MoneyBall
It is baseball season and I’ve just watched Moneyball from Netflix and it is really interesting how simple statistics and analytics changed the whole game of baseball. Moneyball explores the history of sabermetrics in which game is analyzed using math and statistical analysis. In the early 2000s, Oakland Athletics who were small market team were struggling to play against rich franchises like yankees. Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, incorporated statistical system that would change the history of the franchise.
Using data analytics and data mining on hundreds of players, He ultimately discovered key statistics that were highly predictive of runs a player could score : Slugging Percentage, and On-base percentage. Beane formed the best players he could with an extremely limited budget for payroll. With his a team of undervalued players, The team was able to win average of 95 games per season with 4 division titles.
Beane’s story highlights how big data can transform into different business gains and how significant advantage that insight from data analytics can bring to the business