The main shift in Moneyball wasn't the math per se (its there, but wasn't really the secret sauce), much of it was a shift in which metrics were actually import

The main shift in Moneyball wasn't the math per se (its there, but wasn't really the secret sauce), much of it was a shift in which metrics were actually important. Billy Beane's ranking of players was still merit based, they just measured by a different ruler.