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 Moneyball approach that was applied to the Oakland Athletics in their 2002 season was to attempt to create a great, winning team on a very low budget. I consider this a science because the game is an art, but the approach included calculations, formulas, and statistics. Billy Beane and Peter Brandt boiled down their value consideration to On Base Percentage, which to them was the only thing that mattered.
2) What is the equation used to calculate OBP? (In class research/discussion)
The equation used to calculate On Base Percentage is OBP=(H+BB+HPB)/(AB+BB+HBP+SF), where H is hits, BB is base on balls (Walks), HPB is times hit by a pitch, AB is at bats, and SF is sacrifice flies. I believe the equation could be simplified to OBP=(H)/(AB+SF).
3) What is design? (In class research/discussion)
A design has an assortment of definitions, like a plan or blueprint, or it could be more of a mental design, which is like a vision, or a mental guideline.
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-In the beginning of the film, when everyone is discussing their attempt to recover from the players they lost, Billy Beane is focusing on discovering the main problem.
2-Peter Brandt created equations to discover the players' averages and based from that, he let people go and hired others to advance progress in the problem of replacing the main players.
3-Throughout the whole movie Billy Beane is revising his team in order to have his ideal team playing, like in Project Lead The Way, when you revise until completion. He ran a working team, where he could change around the team, like editing it, until he hit the sweet spot and got a 20 game 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-Billy Beane did what was the best for the team when he traded Jason Giambi
2-Although in the background, Peter Brandt was the one who really led the team with his idea of Moneyball
3-Billy Beane stays focused on the objective of winning and On Base Percentage throughout the whole film
7) According to the movie, what was the A’s record at the start of their winning streak? 68 : 51
8) What does this ratio simplify to (roughly)? 1.33 : 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)
The odd of winning 20 games in a row is .57 to the 20th power which is simplified to 0.000013. When further calculations were made, our class discovered that to reach the ideal truth of 1, there would have to be 474 seasons of baseball played. With each season there are 162 games, there would have to be 76,788 games played.
11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?
I believe that the approach to Moneyball had to do with the 20 game winning streak because the team was based upon who got on base, and obviously, if you can't get on base, you don't score runs, and if you don't score runs, you don't win. The Moneyball approach was not based on the player's skills all together, but rather solely on the On Base Percentage of the player.
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.
Billy Beane applied the Moneyball approach to his management most of the time, and he didn't really make his efforts an art, but made them remain a science. At one time he broke the Moneyball approach when Beane decided to trade Jason Giambi, a Moneyball pick, but it was for the better of the team because Giambi didn't take it seriously.
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?
The author of Moneyball was Michael Lewis, who wrote other books, such as The New Thing, The Blind Side, Liar's Poker, and The Big Short. His writing theme seems to be based around the weaker person triumphing, like a modern day David vs. Goliath.
It's "Oscar Season", will Moneyball win the Oscar for any of the categories it's up for?
Since "Oscar Season" just passed, I saw that Moneyball did not win any awards, unfortunately, although it was a great movie.
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