BOCA RATON, Fla.-Billy Beane's life has changed a bit in recent years following release of the movie "Moneyball," in which Brad Pitt played him.
"I used to be asked, 'What's it like to have Brad Pitt play you?' And I would say, 'It's better than having Zero Mostel play me.' Then I realized only people over 50 know who Zero Mostel is. So now I just say, 'They totally nailed it.'"
Beane is general manager of the Oakland A's baseball team, and rose to fame by turning upside down every long-held assumption about how to build a successful baseball team, beginning by doing away with gut assumptions and subjective evaluations. The team has been relatively successful despite its modest payroll and many other teams now use its model.
Beane didn't need to look far for an example of how players can be highly overrated before ever making it to the big leagues. Considered the second-best baseball prospect in 1980, Beane would only play 148 games in the Bigs, hitting just .219 with a .246 OBP, even though he "looked" like a baseball player. "I was a classic case of an overvalued asset. Sports is an emotional business," Beane told CO-OP Financial Services' THINK 12 Conference.
Beane said he learned from the example of former teammate Lenny Dykstra, who looked nothing like a baseball player and was taken in the 13th round, but went on to have a strong career. "He was a classic case of an undervalued asset. It took me about 10 years to realize what Lenny does is what a baseball player does. This had a huge impact on me when I stopped playing, and I thought, we've got to stop looking at players and fantasizing and instead look at what they do."
Looking at what they do, of course, is what the Michael Lewis book Moneyball and movie of the same name are all about: using data and not letting emotions get in the way.
Invented Nothing, Ripped Off Everything
"We invented nothing in Oakland. We ripped off other businesses and ideas. There were other people who had been writing for years who were outside the industry who were saying there is a more efficient way to run a baseball team. I brought (stats guru) Paul (DePodesta, played by Jonah Hill in the movie) in because I wanted my own in-house stats expert. People said what you were doing seemed risky. But for us, doing it like everyone else was even more risky. We were taking a subjective process and making it objective."
Beane noted that DePodesta had always urged him to "trust the math." Beane ran his audience through statistics that are overrated (sacrifice bunts, steals) and underrated (getting on base, regardless of how) and admitted some of the Oakland A's teams have looked like a "slow-pitch softball team."
Beane reminded CUs it's imperative to block out distractions. "The only way we can stay successful is to stay focused and avoid the noise."
