Moneyball (2003) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

People edit see section history

• Billy Beane: General Manager of the Oakland A's and former player. He has a twisted way of doing things and always gets his way.
• Paul Depodesta: Billy Beane's assistant general manager. A Harvard grad. Studied Economics and Philosophy. The number cruncher for Beane. Was not featured in the movie as he wasn't ok with the way his character was playing out.
• Bill James: The father of sabermetrics.
• Scott Hatteberg: The Oakland A's first baseman. Former catcher who suffered an arm injury.
• Chad Bradford: Relief pitcher with an unconventional underarm delivery.
• Nick Swisher: Add a description of this character.
• Jeremy Brown: Catcher from the University of Alabama who was drafted in the first round by the A's in the 2002 draft.
• Omar Minaya: Montreal Expos General Manager.
• John Mabry: Former Major League Baseball player. Made major league debut with the St. Louis Cardinals and last appeared with the Colorado Rockies.
• Sandy Alderson: Billy Beane's predecessor and mentor with the Athletics.
• Jamie Moyer: Starting pitcher for the Seattle Mariners.
• Jason Giambi: Former A's first baseman, who had just signed a multiyear contract with the New York Yankees prior to the season.
• Lenny Dykstra: Former Major League Baseball player who came up in the NY Mets minor league system with Billy Beane.
• Ricardo Rincon: A major league relief pitcher for the Oakland A's during the Beane era.
• Grady Fuson: Former Oakland A's Scouting Director.
• Johnny Damon: Center Fielder for the Oakland A's, allowed to leave following the season via free agency.
• Jeremy Giambi: Jeremy was said to be one of the replacement players for his older brother, Jason Giambi. In the book he was looked at because of his plate discipline.
• Cliff Floyd: Played for the Oakland A's and went on to have a decent career.
• Art Howe: Manager of the Oakland A's.
• Don Mattingly: New York Yankees hitting coach during the Beane era. Current coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Played for the NY Yankees and was considered to be an icon.
• David Forst: An assistant who analyzed statistics.
• Terrence Long: Outfielder who was traded from the Mets to the A's for Kenny Rogers
• Joe Blanton: A starting pitcher out of the University of Kentucky who was drafted by the A's.
• Miguel Tejada: The A's starting Shortstop from the Dominican Republic was a bit of a free swinger
• Thad Bosley, "Boz": The A's hitting coach
• Kevin Youkilis: Boston Red Sox 1B/3B who Billy Beane wanted to trade for. The Greek God of OBP.
• Bud Selig: Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
• Barry Zito: Starting Pitcher for the Oakland A's was one of the Big three.
• Keith Law: He appears near the end of the book in the part about Ricciardi getting the Blue Jays GM job. Law says that his lines were made up, and that the conversation never took place.
• JP Ricciardi: one dude

Quotes edit see section history

• “never accept that a question has been answered as well as it ever will be.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The inability to envision a certain kind of person doing a certain kind of thing because you’ve never seen someone who looks like him do it before is not just a vice. It’s a luxury. What begins as a failure of the imagination ends as a market inefficiency: when you rule out an entire class of people from doing a job simply by their appearance, you are less likely to find the best person for the job.

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• if you challenge the conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things much better than they are currently done.

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• “No matter how successful you are, change is always good. There can never be a status quo.

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• “Every form of strength is also a form of weakness,” he once wrote. “Pretty girls tend to become insufferable because, being pretty, their faults are too much tolerated. Possessions entrap men, and wealth paralyzes them. I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.”

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• There was, for starters, the tendency of everyone who actually played the game to generalize wildly from his own experience. People always thought their own experience was typical when it wasn’t.

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• “Managers tend to pick a strategy that is least likely to fail rather than pick a strategy that is most efficient,” said Palmer. “The pain of looking bad is worse than the gain of making the best move.”

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• Every form of strength covers one weakness and creates another, and therefore every form of strength is also a form of weakness and every weakness a strength. The balance of strategies always favors the team which is behind. Psychology tends to pull the winners down and push the losers upwards.

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• “Anti-intellectual resentment is common in all of American life and it has many diverse expressions,”

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• “The variance between the best and worst fielders on the outcome of a game is a lot smaller than the variance between the best hitters and the worst hitters.”

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• “The problem,” wrote James, “is that baseball statistics are not pure accomplishments of men against other men, which is what we are in the habit of seeing them as. They are accomplishments of men in combination with their circumstances.”

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Organizations edit see section history

• Major League Baseball (MLB): Add a description of this organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Sabermetrics: Specialized analysis of baseball through objective, empirical evidence, specifically baseball statistics that measure in-game activity.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Empirical Evidence vs. Anecdotal Evidence: Describe this theme.
• Thinking Differently

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Devil in the White City, and followed by Born to Run.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Michael Lewis (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: GV0880 .L49 2003
• Dewey: 796.3570691

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Appropriate for readers aged 12 adn older, but written for adults.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Sports › Baseball › Essays & Writings
• Books › Business & Investing › Management & Leadership › Management

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Bill James online
• Introduction to Sabermetrics

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Moneyball (2011) (IMDb): Starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman

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Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

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