Billy Beane Changing the Game Case Solution

The competencies, however, had a cap on it and even highly skilled players could not get above a set ceiling on compensation benefits In order to make this low-compensation and low pay-rates strategy to work effectively without leading to low motivation and retention levels, Oakland hired college level players rather than professional athletes which were 'under-valued'.

2. Staffing Strategies

Oakland had two staffing criteria: Sabermetrics and Undervalued players. The first criteria relied on base-percentages and past performances. It used objective (quantitative measures of the past performances) rather than subjective criteria to assess the new-recruits.

As for the other criteria, those players were deemed to be under-valued whose value to Oakland was predicted to be higher through objective measures than what Oakland was offering them. These players were termed the 'inefficiencies' of the market. Where other teams were hiring from high schools, A's approach was to hire from colleges where players were not being identified by other teams; minimal market competition from other teams. Oakland did no effort to retain existing players because according to them, they were too expensive to keep in the times when low-cost strategies were being implemented throughout the team. Further cost cutting strategies included hiring baseball executives from Harvard who were good with the theory (sabermetrics' methodologies) and no practical baseball experience.

3. Training and Development Strategies

Since Oakland focused on hiring players through objective measures; they had requisite skills according to the management; they paid little attention to the training of new players. However, they did try to change the batting and ball-focusing skills among players. They also trained the players to change the traditional thinking of batting average focus and advised players to focus instead on their base percentages, which was opposite to what other teams emphasized on.

This training procedure would not have worked if the new recruitments were not good enough that states Oakland A's main goal which was to hire low-cost and good players. Oakland A's drastic strategy change brought about major changes in team dynamics and new set limitations to the management's pay policies, recruitment strategies and training and development practices. The strategy although catered to the economic downsizes but had a major impact on the way that operations were previously carried out.