Hobbknockers

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Moneyball, by Michael Lewis as a non-fiction book. After the Oakland A's went 102-60 in 2001 season after being elimated by the Yankees and their 120 million salary in the playoffs. The A's were about to lose the three stars on thier team Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen who won the A's most of thier games. And the A's could no longer afford them with their 41 million salary for 25 players. This led the General Manager Billy Beane and his Assiatant Paul DePodesta to fill in those missing stars with only 41 million to spend on 25 players. Bill James a man who challanged the game of baseball proposed an idea in his books he wrote called sabermetrics. Sabermetrics was the specialized analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. The Formula was Hits + Walks * Total Bases / At bats + Walks which gave the on base precentage another big factor was the slugging precentage (which was the power of the hitter). The A's took advantage of this thoery and used to compete against richer teams who could afford which ever player they wanted. They looked for undervauled players in the market who they could afford and could replace the previous years on base precentage which Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon and Olmedo Saenz were a key success to the 2001 season Giambi had a (.477OBP) and Damon had a (.324OBP) and Olmedo Saenz (.291OBP) which averaged to (.364). The A's used his thoery and hired three players with similar OBP. They hired Scott Hatteberg Red Sox catcher who underwent elbow nerve surgery and no one wanted him because he couldnt throw the ball anymore he had a (.352) the previous year. Yankees star David Justice who no one wanted because he was old who had a (.333) to replace Olmedo Saenz and Giambi's younger brother, Jermey with a (.391) who was later traded for John Mabye with a similar OBP. That averagemd to a 0.359 which with Bill James thoery thier season should be similar. And it was they finished 103 and 53 losing to the Twins in the Playoffs. They finished with the best record in the American Leauge West and beat the record for most wins in as row with 20 which only hapened 14 times in a million acording to Billy's math. Billy was a different manager. He never watched games and he wanted to prove a point about baseball that richer teams have a huge advantage over poorer ones the A's only spent 41 million in 2002 and made it to the playoffs and every other team in the playoffs spent 85mil to 125mil.