All this talk of Moneyball, Billy Beane and the young GMs he has inspired (Epstein, DePodesta, Ricciardi) has been too much for economist Steven Levitt (he received the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal -- given biennially to a person under the age of 40 who has made a "significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge."). This is what he had to say about Billy Beane and the A's in an interview with the Financial Times:
"There has been much hype recently about baseball clubs finding statistics to identify good players. Levitt read Michael Lewis's book Moneyball about the supposed innovators, the Oakland As, and is unimpressed. "If you look at all the stats they say are so important, the As are totally average! There's very little evidence Billy Beane [the club's general manager] is doing something right."JC at Sabernomics.com talks about whether Levitt's claims are grounded in reality (it looks like Levitt's right, although some will probably disagree).
