Moneyball by Michael Lewis : An unputdownable study in how to value things with

I think you could give Michael Lewis a random set of numbers and he would still be able to build a narrative to tie them all up.

Moneyball is about Oakland A. A baseball team which doesn't have much money but they still manage to win games(a lot of games) and make the playoffs. To achieve this Billy Beane(their general manager) and Paul(their statistician, a Harvard graduate straight out of college) redefine the metrics they will use to measure player performance. In essence it is about seeing value where no one else does. It is also about figuring out where players are overvalued in the baseball market.

Right from the outset Michael Lewis draws you in with Billy Beane. Billy Beane is archetypal perfect baseball player, the perfect athlete whose career does not play out the way it is expected to. This causes him to have a healthy disrespect for gut instincts and conventional ways of measuring value. This is in essence how the tale is setup.

Michael Lewis brings out the lessons that he learned in wallstreet and writes a non fiction that reads like a thriller and has you gripped from start to finish, a spiffing read, and a thoroughly entertaining and enlightening one.

You can buy Moneyball here.

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