Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Money Ball WorkSheet

Jesse Gross

1)     What was the “Moneyball”approach that Billy Beane and Peter Brandt applied to the Oakland Athletics 2002 season? Was it an “art” or a “science”? What single statistic did they boil their value consideration down to? (In class research/discussion)
It was all science they used math formulas to choose there players.

2) What is the equation used to calculate OBP? (In class research/discussion)
On Base Percentaige.
3) What is design? (In class research/discussion)
The part of witch Peter Brandt is analizing the players and the OBP and how it relates to the game of base ball.
4) Describe 3 situations where movie characters (intentionally or not) applied a step from the PLTW 12 Step Design Process. Explain both the (a) situation as well as (b) how the step is relevant:
1 – Brainstorm- when they are looking for new characters
 
2 – Define the problem- when Billy Bean tells the scouts that they need to find a new way of finding players

3 – Select an approach- when Billy Bean and Johan Hill changing the formula for the Money Ball system.


5) What is “Leadership”? List the three aspects of leadership that we come up with in class. (In class research/discussion)

1 – courage
2 – commitment
3 – determination


6) Describe 3 circumstances from the story where a character exercised effective leadership:
1 – Billy Bean- taking charge and trying something new

2 -  Johan Hill- firing that person

3 – one of the players- when he hits the winning homerun



7) According to the movie, what was the A’s record at the start of their winning streak? The streak was 20 games at a row. But they had a 68:51 season

8) What does this ratio simplify to (roughly)? 4:5

9) How long was the A’s record setting winning streak? 20 games won

10) Given the A’s win/loss ratio at the start of the streak (listed two questions above), what are the odds of winning 20 games in a row? Run the numbers. (In class research/discussion)

The odds are that there is little to no chance of anyone ever winning that many games in a row again.


11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?

There was numbers and facts to the whole game they used science and math to discover how the future can be predicted through numbers and possible outcomes.


12) Did Billy Beane strictly apply the “science” of Moneyball to his management approach? Was there an “art” to his efforts as well? Describe a circumstance where he broke from the Moneyball approach to make a positive change for the team.
The only time he ever made a change in the money ball approach is when he cut the other Geombi brother. There was little art to the money ball approach for there is nothing but numbers, but Billy did break the money ball formula to do what he thought was best.



Bonus Question (look into this if you’ve finished ahead of the class):
Money Ball was originally a book. What author wrote the book? What other books has this author written? Is there a theme to his writing?

2 comments:

  1. Ouch... white text on yellow highlighting is tough to read!

    Good job calling out each design step specifically.

    As far as the leadership examples go, consider being a little more specific with those!

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