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Annotated Bibliography

Understanding the Workings of Moneyball and how it is Applied in Baseball and Other Sports

John Patrick O'Donnell

Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
October 19, 2015

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Annotated Bibliography
Hamiltin, Howard. "Soccermetrics Research, LLC." Soccermetrics Research LLC. N.p.,
Jan. 2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
This is a website that started as a blog by Dr. Howard Hamilton about the practice
of Sabermetrics and how reliable it would be if it were put to use in soccer. His
blogs started out with him being very skeptical of the idea, giving quite a few
reasons as to why it wouldnt work, such as soccer isnt a stop and go sport with
as many quantitative values to take into account as baseball does. As the blog
progresses throughout time, and more in-depth analysis was done, he becomes
essentially convinced that Soccermetrics is a completely plausible idea and should
be considered and executed by the poorer teams in soccer. Hes gone so far as to
start selling his knowledge on the website as a sort of scouting tool for
professional teams. This is a credible source because not only does he know what
he is talking about in regards to soccer, but he also has his doctorate in economics,
so he understands all of the math and reasoning behind why Sabermetrics works. I
would say that this is source should be used by others because it gives an
objective view on Soccermetrics, and I will be using it for my Extended Inquiry
Project.
Kim, Oliver W. "The Moneyball Myth | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson."The Moneyball
Myth. The Harvard Crimson, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
This is an article from the Harvard Crimson, Harvards daily newspaper written
by Oliver Kim. The article wasnt specifically arguing how Sabermetrics wasnt a
practical approach through the process of it, but the results. He said that the three

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players that carried the Athletics through the season that year were picked through
the same subjective scouting system that Michael Lewis, the author of
Moneyball spoke about with much distaste. For example, a submarine pitcher
who played for the Athletics named Sam Bradford wouldnt be picked up by any
team because not only did he pitch strangely, but he also wasnt the best looking
guy either. A major component of their scouting system was if they were
confident and if they looked good enough to play the part. These three players,
Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, and Mark Mulder, all went along with this and were
successful; however, they did end up being very good players that make quite a
bit of money for other teams. The article was written by a Harvard journalist, for
Harvards newspaper, it would be a reliable source. I wouldnt personally suggest
this article because I dont agree with it, but the information itself is usable from a
writing standpoint, so Ill be using this as a contrasting piece for my Extended
Inquiry Project.
Rishe, Patrick. "Did Moneyball Strike Again in Oakland? The Most and Least CostEffective Baseball Teams of 2012." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 4 Oct. 2012. Web.
19 Oct. 2015.
This source was an article for Forbes Magazine, bringing up how Moneyball was
proving to be a very efficient way to go about getting wins in Major League
Baseball. However, this wasnt an article describing how the teams were actually
using it, but just the results of their efforts. The main statistic shown was the value
for the effectiveness of each team. It gave an average amount of money spent per
win and it gave the median amount of money spent per win. The effectiveness

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value was set in such a way that the lower the value meant that the team was
being more cost-effective. It cost the Oakland Athletics $589,069 per win in 2012.
The effectiveness value is found by dividing the individual teams average cost
per win by the average amount of money spent per win in the entirety of Major
League Baseball. This gave them an effectiveness rating of 51.4%, the best rating
in baseball. The Boston Red Sox had the lowest with a rating of 218.9% and
paying a little more than 2.5 million dollars per win. Interestingly enough, the Red
Sox won their first World Series after they hired Bill James, the original
Moneyball Guru and failed to hire Billy Beane, Oaklands Manager. It seems
theyve moved completely away from that, and its costing them big time. This is
a credible source because it was an article from Forbes magazine, a popular
source of news in our world today. They dont just let anyone post anything on
there. The source was easy to read and extremely useful in simplifying the
numbers down to one number for analytical use. I would recommend using this
article and will be using it for my research.
Weimar, D, and P Wicker. "Moneyball Revisited: Effort and Team Performance in
Professional Soccer." Journal of Sports Economics. (2014). Print.
This was an article in a sports economics journal written by Daniel Weimar and
Paul Wicker that essentially argues the specific points of how Moneyball could
potentially work in a professional soccer environment. It gives the two variables
that arent considered at all in the process of buying players, those being how
much someone has run and how many intensive runs that player made. So, this is
saying that there is a direct correlation between how much effort is put forth and

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how well a team does as a whole. Granted, this is a fairly easy connection to
make, a group of average players who work hard are always going to beat a group
of lazy talented ones. But, the basis of Moneyball is a fairly simple one. Take
Baseball for example, Paul Depodestas theory was that teams dont need to think
in terms of buying players, they need to think in terms of buying wins, and in
order to do that they need to buy runs. In soccer, the guy who is willing to get
dirty and work hard is going to be the guy that gets the goal. Harry Kane on my
favorite team, the Tottenham Hotspurs, hes not the most skillful or technical
player by any means, but hes a workhorse, he works harder than anyone else on
the field and he ended up second in the voting for FA Player of the Year and was
the FA Young Player of the Year. This source was very well written, and provided
excellent analysis on specific attributes that apply to up and coming Sabermetrics
practices, and I believe that they may be on the right track with this approach.
This is a reliable source because it has been peer-reviewed by other people that
are in this field, and is an article in a journal that specializes on this topic. I am
going to use this information in my Extended Inquiry Project, and I would
recommend it for others to use for research in this area.