On-base percentage predicts winning better than the stats everyone watched

Lewis explains how statistician Bill James's sabermetrics research, developed over decades largely outside the baseball establishment, demonstrated that avoiding outs — measured by on-base percentage, which counts walks alongside hits — correlated far more strongly with scoring runs and winning games than the batting average and home run totals that dominated scouting reports and media coverage. Traditional evaluation prized visible, exciting outcomes like home runs while undervaluing the unglamorous skill of simply not getting out, whether by a clean hit or a patient walk. Beane's staff treated this insight as a market inefficiency: since almost no other team was pricing players by on-base percentage, players who excelled at it but lacked classic power or speed could be acquired for relatively little money. Takeaway: the stat everyone watches isn't always the stat that actually wins games.