Wednesday, February 29, 2012

money ball questions

Use internet research and class discussion to answer the following questions.


1) What was the “Moneyball”approach that Billy Beane and Peter Brandt applied to the Oakland Athletics 2002 season? Was it an “art” or a “science”? What single statistic did they boil their value consideration down to? (In class research/discussion)

it was to get players that get on base most for a low bugget


3) What is design? (In class research/discussion)

the inovations of a product for more benificial purposes or the creation of a tool that will solve unsolved problems

4) Describe 3 situations where movie characters (intentionally or not) applied a step from the PLTW 12 Step Design Process. Explain both the (a) situation as well as (b) how the step is relevant:

1 - in money ball when billy is telling his associates to identify the problem with the team


2 - when billy was eliminating giambi from his team, he was removing a flaw in his team


3 - he avioded a problem by not gooing to the games to jinx  the game



5) What is “Leadership”? List the three aspects of leadership that we come up with in class. (In class research/discussion)

1 - allignment
2 - direction
3 - comitment


6) Describe 3 circumstances from the story where a character exercised effective leadership:

1 - in money ball when billy is telling his associates to identify the problem with the team


2 - when billy was eliminating giambi from his team, he was removing a flaw in his team


3 - he took initiative and took a lot of these random players and improoved his team


7) According to the movie, what was the A’s record at the start of their winning streak? _68__ : _51__

8) What does this ratio simplify to (roughly)? 76923__ : 1

9) How long was the A’s record setting winning streak? _20__ games won.

10) Given the A’s win/loss ratio at the start of the streak (listed two questions above), what are the odds of winning 20 games in a row? Run the numbers. (In class research/discussion)

there is 76932 to 1 chanse that they will win 20 games in a row

11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?

i thought it was pure luck
12) Did Billy Beane strictly apply the “science” of Moneyball to his management approach? Was there an “art” to his efforts as well? Describe a circumstance where he broke from the Moneyball approach to make a positive change for the team.

i think that it was strictly science because he didn't care about the look or reputation of the players, he just cared about there stats and skill at the game
Bonus Question (look into this if you’ve finished ahead of the class):
Money Ball was originally a book. What author wrote the book? What other books has this author written? Is there a theme to his writing?

Michael Lewis wrote the book, he also wrote The Blind Side. he seems to like sports and emotional suspence in his novels, he also writes about true stories.