Friday, June 27, 2003

DIMEBALL: I finished Michael Lewis' new book Moneyball: The Art Of Winning An Unfair Game yesterday. While insightful at times, it just leaves you wanting more -- or less. It could have worked well just as a standalone New Yorker/NYT Magazine article (and, indeed, the chapter on trades was excerpted in the Times a few Sundays ago) that had a minibio of Billy Beane and a brief exploration of his methodology . . .

. . . or, preferably, this book needed to be much longer than its 286 pages. Lewis does a solid enough job on the basics of how the Oakland Athletics have launched a revolution in baseball by winning without spending, by exploiting the sabermetric tools of on-base percentages and the knowledge base built up by Bill James and the Baseball Prospectus crew, but there isn't enough context. There isn't enough discussion of the economics of baseball, and the reasons why other low-budget teams haven't competed -- or of the fact that many have, including the Twins and Angels (duh) of last year, and have done so without going Beane's way.

Nor does the book have the longitudinal scope I wanted to see. There's a great chapter inside the A's draft room, and a brief epilogue on how two picks have done during their first few months in the minor leagues . . . but I want to see how Beane's picks are three years down the line, because that's where the proof of his methods lie. I wanted to know more about the Giambi-Mabry trade -- was it really just a Beane temper tantrum? I wanted to see dissenting viewpoints all over the place -- why can't the A's win in the playoffs? how did Art Howe, the A's manager, feel about all this? what will happen when more rich teams get smart?

(Also, how about more than just a brief mention of a certain Rogers Communications employee who was one of this site's earliest regular readers? He's earned it, even if he once believed this site was named for a Ned's Atomic Dustbin song.)

I'm all in favor of any book which brings the work of Voros McCracken to a wider audience. But for those of us who already know Voros (and have corresponded with him), a deeper, more sophisticated book would've been far preferable.

Also, finally: what up with the mammoth picture of Lewis on the back cover? Is it that anyone who'd want to blurb the book is already quoted in it?

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