Will Bowser

Will Bowser
Moneyball
Michael Lewis
Non-Fiction
Challenge
167

1. In my book right now, the Oakland A's scouting team is gathered in a room trying to decide which players to pick in the upcoming Amateur Draft. This draft will be extremely important because the A's have a short payroll and really need to sign some good baseball players for a cheap amount of money. Their big pitcher, Barry Zito, a player who they signed for next to nothing, is leaving them, and they consider this a success because they got him for a cheap amount of money and kept him for three years. Billy Beane, the A's general manager is trying to reshape baseball by not choosing players with big home run numbers, but with big walk numbers.
2. So far, I've really enjoyed this book, it helps a lot that I really enjoy the game of baseball, so I understand most of the references. This author, Michael Lewis, also wrote the Blind Side which I really liked, so I looked up some of his other books, and I found this one. Though most of the boook is about baseball, you do see a kind of behind the scenes aspect, which is really interesting. I like how they have to work on a budget, so that they can't make any mistakes, which makes them perform better.
3. A theme I've noticed so far in this book is change. The change from how ordinary scouts think, in terms of home runs, triples, doubles, and singles, to thinking about on base percentage and walks. This change helped revoluitionize the way many scouts think today. Another way I saw change was how Billy Beane, the general manager, changed from being a great player, to an even better scout, after his big league career ended after he blew out his knee.
4. My favorite character is Billy Beane. He is the Oakland A's manager and I just really like the way he does business. He has a completely different way of thinking about the game than any of the other scouts that work for him. He really wants to change the way people see hitting, he says that your a better hitter if you take a walk two times, than hit a home run one time, and strike out on a bad pitch another time. He just really thinks about how baseball works, which is pretty cool.
5. My least favorite character is the scout "Pitter". This scout is extremely narrowminded and never seems to want to listen to Billy. Pitter is always saying how Billy's favorite prospect just can't hit, when Billy always tells him he has a great strike zone. Pitter likes all of these high school pitcher's that can throw a 90 mph fastball. Billy repeatedly tells him that these pitchers have the least change of success in the Major Leagues, but Pitter still insists on taking these prospects.
6. I predict that Billy's favorite prospect, Jeremy Brown will succeed, and Pitter's prospect will fail in the Majors. I say this because the whole book has been set up saying that players that walk more in college, have a higher success rate than those that hit more home runs. The author has made the point that Billy is smart and that Pitter isn't so much. I also know this comes true, because I've heard of Jeremy Brown, and yet I've never heard of the players that Pitter likes.