Case Analysis Moneyball
Case: Moneyball
Facts
The Oakland A’s short term vision & strong focus on analytics would let them run a profitable team through an entire season on a low budget.
Beane relied on a team of two Ivy League analysts focused on statistics in order to provide Beane the necessary tools to undergo a series of trades at half of the season, where trends became serious and teams would focus on next year´s. The Oakland A’s identified a flaw in the market, which was the on base percentage, rather than the hits.
People criticized Beane for not winning championship even the owner of the A’s, even when he was getting much more money was also complaining.
Questions
Buy a winning team or a losing team | only interested in profit.
I would buy a winning team as the New York Yankees or the Oakland A’s, since there is a correlation between winning games, higher attendance and increase on prices.
Owners of the Oakland A’s have earned excess investment returns while Beane was General Manager?
I would say yes. They had more revenues than before and budget was under control, therefore the marginal contribution was higher.
How did the A’s outperform other teams with similar budgets? What assets allowed them? How hard would it be for another team?
By analyzing the statistics on a different way, establishing and R&D department including two Ivy League graduates and other teams could actually imitate the strategy establishing an R&D department as well, and some teams actually hired the R&D department from the A’s.
Certain skills underpriced in the market? Is this surprising?
It is surprising that these skills were underpriced, most people would focus on more common and popular skills.
Is it a coincidence low budget vs. high budget team?
No coincidence, the low budget team knew they had to do a superb job to recruit players since they were competing against other teams with much more resources, so they needed to find a way to get away with it. On the other hand, the Yankees probably
Facts
The Oakland A’s short term vision & strong focus on analytics would let them run a profitable team through an entire season on a low budget.
Beane relied on a team of two Ivy League analysts focused on statistics in order to provide Beane the necessary tools to undergo a series of trades at half of the season, where trends became serious and teams would focus on next year´s. The Oakland A’s identified a flaw in the market, which was the on base percentage, rather than the hits.
People criticized Beane for not winning championship even the owner of the A’s, even when he was getting much more money was also complaining.
Questions
Buy a winning team or a losing team | only interested in profit.
I would buy a winning team as the New York Yankees or the Oakland A’s, since there is a correlation between winning games, higher attendance and increase on prices.
Owners of the Oakland A’s have earned excess investment returns while Beane was General Manager?
I would say yes. They had more revenues than before and budget was under control, therefore the marginal contribution was higher.
How did the A’s outperform other teams with similar budgets? What assets allowed them? How hard would it be for another team?
By analyzing the statistics on a different way, establishing and R&D department including two Ivy League graduates and other teams could actually imitate the strategy establishing an R&D department as well, and some teams actually hired the R&D department from the A’s.
Certain skills underpriced in the market? Is this surprising?
It is surprising that these skills were underpriced, most people would focus on more common and popular skills.
Is it a coincidence low budget vs. high budget team?
No coincidence, the low budget team knew they had to do a superb job to recruit players since they were competing against other teams with much more resources, so they needed to find a way to get away with it. On the other hand, the Yankees probably