moneyball n. a derisive name for a sport (especially baseball) in which skill and fans seem secondary to money, esp. a sport in which teams, hoping to secure winning seasons and the resulting broadcasting and merchandising incomes, negotiate expensive contracts with desirable players. Also money ball. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Some college students are using the word loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Are the meanings of these words now shifting? Plus, a biologist discovers a new species of bat, then names it after a poet he admires. Also, warm memories of how a childhood...
Why would some Spanish speakers use adaptations of certain English words when perfectly good Spanish words for the same thing already exist? Plus, handy terms in a dictionary of the Sussex dialect from 150 years ago: Back then, a dezzick was “a...
With the January 2003 publication of Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball, the word has additionally come to signify a strategy of baseball management, often linked to baseball statistician Bill James and researchers at the Society for American Baseball Research, of stressing traditionally underrated (and thus cheaper) qualities such as high on-base percentage while placing less emphasis on others like speed, runs batted in, or fielding prowess.
Lewis defines “moneyball” as you explain it, but it is not a definition that exists outside of Lewis’ book or discussions related to it. I’ll keep an eye out to see if his new definition for the term will catch on in the wild, but so far, it hasn’t. (I say this as a member of SABR myself.) The last cite above is a discussion of the book, by the way.