SP Post 5

This is a little late, but I forgot I needed one more. I have since finished my books and have zeroed my focus down to a possible topic regarding the recent makeover of the Miami Marlins. THe Marlins made a lot of changes this offseason. They moved into a brand new (and controversial) new ballpark. They changed their logo, uniform, and colors in an attempt to rebrand themselves. And finally they made a number of on field changes. There was a great article in Sports Illustrated focusing on the Marlins Makeover and branded it is "one of the biggest gambles in baseball." I think it would be very interesting to use the themes from The Tipping Point and Predictably Irrational to try and predict or evaluate what the Marlins have done.

One a separate note, while I was surfing the endless bounds of the internet I found an hour long podcast that is just a conversation between the authors of the two books I read: Dan Ariely and Malcolm Gladwell. I have listened to the first twenty minutes so far and it is very interesting hearing them discuss their books and compare their two ideas.

SP POST 4

I have read a lot of Bill James, in fact I subscribe to his website, and have met him (he used to live in brookline and I was good friends with his son who has since moved back to Kansas). Also interestingly enough I just last night finally saw Moneyball, which I read a few years ago. I think that something in this direction would be very interesting, though I dont want to rewrite the same ideas expressed in Moneyball, I would rather focus on Ariely's ideas and try to apply them to the world of sports. Arielys book is all about decision making, and why we continue to make poor decisions and possible ways that we could try to avoid being so irrational. This meshes well with the thesis of Moneyball. Maybe its just because I have read so much on the topic, but I feel like this has been done a lot, so I would like to go at it from a new angle. Maybe try to answer a much more specific question relating to baseball, popularity, and decision making (tying together both books, and moneyball), Off the top of my head "why were Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek so popular in Boston despite being mediocre players?" I will continue to mull it over and post again later this evening with some more concrete ideas