Moneyball by Bennett Miller, released in 2011, is a movie based on a book by Michael Lewis. As ironic as it is, this movie lured a student like me to be interested in statistical analysis, even though I absolutely feared Math.
Statistical analysis is complicated, assuming that I'm speaking for a good proportion of students out there. However, through the magic of films and the convincing role that Brad Pitt played as Billy Beane (an American former baseball player), I began to understand the logic behind the analysis. Billy is the heart and soul of Moneyball; he was very well known for the success he found for the Oakland Athletics baseball team as their general manager.
Moneyball's story follows Billy and how he managed to turn the Oakland A’s season from an all-time low to an all-time high through, you know, statistics.
But how did this actually come to be? The use of statistical analysis and player evaluation in baseball was so foreign. Like many, the experienced team selectors in baseball assumed that math and baseball had no correlation whatsoever. The problem was that the Oakland A’s had a limited budget, and all their star players were slipping right out of their hands. Billy Beane, who has a pretty emotional backstory that involved him being a ‘wasted talent’ in baseball, had a serious task to turn this downfall around.
Here enters Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill. Peter is an Ivy League graduate who joins forces with Billy to discover the term "bargain bin." This suggests that they recruit players who are conventionally flawed. Basically, the idea is of a team that consists of all the rejects of baseball but who have the skills that can help them win games. Through this tactic, they fix a team of players for $200,000 but have the skills of a team that can potentially cost $3 million.
Here is the math: Peter states that for the Oakland A’s to receive a spot in the playoffs next season, they need to win 99 games out of the 162 they play, which means they need to win 61.1% of the games they play. The Pythagorean Expectation, a Bill James model that calculates a team's win percentage based on runs scored and allowed, is the most important mathematical concept in the movie. The methodology claims, more particularly, that a team's win percentage is=
So, for example the Oakland A’s score 800 runs and allow 654 runs using Pythagorean expectation it would be
Using the same theory, the 99 games that the Oakland team needs to win to make it to the playoffs would equate to 0.611. This means the team would need to score at least 814 runs and give up no more than 645 runs, equating to 0.793 < 0.798. With all these stats in mind, Bill and Peter aim to make a dream team out of the rejects using the 'bargain bin' theory. After this, 'The A’s' went on to be unbeatable for 20 games, breaking the American League record.
Moneyball has a bit of everything and a lot of math; it made me realise how math is actually applied in the real world and makes it a lot more sensible.
By Naveli Mehta, A2
