With the lack of baseball news this off-season due to the current lockout, this was a welcome relief to that drought as I picked up an advance review copy and it was excellent. And I am not even a Dodgers fan! Here is my review of this book on the Dodgers' 2020 championship.
Title/Author: "How
to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink"
by Pedro Moura
Rating: 5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review: Baseball has undergone a fundamental
change in its approach to strategy and the development of players through the
use of data as well as traditional statistics and scouting. One team has succeeded quite well in mixing
the two together, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
How they accomplished this, climaxed by their World Series championship
in 2020, and the people behind this are the subject of this excellent book by
Pedro Moura.
The title is the only quibble I have with this book as in
the thorough description of the Dodgers organization there really is no description
that makes the game "broken."
There are plenty of issues, from low television ratings to the calls
that today's "three true outcomes" game is too boring to the wide gap
between teams for revenue and therefore spending – and all of them are
discussed. However, I didn't see any of
that being used to call the game "broken." Instead, I saw these as some of the obstacles
or aides that the Dodgers faced in order to win it all in the abbreviated 2020
season.
This isn't a game-by-game description of the season. Instead, it is a deep dive into the minds and
actions of several key personnel behind the team's success. This starts with team President Andrew
Friedman, whose success previously with the Tampa Bay Rays led the sport to its
current use of analytical data to gain a financial edge. The hiring of Gabe
Kapler to run their minor league system also accelerated the use of data for
player development. Ironically, Kapler is now the manager of the San Francisco
Giants, the biggest rival for the Dodgers. There are great write ups about some
of the players who have benefitted greatly from this data such as third baseman
Justin Turner, outfielder Mookie Betts and pitcher Walker Buehler. Other
excellent chapters in the book include one on pitcher Clayton Kershaw and scout
Tom Kunis.
On the last profile and other scouts, it is noteworthy that
throughout the book it is emphasized that traditional scouting methods and
information is not dismissed out of hand but instead integrated with the data
compiled by the "nerds" of the organization (it was interesting to
learn that their workspace was the old visiting clubhouse at Dodger stadium). This
is in contrast to the message that was sent about the last seismic shift in
information gathering and use, during the "Moneyball" era where
readers of that book or viewers of that movie would have the impression that
traditional scouting was going to be gone.
More than fixing a broken game, the big takeaway from this
book for me was that other teams should look to the Dodgers on the proper use
of both traditional and modern methods of player development and training. It has proven beneficial to both players and
the team and the results in 2020 were evident.
It's an excellent book for readers who want to know more about today's
game, whether or not they believe it is "boring."
I wish to thank Public Affairs Publishing for providing a copy
of the book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Super helpful. What I hoped it would be. Purchasing now.
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