MONEY BALL QUESTIONS
1) What was the “Moneyball”approach that Billy Beane and Peter Brandt applied to the Oakland Athletics 2002 season? Was it an “art” or a “science”? What single statistic did they boil their value consideration down to? (In class research/discussion)
The approach that Billy Beane applied to the Athletics was that they were more focused on getting people on base. It was more of a science, because they used specific equations to find which player had the best on base percentage, although
2) What is the equation used to calculate OBP? (In class research/discussion)
OBP = (Hits + Walks + Hit by Pitch)
(At Bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Flies)
3) What is design? (In class research/discussion) Design is creating an idea and then from your head, transforming that idea into something.
4) Describe 3 situations where movie characters (intentionally or not) applied a step from the PLTW 12 Step Design Process. Explain both the (a) situation as well as (b) how the step is relevant:
1 - When the scouts were in the scouter room, and they are in the scout room, and the older scouts are trying to find new scouts and Billy Beane keeps trying to get them to say the problem, but they couldn't. PLTW step 1: Define the Problem
2 - When Billy Beane was looking at OBP, he saw that Hatterberg was a good person for that, but couldn't play catcher, so he put him at first base so he could play.
PLTW step 5: Explore the possibilities
3 - When Billy Bean fired all those people, forcing the manager to play the people how he wanted to, starting their winning streak.
5) What is “Leadership”? List the three aspects of leadership that we come up with in class. (In class research/discussion)
1 - Direction
2 - Alignment
3 - Commitment
6) Describe 3 circumstances from the story where a character exercised effective leadership:
1 - When Billy Beane cut Giambi because he was bad moral for the team, and when he also cut the two other starters because he wanted his plan to start working
2 - Even though Pete didnt want to fire that one guy, because he had to show his leadership he stepped up and fired him
3 - When Beane rejects the offer of the Red Sox, showing he wanted to stay in Oakland
7) According to the movie, what was the A’s record at the start of their winning streak? 76 : 51
8) What does this ratio simplify to (roughly)? 1.5 : 1
9) How long was the A’s record setting winning streak? 20 games won.
10) Given the A’s win/loss ratio at the start of the streak (listed two questions above), what are the odds of winning 20 games in a row? Run the numbers. (In class research/discussion)
Their chance of winning those games was .000037, and with those odds it would take 168 years to get that streak.
11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?
Well since they started the winning streak after Billy cut Giambi, Pena, and others they started to win, i think that it was partly due to the Moneyball approach
12) Did Billy Beane strictly apply the “science” of Moneyball to his management approach? Was there an “art” to his efforts as well? Describe a circumstance where he broke from the Moneyball approach to make a positive change for the team.
It was more of a 50/50, when they were trying to find players they were using science to find their OBP, and then once they had the people that they wanted they used the art of baseball to start winning their games. When Beane fired Giambi because he was a bad influence for moral on the team, even though he had a pretty good OBP, this showed how he broke free of the Moneyball technique.
Bonus Question (look into this if you’ve finished ahead of the class):
Money Ball was originally a book. What author wrote the book? What other books has this author written? Is there a theme to his writing?
It was written by Micheal Lewis, he also wrote books relating around New York, and some other sport books. Some of his other works are The Money Culture, Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life
