At the HP Vertica Big Data conference in Boston yesterday, I had a chance to listen to an extremely engaging presentation by Billy Beane, GM of the Oakland A’s (immortalized in the book and then by Brad Pitt in the movie, Moneyball) and then spend a few minutes with him.
As expected, he had plenty of slides with baseball team and player stats but he used them only in passing. His personal perspectives on the game, and his own role in reshaping it to make its operations more analytical were priceless.
Three things, in particular, stood out:
a) Michael Lewis, the author, originally came to interview him and his whiz kid Paul DePodesta for a New York Times article and stayed on saying the material deserved a longer story for its Magazine, and continued to stay longer to turn into what became the bestselling book. Beane masterfully described his growing concern about competitive advantage as the “unofficial” book took shape. But the way he explained how he was comfortable leaking his secret sauce - plenty of smart people (he mentioned Theo Epstein ex Red Sox and Andrew Friedman, now with the Rays) were entering the front offices of other teams, so it was only a matter of time. As an innovation author, I find that approach stunningly refreshing. Too few executives will go on the record and many will call me after an interview and ask me to take a few sections out of what they have told me.
b) He described how one of the most satisfying results from the publicity from the book was the influx of superb young analytical talent that has entered sports in the last decade. He described Ivy League talent he and other teams have been able to attract into their front offices. In our one and one, we discussed how many MIT and other students I had seen at the Sloan Sports Analytics event in Boston in March. Not just baseball, every sport has benefitted from a turbo charge of analytical power in the last few years as I wrote here.
c) How fact based and disciplined his operation is. He said he does not like to watch games or read much of baseball reporting, to not let emotion get in the way of his left brain. At a couple of other times he made points that his approach was driven by the realities of economics for small market teams like his (and my home team, Tampa Bay Rays which he mentioned a few times) more than infatuation with baseball stats. He clearly loves the game and his players but the cold, analytical approach came through at several points. One on one, I was also impressed with his humility. Hard to believe he continues to be so after being role played by a superstar like Brad Pitt!
There is much that Big Data and Advanced Analytics projects and executives in every industry can learn from this pioneer.
Photo: a bonus from the event – a baseball autographed by William L. Beane III.
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