Start 'Moneyballing' the Financial World

In Michael Lewis' 2003 book and Columbia Pictures' 2011 movie of the same name, the audience meets Moneyball -- the term that Lewis gives to a new approach for the better measurement of baseball talent and performance. The approach is adopted by a nonconformist general manager, Billy Beane of the Oakland Athletics, who proves over the course of the book and the movie (and the years that would follow) that Moneyball leads to better baseball analysis, and ultimately better baseball. "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it," the old business saw runs, and so as baseball's measurement tools have improved, its management decisions have improved, and the world -- here, the world of baseball -- has gotten smarter, more competitive, and better.