A record with overlooked players, the beginning of data-driven baseball

There are rich teams, there are poor teams, then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us. That is part of a line Brad Pitt delivers in the film Moneyball. In 2002, Oakland's total payroll was a third of the Yankees', 28th of 30 clubs. After losing three key players to free agency, it had no money to buy good players.

What does it mean to win in baseball? To score runs, you have to reach first base, and to reach first base, you only have to avoid getting out. Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane set aside the scout's eye, a convention of 100 years of baseball. Instead of batting average and build, a handsome face and a confident stride, he looked at on-base percentage. He did not bring players in to throw; he brought them in to get on base. He moved a catcher with an injured shoulder to first base and added a pitcher others had passed over for his odd delivery.

The numbers were right. With players others had discarded, the team set a record 20-game winning streak, and the catcher who could no longer throw broke the tie. Today all 30 clubs have data teams, and Moneyball has gone beyond baseball to become a management theory. Choose by the numbers that win rather than the eye of the market, and even overlooked players can change a league.