A Case Study of the Actor-Network Effects of Moneyball on Major League Baseball
A Case Study of the Actor-Network Effects of Moneyball on Major League Baseball A Research Paper submitted to the Department of Engineering and Society Presented to the Faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science University of Virginia • Charlottesville, Virginia In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Science, School of Engineering Corey Nolan Spring 2020 On my honor as a University Student, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assignment as defined by the Honor Guidelines for Thesis-Related Assignments Advisor Sean M. Ferguson, Department of Engineering and Society Introduction Entering the 2002 Major League Baseball (MLB) season, the Oakland Athletics found themselves in a tough spot. As one of the poorest organizations in the MLB, they were unable to re-sign three star players Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen as the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and St. Louis Cardinals, three large-market, powerhouse organizations, signed the free agents to deals the Athletics could not match. Desperate to keep his team competitive but unable to afford the exorbitant price tag of high-profile athletes, Billy -minded assistant Paul DePodesta to find a way their team could compete with larger market teams with only a third of their salary cap. DePodesta was long a student to find a way the Athletics could compete (A Guide to Sabermetric Research, 2020). Sharply departing from tradition scouting theory, the theory DePodesta and Beane discovered did not emphasize how an athlete looks or their physical tools; instead, it asked if a player could get on base or hit, meaning players with higher on-base (OBP) and slugging percentages (SLG).
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