In baseball, you can do something poorly and still get credit. A pitcher could throw a bad ball, the batter hit a screaming line drive, and an outfielder make a fantastic diving catch. Yet, when you look at historical databases, 80% of the time when a ball is struck with that trajectory and velocity, it is a hit.

Billy Beane

Categorized in : You Look Drive Time

How can you not be romantic about baseball?

Billy Beane

best-baseball baseball

The idea that I [should] trust my eyes more than the stats, I don't buy that because I've seen magicians pull rabbits out of hats and I know that the rabbit's not in there.

Billy Beane

volleyball eye ideas

No matter how successful you are, change is always good.

Billy Beane

successful matter

When your enemy's making mistakes, don't interrupt him.

Billy Beane

making-mistakes mistake enemy

I made one decision in my life based on money and I swore I would never do it again.

Billy Beane

decision made

You have to face reality some time. But there's no sense in facing it until somebody forces you to.

Billy Beane

baseball faces reality

You know, I'd actually say Lionel Messi. He's so remarkable, watching him play he's probably still undervalued. When you're scoring five goals in one Champions League match, there's no value that's too high.

Billy Beane

champions-league goal play

I hate losing more than I want to win.

Billy Beane

hate winning want

Certainly, you're not going to able to go and pull a Mark Mulder out of your hat somewhere.

Billy Beane

hats mark able

It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball

Billy Beane

hard baseball

We've got to use every piece of data and piece of information, and hopefully that will help us be accurate with our player evaluation. For us, that's our life blood.

Billy Beane

will information life blood

The math works. Over the course of a season, there's some predictability to baseball. When you play 162 games, you eliminate a lot of random outcomes. There's so much data that you can predict: individual players' performances and also the odds that certain strategies will pay off.

Billy Beane

random will you play

We try to create a situation where we're the casino. It's like how an actuary would set insurance rates. Predictability, predictability, predictability. What's the path to least risk? What's the greater chance of getting some return on this asset?

Billy Beane

insurance situation chance path

I don't want a lot of guys like me who played the game. Quite frankly, I want blank canvases; I want people to come in with new ideas. I don't want the biases of their own experiences to be a part of their decision-making process.

Billy Beane

game me people ideas

When I first came into baseball, people didn't want to hear that a team was a business. But it is. And the better the business is run, the healthier the team on the field is going to be.

Billy Beane

better team business people

I may not be as visible as I used to be, and by that I mean being in the clubhouse or on the field. But I'm just as invested as I've always been.

Billy Beane

just being always mean

Smaller markets teams, when you hit bottom, you hit with a thud.

Billy Beane

markets hit you bottom

I love what I do. That's one of the reasons I've stayed. I love the community; I love driving to work.

Billy Beane

driving community work love

Quite frankly, I can't get enough of soccer. I tell my jingoistic friends in the United States there's a reason why it is the world's No. 1 sport. The rest of the planet can't be wrong.

Billy Beane

rest friends enough world

Who wants to get really granular with sabermetrics when you're going to see a two-and-a-half-hour Brad Pitt movie? You don't go to the cinema for a maths lesson.

Billy Beane

go see you cinema