America’s pastime has made it to the silver screen with a familiar message: If you want to beat the competition, you need a system that gives you an edge over the competition (even if the competition is flush with cash). Billy Beane, a wunderkind who gave up a full scholarship to Stanford to join the major leagues, came to understand that putting together a bunch of very talented, highly compensated ball players doesn’t guarantee a winning season. With a little help from a Harvard grad/economics wonk, Beane became the first general manger to apply statistical analyses to cobble together a winning team.
The underlying principle is that using hard data to determine which players will consistently contribute to the team’s success is the best way to get to the post-season. Base stealing and home runs are sexy and exciting, as are big-name players, but if you want to get your team to the World Series, pass over the superstars for the no-names that plug away at the banal core of the game — getting on base. “A walk’s as good as a hit” is the mantra of this methodology, known as “Sabermetrics.”
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