When you think of professional baseball what is the first thing that comes to mind? For most, I would probably say it is your favorite team or favorite player. What is it exactly about that team or player that makes them your favorite? Are they your favorite because they are a winning team or could it be because they are the lead home run hitter?
I recently watched the film Moneyball and became intrigued by Billy Beane (General Manager of the Oakland’s A’s) and his new way of judging players and managing the team. In the film, Billy Beane hand in hand with a Yale economist transformed the way that players were recruited within Major League Baseball. Unlike other big league teams whose main focus was to recruit star players, Billy and his assistant focused on recruiting players based on their statistical performance, their on base percentage. The strategy they used was pretty simple and involved forecasting wins.
They recruited players who were undervalued by other teams whom did not recognize that winning games involved getting on base, not stealing bases, etc. At the end of the day it didn’t matter how the player got on base, whether it was a walk or a hit, what mattered was that they got on base. In 2002, Billy Beane took the Oakland A’s on a 20 game winning streak breaking a three-way tie for the longest winning streak in AL history by utilizing this strategy.
Soon after the 2002 season other teams like the Boston Red Sox’s began to utilize Billy’s strategy and the game of baseball would be changed forever. The Boston Red Sox who were said to have had the curse of the Bambino went on to win the World Series in 2004 for the first time in 86 years after implementing Billy’s strategy under the management of Theo Epstein
The success of the Oakland A’s under the management of Billy Bean was attributed to quantitative forecasting. I believe quantitative forecasting is vital to the success of any organization as it enables managers to foresee/forecast the future and ensures proper development of strategies.
What is your opinion of quantitative forecasting? Will the Chicago Cubs end the curse of the Goat and win a World Series under the management of Theo Epstein in the near future?
I became so intrigued by the film that when it was over, I powered up the laptop and googled to see what other information I could find about the film. The link below provides a descriptive analysis about the film and explains the strategy that was utilized by the Oakland A’s
http://www.pcs-partners.com/tools-and-job-aides/55-moneyball-and-talent-strategy.html
This makes me want to watch the movie Moneyball now. It’s amazing how Billy Beane took a risk and took on players that other teams didn’t want, but it makes so much more sense to get players based on their base percentage. Considering quantitative forecasting uses factual numbers and previous experiences I do not think the cubs are too close to winning the World Series. However, if Theo Epstein implemented Billy Beane’s strategies there might be hope.
This post is relevant because I think that quantitative reasoning provides a more objective forecast than qualitative forecasting. Quantitative reasoning provides us with past performance. Interestingly, Moneyball showed that qualitative forecasting such as using intuition, feeling or emotion isn’t very certain. When Billy Beane was drafted he was expected to be a Hall of Famer. However, the scout’s instinct proved wrong. Conversely, Billy Beane used quantitative forecasting and it showed that historical figures paint a better picture than using gut instinct.
Lastly, I think it would be foolish to assume that the Cubs can win a world series under Theo Epstein just because quantitative forecasting worked in Boston. The forecasting would be based on historical data and it doesn’t necessarily mean the same performance would follow to the future.