AOW 1/16: Moneyball 3

In the last section of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair game, Michael Lewis examines the details of the foundation of the Oakland A's unheralded success. He also brings in his own experiences from observing Billy Beane and the Oakland A's to show Beane's erratic personality. One component of the Oakland A's success was their ability to find players who are undervalued. One player mentioned was submariner Chad Bradford, who was stuck in triple-A and was not going to be in the big leagues because people doubted his motion. Billy found that his unique submarine motion got hitters out and produced outs, so he traded for him and depended on Bradford heavily. Lewis also examines the history of sabermetrics and discusses Voros McCracken and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching). Lewis effectively uses logos and ethos to show a strong connection between McCracken's statistic and Bradford's performance. Lewis is able to bring together his data/grounds to support his claim that the 2002 Oakland A's exhibited great success despite their limited payroll by using advanced statistical means and unorthodox scouting methods to build their roster. Lewis' awareness of Toulmin is evident because all of the data and grounds connects to his claim and are able to support a warrant: teams/persons with limited funds must look for alternative means to survive and succeed. Using the Bradford example, Lewis showed that Bradford's motion turned off teams from acquiring him despite his mind boggling numbers. Lewis connects the warrant to the Oakland A's and Billy Beane by concluding that chapter with Billy trading for Bradford and then promoting him to the Majors and giving him a key role in the bullpen. This connects to Lewis' warrant because Billy had to take a chance on him because he was a cheap and productive pitcher that was easily available. The Bradford story was an anecdote placed by Lewis, which comes in the middle of the story of the A's attempting to win their AL-Record 20th consecutive victory. By using Toulmin, warrant, appeals, and anecdotes, Lewis is able to show the uniqueness of the 2002 Athletics.