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In addition to what
we have seen already,

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Moneyball also discusses
several other things,

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for example, how it
is easier to predict

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professional success
of college players

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than high school players,
that stealing bases,

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sacrifice bunting, and
sacrifice flyers are overrated,

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and pitching statistics
do not accurately

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measure pitcher ability.

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Pitchers only
control strikeouts,

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home runs, and walks.

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Where was baseball in 2002?

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The graph on the
left is what we have

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seen in the beginning
of this lecture.

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So before Moneyball techniques,
analytic techniques,

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became more well-known, the
A's were clearly an outlier.

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Recall that the A's
are here, compared

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to the Red Sox and the Yankees.

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Just observe that the A's
had 20 more wins than teams

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with equivalent payrolls.

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And they had as many wins
as teams like the Red Sox

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that have more than
double the payroll.

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Where is baseball now?

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The A's, in the green dot
here-- and for reference, this

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is the Red Sox and the Yankees--
are still an efficient team.

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But they only have
about 10 more wins

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than teams with
equivalent payrolls.

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So specifically, there
are fewer inefficiencies,

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because many of
them were discovered

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after the book
Moneyball was published.

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In fact, the use of analytics
in general in baseball

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has now a name
called sabermetrics.

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Of course, there has been a
lot of work done in the field.

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Baseball Prospectus
is a website devoted

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to the analytics of baseball.

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New concepts were introduced--
value of a replacement

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player, VORP, and defense
independent between statistics,

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DIPS.

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There's another book
that has been written.

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The title of the
book is The Extra 2%:

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How Wall Street Strategies
Took a Major League Baseball

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Team from Worst to
First, dictating

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the story of the Tampa Bay Rays.

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And finally, analytics
have been used

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in many game-time
decisions in baseball,

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for example, the batting order,
changing pitchers, et cetera.

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So what is happening
with other baseball

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teams and other sports?

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So nowadays, every major
league baseball team

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has a statistics/analytics
group.

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In fact, the Red Sox
implemented quantitative ideas

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and won the World Series
for the first time

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in 2004, after 86 years.

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They in fact tried to
hire Billy Bean in 2003,

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who accepted for one day,
but then he changed his mind

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and went back to
the Oakland A's.

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Analytics are also
used in other sports,

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although it is believed
that more teams use

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statistical analysis
than is publicly known.

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And finally, what is the
edge of using analytics?

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Models allow managers
to more accurately value

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players and minimize risk.

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This is a direct
quote from Moneyball.

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"In human behavior, there was
always uncertainty and risk.

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The goal of the
Oakland front office

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was simply to minimize the risk.

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Their solution wasn't perfect.

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It was just better than
rendering decisions

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by gut feeling."

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And a final remark that,
as you have observed

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throughout the lecture,
that the model we introduced

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are reasonably simple.

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They involved regression
ideas, and they did not

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involve many variables that
are not that sophisticated.

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Yet they led to significant
success of the Oakland A's

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and more generally,
for teams that

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use the power of
sports analytics.