Move over,
Moneyball
— this
New York Times
bestseller examines major league baseball's next cutting-edge revolution: the high-tech quest to build better players.
As bestselling authors Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik reveal in
The MVP Machine
, the
era is over. Fifteen years after Michael Lewis brought the Oakland Athletics' groundbreaking team-building strategies to light, every front office takes a data-driven approach to evaluating players, and the league's smarter teams no longer have a huge advantage in valuing past performance.
Lindbergh and Sawchik's behind-the-scenes reporting reveals:
How undersized afterthoughts José Altuve and Mookie Betts became big sluggers and MVPs
How polarizing pitcher Trevor Bauer made himself a Cy Young contender
How new analytical tools have overturned traditional pitching and hitting techniques
How a wave of young talent is making MLB both better than ever and arguably worse to watch
Instead of out-drafting, out-signing, and out-trading their rivals, baseball's best minds have turned to out-
developing
opponents, gaining greater edges than ever by perfecting prospects and eking extra runs out of older athletes who were once written off. Lindbergh and Sawchik take us inside the transformation of former fringe hitters into home-run kings, show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces, and document how coaching and scouting are being turned upside down.
charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson that goes beyond baseball: Success stems not from focusing on finished products, but from making the most of untapped potential.