by Angela Guess
A recent article takes a look at the story of Paul DePodesta, a central character in the new film Moneyball: “Long before ‘Big Data’ analysis was cool, Paul DePodesta brought it to the big leagues… A phase of DePodesta’s career is depicted in the movie ‘Moneyball,’ which premieres today on more than 3,800 screens around the country. The film is based on the best-selling 2003 book in Michael Lewis chronicled the data-driven resurgence of the Oakland A’s engineered by A’s general manager Billy Beane and DePodesta, who used computer analysis to identify undervalued players. The character based on DePodesta has been renamed Peter Brand and is played by Jonah Hill.”
The article continues, “In a presentation Tuesday at the Strata Summit in New York, DePodesta, who is now Vice President for Player Development for the New York Mets, reflected on the role of performance analysis in baseball and lessons that can be applied to data-driven organizations. When he arrived in Oakland, DePodesta recalled, small-market teams like the A’s with limited budgets found themselves outgunned in bidding wars with wealthier teams in markets like New York and Boston. ‘We had to come up with a different way,’ said DePodesta. ‘It was like preparing a gourmet meal, but having to shop at 7-11.’”
It adds, “The solution embraced by Beane and DePodesta was influenced by a school of baseball statistical analysis known as sabermetrics (a reference to the Society for American Baseball Research), which was often at odds with traditional methods of scouting players. ‘Subjectivity ruled the day in evaluating players,’ he said. ‘We had a completely new set of metrics that bore no resemblance to anything you’d seen. We didn’t solve baseball. But we reduced the inefficiency of our decision making.’ Speaking to a crowd of executives and data scientists, DePodesta discussed the process of making those data -driven decisions, and how to avoid analytical errors that could lead to bad conclusions.”
photo credit: Moneyball
