Book Review: Moneyball

I just finished reading the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. While it is very much about professional baseball, there are lessons that any coach for any sport can learn. I really don't like baseball at all, but I really enjoyed this book. It is one of my favorite books I have read in quite a while.

It is written in a manner that is reminiscent of documentaries. It begins with the early life of Billy Beane as a high school baseball player who pro scouts drooled over. According to conventional wisdom he had all the tools. Psychologically, he wasn't equipped to be a successful professional athlete. He ended his playing career to work for the organization as a scout.

The bulk of the book is about Beane's work as the general manager (and his assistant, Paul DePodesta) of the Oakland Athletics, one of the "poorest" professional baseball franchises. They didn't have the money to compete with the "richer" teams for free agents, and often had a very tight budget for players, but they were able to put together a competitive team out of draft picks, trades, and the castoffs from other teams. The island of misfit toys was alluded to in this regard. The author often asked Oakland staff what was wrong with a particular player when he would see the value of the player, but wanted to know how he landed there.

Beane and DePodesta used statistical theory and analytics to get to the heart of what stats were true indicators/predictors of team success and what players are undervalued based on what they are good at versus conventional baseball wisdom. They used this knowledge to make personnel decisions and to craft a team strategy within games. Conventional wisdom valued batting average, but they valued on base percentage. Conventional wisdom valued runners who could steal bases, but they favored advancing runners through subsequent batters. Other teams would leave players in minor league ball because they didn't look right, but they would see what the objective stats suggested they were capable of accomplishing.

As I was reading, I thought about sport psychology. While it is primarily about the use of stats and analytics, there is a lot of indirect discussion of psychology. Beane's own failures as a player informed his decisions as a general manager, and in some cases made him more successful. Their team approach encouraged players that others didn't believe in. One particular quote speaking about individual player psychology,

“If you’ve got a dozen pitchers, you need to speak 12 different languages.”

Every player we coach is going to be a little different upstairs. The systems we employ will take care of a lot of situations and players, but there will always be individuals that need their own brand of encouragement and motivation.

The big lessons, however, are in the statistics and analytics discussion. Beane and DePodesta based their work largely on the contributions of Bill James. They determined what stats correlated with team success. I have seen college volleyball stats and which ones correlate with winning percentage (hitting efficiency and serve receive errors had the strongest correlation), but the last time I looked at that data was over ten years ago. In the spirit of always evaluating what we do, I need to look into this more, and with more recent data to see if and how things have evolved. There is also a lot of talk in the book about how James (and others) would try to glean more information from the stats that were available. Reading this book has renewed my desire to look into what stats correlate with team success. I'm also thinking about looking at the typical stats and trying to see what other ways we can look at volleyball stats that will give us similarly important, or even more important information. Ideally we can find a simple statistical measure of quality play and success. There is possibly some simple piece of information that a coach with a pen and paper can collect easily that will give a good idea of performance that can inform decisions in practice and matches.

I think Moneyball is a great read, and even though it is about baseball, it can give some great food for thought for any coach in any sport. I will approach player psychology and motivation in a different frame of mind in the future because of it. I know I'm going to spend a lot of time thinking about and trying to improve the statistical measures I use and value. I enjoyed the movie, but the book made me want to put a lot of work and effort into improving these areas of my coaching and as a student of the game. I highly recommend this book, and I will revisit/reread it in the future.

Focus on the Right Things

Make each day your masterpiece. You have control over that. - John Wooden

I recently came across this blog post by John Forman. In it is the notion that the goal of defense is to score points. This is a shift in focus from the expected idea that defense is about preventing the opponent from scoring points. I think the distinction is important.

In Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success, legendary basketball coach John Wooden says that when he taught rebounding, he told his players to get in between your man and the ball, and to go and get it. The traditional way to teach rebounding is to get between your man and the ball and "box them out". The traditional method is about preventing your opponent from doing what they want. It is about being an obstacle. It is passive. The goal is that your opponent doesn't get the ball. Coach Wooden's method is active. You are actively trying to get the ball. Getting the rebound is the goal. Rather than being an obstacle to your opponent, you are competing with them for the same goal.

The conventional wisdom for defense is much like that for rebounding in basketball. You are an obstacle to your opponent, not a competitor. It is passive. You are reacting to what your opponent is doing rather than actively trying to score a point. Your goal is for your opponent to not score a point. If you manage to get the dig only to give the ball back on a free ball, was that successful defense, or was it just delaying your opponent's success? Sure you might get a dig, but the end result of the rally might be the same as if you didn't get the dig.

If we make our goal to score points, we should be actively trying to score on the block. We should be actively trying to dig to a spot on the court where the setter can put our hitters in the best place to score. We are thinking about transitioning from our base defensive position to a place where we are available to make a hitting approach. One of the "little things" I see great players do is to transition from passing the serve, attempting a block, or digging to a hitting approach. Great middles make a hitting approach even when they are almost definitely not going to be set.

The John Forman blog post specifically mentions libero and back row outside hitter positioning on the court when talking about the goal of scoring points on defense. Libero/outside hitter position may be a personnel decision more than a defensive focus decision if our outsides don't hit in the back row. If this is the case, still keep the defensive focus in mind. Train your players (and yourself) to think about scoring points rather than preventing scoring.

Whatever the circumstances, the basic thought processes should be kept in mind. Focus on active goals rather than passive ones. A dig isn't a point your opponent didn't score, it is an opportunity for your team to score. Talk about digs in this context. Track digs in this way and track how much your team scores per dig. Kills per dig would be a more useful piece of information than just total digs per match. Digs per match is almost meaningless without that context. Look to other areas of the game and practice with this same active vs passive approach. Set active goals and talk about doing rather than preventing. Talk about what you have control over and what you can actively do, and make that the focus for improvement. That would be a masterpiece.