Over the course of reading this book I had no disagreements with Billy Beane and his statements and his actions while running the Oakland A's... Then I read pages 273-276 and that all changed. Billy Beane himself said, "My job is to get us to the play-offs. What happens after that is all luck" (Lewis 275). However I disagree with this statement for many reasons.
It is mentioned in the book that a series in the play-offs is too small of a sample size to tell who is truly the better team which I agree with to some extent, especially in leagues where the tournaments are 1 game elimination like March Madness, the NFL, NCAA football. Although in my opinion the team that is better not always by stats and on paper, but the team who is more genuinely better will always win. Billy also says that the regular season performance of a team is not important enough in the play-offs. I strongly disagree because play-off games are nothing like regular season games. They have a unique dynamic that can bring the best or worst out of a team and play-off games are more of a mental battle than a skill based one.
It was nice to read your post because I could really hear your writing voice in this post. You showed how you can relate to your book.
ReplyDeleteAre these sports novels good. I've always seen them but they've never seemed to be that good.
ReplyDeleteR.J, I completley agree with you when you say that play-off games are nothing like regular seson games. I understand this because I am in Mock Trial. And the scrimiages are not as stressful as Districts. I think this is also true in Track. I find the bigger meets are more stressful to me than the smaller ones.
ReplyDeleteI like how you can hear your voice in this post!
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