While franchises in big markets, like New York or LA, can afford to buy the best players, small-market clubs are forced to make do with their leftovers.

That is until an unconventional strategy called sabermetrics helped level the playing field.

Billy Beane, the current General Manager (GM) for the Oakland Athletics, is known for being an early proponent of sabermetrics.

In 1997, the Athletics were short on cash, so it was impossible for the team to compete financially with top rivals, which had large budgets.

So Beane turned to sabermetrics, which uses statistics to evaluate players instead of the traditional methods of human analysis and scouting.

Traditionally, teams tended to only pay top dollar to home run hitters.

However, sabermetrics helps to locate affordable players who play good defense or draw lots of walks.

These skills may not be glamorous, but they do help win baseball games, just as much as big home runs or fast pitches.

In the end, Beane's results speak for themselves.

The Athletics have won five division titles so far with Beane leading the team.

Although they have only spent US$41 million on salaries, the Athletics have been able to compete with the Yankees, who have a budget of over US$200 million.

His achievements were so impressive that they inspired a best-selling book Moneyball:

The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which was later turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt.

Beane proved that it isn't always necessary for owners to spend boatloads of money to field a great baseball team.