Myth465 Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 [amazonsearch]Money Ball[/amazonsearch] Anything by Michael Lewis is a must read inmo (and Seth Klarman's). I read this book after his recommendation. He said its the best book about Value Investing that's not an investing book. Its about a guy who builds a team with cheap players using unconventional metrics and methods. Highly recommended. I plan on seeing the movie, hopefully they have done a good job with it and it works as a good substitute.
seshnath Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 [amazonsearch]Money Ball[/amazonsearch] Anything by Michael Lewis is a must read inmo (and Seth Klarman's). I read this book after his recommendation. He said its the best book about Value Investing that's not an investing book. Its about a guy who builds a team with cheap players using unconventional metrics and methods. Highly recommended. I plan on seeing the movie, hopefully they have done a good job with it and it works as a good substitute. My views exactly. I thought this was one of his best books and I have an autographed copy (from 2008 CFA Conference in Orlando)
vinod1 Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 Do you need to know anything about baseball to make sense of this book? I wanted to read this book for a long time but I have next to no knowledge of baseball. Thanks Vinod
enoch01 Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 Do you need to know anything about baseball to make sense of this book? I wanted to read this book for a long time but I have next to no knowledge of baseball. Thanks Vinod A basic knowledge of baseball is helpful, but it's not essential to understand the thesis. I highly recommend the book.
VAL9000 Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 Do you need to know anything about baseball to make sense of this book? I wanted to read this book for a long time but I have next to no knowledge of baseball. Thanks Vinod I knew next-to-nothing about baseball and thoroughly enjoyed it. Michael Lewis is the kind of author that can take a subject that you have no knowledge of and make you feel smart about it while he teaches you. You won't feel like you know nothing about baseball after reading it. And yeah, it's all about value.
Kraven Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 I am a big baseball fan and loved the book. It is one of my all time favorites in both the business and sports categories. Michael Lewis can write just about anything and make it enjoyable. Another book in the same vein is "The Extra 2%" by Jonah Keri. It's similar to Moneyball and tells how a couple former Goldman Sachs colleagues took over the Tampa Bay Rays and using Sabermetrics (the topic of Moneyball) they took the team from from worst to first. They even made the World Series although were decimated by the Phils. There is an interesing little forward from Mark Cuban on how he did similar things with the Dallas Mavericks.
seshnath Posted September 18, 2011 Posted September 18, 2011 Do you need to know anything about baseball to make sense of this book? I wanted to read this book for a long time but I have next to no knowledge of baseball. Thanks Vinod Vinod - I know/knew nothing about baseball even after reading the book.
meiroy Posted September 19, 2011 Posted September 19, 2011 I am a big baseball fan and loved the book. It is one of my all time favorites in both the business and sports categories. Michael Lewis can write just about anything and make it enjoyable. I second that.
SouthernYankee Posted September 19, 2011 Posted September 19, 2011 One of the great things about the book was the reaction from the reporters who cover sports. A lot of them hated it, because Billy Beane was removing (trying to) the emotional aspects of scouting and trying to make it into more of a science (numbers and outcome based). Sounds like value investing, no?
seshnath Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 One of the great things about the book was the reaction from the reporters who cover sports. A lot of them hated it, because Billy Beane was removing (trying to) the emotional aspects of scouting and trying to make it into more of a science (numbers and outcome based). Sounds like value investing, no? Exactly!!!! I thought Billy Beane was the Ben Graham of his craft.
Kraven Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 By the way, the movie comes out pretty soon (this Friday?). I haven't heard anything about it, but hopefully it will be good. I thought they did a pretty good job with The Blind Side.
moore_capital54 Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 Very good movie, got a chance to watch it at TIFF
Myth465 Posted September 21, 2011 Author Posted September 21, 2011 Very good movie, got a chance to watch it at TIFF Hey Capital do you think someone who doesn't know anything about investing would enjoy it. I am taking a friend who knows nothing about investing, and likely nothing about baseball? Its one of those movies that could be really hard to pull off so I was wondering if it flowed well as a story. They have a great cast though, and Billy Bean is a funny / interesting guy.
seshnath Posted September 21, 2011 Posted September 21, 2011 Very good movie, got a chance to watch it at TIFF Heard on the BBC Strand yesterday about the movie. Brad Pitt is playing Billy Beane!!!?
Myth465 Posted September 24, 2011 Author Posted September 24, 2011 Very good indeed. I think its an adequate substitute for the book. I was wondering if they would be able to pull off the story given the stats, but they did. They used the strong characters and basically told the story that was written in the book without the math. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill both did a great job in their roles. What I liked most about the movie, is they really showed whats its like when you go against the grain. Being mediocre in a conventional way is a decent way to get paid, but being mediocre unconventionally will get you fired if you dont perform. Very good and inmo accurate portrait of this throughout the movie. It shows why most businesses have mundane strategies, and why most money managers basically own the index. I really enjoyed it. The only other movie I have seen that shows what its like going up against the grain is Creation. Watch Money Ball if you have the time, and you dont need to know anything about the book or baseball to enjoy it.
Liberty Posted September 24, 2011 Posted September 24, 2011 Still haven't seen the movie or read the book, but found this: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/moneyball-the-very-good-feel-bad-sports-movie-of-the-year/245536/
Parsad Posted September 26, 2011 Posted September 26, 2011 Just saw the movie on the weekend. Think it's the best movie of the year. Believe it or not, Brad Pitt was pretty damn good as Billy Beane...Oscar worthy! Cheers!
Liberty Posted September 28, 2011 Posted September 28, 2011 Just saw the movie on the weekend. Think it's the best movie of the year. Believe it or not, Brad Pitt was pretty damn good as Billy Beane...Oscar worthy! Cheers! I just saw it too. Quite good, quite enjoyable, and lots of lessons applicable to investing. Recommended.
meiroy Posted September 28, 2011 Posted September 28, 2011 Rotten tomatoes have it at 94% freshness (freshness = good, rotten = bad), they usually are spot on.
ubuy2wron Posted September 28, 2011 Posted September 28, 2011 Saw the movie Friday night I enjoyed it very much, my wife not so much, but then she hates baseball.
Kraven Posted September 29, 2011 Posted September 29, 2011 Saw the movie. Thought it was great. I highly recommend it. They did about as good of a job as they could translating the book to film. My wife enjoyed it as well and isn't a big baseball fan and really doesn't know that much about it. It probably doesn't hurt that a very fit Brad Pitt is in nearly every scene. My only criticism would be that it's probably a bit too long. A few parts could have been slimmed down a little bit.
zippy1 Posted October 24, 2011 Posted October 24, 2011 I was a foreign graduate student studying in US back in 1990 and saw a book called "1985 Bill James Abstract" in the university library. It really opened my eyes. I did not know at the time that basedball can be analyzed in a structured way. I would not have guessed that it will become accepted by the pro baseball teams. I think reading about Bill James' work prepared me for accepting value investing later. If you can find some of those early Bill James' abstracts, it is definitely wrothing reading for its way of thinking.
Liberty Posted January 12, 2012 Posted January 12, 2012 Just started reading the book (saw the movie a few months ago). Definitely all about identifying value and separating price from value. Good to revisit these themes over and over again...
Liberty Posted January 14, 2012 Posted January 14, 2012 All right, I've now finished it. Great book, surprisingly inspiring and emotional in part, but also contains lots of ideas that can be applied to investing.
ubuy2wron Posted April 26, 2012 Posted April 26, 2012 I saw the movie first liked it a lot read the book second and I loved the book. An amusing story, the day after I saw the movie I was out with the Mrs. shoe shopping (her favorite pastime) and in the store was the girl who played Brad Pitts daughter in Money Ball. She is from Vancouver it was her first role and I predict a bright career for this young lady as she truely stood out in the film.
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