Ruy's blogs: February 2012

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 was basicaly to get players with a low value but high quantity. I think that it is both an art and a science because it is the science of geting all the data and the statistics, but also the art of applying them to the game of baseball. The single statistic that everything boiled down to was on base percentage.
2) What is the equation used to calculate OBP? (In class research/discussion)

$OBP = \frac{H+BB+HBP}{AB+BB+HBP+SF}$

H- HITS
BB- WALKS
HBP- TIMES HIT BY PITCH
AB- AT BATS
SF- SACRIFICE FLIES

3) What is design? (In class research/discussion)

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 - Bean tries to define the problem while the other scouts try to skip onyo brainstorming.

2 - Higher Peter Brandt could be the refining step.

3 - Bean and Brandt put the team to the test.

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 - Fiered head scout

2 - Forced coach to play with money ball tactics

3 -Cut the younger Giambi.

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)? __1.5_ : 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)

.0037%

11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?

I think that it was definetly the monryball tactic.

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.

I think that it is mostly the science, but Bean also applied some art to his efforts.One example when Bean broke his approach was when he fiered the younger Giambi.

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?