Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Indeed statistics and the valuation of people is a great overview of this book. Lewis is a great storyteller and respected author. Unquestionably he delivers a great story about baseball.
They say “the book is always better than the movie.” This is so very true. If you found the movie’s portrayal of the medieval approach to drafting players, then Lewis book will take you down the rabbit hole of professional baseball.
Lewis addresses the career of Beane from high school. The odd story of Beane playing with Darryl Strawberry (also right out of high school) and Lenny Dykstra could go on forever.
Amazing the Mets saw Beane as the emerging star over Strawberry but did not support Beane’s slumps that all those scouts and coaches should have long scene coming.
Moneyball certainly offers readers a great in-depth view of how Billy hired Paul DePodesta to apply Sabermetrics allowing Beane to ‘count the cards at the blackjack table’ and make the small market team defeat Goliath.