The MVP Machine How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players

Two New York Times-bestselling authors chronicle the next revolution in baseball: the data-driven quest to build better players Fifteen years after Michael Lewis brought the Oakland A's' groundbreaking team-building strategies to light in Moneyball, every team takes a data-driven approach to evaluating players, and the league's smarter front offices no longer have an edge. As Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik reveal in The MVP Machine, instead of out-drafting, out-signing, and out-trading rivals, baseball's best minds have turned to out-developing opponents, eking extra runs out of athletes who were seen as finished products. Lindbergh and Sawchik take us inside the transformation of former role players into home-run kings, and show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces. The MVP Machine charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson for any business: success comes from developing the people already working for you, rather than from bringing in star performers from elsewhere.