Is Moneyball Now Over-hyped?
From Competitive Advantage to Table Stakes
This week we received two new submissions focused on Moneyball. The first can be found here and serves this article to give a solid history around the origin of Moneyball. The second is featured in the cover art for this article and focuses on the outcome of that practice.
What is Moneyball?
Moneyball describes the practice first employed by Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane in 2002 which exploited inefficiencies in the system of baseball salaries. These inefficiencies were discovered by Paul DePodesta, the assistant GM at the time, through the analysis of SABR metrics. In other words, analytics at its best.
Exploiting inefficiencies in a market almost always leads to success and Moneyball was no exception. While Billy Beane never managed to win a championship, he was able to have Brad Pitt play him in a movie.
Fifteen seasons later…
Much has transpired since Bill James first made Sabremetrics popular and Beane and DePodesta first put this experiment to its test. There have books and movies, daily radio shows, and even a Simpson episode. So is it over?
Experience tells us that once the inefficiencies in the system have been exposed the market will adapt to remove them. When I met Billy Beane last winter, he admitted that was exactly what has happened.
When a competitive advantage becomes table stakes, does that mean it is now over-hyped?
As an analyst, it is nice to see something that connects the public to what we do. As I mentioned in prior articles, baseball has been especially well-oriented to exposing the public to things like analytics and statistics.
But like so many get rich schemes from real estate to gold, stocks to tax liens — is this just one more system that has passed its prime. Is it more likely now to leave people jaded like the real estate bubble and day trading?
What is the next inefficiency in the system? Is it somewhere to be found in Mark Cuban’s love of technology and basketball? Or maybe Chip Kelly will soon redeem his own system with the San Francisco 49ers?
Baseball Visualization Challenge is a concept created by Corsair’s Institute. Neither this competition nor Corsair’s Institute is not associated with the MLB in any way. Our visualization expertise is second to none. Our softball team loses in games where the other team forfeits.
