Book Report 3

The third section starts out by examining the success Billy Beane has obtained through his new and radical approach to player selection. He was called in front a board of Major League executives to explain how exactly, with one of the lowest payrolls in the entire league, di the Oakland Athletics rank among the best teams in baseball year after year. Billy passes off these questions to sheer luck in order to keep his method to himself. But the proof is there, his ideas are working.

Lewis next explores one of Billy’s greatest schemes, the over-valuation of a closer. Billy himself realizes their value is overhyped, as any normal pitcher put into a save position could have modest success. Coming into the game needing only three outs to win, almost always with a lead, will lead to a favorable outcome more often than not, creating a false sense of importance for the closing position. So Billy exploits this fact, moving a good pitcher into the closing spot, padding his stats, then unloading him for far more than his actual market worth. This is how Billy is able to get the players he wants without a large inflow of cash.

The rest of the chapter once again discusses a drastic new way of statistical analysis, AVM Systems. This approach took every part of a play and separated it into its simplest pieces. What each player did, where a ball was hit, how the fielder reacted, and what kind of pitch were all examples of the minute instances recorded. These fragments were given the name derivatives, no doubt attributed to the fact that the system’s creators were former Wall Street analysts. By interpreting these derivatives, statistical patterns could be found, but more importantly, they were free of the aspect of luck, which no other system to date had success removing. No matter the situation or events prior, this system could tell the likelihood of a run scored after a double, or if two men were on base with one out. Billy’s assistant Paul incorporated an AVM system into the Oakland front office, and Billy used the information to form his strategies and player selections.

            Chapter seven focuses on the replacement of a key part of Oakland’s lineup, Jason Giambi. His hitting statistics were phenomenal, but the A’s couldn’t afford to resign him for the amount of money he wanted. So Billy was left to patch together his lineup with the biggest part missing. Giambi led the American League in on-base percentage, leaving a considerable hole to be filled with no money to fill it. So Billy and Paul got together and chose a new idea, instead of finding a big name replacement, pick up a few cheap players whose value adds up to equal Giambi’s. 

They determine that the most important stat to focus on was the percentage of pitches outside of the strike zone a player swung at. The lower the number, the more disciplined a hitter, therefore the better a hitter. Through these numbers Billy also came to another conclusion, that the players who lead this statistic were ones he had traded for, while the ones who did poorly were the ones he drafted and tried to teach these ideas. He therefore concluded that hitter is a natural occurrence, and pitch selection can’t be taught.  Billy completes his goals of replacing Giambi by signing several decent hitters, one of whom was his own brother, Jeremy. This patchwork works for the moment, but after a few games it is apparent that replacing Jason Giambi is no easy task.

The chapter ends by examining a strange phenomenon, as Lewis describes, the fact that Billy Beane, full of enthusiasm and love for the game, almost never actually watches the team he built play in person. While Lewis and Billy converse within the hallways of the Oakland Coliseum, the Lewis foreshadows the next chapter of the book by introducing its focal point, a recently injured catcher by the name of Scott Hatteberg.

(Section 3 = Chapters Six and Seven, Pages 119 – 161)

Walmart's Dress-Code

It was interesting in the If Preppies Took Over Wal-Mart and today's class discussion to learn that something as simple as a uniform can have such a profound impact. I never thought too much of what exactly a uniform represents, or what message or values it can portray to a customer or employee. While some jobs require a standardized uniform for safety reasons, in the other occupations a uniform has a much larger meaning. While it provides a sense of camaraderie amongst workers, a uniform also helps to represent a business, or create an image to consumers. While some may argue that they're simply clothes and have a minimal impact, a classy or unique uniform can help to set a business apart, or help to build a loyal customer base.

Organizational Culture

After reading Body Ritual Among the Nacirema and discussing organizational culture in class, I enjoy being able to look at a social ritual or symbol and finding the deeper meanings it holds. Finding out that just by looking at "artifacts" one can work back and conclude the "shared values" and "shared beliefs" the artifact represents was a very interesting concept. This information allows one to better understand cultures, and the people within them. By simply examining a cultures artifacts, I like that I can now interpret what those cultures hold to be important, and how these artifacts shape the way the people live within their culture. These concepts also allow me to look at the artifacts surrounding me, and how I can conclude how our beliefs and values have led to most of these artifacts being present around me.

Prisoner's Dilemma Strategies

Last Week in class we further discussed the prisoner's dilemma, and the different strategies one could use to approach the problem. The best strategy discussed was avoidance, which involves avoiding unnecessary conflicts by cooperating with the other party as long as they choose to cooperate. This option yields the best results, but heavily hinges on trust. Provocability involved becoming competitive in the face of opposition, instead of cooperating. This may work out once or twice, but this strategy leads to both parties losing in the end. Finally, forgiveness was a strategy that led one to one immediately becoming cooperative after provocability, in order to put the conflict aside and work toward a good final decision. After examining these strategies and how they affect the prisoner's dilemma, it become clear that it may seem like a simple process, but not being able to know the other party's exact thoughts and motivations can lead to a tense and tricky decision process.

Decision-Making Quiz

The decision-making quiz we took in class on Monday brought into light the fact that I had used mental shortcuts called heuristics in order to come to some of my answers. While I started out the quiz without using any of these shortcuts, after four or five questions I came across answers that I had incorrectly chosen because I used heuristics to come to my answer. While these processes are usually just a mental tool to save time, I learned through this in class excersize that sometimes, during the decision making process, it is truly better to take your time and not try to use a shortcut to come to your final answer. While I did manage to avoid using heuristics for most of my answers, the ones which I did rely on heuristics must be focused on not to make the same mistake again.

Book Report 2

            The second section of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball begins by examining the progression of baseball statistics, and the development of a new way to interpret these statistics, known as sabermetrics. The fourth chapter begins by giving the poor state of baseball statistics in the mid-1970’s. Due to the fact that computers weren’t yet prevalent, baseball statistics weren’t totally accurate and were not nearly as thorough as they are today. This changed due to two separate occurrences, the advancement and availability of computers, and the rising salaries of baseball free-agents.

The advancement of the computer led to a cheaper and more efficient way to store more statistics than anyone before had thought to keep. By having the cheep space to store these piles of information, more and more information started to be collected during baseball games. Bill James used these statistics to publish his first book on baseball statistics, 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 Categories of Statistical information That You Just Can’t Find Anywhere Else. In this short book, and the updates he released yearly, Bill James started to not only compile statistics, but chose to also explore them deeper and tried to determine what, if any, insight these numbers could give into how they actually effect a baseball game. Bill James main objection was the focus on the time on a particular statistic, Runs-Batted-In, abbreviated as rbi’s. These numbers were looked upon by baseball managers as indicators on the worth of a hitter, but Bill James realized what they did not, that these statistics didn’t focus on a player’s individual accomplishments, but depended on the work of numerous players, skewing the accuracy of the statistic. James came up with a formula to determine the total runs created y a batter, using only his own statistics, and independent of other players. His formula was:

Runs Created = (Hits + Walks) x Total Bases / (At Bats + Walks)

While this formula wasn’t totally accurate or dependable, it was the first and best formula of its kind, choosing to determine an individual’s impact on team performance. By challenging the status quo and choosing to make his own conclusions, Bill James had changed the way baseball talent could be evaluated, and down the road changed how Billy Beane would choose to form his team.

            The second chapter of the section goes into how Billy took the concepts formed by James, and formed his selections for the 2002 amateur baseball draft. Billy started by focusing on a catcher out of the University of Alabama, Jeremy Brown. Based on the traditions of scouting, Brown was a bust, out of shape and not in baseball form. But Billy saw his value through the four years of hitting statistics he acquired, and knew he was worth more than other’s thought. After his own scouts downplayed Brown’s worth, Billy pointed out that all they had was intuition and opinions, while he has proven results to reach his evaluation. Based on the Athletics’ limited resources, and the competition from other teams, Billy knew he would have to choose his players differently to actually spick and sign the players he wanted. By using James’s theory and focusing on statistics, Billy Beane ended up drafting thirteen players from his original wish list of twenty, an amazingly high number compared to normal results. By choosing players others saw no worth in, and by manipulating other teams through a variety of business tactics, Beane had come out of the draft happier than he could have ever imagined, and had created the foundation for his team’s future.

            This section of the book mainly provides background information, and doesn’t contain any kind of substantial organizational topics. Rather it frames the story for upcoming events, and how these new ideas and practices changed the structure of baseball and statistics forever.

(Section 2 = Chapters 4 & 5, Pages 64 – 119)

Interest - Rights - Power

The examples we used in class helped me to more easily understand how these three things are the goals of negotiation. After reading "Three Approaches to Resolving Disputes" I came to understand that if two parties are not negotiating based on interests, the outcome will not be as good as it possibly could have been. Negotiating in terms of power leads to messy negotiations, and if one party does indeed win and a negotiation is made, then the other side will never truly accept it and always look to get back at the other party. Agreeing to terms based on rights is usually used well when there is a good government involved, as a government must be able to enforce the rights, or these type of negotiations are pointless. By negotiating on interests, both sides better convey what they ultimately want, and can more easily come to a suitable and successful negotiation.

Accelmedia Negotiation

This exercise was made much easier after reading "Secrets of Power Negotiating." The article gave numerous ways to augment a negotiation in order to reach a more promising result for yourself. For example, I used the technique of using an extreme number far away from you actual goal in order to "make concessions" all the while getting the actual number you wanted. By started at an extreme number, it helped to throw the other part out of their game, and gave me an upper hand in negotiating. Overall, the negotiation was a success, and I ended up signing my contract to pay less for the new parts than my company was paying for the parts we ran out of. By using the techniques from the article, I was able to sign a very beneficial contract for my company, and helped to actually cut overall costs through the process. I think the in class exercise was a great way to get some first hand negotiating experience.

Pemberton In-Class Activity

This in class activity easily taught me some of the aspects of negotiation, and how sometimes you must work with a competitor if it can help you I the end. My group chose to work with our competition after the first negotiation period, as we both came to realize that cooperating could help us to both maximize our profits.  While business is cut-throat, sometimes you must comply with competition in order to help yourself, so both groups came together and worked to maximize profit. The end of the activity also taught me the value of trust, and not to have too much of it. The group that represented our competitors chose to dishonor hour agreement, leading to an enormous profit for themselves and leaving us with only a slight profit. So while they cooperated to that point, I and my partner should have realized the profit opportunity was too high and should have also changed our choice for the last week of the simulation.

Book Report - 1

Micheal Lewis begins Moneyball by describing the early life of Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane. Billy was a natural born athlete, and had he most success during his teen years playing baseball. He pitched his first high school game as a freshman, recording a shutout victory, and went on to become a monstrous hitter throughout his four year career. He was drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft by the New York Mets, but when he entered the team’s farm system his obvious flaws started to show. Billy was a perfectionist, and couldn’t stand getting out whenever he hit, which is something all players must come to deal with. Instead of focusing on improving after he made mistakes, Billy would become enraged and lose his confidence, which only lead to him making more mistakes than before. He played a few games in the major leagues, but he was never able to become the superstar everyone expected him to be. He chose to stop playing and enter the front offices in the 1990 season, switching from the playing side to the business side in order to reach more success.

Micheal Lewis then moves on from the life of Billy Beane to discuss the current problem that faced major league baseball scouting. Most scouts were retired or failed players, and did their job by traveling for countless hours to watch and evaluate high school and college players. They then made their own judgments, and evaluated whether or not a player should be drafted. During Oakland’s 2002 draft, Billy Beane, now the manager of the A’s, started to change the current state of major league scouting. He realized from his own failure that judging a player solely on potential is a bad thing, because it is not a sure outcome. Billy chose instead to focus on actual statistics, ignoring most of his scouts’ suggestions. Billy thought that if a player in college had been able to put up certain numbers, this was a better indication of success than any intuitions or feelings a scout could have on a player. By implementing this new process, Billy would change the way business was done in baseball.

            Lewis’s first chapter focused solely on the life of Billy Beane, and therefore did not integrate any of the business ideas from class. The second chapter, however, integrated different concepts within its content. The first topic contained within the book was groupthink, and this was seen through the process of scouting done by Oakland’s scouts. Each scout would give a subjective opinion of their players, based solely on intuition, and other members always accepted these observations as truth. This led to far too many untalented payers being drafted, because as Billy himself proved, not all “good looking” athletes will prove to be successful. Instead, by using years of accumulated statistics, Billy was able to better gauge a player’s worth. Accepting business as usual in order to avoid conflict, even when the group is wrong, is definitely an example of groupthink.

Lewis also touched upon the team performance curve in the second chapter. Instead of focusing on team needs and deficiencies, the scouts only focused upon the best players possible. Billy instead chose to look at his team, and then find out what parts are missing. Billy was trying to create a high-performing team, or trying to fit pieces together to make a team who was better as a whole then the sum of its parts. By worrying bout specific needs, and also taking into account team chemistry, Billy was taking the correct steps in creating as high performing team.

The first section of Moneyball laid the framework for the rest of the book, and introduced concepts that are pivotal to the book’s later plot. By thinking outside the box, and by having the extra knowledge of being a failed player himself, Billy Beane had all of the tools to change major league baseball. That is exactly what he will end up doing.

(Section 1 = Chapters 1-3, Pages 1-63)