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Hey, you there. Sportswriter. Bet you thought you could write a logically unsound SAT verbal section-style analogy about Moneyball and get away with it. Sorry, buddy. Not when this sports journalism blogger just burned through two Miller Analogies Test prep books this morning (as I do every morning; it's a ritual like having a cup of coffee to me).
"Moneyball" is to baseball what frugal is to cheap;
<buzzer sound FX>
First of all, Moneyball is a book, not really a formal philosophy. But even putting that aside, let's do this in English. Moneyball, loosely speaking, is a general managing strategy that involves exploiting market inefficiencies in the sport of baseball...is to baseball, which is the sport of baseball...as frugal, a euphemism for the word "cheap"...is to cheap, which is the word "cheap."
Wha?
You don't have to have gotten a 600 on your M.A.T. to smell that this analogy is to correctness as Hillary Clinton is to giving up-ness! Wait, did that work? No. It did not, on several levels. (Humor and accuracy, no. Topicality and mordant political commentary, yes!)
"Moneyball" is not a euphemism for "baseball." "Frugal" is not a strategy for winning at the sport of "cheap." The whole thing is so tangled I can't even begin to suggest an alternative.
Oh, what the hell, here are a half dozen, each one at least as accurate as what this guy wrote:
The more I watch the Jays the more I despise the whole concept of Moneyball.
Yes. It's definitely the book Moneyball that screwed up the Blue Jays. Not B.J. Ryan or A.J. Burnett or Vernon Wells's 2007. It's...a book.
What moron ever came up with the idea that it was bad thing to move a guy over with a sacrifice bunt or to steal a base?
A moron named Mathematical Probability. He's a dick. Never picks up a check. Doesn't help his wife clean up the house. Thinks Daughtry is awesome. Asshole.
Sorry, but I will take Whitey Herzog baseball over Moneyball any time.For example; the Jays are trailing 1-0 in the sixth inning, there's nobody out and men on first and second. However, thanks to the screwed up concept of "Moneyball," the Jays go up there swinging away.
Well, that's close to a time you might want to bunt. It sometimes makes sense to bunt, depending on whether you need exactly one run or more than one run, and how late in the game it is, and who's at the plate, and who's on deck. So what was the situation?
Oh. You had Stewart, Rios, and Wells up -- your 2-3-4 guys -- against a pitcher with 77 total innings in the majors (though he's a really good prospect). I say: bunt, bunt again, suicide squeeze with 2 out!
Lineout, fly out and Vernon Wells caught looking.
That's Moneyball, holmes! Moneyball loves lineouts, fly outs, and called third strikes. Moneyball is all about called third strikes. What's not to love about Moneyball?!
I like, too, that a lineout isn't seen as bad luck, but the failings of a philosophy that has nothing to do with what he is talking about.
Thus endeth the inning and a golden opportunity to manufacture a run. Moneyball freaks will call me an idiot for even suggesting that you would bunt someone over to third base with no one out.
Okay: you're an idiot. Albeit, one with crystal-clear 20-20 hindsight.
Now, at this point, the Jays had not scored a run in the previous 14 innings. What have you got to lose by bunting a guy over and setting up an easy sac fly scenario?
An out. That's what you have to lose. A precious out, made by your #2 hitter, in front of your #3 and #4 hitters. A precious out, that you are just giving away, and the execution of which is in the hands of a dude with 15 sac bunts in 14 seasons. How do you think that's going to go, really? You think that's going to be a flawless, perfect sac bunt that gets the runners over? Guaranteed? 15 sac bunts in 14 years? You think that'll work out? You think he won't like bunt it right back to the pitcher for an easy toss to third? Or pop it up? Or foul it off and put himself into an 0-1 or 0-2 hole?
The fallacy of the "Why don't you just perfectly execute a difficult play and then everything will be awesome" gambit. Hey -- here's an idea. Why don't we just give everyone free health care? Then everyone will have it, and so then things will improve. Duh.
I have had it with Moneyball; give me good old Whitey Herzog baseball any day.
I have had it with people who have "had it" with Moneyball, who don't understand Moneyball. Take that.
I'm sure you're well aware that the teams that most famously epitomize "WhiteyBall" -- the '82, '85, and '87 Cards -- all led the National League in OBP. The '85 and '87 squads led the NL in walks, and the '82 team finished second. The Cardinals sucked, however, in 1986, when their team OBP dipped to 12th in the league.
Been getting a lot of e-mails about it over the past couple of days. In fact, if you e-mailed us once to tell us to give it the ol' FJM treatment, and then again, like an hour later, when you realized that it's (we think) a piece of satire, you're not alone.
I'm not sure exactly what there is to say about it. But to answer some questions we've gotten:
No, we didn't write it. No, we don't know who did. Yes, we think it's meant to be a satirical anti-Moneyball piece, and therefore, ostensibly, a pro-Moneyball piece. But it's pretty hard to tell.
I like that if you Google "Art Garfamudis," one of the first things that comes up is an anagram search for "Art Garfamudis." Meaning, people are trying to find an anagram-clue in the pen name. (Of course! Radiums A. Graft.)
Well, I hope this has been as disappointing for all of you as it was for me. We'll try to get to that beautiful Plaschke/Pierre article but I'm not making any promises.
The most vexing and confusing aspect of modern baseball analysis -- and the primary reason we created this site -- is the sniveling distaste for the book Moneyball. As you are all aware, Moneyball is a mathematics textbook designed to prove how dumb baseball is, co-authored by A's General Manager Billy Beane and a computer who hates baseball. The main arguments in the book are: (1) baseball is stupid, (2) hot dogs taste bad, (3) the National Anthem is a piece of shit, and instead of singing it at the beginning of baseball games, the Iron Sheik should sing an Iranian folk song, (4) America sux, and (5) bald eagles should be replaced by some Russian bird you can only find in the most communist parts of the Ural Mountains. (The book takes place in 1974.)
So it comes as no surprise that the retirement of Jeremy Brown -- the slow/kinda-fat catcher whom Beane drafted 35th overall in the 2002 draft, despite the fact that no other team was ever going to draft him, probably -- is a super gleeful, hand-wringing, I-told-you-so snivelfest for people who either didn't read the book or didn't understand it. Or worse: people who read it, understand it, and think it's dumb. Or worser, people who choose to ignore that Brown retired for personal reasons, and not because he was an abject failure. Or worserest, people who just want to stir shit. Like Gary Peterson, of the venerable ignorance factory MSNBC.com.
For the record: Brown was not a failure. He had a .370 OBP in 6 minor league seasons. His career minor league OPS was above .800. He retired for personal reasons which neither he nor the team saw fit to release, but the A's made it clear that he was welcome back if he decided to change his mind. Also for the record: Beane drafted him in the first round not because he thought that Brown was the 35th-best player in the country, but because he, Beane, didn't have the money to sign any of the guys who were highly-rated and has already signed with Scott Boras or Jeff Moorad or something and were going to ask for $370 million signing bonuses before ever playing professional baseball. It was the only way he, Beane, could survive, out there in Oakland -- find guys no one else wanted but who were actually good, and draft them or trade for them and pay them small amounts of money.
Anyway. This article isn't the worst thing in the world. But Moneyball articles make me touchy. So:
If catching prospect Jeremy Brown didn’t exactly walk out of the Oakland Athletics spring training camp last week, it was only because he never showed up in the first place. Brown simply notified his employers he would not be reporting with the other pitchers and catchers. He had his reasons. At 28, he was done.
For personal, non-baseball-talent-related reasons.
You may have missed the announcement. In fact, we’d bet large money on it.
You lose.
Brown may have been a member of baseball’s faceless fringe, but he had a story that set him apart. See, he was the unwitting face of the business model with which A’s general manager Billy Beane confounded the grand old game from 1999-2006.
Maybe you read the book.
I did, yes. Did you?
In “Moneyball,” author Michael Lewis detailed Beane’s counter-intuitive approach to baseball.
It is somehow counter-intuitive to draft people based on their skill levels and abilities instead of their anecdotal physical attributes. I'm not disputing this -- it's true. I'm just restating it, because it's always hard for me to believe.
He did this in part by presenting Brown as a tool to tell the story. A marginal draft pick in his own mind, Brown found himself picked by the A’s in the first round in 2002 because he fit Beane’s statistical profile. A’s scouts were appalled because Brown had neither the physique nor the physical characteristics of the traditional can’t-miss prospect.
Because of the book, Brown gained notoriety he neither sought nor welcomed. Now he has called it quits at the precise point at which Beane’s Moneyball model appears to have run its course.
The Moneyball model has not "run its course." The Moneyball model is: find inefficiencies in the market and exploit them in order to compete with rivals who have more assets at their disposal. Apple competes with Microsoft through state-of-the-art industrial design and exemplary niche marketing. Whole Foods competes with Ralphs and Vons and Safeway by selling organic twig-based $9/box cereals that suckers like me buy because they contain flax seed. This is not a "theory" that "runs a course." This is a theory that people in all businesses have been using for centuries in order to keep up with better-funded competitors.
Now. If you want to make the more sophisticated argument that the specific inefficiencies that Beane was exploiting at the time the book was written by that baseball-hating computer -- namely, that the market had undervalued OBP skills, for example -- are now less inefficient, thanks to the aftermath of the book and the rise of like-minded GMs who shared Beane's personality traits of: being a rational, logical, non-dummy...well, then go ahead. Or just keep doing what you're doing. The latter? Okay.
Beane did it [won a lot] by drafting players who became huge stars, then letting them leave as free agents. He did it by renting veterans who played a season (or two) in Oakland, then left as free agents. He did it by trading players approaching the prime of their careers for prospects. He did it by placing value on players other teams deemed undesirable, but who could take pitches, draw walks and hit home runs.
The model began to break down last season.
The players broke down last season. They had 22 DL stints, for cripe's sake. I'll just quote from MLB.com here:
[C]enter fielder Mark Kotsay, right fielder Milton Bradley, first baseman Dan Johnson, designated hitter Mike Piazza, shortstop Bobby Crosby and third baseman Eric Chavez missed significant chunks of time.
Starting pitchers Rich Harden and Esteban Loaiza combined to make seven starts. Closer Huston Street missed more than two months. Former All-Star Justin Duchscherer was shut down for the year in mid-May, and fellow setup man Kiko Calero was limited to 46 appearances before being shut down late in the summer.
"Moneyball?!" More like "InjuryBall!" Or "MoneyInjury!" (Yes -- let's go with "MoneyInjury.")
The new wave of home-grown stars plateaued or backslid. Prized pitchers disappointed, either by failing to produce or by failing to stay healthy. Last-chance veterans turned out to be duds.
Also: Kotsay, Bradley, Johnson, Piazza, Crosby, Chavez, Street, Harden, Loaiza, Duchscherhsrcechrsecer, and Calero got hurt. This is Moneyball's fault.
Naturally, people are wondering if Brown’s retirement symbolizes the end of the era. And they’re asking:
Can Beane remake the A’s into a playoff contender?
If he can't, no one can.
That’s a tall order based merely on the law of averages. Put it this way: The Yankees aside, no major league team has a streak of postseason appearances exceeding 1. Meanwhile, eight teams have failed to make the playoffs for at least 10 years running.
This has nothing to do with the A's. Also, I love that the Red Sox making the playoffs in four out of 5 years (and winning the World Series twice) doesn't qualify them for this arbitrary cut-off. Which, again, has nothing to do with the A's, or anything.
Doesn’t Beane’s analytic mad genius give him an advantage? Doubtful.
What does Billy Beane have to do to earn the benefit of anyone's doubt?
The book explicitly detailed his methodology, as well as the delight he took in fleecing fellow GMs. Thus, he now must co-exist with GMs who either embrace his model to some extent, and/or who wouldn’t talk trade with him on a bet.
Even if this is true, he can still draft people. He can still let free agents and over-hyped closers leave and get draft choices. And after the book was published, he traded Mark Mulder to the Cards for Haren, Calero, and Daric Barton. So, I think he's going to be fine.
Before the 2006 season they gave third baseman Eric Chavez the contract Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, et al, never got — $66 million over six years. Chavez’s numbers have trended downward ever since, as has his health.
Giambi was given $120 million by the Yankees. That is more than $66 million, by $54 million. Miggy got $72 from the Birds, and his numbers and health have trended downward too. Also, I think this bears mentioning: Tejada and Giambi are both juicers. That may not have factored into the decision to let them go -- and for all I know, Chavez is a juicer -- but I don't think you can look back and say that Beane should definitely have kept them and their stink on the team. (And in Giambi's case they couldn't have kept him anyway.)
That same offseason, the A’s outbid the Giants by [sic] for Esteban Loaiza ($21 million, three years), and got 12-9, 4.62 and an embarrassing DUI for their trouble. They waived him last August.
They paid him $5m in '06 and $6m in '07. That ain't bad for 12-9. Not great, but not bad.
Kotsay was extended at market rate by previous ownership in 2005, whereupon his problematic back became a debilitating concern. The A’s will pay $5.3 million of his salary this season even though he’s with Atlanta.
Signing a 28 year-old CF/OF (who's good defensively and hit .314/.370/.459 in 2004) to a 2-year extension is good business. If only Moneyball hadn't ruined his back.
Here's the big finish.
The only certainties are that this season figures to be a competitive wash, and that Jeremy Brown will have nothing to do with it.
Connect those dots as you see fit.
Tried. Turns out those are the only two dots in this dimension that do not create a line.
Go to sleep, Mac. It's past your bedtime, which is 5, 8, and 11 PM, and 2, 5, 8, and 11 AM, and then 2 PM.
Reader James points out several good things:
In the chapter profiling Brown, it lists him as being part of Billy Beane's "top 20" -- the 20 people Beane would pick if money and competition were not an object. Lewis identified a couple of the people on the list as being unaffordable. Jeremy Brown was on that list, and I think it was fair to say that, based on the A's method, they thought Brown was one of the best ten picks in the draft. I'm sorry I don't have the book on me now to link something, but I do think Beane thought Brown was better than the 35th best pick.
I've seen a bunch of the criticism of Moneyball/Beane because of Brown, and I've often wondered how the pick compares with others. That is... how did the pick do relative to other picks? Well, it's not really much of a sample, but the Braves picked Dan Meyer immediately before Brown... Dan Meyer's pitched all of 6 innings in the majors, and is now, oddly enough, with the A's. The Cubs, with the pick directly after the A's, picked Chadd Blasko. Blasko was released by the Cubs last year, and from what I can tell, never got above the AA level.
From that, my sense is that the A's did about as well as could be expected with that pick. Expecting Jeremy Brown to be a superstar, or even what Nick Swisher is now, is unrealistic. (Hey, even the top pick of that draft, Bryan Bullington, has barely sniffed the majors).
Senator Mitchell? You can end your investigation, sir. I'm sure you've been doing a lot of hard work, pounding the pavement, rooting around in dark alleys, wearing trenchcoats, smoking pipes. I'm telling you now you can stop and relax. Our long national roidmare is over thanks to a gutsy young muckraker from north of the border, one Mr. Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. At the cost of only his own blood, sweat, tears and pancreatic secretions, Mr. Griffin has fingered the culprit behind this whole steroid mess. Yes, there is only one. A lone gunman. A puppeteer behind the scenes. A criminal mastermind. A shadowlord lurking in the spaces our society dares not tread.
Who is it? It's a book. It's called Moneyball. Maybe you've heard of it?
People are always accusing me of misrepresenting what Moneyball was all about,
And it's impossible that you're actually wrong about it, so -- but there are so many facets and interpretations that it's tough to say anyone is really wrong.
I don't believe that's actually true, and certainly in this case, sir, it most undoubtedly is not. What you are about to say about Moneyball is unequivocally, unquestionably, indubitably wrong.
But think about this. One of the Billy Beane precepts was to look for college and, occasionally, high school hitters that were not really the greatest athletes on their team but had the discipline to wait for the right pitch and then smack the hell out of it when they found it. On-base percentage, dude. That's the wave of the future. Forget about how boring those four-hour games get. These were the bargains.
This is wrong, but not the wrongest part. That part we're about to get to. (As a an aside, does Griffin really blame Billy Beane for caring about winning at the expense of game length? We're trying to win games here, people, are we not?)
Take a deep breath, now, and pre-emptively duct tape your jaw so that it does not succumb to gravity, friends:
Now think of a college kid back then in the post-Mark McGwire era who knew he was always going to be on the fringe because he wasn't your most graceful natural athlete, but knew that if only he was a lot stronger, he could learn to play within himself and crush an occasional mistake pitch. As long as he didn't chase bad ones he could make an impact in this century's home run crazy major-league baseball. As for a position in the field, they could teach him to be adequate somewhere. Major league minimum of $319,000 (U.S.) is all that these kids wanted. That's the carrot. He had the stick. The rest was gravy. Before there was steroid testing, who, if they were on the fringe with a clear market for awkward sluggers, wouldn't take that plunge? Moneyball is over.
Wow. Wow. Wow. (The last "wow" was a backwards "wow," I'm so wowed.) It's so clear to me now. Moneyball is the root of all steroids! Bruce Willis is a ghost! Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze! How could we all have been so blind?
This book that Billy Beane wrote -- this devil's tome, those cursed words -- of course it's responsible for the great baseball evil of our time. Everyonewhoevertooksteroidswas anunathleticOBP machine. It's so obvious. "Awkward sluggers," all. "Fringe."
I feel that we're cleansed, now, America. Thank you, Mr. Griffin, or as they say in your native Canada, grazie. Now that you've revealed to us the truth, we can truly say that Moneyball, and therefore all steroid use, is finally dead.
1. Tony La Russa He put to rest the notion his players tighten up come October with one of the great managing jobs of our time last year. It's no easy thing to make an 83-win team believe it can win. Now he's made me believe. He's an original thinker who's unsurpassed strategically. "I have tried to guess along with him on what moves he'll make next,'' David Eckstein told me in spring training, "and it just can't be done.''
If you haven't already, I invite you to read Buzz Bissinger's book 3 Nights in August, about La Russa. The purported aim of the book is to show how brilliant La Russa is as a strategist. The actual accomplishment is to make one feel like one wouldn't trust La Russa to take care of one's cats, much less one's baseball team. It starts with an anecdote about how Albert Pujols has a severe arm injury -- one that allows him to swing a bat but not throw. La Russa wants to play him anyway, to like intimidate the other team (which doesn't know about the injury), so he puts him in left field and tells him to casually underhand the ball to the SS if it gets hit to him. A doctor has told La Russa that Pujols, the most important player on the team by a factor of fifty, is risking severe like career-threatening shit if he throws a baseball. This is a not-super-important game. I mean, what the hell?
Avid readers of this blog might remember many months ago when I wrote that I was going to do a lengthy review of this book. I started reading and making notes. By page 80 I had filled ten notebook pages with scribbles and exclamation points and frowny faces, and decided the task was just too big.
And before we go talking about how La Russa is a master strategist because his crappy team won the WS after winning 83 games last year, let's all remember that he controlled three of the most disappointing WS teams in recent history -- the 88 A's (104 wins, McGwire/Canseco, 3 16 game winners and Eck, blown out in 5 games by the Dodgers), the '90 A's (who got humiliated by the Reds) and the '04 Cardinals (who won 105 games and got brushed aside like sidewalk trash).
2. Jim Leyland Perhaps he isn't the master strategist that La Russa is, but as a salesman and motivator, no one's better. His only blemish is his short time in Colorado, when his heart wasn't in it.
I fail to see why it's okay that his heart wasn't in it when he had a tough job. As opposed to when he managed the '97 Marlins, the best team money could buy, or the ultimately disappointing 90's Bucs. I think he's a fun guy, and a good manager, but shouldn't a big part of a manager's evaluation be how he does when he gets handed a pile of crap? (And please don't tell me the '06 Tigers were a pile of crap. They were well-positioned to be a solid team with that pitching.)
3. Mike Scioscia Smart and solid, he's extremely even-keeled, and his players have bought into his aggressive, NL style.
Whatever. He's fine.
4. Joe Torre Fourth place for the four World Series rings. But can he please take it easy on his favorite relievers? He especially needs to be careful with Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera.
I don't really know what to make of Torre. I happen to think that the most important job a manager does is handle the clubhouse and the owner. He has a tough clubhouse and a terribly whimsical/crazy owner, and is always even-keeled, so, to quote that weird guy who writes a weekly column about Starbucks and The Sopranos for SI.com, I think I think he's good. He also has a $200m payroll every year and occasionally makes some really odd decisions.
5. Lou Piniella He didn't do his best work in Tampa, and baseball people noticed. Plus, he's been cited by some for mishandling pitchers. He certainly can lose his cool, as well, but that's part of his charm. Wouldn't want to have to match wits against him in the postseason, though that might not be anyone's worry this year.
I believe Sweet Lou is insanely overrated. Tampa never seemed one ounce better off with him than with anyone else. But what really irritates me is that he's sitting here at #5, and is followed by
6. Bobby Cox I'm sure most would rank him higher. But since the goal is to win titles, that has to be seen as a failing.
I mean, you've got to be kidding me.
Figuring out what effect, if any, a manager has on a team is very difficult. Moneyball famously talks about how Billy Beane loved Art Howe because Howe sat stoically in the dugout and stared straight ahead and had the appearance of a leader, while essentially just following orders. He presided over those overachieving computer-generated teams that everyone loves to call underachieving because they got terribly unlucky in October, and then he went to the Mets and stunk up the place.
As I said, most anecdotal evidence (because empirical evidence with managers seems misleading) says that managers' most important job is that of a sheep dog -- herding the players in the same direction, keeping them from going astray over the course of a long season, focusing them on the task at hand, that kind of thing.
If that is at all true...who is better than Bobby Cox? He didn't win titles? He won every division title from 1844 to 2005. He throws some of the best player-protecting temper tantrums in the game. His guys love him. He handles veterans and rookies and retreads and rich guys and does gutsy things like make John Smoltz a closer. If I were GMing a team, I might get Bobby Cox to run it. Assuming he secretly agreed to run it Moneyball-style.
7. Grady Little He was knocked hard for sticking with Pedro Martinez in the 2003 ALCS, when his critics apparently would have rather seen him turn the game over to a very iffy bullpen. He's a low-key guy who doesn't get the plaudits he deserves.
Grady Little is a bad manager. He is a very nice man who says pleasant things in a pleasant drawl. He has no business being anywhere near a dugout. And this is not sour grapes. This is common sense.
9. Ozzie Guillen It may look like he's managing on emotion, but few know the game better.
He hits Podsednik first, doesn't care about OBP, thinks everyone should steal, bunts all the time, and says racist and insulting things. But he has a fun accent!
10. Terry Francona The Red Sox skipper keeps his cool in a tough environment. He manages both the clubhouse and game well.
If these are your criteria: put Torre first, Terry 2nd, Cox 3rd, and everyone else 4th.
11. Ron Gardenhire Always has the Twins hustling, just like in the Tom Kelly years.
He also thought Luis Castillo was worth 15 extra wins for his team. He seems decent, I guess, though he does some funky things with his line-up.
Managers are a mystery. Uneven payrolls and the large element of luck in short series make conclusions about their abilities very difficult. In general they should probably be judged on their overall team management skills, on and off the field -- controlling their players well and also letting them have fun without letting things get out of control...all that jazz.
However, I believe -- and this is from memory, so correct me if I am wrong -- that it was Rick Pitino who once said that the only time a basketball coach really has any tangible influence over that fluid game was coming out of a timeout, when (s)he could set up a specific play. If there is any corresponding truth in baseball, then people who famously make bonehead moves at crucial situations should never be on the list of best managers in baseball.
It should be noted that in the same article, Heyman seems to imply credit to Schuerholz for the acquisitions of Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Andruw and Chipper. ("...the one who procured the talent")
Glavine was drafted well before Schuerholz took over.
Smoltz was acquired in a trade (Doyle Alexander to the Tigers) during Cox's tenure as GM of the Braves, which I think a lot of people (including paid journalists) forget.
And this is just speculation on my part, but given that Chipper was drafted in the first season of Schuerholz's tenure as GM, it's at least somewhat likely that it was Cox and his team who did the early legwork on that one.
I just don't know who yet. Let's find out, as we look at this article from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Dejan Kovacevic.
It was a week ago today, fewer than 24 hours after the Pirates had put down a sizzling St. Louis rally in the ninth inning, that catcher Ronny Paulino reflected upon it and offered this surprising tidbit.
"You know what the key was to that whole inning?" he said. "When David Eckstein got hit by that pitch."
Say what?
Hitting Eckstein -- not intentionally -- loaded the bases and, ultimately, forced closer Salomon Torres to pitch to Albert Pujols with a one-run lead.
"Doesn't matter," Paulino said. "Eckstein's the guy you don't want to face there."
There's a lot of stupid stuff in this article. I am happy to say -- since I get bored of disparaging journalists only -- that most of it is said by actual baseball players. That's new and fun!
David Eckstein's career EqA is .260, which is exactly league average. Albert Pujols's career EqA is .341, which is easy, don't-even-think-twice Hall of Fame shoo-in. Anyone who ever wants to pitch to Albert Pujols over David Eckstein in any situation, including pick-up whiffle ball games at family barbecues when Pujols has dengue fever and Eckstein gets to use one of those over-sized red bats while Pujols has to hit with a live cobra, is a goddamn moron of the highest order. So I'm sure Paulino is the only one who thought this.
Others agreed without hesitation, players and coaches alike.
"Can't let Eckstein beat you there," shortstop Jack Wilson said.
Huh.
Albert Pujols Career OPS: 1.042
David Eckstein Career OPS: .708
I feel stupid even comparing these two people. They almost don't play the same sport.
OK, so, just to be clear here: The Pirates are happy to duck a 5-foot-7 career .282 hitter to take on the sport's most imposing hitter?
And why, exactly, is this?
"Because," Wilson said. "Eckstein's clutch."
I don't like that stupid "close and late" stat, but...
Eckstein "Close-and-Late" 2004-2006: .722 OPS
Pujols "Close-and-Late" 2004-2006: 1.088 OPS. He has 24 HR in 231 AB.
On page 191 of the famed book, "Moneyball," Billy Beane, the innovative Oakland general manager and prime subject matter, barks at a television as he hears a broadcaster describe his Athletics as failing in the clutch.
"It's [expletive] luck," Beane says.
Those words resonate with some as gospel, mostly because they are so easy to support.
Easy to support? My whole effing life all I do is yell at people that there's no such thing as "clutch." Everyone tells me I am wrong. My friends and I had to start a blog so we could stop shouting into the wind and start typing into the wind (easier on the vocal cords). Easy? Easy?!?!
The numbers will show, the game's statistical-minded followers will say, that a hitter with a .280 career average will hit ... well, right around .280 in whatever anyone might define as a clutch situation.
Some use batting average with runners in scoring position. Some use a fairly new statistic called close-and-late, which measures average in the seventh inning or later with the score no more than a run apart. Some just count up RBIs.
Whatever the bar, it is true that the disparity of numbers is little different between clutch and non-clutch.
At least this Dejan Kovacevic fellow seems to have read Moneyball. Unlike some ESPN Moneyball-disparagers I could name, named Joe Morgan.
"It's obvious that some players perform better in clutch situations," said Dan Fox, author for the statistics-based journal Baseball Prospectus. "The question is whether that difference, as measured in a week, a month or a season, actually reflects an underlying ability to come through more often."
A BP reference in a mainstream newspaper. I bet this is how Galileo felt (posthumously, obviously) when the Church finally admitted that the earth revolved around the sun.
"What they've found is that while there may be a small clutch ability -- for example, hitters who can adjust their approach in different situations seem to have a small advantage -- that ability is dwarfed by the normal differences in overall performance. In other words, in the bigger scheme of things, it's the best players who do best in the clutch."
Take the cases of David Ortiz and Derek Jeter, the widely recognized kings of clutch.
Over the past three years, Ortiz has batted .296 in all situations, .331 with runners in scoring position. Jeter has batted .315 in all situations, .310 with runners in scoring position.
Some difference, but not much.
Still, every time Ortiz launches one of those extra-inning bombs for the Boston Red Sox, it leads "SportsCenter" and resonates far more in the psyche than anytime he might fail. And when Jeter wins Game 4 of the 2001 World Series with a home run, he gets dubbed Mr. November, never mind that he batted .148 for the series.
Did I write this article somehow? Is this like a Fight Club-style thing where I split my personality and got a job writing for a Pittsburgh newspaper under the pseudonym Dejan Kovacevic? If not, I'm really enjoying reading this. What's next?
Oh, and Eckstein's clutch reputation? His average with runners in scoring position is .280, one point lower than his regular average.
I would have added that in Games 1-3 of the WS last year he was 2-13. Then he went 4-5 and 2-4 and won the MVP award and no one has shut up since.
The strongest anti-clutch argument on the Pirates' roster can be made by Freddy Sanchez.
He won the National League batting title with a .344 average last summer, and his .386 mark with runners in scoring position was the team's highest. Only Pujols' .397 mark was higher in the league.
Seems plenty clutch.
Not the case at all, he maintains.
"To me, it's pretty simple," Sanchez said. "If you're hot going into that clutch situation, you have a good chance. You're already feeling good. Obviously, there are times when a hitter can tense up, and there are some better mentally prepared than others. All I can say is that, for me, when I go up to the plate, it's not about the men on base. It's about how I'm feeling."
He rolled his eyes, remembering those four consecutive strikeouts in a game last week in Milwaukee.
"Trust me: If I'm feeling lousy at the plate like that, I'm not just going to walk up there with bases loaded and get a hit because I'm some great clutch hitter."
Freddy Sanchez: FJM's new favorite non-Red Sox. (I can't resist pointing out here that he used to be. Hometown pride.)
Still, come on ... no such thing as clutch?
What, then, of Reggie Jackson launching those three home runs in a World Series game?
He hit 563 HR in the regular season. He was excellent at hitting HR. It was probably his greatest skill. One day, in a big game, he hit 3.
What of Michael Jordan nailing that last-second jumper to sink Utah?
He was the best basketball player ever in history.
What of John Elway driving a stake through the heart of Cleveland?
This one kills me. In the eyes of basically everyone, Elway was a Choke Artist, a Big-Game-Failure, until Terrell Davis came along and the Broncos won two Super Bowls, and suddenly all of Elway's terrible SB performances were forgotten and he became Clutch. So incredibly stupid. The guy was always good. He ran into some awesome coaches and defenses in Super Bowls. Then one day, with a more complete team, he won. Like Peyton Manning. And Kobe. And Shaq. And McNabb getting over the NFC Championship hump. And like 1000 other examples.
What of Mario Lemieux burying that rebound behind Ed Belfour to raise the dome at the Igloo?
He is probably the second-best hockey player ever in history. He scored a lot of goals.
Those focusing on the numbers would lean toward the notion that those were elite athletes simply being themselves.
Yessir.
But those inside the games -- players, coaches and managers -- are almost universal in their belief in clutch.
Of those who feel otherwise, Pirates pitching coach Jim Colborn said, "Dead wrong. There is an element in certain people that allows them to focus at their peak and get into a zone when the situation is more important."
Well. I'm not "inside the game," which invalidates my opinion in the eyes of some. But isn't this quality merely one aspect of what determines a "good" player? And thus, isn't it sort of making our argument for us? In other words, the players one thinks of as "clutch" are just always good. Or, in Eckstein's case, "clutch" is simply a false notion, since very basic statistics show that he is no better in "clutch" situations than in regular situations. The end.
He cited, from his playing days, Joe Rudi, a career .264 hitter who had a reputation of elevating his level every postseason for the Athletics, at least as measured by the intangibles of timely hits and key defensive plays.
"Believe me: For all the great players in that lineup, Joe Rudi was not the one you wanted to face. He just had a knack."
You're not going to believe this. I was not familiar with Joe Rudi's postseason stats, so I looked them up on my Computational Machine. Kovacevic goes out of his way to mention that Rudi was a career .264 hitter. Want to guess what his career postseason average was?
Did you guess: .264? You're right.
In his career, Rudi went .264/.311/.427. Postseason: .264/.329/.386
He was essentially exactly the fucking same in the postseason. 3 HR in 140 postseason AB. 179 in about 5500 regular season AB. So, his HR rate was actually higher in the regular season. (Small sample size alert in the PS, obviously. But what do you want me to do?)
Perhaps anecdotally Rudi did all kinds of amazing Lemke-esque shit in some postseason games. A lot of middle-of-the-road guys do a lot of better-than-that things in postseason games. Endy Chavez made like the greatest catch I've ever seen in the NLCS last year. Does that mean he is a "clutch" fielder? No. It means he is a pro baseball player, which means he is one of the best 600 or so baseball players in the whole wide world, which in turn means that he has the ability to do extraordinary things in specific situations. Other players, who are better than Endy Chavez, will do those amazing things more consistently. Is this really hard to grasp for anyone? Really?
Some players, the argument can be made, do become better in trying situations. But those cases -- and this is one area where statisticians and those inside the game tend to agree -- are much rarer than those where performance decreases.
In other words, the absence of clutch might be more prevalent than a rise to a clutch level. The athlete rises to the level of competition and, in doing so, maintains similar numbers. And the rest ... well, for every Joe Rudi, there are many more like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.
Uh oh.
Bonds has a .300 career average and a home run every 12.9 at-bats. But in the playoffs, as the still-bitter baseball fans of Pittsburgh can attest, his drop-off is dramatic: His average in seven playoff appearances is .245, and the home runs come once every 16.7 at-bats.
Bonds had six pretty crappy postseasons. Then he had four awesome ones after he started using steroids. They are all small sample sizes. Also, would you have pitched to Bonds in 1990 if he had Steve Buechele hitting behind him?
Rodriguez is having a superhuman April, but that will do nothing to quell doubts about his clutch value. He has batted .306 in the regular season for his career, .280 in the playoffs.
Basically the same.
The home runs come once every 14.3 at-bats in the regular season, once every 22 at-bats in the playoffs.
Dumb way to look at this. Here's a better way. And please, after I go through the trouble to type this out, let's end this.
1997 ALDS: 5-16, 1 HR, .313/.313/.563 (Very Good)
2000 ALDS: 4-13, .308/.308/.308 (Eh)
2000 ALCS: 9-22, 2 HR, .409/.480/.773 (Monster)
2004 ALDS: 8-19, 1 HR, .421/.476/.737 (Monster)
2004 ALCS: 8-31, 2 HR, .258/.378/.516 (Very Good)
2005 ALDS: 2-15, .133/.381/.200 (Bad, though he got on base)
2006 ALDS: 1-14, .071/.071/.071 (Terrible)
In seven series, he has two absolute beasts, two very good series, three kind of crummy ones. How can you say this guy falls apart in the postseason? In 2000-04 he went 25-72 with 5 HR and 7 2B. Now hear this, people:
Derek Jeter's Career Splits: .317/.388/.463
Derek Jeter's Career Postseason splits: .314/.384/.479
Mr. Clutch is actually Mr. Exactly the Same No Matter What Month You Are Talking About. He is Mr. Equally Excellent Hitting SS Every Month from April to November. He is Mr. Outrageously Similar Statistics Every 30 Days.
And for the record, in that huge 2004 ALCS against Boston, which earned ARod the reputation as a non-clutch player, Jeter went 6-30, .200/.333/.233.
The Pirates' Jason Bay never has known playoffs, but he batted .346 with runners in scoring position in 2005, then saw that drop nearly 100 points to .242 last season and to .133 in the early going this year. Surely, some clutch factor was involved.
How is that the conclusion?! The conclusion should be: in small numbers of data points, there is bound to be enormous fluctuation. This is like saying: yesterday it was sunny, today it poured. Surely, some Fertility God disapproved of our elk sacrifice.
"It's not so much a matter of raising your level in a clutch situation. It's a matter of keeping your level the same," Bay said. "Baseball is predicated on the idea that the people who are the most successful are the ones who do things the same way most consistently. It's not an emotion game like football or hockey, where you can go bust some skulls."
Jason Bay: possibly replacing Freddy Sanchez as FJM's new favorite non-Red Sox.
Bob Walk, among the living Pirates to have participated in a playoff game, is very much a believer.
"There are some guys who are better hitters in tough situations, and the stats will show that, too," he said.
I think we have sort of disproved that...with actual stats. I like it when guys just say "the stats will show it!" without actually looking at stats.
"They take a different approach to the plate. They're maybe not thinking so much about themselves and trying to pull the ball or hit it out of the park."
No. They take the exact same approach, and are already good, so they perform well.
"The guys who are successful don't have that fear of failure. Some guys have that, believe me."
I believe this. I also believe that they are good baseball players.
There is no bigger proponent of clutch in the Pirates' clubhouse than the man in charge.
When his team wins, Jim Tracy invariably points to "big" hits that were delivered. When the team loses, he points to the lack of same.
If you win a baseball game, ipso facto, you have gotten some "big" hits. If you lose a baseball game, ipso facto, you have failed to get some "big" hits. This is tautology, Mr. Tracy. Tautology, I say! (I mean, even if you are up 15-5 in the seventh inning and you fall apart and lose 16-15, you could look back and say, "If we had only cashed in on that bases-loaded-nobody-out in the fourth..." You get the idea.)
Even after the Pirates were blanked on three measly hits in their home opener April 9, Tracy lamented, "We had chances."
Yes. At least 27 of them. Like in every game.
Tracy's view is reflected in how he forms his lineup, bucking the modern thinking that the highest on-base percentage players should be stacked at the top. Instead, he favors the more traditional approach of getting the runner on, moving him along and getting a "big" hit.
How's that working out for you, Jimmy?
"Isn't that what makes teams good?" Tracy said when asked about his value of clutch. "It's what separates you from the pack, your ability to take the big at-bat. You don't expect somebody to hit 1.000 with runners in scoring position, but you have to get your share of hits in those situations. Look at the upper echelon of clubs, and that's what you look for. And if we can get to that point, we've got a chance to become a pretty decent team."
Amazing. Just amazing. I don't know where to begin.
What makes teams good, offensively, is not making outs. And of course you have to "get your share of hits" in any situation. But what in the world would prevent you from putting your high OBP guys at the top of the line-up? Baseball Prospectus has proved that line-up order doesn't really matter that much, but the higher in the order you are, the more AB you get. And the higher your OBP, the fewer outs you make, so -- given those extra AB -- you will increase your chance of winning baseball games. This is not black magic, people. This is straightforward logic. Delivered in a exaggeratedly strident tones over a blog.
It could not hurt. The National League's highest average with runners in scoring position last season was the .286 of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and they were one of the four playoff teams. The other three also ranked above the league average.
But then, so did ... the Pirates? Their .266 mark ranked seventh, even though they finished with the fewest runs and were nowhere near the playoffs.
So what does that teach us? It teaches us that it's not that crucial a stat, relatively speaking, because if the team isn't getting anyone on base, you can hit .300 with RISP and you won't score as many runs as other teams with lower BA and SLG with RISP. See?
The statistic that correlates most closely with scoring runs is on-base percentage ---- how many times a batter reaches base safely, whether by hit, walk or hit batsman -- and this is backed by every spreadsheet back to the late 19th century.
Where were you a paragraph earlier, man? I just typed all that shit for nothing?
Last year, the Pirates' on-base percentage was .327, third lowest in the league. This year, it is .303, second lowest.
Huh. So, Tracy is a bonehead?
But then ... so is their .190 average with runners in scoring position, which might bolster Tracy's case.
If their team OBP is .327, they can hit .500 with RISP and they still won't win anything. Tracy's "case" is that they need a high BA with RISP, and that OBP doesn't matter so much. That's like saying that the important part of the alley-oop is the slam dunk, and it doesn't matter so much whether anyone bothered to lob you the ball.
So, in the end, I guess I made fun of Jim Tracy. Dejan Kovacevic gets a check-plus, because I think if you read between the lines he is on the side of Facts and Truth. Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay get gold stars. Ronny Paulino and everyone else who would rather pitch to Albert Pujols than to David Eckstein get a punch in the face and an exhortation to seek counseling.
I finally got around to reading the Richard Griffin article that Junior assailed yesterday (see below, 18 Oct.). Here are a few more pieces of evidence Griffin gives that Billy Beane, and not Ken Macha, is at fault for the A's woes:
How could anyone blame Macha for losing to the Tigers? After second baseman Mark Ellis was injured, Beane gave Macha the combo of D'Angelo Jimenez and Mark Kiger. Jimenez may have been the worst starting second baseman in a playoff game this decade, while Kiger was making his MLB debut.
I could be wrong, but wasn't Ellis injured during the playoffs? Apparently, Beane was supposed to fly Robby Cano to Oakland, give him a fake moustache, and have him pretend to be Cobinson Rano: Oakland A's Second Baseman Who Is Totally On the Playoff Roster!
Ellis was also on the DL in early June, but I really believe that Griffin is blaming Beane for the A's not having an awesome backup 2nd baseman instantaneously in October. Now, that's not Macha's fault either. In fact, it's nobody's fault, really -- it's just bad luck. But as Junior's post below shows, there seem to be other things that are, in fact, Macha's fault. Like the fact that everyone on his team hated his guts.
During the regular season, when the A's were in Toronto, catcher Jason Kendall was suspended, so Beane elevated one of his Moneyball legends, overhyped draft choice, roly-poly catcher Jeremy Brown. Macha laughed in the face of a question about how much playing time Brown would get. "None."
Listen to me carefully, Richard Griffin. I have several points to make.
1. The fact that a catcher got suspended means that the GM, in this case Billy Beane, would be doing a huge disservice to his team by not putting another catcher on the team ASAP. So. They had a catcher in the minors, who is on the 40-man roster, who has decent AAA stats (.764 OPS, 13HR in 77 games -- not great, but workable), so he promoted him. What is the problem here?
2. Ken Macha laughing and being snarky about how much playing time a new guy is going to get is a dickish thing to do, and is exactly the kind of thing that got him fired.
3. Jason Kendall was out for four games. Four. So the worst thing that could have happened was that Jeremy Brown would be there for four games. In May.
4. In the last two full seasons, Jason Kendall, who makes $11 million a year, has OPSes of .709 and .666. In the minute sample size of MLB-level experience this year, Jeremy Brown was 3-10 with 2 2Bs. Career, 4-12. That shit ain't bad. Maybe Macha should have played him more. Or maybe he shouldn't've. But he definitely shouldn't have laughed at the question of how much the guy was going to play. What good does that do?
Macha's fault? During the ALCS against the Tigers, Nick Swisher lived up to his name, with five strikeouts in 10 at-bats, while ...another of Beane's prized drafts, Joe Blanton, was relegated to long relief.
In 2005 Joe Blanton made about $327,000 and won 12 games with an ERA of 3.53, giving up 178 hits in 201.1 IP. His OPS-against was .693. In 2006 he regressed terribly, his WHIP soaring to 1.54 (possibly due to some bad luck -- his K/BB stayed roughly the same and he actually gave up fewer HR). But tell me how Billy Beane is at fault for this. Is he the pitching coach too?
And as for Nick Swisher...I guess his .254/.372/.493/.865, 35 HR and 97 BB go right the fuck out the window in the face of three not so good games against the league's best pitching staff. Curse you, Billy Beane!!!!!!
We got a lot of great emails responding to the last post about Jon Heyman. I thought I'd do a quick rundown of some of the best ones right here.
From Anthony:
Proof that Jon Heyman did not read Moneyball:
Heyman wrote, Epstein and Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi, another Beane protégé, recently complained that they didn't have enough money to compete with the Yankees, a gripe you'd never hear from Beane and an unwitting admission that Moneyball isn't always the whole answer.
I'm assuming you own Moneyball. If so, flip to page 122. You'll find a box near the top of the page, displaying the text of a slide Billy Beane presented to Bud Selig's Blue Ribbon Panel for blah blah blah. If you don't feel like searching the book (and really, why should you? It's like when you'd ask a teacher what a word meant and she'd make you look it up in the dictionary. Bastard.) here's what it says:
"MAJOR LEAGUE" *Movie about the hapless Cleveland Indians
In order to assemble a losing team, the owner distributes a list of players to be invited to spring training. The baseball executives say that most of these players are way past their prime. Fans see the list in the paper and remark, "I've never even heard of half these guys."
Our situation closely resembles the movie.
And a followup line from Michael Lewis: "[Beane] told the Blue Ribbon Panel that the Oakland A's inability to afford famous stars meant that no matter how well the team performed, the fans stayed away--which was the opposite of the truth."
In other words, Beane complained that they didn't have enough money to compete. Your move, Jon.
** EDIT **
Michael helpfully chimes in with the following backlash feedback feedback:
As a point of clarification, the response from Anthony that you posted in your latest thread (about how Billy Beane himself complained to the Blue Ribbon Commission that he needed more money to compete) is not really in the context provided in the quote. In "Moneyball," it's portrayed as if Billy Beane doesn't really believe any of the things he's showing in that presentation. The author makes it a point to portray the fact that Billy Beane is doing this presentation to mislead Selig and the salary cap determinists into thinking Beane agrees with them when in fact he believes that sound decisions and exploiting market inefficiencies can easily make small market teams competitive because so many around the league are making terrible decisions.
** END EDIT **
From Chris V.: I felt you were more informative than Heyman. One of his comments ("[Beane] learned his baseball as a ballplayer") particularly bothered me. Didn't Beane hate his experience as a ballplayer? In fact, doesn't/didn't a significant amount of his approach come from doing the opposite of what he experienced as a ballplayer?
Now, a different Chris:
I couldn't figure out the Ivy League-sized chip on Heyman's shoulder. Seeing how he went to that bastion of public school populism -- Northwestern. Of course, Heyman, a Long Island native probably made it to Northwestern as a fall-back. We're looking at a sad, 20 year old grudge.
Tony contributes: I love the caption under the picture of Beane as a player: "Billy Beane hit .219 in 301 career at-bats with the Mets, Twins, Tigers and A's. In other words, he wasn't the type of player Billy Beane the GM would pick up."
Setting aside the fact that GM Beane would probably care more about Player Beane's career OBP of .246, not his .219 BA, Heyman conveniently misses that GM Beane did in fact pick up a .219 hitter just this off-season: Frank Thomas (.219 last year in 120+ AB with the White Sox). This happens to be the exact player Heyman's mysterious NL Executive Deep Throat singles out as "maybe" the only A's player "who stands out for talent." "Maybe."
And finally, from Lee:
I'm just curious if anyone is putting together some sort of collection of articles that refer to Theo Epstein as a failure in the very same paragraph that mentions that he won the 2004 World Series.
Thanks, readers! Check back later for more scintillating sports commentary commentary!
Now, I think, is the time for people who rejected and misunderstood Moneyball to come out of the woodwork and start crowing "I told you so." Paul DePodesta's been fired. The old-school baseball man who replaced him is flourishing. J.P. Ricciardi's higher-priced Blue Jays still aren't doing anything. Theo Epstein has seemingly traded away the Red Sox' future while simultaneously casting an injury hex on the guys he still has. Billy Beane's A's ... well, they're still doing pretty good. And so we get articles like this one by SI.com's Jon Heyman. Get ready for an ambitious title:
Beyond Moneyball Why A's Beane succeeds where others have failed
Let me just say right now that I already don't believe Jon Heyman is going to satisfactorily explain why Billy Beane is succeding where others have failed. Especially because by "others," Heyman almost certainly means the three men I've just mentioned, and that it's hard to say definitively that any of those three have actually failed. But I'll try to keep my mind open. It's the man, not the methodology.
I see. You didn't like Moneyball? Moneyball was a superbly written tale,
Oh, okay. You're going to say you liked Moneyball, but deliver it a backhanded compliment by saying it was "superbly written" (read: entertaining but perhaps not true) and a "tale" (in other words, a fantasy).
and while the book got it right in that the stunning achievements of the Oakland A's should indeed be attributed to their great general manager Billy Beane, the Moneyball concept isn't proving to be one that transfers easily. If it really is even a tangible, definable, worthwhile style.
Heyman actually gets close to an interesting point at the end there. "Moneyball" isn't really a style. If he would just read our glossary, he would find out that the book is really about exploiting market inefficiencies and finding baseball-playing value where others are missing it. Again, what Moneyball is not: Finding guys who walk a lot. Finding guys who are fat. Finding guys who hit a lot of home runs. Drafting only college guys.
Since 2000, the A's have logged more victories than anyone except the Yankees (they are only 14 wins behind the so-called "über-team").
This is amazing.
But according to one National League executive, the key to Oakland's startling small-market success has little to do with stats or drafting college players, as Moneyball suggests.
I would argue that's not what Moneyball suggests at all. Maybe that's what Beane was doing five years ago. But there's an overall philosophy here that I think Heyman is missing.
Furthermore, that executive asserted that if other teams try to duplicate the book's blueprint -- and several have -- they are wasting their time.
Okay, sure. That makes complete sense. Because a goddamn book was published about that so-called "blueprint." Of course those high-OBP guys aren't going to be so undervalued anymore. The most popular and influential book about baseball general managing ever published focused on that aspect of the game. So yeah, Kevin Youkilis might be going for market value now. The book, according to that executive, is "somewhat fraudulent" in that Beane's true strength is the same old skill that's basically blown off in the book: the tried-and-true formula of procuring the right players by scouting.
This NL dude certainly has a lot to say about Beane and Moneyball, doesn't he? Here's the real "money"-quote, though (you like how I worked that in? I am a professional):
"Billy Beane has got a way of finding winning players," the executive said. "The A's don't have anyone who stands out for talent, except maybe Frank Thomas. But they have a lot of winning players. Take Nick Swisher, for instance. He knows how to play to win."
So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Remember that subhead? Why A's Beane succeeds where others have failed? He "has got a way of finding winning players." There's your story! Fuck Moneyball! Fuck it all to hell!
Also, let's do "take Nick Swisher, for instance." He knows how to play to win? That's what you're going to give me? How about we do some stat nerdery instead? I know I just said that Moneyball's not about OBP, but you can't really ignore the simple fact that last year, Nick Swisher posted an OBP of .322, and this year his OBP is .373. He's also hit 10 more home runs. But would you still like to talk to me about knowing how to play to win? Too bad. I've thrown my phone into the nearest saltwater aquarium and it's been eaten by a shark.
Additionally, at least two of the key components of Moneyball are just about out the window now, at least in my book.
Your book, Jon Heyman's I Pretend to Like Moneyball But Secretly I Actually Hate It.
One of Moneyball's concepts is that it's better to draft better-prepared college players than high-ceiling high school stars
IF THEY ARE CURRENTLY BEING UNDERVALUED BY THE MARKET. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you not forget about that part.
Beane has gone the other way; lately, he's been drafting undervalued high school players
SOMETHING ACCOUNTED FOR IN AN ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF WHAT THE MONEYBALL PHILOSOPHY ACTUALLY ENTAILS. Fortuitously for Beane, the prep stars are now the undervalued ones because so many others are following the book's college-first advice.
Right. Exactly. We've gone over this. Thank you. Whew. Another Moneyball notion is the extreme emphasis on stats, particularly walks, on-base percentage and home runs, which were sold as keys to success.
AT THE TIME, BECAUSE THEY WERE UNDERVALUED AAAAARGH.
While that strategy worked especially well in the steroid era, with Jason Giambi and previously Mark McGwire (both kings of homers and OPS)
This is a complete steroid non-sequitir. Steroids have nothing to do with why walks, OBP, home runs, and/or OPS aren't as undervalued as they were before. The market and current GM's ability or willingness to look at those stats determine value.
"Billy Beane is a very bright individual who knows there are many different ways to skin a cat and find a way to be successful," Yankees GM Brian Cashman said. "Every year he comes up with a different game plan and finds a new way to win. He's no one-trick pony. The A's ownership and fan base should consider themselves very lucky to have Billy Beane."
I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Brian Cashman, for being the voice of reason. Seriously. "There are many different ways to skin a cat" may be a cliche, but it's a much better distilliation of what Moneyball actually means than some lockstep adherence to OBP or walks or college players. You try to find value where you think it is as best you can and hope your methods are slightly more accurate than other people's, no matter if it's fielding, plate discipline, power, speed, or intelligence.
While Beane continues to succeed, his very smart, Ivy League-educated, twentysomething Moneyball disciples have faltered lately. Paul DePodesta (Harvard) was out after two years of running the Frank McCourt-owned Dodgers and is now back working under Beane's old boss, Sandy Alderson, in San Diego. Boston GM Theo Epstein (Yale) helped the 2004 Red Sox win in the World Series before a series of unfortunate trades and injuries decimated them this year.
Ha! Did I mention these guys went to Ivy League schools and yet they're failing? Try to study your way out of this one, fellas!
Epstein and Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi, another Beane protégé, recently complained that they didn't have enough money to compete with the Yankees, a gripe you'd never hear from Beane and an unwitting admission that Moneyball isn't always the whole answer.
Jesus, whoever said that Moneyball is a "whole answer"? It's just a way to try to compete with the Yankees, who should be the favorites to win the World Series each and every year.
If you think about it, their public remarks put the entire concept on trial.
I've thought about it, and no, they don't. No one ever said "Aha! This newfangled Moneyball will put us on exactly equal footing with the Yankees! Doom unto them!" It's just a philosophy that might help smaller market teams do better than say, the Royals and Pirates and Brewers are doing.
After all, wasn't the main point of Moneyball that you could compete for less?
Yes. Compete. Not dominate. Not win the World Series every year. The point surely wasn't to outspend your competition but to outsmart them, and Beane, an intellect who needs no sheepskin from Harvard or Yale to prove his smarts and who learned his baseball as a ballplayer and a longtime A's advance scout, still does.
As far as I can tell, Billy Beane not only didn't go to Harvard or Yale, he didn't even go to college. How nerdy could he be? He must be a great GM.
Most of the recent World Series winners were built with scouts, not stats, from the 2002 Angels to the '03 Marlins to the '05 White Sox.
I've assembled two lists: Teams People Might Say Were "Built With Stats" Oakland Athletics Boston Red Sox Toronto Blue Jays Los Angeles Dodgers (from February 16, 2004 to October 29, 2005)
Teams That Were "Built With Scouts" All other Major League Baseball teams
So to be honest, the odds are in the "Scouts" teams' favor, no? One out of the last four World Series winners isn't so bad when you look at it this way, is it?
Beane took hits for making no major deadline deals despite the fact that the team was floundering around .500 at the time. "I didn't really think the elixir was out there. That's why we didn't do anything," Beane said. "The key was health. If we got healthy, we'd be all right. If not, we wouldn't."
Pretty simple, huh?
I refer you again to the (possible overstatement of a) subtitle for this article: Why A's Beane succeeds where others have failed.
I'll print the rest of the article here for thoroughness' sake:
With closer Huston Street back last Friday and potential ace Rich Harden starting to throw, the A's might get even better. Beane's A's have never gotten past the Yankees in October, even when they had stars almost to match them (Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder are all gone for greener pastures), and it's hard to imagine them doing it now. However, it's still quite an accomplishment to get as far as they have without any of those stars.
Beane is not perfect (trading Andre Ethier to the Dodgers for Milton Bradley doesn't look good today, and you could argue that he would have been better keeping Tejada long-term rather than Eric Chavez), but his knack is undeniable. Hard as it is to believe, trading Hudson and Mulder has barely cost them. Dan Haren and Kiko Calero, acquired for Mulder, have actually outperformed the ex-A's star, a fact that doesn't please Beane as much as you might think. "I don't necessarily view trades as a zero-sum game. I don't feel so insecure as to root against guys," Beane said. "Mulder's one of my favorites. I just want my team to win."
To that end, no matter the game plan, hardly anybody does it better.
I'm still waiting to find out why Billy Beane succeeded where others have failed. But thanks for the information that he a) has got a way of finding winning players, b) did not go to Harvard or Yale, c) uses scouts, and d) has an "undeniable" "knack" (you didn't really specify for what). I'll keep those things in mind when I hire my next GM.
So far all I've managed to find is that he played college baseball for two years somewhere in Florida. Billy Beane, of course, as several Cardinal alums have pointed out to me, turned down Stanford to play in the minor leagues.
J.P. Ricciardi went to Saint Leo University. You don't want to know how much research it took me to find that out. (Hint: one of the steps was Googling "jack gillis" baseball coach florida.)
