Astroball Book Summary - Astroball Book explained in key points

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Astroball summary

Name: Astroball
Rating: 4.2 (25 reviews)
Author: Ben Reiter

Ben Reiter

The New Way to Win it All

4.2 (25 ratings)

21 mins

Topics

Sports

Table of Contents

Astroball
Summary of 8 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Learn how data and statistics helped turn the Houston Astros into a winning team.

Passion and instinct shape sports. Whether it’s the diehard fans in the stands, the dedicated players on the field or the grizzled old-school coach pacing the sidelines, the people who live and breathe sports tend to project a certain message – that success in the game rests on grit, determination and raw talent.

But that’s changing. Today’s top clubs are increasingly embracing something we don’t usually associate with sports – math.

Take it from the Houston Astros, a baseball outfit whose meteoric rise from mid-table mediocrity to World Series champion was driven by a managerial revolution. At its heart were two forward-thinking innovators, Californian data analyst Sig Mejdal and scout Jeff Luhnow, both of whom realized that baseball, like other games, can be understood statistically.

In the face of opposition from skeptics and proponents of good old “gut instinct,” Mejdal and Luhnow started following the data. The results were stunning. Soon enough, the Astros were gaming the market and signing overlooked talents whose unique skill sets laid the foundations for the club’s title-winning season in 2017.

In the following blinks, you’ll learn

how technology is reshaping American baseball;
why the most successful clubs champion inclusivity; and
what big data sometimes misses.

When it comes to games, it’s better to trust the data than your gut.

In the late 1980s, Sig Mejdal, a Californian student and future NASA engineer, was paying his way through college by working night shifts at a casino. It was at the blackjack tables that he noticed something important: gamers usually trust their gut over reason.

Blackjack is a game of probability. The player’s aim is to beat the dealer’s hand without his own hand exceeding 21. Despite the superstitions of players, there’s always a statistically preferable option when it comes to choosing to draw another card.

Say a player has a hand amounting to 16. In most cases, he’ll be wary about drawing another card. After all, the chance of going bust – getting more than 21 – is pretty high, right? Well, yes, but there’s more to it. In fact, reason tells us the best move is to take another card. There’s a 74-percent chance the dealer has a winning hand of at least 17. Draw another card, however, and the player’s chance of defeat drops to 67.5 percent!

That got Mejdal thinking. What, he wondered, would happen if you applied the same logic to other games. He started looking more closely at baseball. His hypothesis? Since it’s a game just like any other, math might be more reliable than gut instinct.

It was an insight that paid dividends in one area in particular: player recruitment. Mejdal proved this in 2005 during his stint as an advisor to Jeff Luhnow, the scouting director at the Missouri-based St. Louis Cardinals. Mejdal’s data on player performance metrics told him that the best college player in the United States was Jed Lowrie of the Stanford Cardinals. Scouts had – literally – overlooked Lowrie because of his slight stature. Their gut instincts told them he was simply too small and slender to make it as a major league player.

Luhnow, however, decided to follow Mejdal’s advice and take a gamble on Lowrie, recruiting him to the Cardinals team. The result? Lowrie went on to become an all-star player with a relatively dependable batting average of .262 in 2018 in addition to his high skills as a defensive player in the shortstop position!

By 2012, a data-driven technological revolution in assessing players was underway.

In 2012, scout Jeff Luhnow and his analyst Sig Mejdal were recruited by the Houston Astros. It wasn’t long before the duo started shaking things up. Thanks to technological advancements, compiling previously unimaginably detailed performance metrics was now a breeze, letting the team make smarter recruiting decisions.

Take the video camera system PITCHf/x, which started being used in all major league baseball games in 2006. By triangulating between three fixed cameras, the system can calculate everything from the speed the ball is pitched at to the point it’s thrown from, as well as how strong its spin is and where it crosses the batting plate.

Baseball players’ ages and salaries still play a key part in the scouting process.

In mid-2012, the Astros’ public relations office prepared biographies of the high school players the team regarded as likely recruits. But when the selections were made, there were quite a few surprises. The reason? Scouting duo Jeff Luhnow and Sig Mejdal’s unique approach.

Let’s start with the question of age. Most baseball buffs thought the Astros would pick Byron Buxton, a player who’d already made a name for himself and proved his talents. Luhnow, however, wasn’t having any of it and instead plumped for someone with a much more low-key profile: Carlos Correa.

Relying on data helps scouts avoid prejudice and track down undiscovered talent.

Baseball, like lots of games, is a sentimental affair. Just ask the Astros’ scouting director, Jeff Luhnow. Every season, he receives letters and emails from young fans begging him to hire or not hire their favorite players. There’s nothing wrong with emotion in sports – after all, we play and watch games because we love them. But sound recruitment policy requires a more hardheaded approach.

The reason is simple. Relying on data rather than sentiment or instinct produces better results.

Health issues call for tough decisions and savvy management.

Top athletes often earn more money in a week than most people do in an entire year, to say nothing of the head-turning bonuses that come their way when they’re successful. But being a professional sportsman isn’t just about laughing all the way to the bank. In fact, the athletic trade is a uniquely vulnerable one due to the threat of injuries.

Pre-existing health issues sometimes finish off careers before they’ve even really started. Take it from Brady Aiken, a young player drafted by the Astros. When Aiken arrived in Houston for his medical examination, he was on the verge of fame and fortune. A few tests later, however, and his dream had been shattered.

When athletes plateau, they need to adapt.

What makes the greatest athletes, well, great? They improve with age, taking their natural talent and complementing it with their growing experience of the game. Baseball is no exception. Every player hopes for constant growth and development. But not all careers pan out that way. Sometimes players start to plateau.

Take JD Martinez, a batter from Florida selected by the Astros in the twentieth round of the 2009 draft. Once he had his foot in the door of the minor leagues, he started to shine. Within two years, he’d been selected for the major league team. By 2012, he was one of the best players in a struggling Astros team and their most consistent point-winning batter.

Baseball clubs can strengthen team spirit by practising inclusivity.

Most major league baseball players belong to two broad groups – those whose first language is English and those whose mother tongue is Spanish. The division between them might be invisible in most locker rooms, but it’s there all the same.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, clubs that overcome the linguistic divide often develop a much stronger team spirit.

Despite its many benefits, data has its limits in predicting a player’s value and their future performance.

Data and sophisticated algorithms helped the Astros become one of the best baseball teams in the American Major League. But the club’s success wasn’t merely driven by tech. Data might be able to do a lot, but it’s worth remembering that it can’t do everything.

One area in which it sometimes comes up short is player valuations. Take an example from 2017. The Astros had the opportunity to sign Justin Verlander, one of the best pitchers in the country. Great news, right? Well, there was a catch – he would cost the club $40 million for two seasons. Sig Mejdal’s algorithm suggested the deal wasn’t worth it. What it failed to pick up on, however, was the changing economic climate in the major league. Prices were rising everywhere, and fast. Star players like David Price and Zack Greinke were making $30 million a year on four-year contracts.

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What is Astroball about?

Astroball (2018) charts the managerial revolution that propelled the Houston Astros baseball team from mid-league mediocrity to winning the 2017 World Series. The secret? Ditching old-fashioned scouting and recruiting policies that relied on “gut instinct” and embracing the power of big data. Full of fascinating insights into the world of American baseball, with all its traditions and mores, this is a must-read book for both those who love the sport, as well as anyone fascinated by the way tech is reshaping our world.

Best quote from Astroball

Altuve couldnt grow physically, but no player has more eagerly consumed what the club was feeding him to grow anyway. – Jeff Luhnow

—Ben Reiter

Who should read Astroball?

Baseball fanatics
Tech-heads
Lateral thinkers

About the Author

Ben Reiter is a New York-based journalist and regular contributor to Sports Illustrated, Time and the Village Voice. Astroball is his first book.

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