Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Art of Winning an Unfair Game


November 3, 2011

After watching the movie “Moneyball” last month, I have decided to read the original book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”, in which Michael Lewis tells the story of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's attempt to put together a baseball club with a low budget by employing quantitative analysis to draft his players (looking for undervalued players in the market). 

In addition to the mathematical method involved in Beane’s management, another interesting concept is the measure of financial efficiency mentioned in this book: how many marginal dollars does a team spend for each marginal win. Especially for people with an economics background, doesn’t it sound pretty familiar, ha?



Generally speaking, this book gives an example of how an unscientific culture responds, or fails to respond, to the scientific method, just as Michael Lewis wrote in the preface. And I am excited to know more details in this story.

I have started the reading in my kindle, and just finished Chapter One: The Curse of Talent.     


--
Lorena Li       

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