MONEYBALL: Michael Lewis’ new book is a great read (though I still think that “Trail Fever” is his best by a long shot, and even “Liar’s Poker” is a bit better than this one), but I have a couple of objections to it.

First, the emphasis Lewis puts on “objective” statistics is perhaps helpful as a corrective, but it goes too far. As anyone who watches baseball regularly, and as Billy Beane implicitly concedes by the fact that he refuses to watch games, games are extremely emotional affairs, decided in many cases by which team has the momentum on its side. To focus too much on statistics is to ignore the fact that particular moves that may be bad on the whole and in the long run, may nonetheless be critical in shifting the momentum of the game. Here I think of the use of the bunt, which Lewis says is overrated. At the same time, getting a runner in scoring position might be a big thing for a team – it might raise its confidence, it might discourage the opposing pitcher. And this may be enough to alter decisively the direction of the game.

None of this, certainly, goes against the use of statistics in deciding whom to draft or whom to play. But isolating statistics, and presenting them as the whole rather than part of the whole, is unfair. One of the most pitiable characters in the book, Art Howe, gets portrayed as something of a robot manipulated by Billy Bean, and in principle dispensable. Yet it is the managers who make the key calls when it comes to what to do when the team is down and you need to get the momentum back on your side – a skill that requires judgment rather than a proper knowledge of statistics. I’d even hazard to say that managers are the ones who are key to winning playoff games, when emotion takes on a greater role (which might explain why the A’s have trouble in the playoffs).

Second, Lewis gives his book a sort of morality-tale flavor, about how money isn’t everything and if you have enough ingenuity and knowledge, you can beat the big spending teams. But this can only work so long. Lewis gets at this when he paints the Yankees as basically a team that can buy out the star players of other teams. So even if you find a statistic that everyone else ignores, and if you draft players according to that statistic, it still remains the case that the big money teams can buy out the players once they start flourishing. To put it another way, the Yankees can use the A’s as their farm system, finding and developing their future stars. So money still rules, at least in the long run.

I will say, however, that Lewis’ book has made me much more skeptical about the conventional wisdom proffered by color commentators (such as, “so and so is a good ‘clutch’ hitter”). At the same time, the appeal of making baseball more like a science wanes after a while, and one longs again to be caught up in the emotion of the game.

- posted by Chad @ Monday, September 01, 2003