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Moneyball
Katy Hansen
Argosy University
Management Decision Models
B6025
Dr. Mathew Kuofie
May 11, 2016

Moneyball
In the article, “Who’s On First by Richard H. Thaler and Cass Rosenstein”, they examine why sabermetric-based player evaluation is such a shock to other executives in baseball. Billy Beane’s effectiveness is evaluated by constructing a matrix of pitfalls and practicalities that highlight the differences between Beane’s team and other executives. In addition, a personal decision that highlights a partiality resulting in loss will be discussed. The authors examine Michael Lewis’s new book: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. They scrutinize the charming General Manager Billy Beane of the Oakland Athletics baseball club, and explain how he turns his baseball team around primarily by using statistics instead of relying on baseball’s conventional wisdom to win. (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003). Lewis’s book points out the extraordinary success of Beane’s baseball team despite the fact that the payroll for the team is consistently in the bottom two or three spots in the league. (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003)
Thaler and Sunstein make the case that “the limits on human rationality and efficiency of labor markets” make for blunders and confusion with those who run baseball teams and ultimately correlates to similar blunders and confusions in many other fields. (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003) Lewis describes how Beane is heavily recruited primarily because of his own body and face and not his actual ability to play baseball. “Scouts never looked at his statistics because according to the scouts, he had it all” (Thaler & Sunstein, 2003, para. 6)
The authors goes on to say, that even though Beane was selected in the first round of the draft, he had one big problem and that was that he did not play baseball very well. (Thaler

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