Moneyball: Ch. 1-2

Moneyball tells the story of GM Billy Beane and how his low-budget Oakland A’s changed the game of professional baseball in 2002. That year, they tied the Yankees for 2^nd-most wins in the regular season, even though they had a third of the money. This unbelievable efficiency sparked the interest of Michael Lewis, author of the book, who decided to dive into the subject a year later by spending time with the GM of the Blue Jays, who aims to rebuild his team along the same lines as the A's.

The book starts off with the story of Billy Beane himself. In 1980, he is a huge prospect in the MLB draft coming out of high school. Instead of attending Stanford, he decides to be drafted. The story fast-forwards to 2001, where Billy Beane is now GM of the Oakland A's. He and Paul DePodesta, his young assistant hired out of Harvard, are disgusted by how the seasoned scouts pick prospects. It is the 2002 draft when the two begin to shake things up in scouting meetings. They look for performance-related factors instead of personal features.

The purpose of this book is to inform baseball fans how the 2002 MLB season changed the scouting game forever. A rhetorical element used is the description of frequent temper tantrums that Beane has. They grab the attention of the characters and the readers. Since I am only on chapter three of the book, I will soon find out whether Lewis accomplishes his purpose.