Moneyball revisited

[Olympic Fan]

I know this will only be interesting to baseball fanatics such as myself ...

The other night, watching Game 5 of the ALCS (the one where Boston rallied from a 7-0 deficit), it got me thinking about Michael Lewis' bestseller, Moneyball.

The reason in a moment ... for the rest of you who might not have read it, Moneyball was a worshipful portrait of Oakland A's GM Billy Beane and how he's revolutionized baseball by applying Bill James' sabremetric principles and observations to the management of a major league team.

I actually happen to agree with Lewis' premise -- and I'd suggest that the recent success of the Red Sox since Theo Epstein (another James' fanatic and a an admirer of Beane) took over the team's management is more evidence of what Lewis is talking about. Beane used his new way of looking at the game to keep a struggling franchise without money above water. Epstein applied the same vision at a franchise with great wealth and he's won two pennants in the last five years.

But there is one part of Lewis' book that always bothered me -- the chapter on the 2002 June Player Draft, entited "The Jeremy Brown Blue Plate Special."

In it, Lewis details how Beane takes on the baseball establishment with a new vision for how to draft young players. Lewis paints a very unflattering portrait of the old-time traditionists in the Oakland organization griping about Beane's different approach.

This is what I was thinking about during the Boston-Tampa Bay game as Scott Kazmir shut down the Red Sox for so long and B.J. Upton powered the Rays to the lead with a two-run homer and a two-run double.

Both Kazmir and Upton figure prominently in "The Jeremy Brown Blue Plate Special." They are two of three early picks in the 2002 draft that evoke snide comments from Beane in Moneyball. He has absolutely no interest in Kazmir, a 17-year-old lefthander that most teams rate a high first-rounder. When the Rays take Upton, he explains that's exactly how bad teams remain bad teams, by rolling the dice on high school players.

The third player Beane specifically mentions with contempt is Prince Fielder, who is regarded as the only player in North America too fat for the Oakland A's (who actually like a number of fatties, including Jeremy Brown). Lewis reports that when the Milwaukee Brewers draft Fielder No. 8 in the first round, the Oakland draft room "explodes."

Beane, on the other hand, is in love with Nick Swisher, an outfielder from Ohio State that Beane regards as the best player in the draft. Lewis reports that if he had the No. 1 pick, he would take Swisher. Now, Swisher is a player the scouts like too (the A's are scared the Mets will take him just before they pick), as is Joe Blanton, a pitcher from the Univ. of Kentucky that the A's also get in the first round.

But there are three players mentioned that Beane targets that the scouts hate. One is Jeremy Brown, an overweight catcher from Alabama that had been projected to go in the fifth or sixth round. The A's take him late in the first. The other two are a U. of Pitt first baseman named Brant Colamarino ("No one else in the country will agree, but he might be the best hitter in the country," Beane says) and a U. of Florida SS named Mark Kiger ("Too small to play pro ball -- or so the scouts say, but a machine for wearing down pitchers.").

Anyway, we can now look back on what Lewis portrayed as a spectacular draft and see that it was pretty unimpressive. While Kazmir (who already has 42 major league wins at age 24) and Upton are starring for the Rays and Fielder -- as fat as he is -- has established himself as one of the best power hitters in baseball, Beane's picks have had very limited success. To be fair, Swisher is a very solid player (but no one in his right mind would trade him straight up for Fielder or Upton) ... Blanton is a journeyman pitcher.

Neither is with the A's any longer.

Worse, none of Beane's special projects has made it. Brown, the centerpiece of the story, ended up getting 10 major league at-bats in 2006. Kiger also got two at bats in 2006. Colamarino got a half-season at triple AAA, but is out of baseball without reaching the majors.

I guess my point is that Beane has done a better job manipulating players he's seen in the majors and high minors. Based on Moneyball, you'd have to rate his ability to draft amateur players as sorely lacking. At least in 2002, the old, traditional scouts got the last laugh.

[brevity]

I'm not as big of a baseball fanatic, but I read Moneyball a few years ago, and this is an interesting update.

To be fair, Swisher is a very solid player (but no one in his right mind would trade him straight up for Fielder or Upton) ... Blanton is a journeyman pitcher.

Neither is with the A's any longer.

Ah, but you didn't mention where Joe Blanton plays now. His 2008 baseball season is still going on.

As described in the book, Billy Beane has a maverick mentality that was in part enabled by a desire by the A's organization to save money on payroll. His dislike for the highly scouted and rated draft picks was because he felt they were overvalued, not untalented.

If I remember Lewis correctly, Beane's goal was to save money by drafting undervalued players in earlier rounds, but not paying them what their draft position would seem to indicate. I think he realizes that he could be successful by choosing prospects more safely, but he would derive no enjoyment from that approach. This way he gets to defy conventional wisdom and buck the system.

For a few years, it worked. Oakland was in the thick of the playoff race each year and spent far less on its payroll. (For the record, they were 28th in total player salary this season, spending $5 million more than a certain AL pennant winner.)

As a final note, we'll soon see if Lewis fared any better with his other sports book, The Blind Side. Its subject, Michael Oher, hasn't grabbed many headlines as a offensive tackle at Ole Miss. But ESPN's early draft board had him go as high as 4th overall -- he's now at #20.

[YmoBeThere]

I guess my point is that Beane has done a better job manipulating players he's seen in the majors and high minors. Based on Moneyball, you'd have to rate his ability to draft amateur players as sorely lacking. At least in 2002, the old, traditional scouts got the last laugh.

How do some of the factors such as the aluminum bat in college affect their stats and peoples perceptions of the players?