting Paul DePodesta. Moneyball shows how Beane was able to make the Oakland Athletics, a team with a very small budget, competitive year-in and year-out in the American League West Division. You'll read how he scouted the likes of Mark Teahen, who is now an everyday player with the Kansas City Royals and Jeremy Brown, who has had a couple of sips on the big-league level, but hasn't made a solid impact yet. There are also interesting stories about players like Chad Bradford.

If you've never heard of this book or of Bill James and you like baseball, it could change your thinking. If you already know of the likes of Bill James, Theo Epstein and terms like SABR and OPS - you will definitely enjoy this read. You can purchase Moneyball at the The Baseball Mall.

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