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American Morning
Interview With Author Michael Lewis
Aired May 26, 2003 - 09:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're playing 600 baseball, which is good. If you win all your games, that's a thousand. But they rank near the bottom of the list in what they pay their players.
The pennywise Oakland As keep winning games in a league dominated by teams with much, much bigger payrolls, i.e., the New York Yankees, over $100 million a year. Oakland has a payroll that is a third the size of the Yankees' and about half what's being paid by many other teams with records that aren't nearly as good.
"Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game," examines just what the As are doing so well.
I talked to its author, Michael Lewis, about how they buck the trend and succeed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL LEWIS, AUTHOR, "MONEYBALL": Well, it really started a few years ago when major league baseball started to say, the commissioner's office started to say that teams couldn't win unless they had a lot of money and the game was ceasing to become an athletic competition and it was becoming a financial one. And there was a -- and they were generally right. But there was this one weird exception and it's been happening for now for four years. The Oakland As had figured out some way to win games without money and I don't think...
CAFFERTY: It's something in the water in Oakland. I mean the Raiders are this collection of ne'er-do-wells and misfits. The As have people that don't necessarily fit the stereotype of major league -- I mean they don't look like Derrick Jeeter out there, OK?
LEWIS: Oh, no. In fact, it's not a pleasant sight when you see them coming out of the showers after a game.
CAFFERTY: I know.
LEWIS: But, no, it's true. But what is the point is that for someone to become an Oakland A, they have to have something defective about them, because that's what, that is what causes their value to plummet on the marketplace.
CAFFERTY: You need to explain that, though. In other words, somebody has the eye to see the baseball skills beyond the matinee idol image, right?
LEWIS: Yes, you've got it. CAFFERTY: And says I can pay that guy less because he's not pretty, is that...
LEWIS: Oh, not pretty or because he doesn't run fast, things that aren't, they've figured out aren't terribly important in baseball. They get over valued by the market for baseball players and Billy Bean (ph), who is the general manager of the Oakland As, has sort of available himself to a body of -- I mean there's no other way to put it -- scientific research about baseball, how to play it, how to value the players, and has identified essentially cheap assets, guys who can do, who can win baseball games. He's a former professional baseball player. He wasn't, back in 1980, maybe the hottest high school prospect in the country. He was a first round draft choice of the New York Mets and everybody told him he was going to be a superstar. And it was in part because he looked like a superstar. I mean he spent 10 miserable years trying to make it in the minors and then as a bench player in the big leagues. And what he learned from that experience, and he now knows it in his bones, is that the way baseball players get evaluated is hugely in effect. And so there are opportunities for someone who thinks about it differently. And so he's happy to have a collection of guys who, you know, don't look right.
These players, who often, you know, oftentimes didn't have, have had -- their whole lives they've been told you're not good enough to play big league baseball have come together and formed this juggernaut on the field. I found that kind of -- it was just a great story.
CAFFERTY: Well, juggernaut might be too strong a word. I mean they don't have a World Series pennant recently hanging in the locker room right now.
LEWIS: They don't have a World Series -- they haven't won the World Series. But last year they won 103 games.
CAFFERTY: That's not bad.
LEWIS: The Yankees won 102 games. No one else did. I mean you're talking about in the regular season no one has done better in the last four years. And so it is true that when they get to the playoffs -- I mean I'll tell you what happens is that the playoffs are crap shoots. I mean you've got this very short series
CAFFERTY: Sure.
LEWIS: And the science doesn't work quite as well there. But just in terms of building a winning, successful franchise that has hope out of these spare rejected parts from other teams...
CAFFERTY: Are they going to win this year, do you think?
LEWIS: Well, they're winning. They...
CAFFERTY: I mean they're second place in the division. But I mean come September or October, do we see them in the playoffs? LEWIS: You know, you never know because you never know who is going to get hurt and so on and so forth. But they're better this year than they were last year and last year they were dynamite. So I think probably yes, you'll see them in playoffs again.
CAFFERTY: Michael Lewis. The book's called "Moneyball."
Thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired May 26, 2003 - 09:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're playing 600 baseball, which is good. If you win all your games, that's a thousand. But they rank near the bottom of the list in what they pay their players.
The pennywise Oakland As keep winning games in a league dominated by teams with much, much bigger payrolls, i.e., the New York Yankees, over $100 million a year. Oakland has a payroll that is a third the size of the Yankees' and about half what's being paid by many other teams with records that aren't nearly as good.
"Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game," examines just what the As are doing so well.
I talked to its author, Michael Lewis, about how they buck the trend and succeed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL LEWIS, AUTHOR, "MONEYBALL": Well, it really started a few years ago when major league baseball started to say, the commissioner's office started to say that teams couldn't win unless they had a lot of money and the game was ceasing to become an athletic competition and it was becoming a financial one. And there was a -- and they were generally right. But there was this one weird exception and it's been happening for now for four years. The Oakland As had figured out some way to win games without money and I don't think...
CAFFERTY: It's something in the water in Oakland. I mean the Raiders are this collection of ne'er-do-wells and misfits. The As have people that don't necessarily fit the stereotype of major league -- I mean they don't look like Derrick Jeeter out there, OK?
LEWIS: Oh, no. In fact, it's not a pleasant sight when you see them coming out of the showers after a game.
CAFFERTY: I know.
LEWIS: But, no, it's true. But what is the point is that for someone to become an Oakland A, they have to have something defective about them, because that's what, that is what causes their value to plummet on the marketplace.
CAFFERTY: You need to explain that, though. In other words, somebody has the eye to see the baseball skills beyond the matinee idol image, right?
LEWIS: Yes, you've got it. CAFFERTY: And says I can pay that guy less because he's not pretty, is that...
LEWIS: Oh, not pretty or because he doesn't run fast, things that aren't, they've figured out aren't terribly important in baseball. They get over valued by the market for baseball players and Billy Bean (ph), who is the general manager of the Oakland As, has sort of available himself to a body of -- I mean there's no other way to put it -- scientific research about baseball, how to play it, how to value the players, and has identified essentially cheap assets, guys who can do, who can win baseball games. He's a former professional baseball player. He wasn't, back in 1980, maybe the hottest high school prospect in the country. He was a first round draft choice of the New York Mets and everybody told him he was going to be a superstar. And it was in part because he looked like a superstar. I mean he spent 10 miserable years trying to make it in the minors and then as a bench player in the big leagues. And what he learned from that experience, and he now knows it in his bones, is that the way baseball players get evaluated is hugely in effect. And so there are opportunities for someone who thinks about it differently. And so he's happy to have a collection of guys who, you know, don't look right.
These players, who often, you know, oftentimes didn't have, have had -- their whole lives they've been told you're not good enough to play big league baseball have come together and formed this juggernaut on the field. I found that kind of -- it was just a great story.
CAFFERTY: Well, juggernaut might be too strong a word. I mean they don't have a World Series pennant recently hanging in the locker room right now.
LEWIS: They don't have a World Series -- they haven't won the World Series. But last year they won 103 games.
CAFFERTY: That's not bad.
LEWIS: The Yankees won 102 games. No one else did. I mean you're talking about in the regular season no one has done better in the last four years. And so it is true that when they get to the playoffs -- I mean I'll tell you what happens is that the playoffs are crap shoots. I mean you've got this very short series
CAFFERTY: Sure.
LEWIS: And the science doesn't work quite as well there. But just in terms of building a winning, successful franchise that has hope out of these spare rejected parts from other teams...
CAFFERTY: Are they going to win this year, do you think?
LEWIS: Well, they're winning. They...
CAFFERTY: I mean they're second place in the division. But I mean come September or October, do we see them in the playoffs? LEWIS: You know, you never know because you never know who is going to get hurt and so on and so forth. But they're better this year than they were last year and last year they were dynamite. So I think probably yes, you'll see them in playoffs again.
CAFFERTY: Michael Lewis. The book's called "Moneyball."
Thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
