How The Internet Comes Into Play in Money Ball

Money Ball is set in the early 2000s and because of that the internet is a new thing.  In chapter 3 when all of the scouts are having a meeting about who to pick in the upcoming draft they start to question Paul.  Paul is not a scout, but he is an assistant manager who can use a computer.  With the computer he can accesses  stats about any college baseball player and can tell you all about them.  The scouts say that the ability of a player is not all about his stats and usually disagree with Paul, but the manager Billy Beane thinks that the computer is a more accurate tool that can get him less biased scouting reports.  "Billy had his own idea of finding future major league baseball players: inside Paul's computer.  He'd flirted with the idea of firing all of the scouts and just drafting kids straight from Paul's computer"(Lewis 37). 

All of the veteran scouts always looked for the same cliche things: speed, power, and an arm.  However, Billy and Paul thought in terms of walks and on base %.  Billy and Paul are for a guy named Jeremy Brown, a catcher from Alabama but all of the scouts disagreed.  Jeremy Brown was not what you would think of if you thought of a good player.  He was a catcher who had a keen eye at the plate and could get on base.  Billy did not trust scouts because years back the best prospect was overlooked and that was him.