CDu, while you are correct the league as a whole is getting more SABRmetric, I think that Beane's success has been overrated. During Oaklands great run from 2000-2004 they had one great group of talent...and one that was heavily augmented with steriods. Let's examine the reason for Oakland's success during those years: Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez. Pitching wise, Mulder and Zito were the products of extremely high draft picks -- Mulder was the 2nd overall, Zito 9th overall -- due to a long period of losing in the mid 1990s. Giambi and Tejada were steriod users, as well as a lot of the Oakland A's important roleplayers.
Take a look here:
http://californiawatch.org/dailyrepo...roid-use-13230
Regardless, Beane has not been able to replace the talent on those teams. When Beane traded away Zito, Mulder, Hudson...he was supposed to have restocked the farm...but those trades have by and large been a failure. Also -- his Oakland A teams have never won even a pennant, and have not been to the playoffs since 2006. He has had plenty of time to draft enough talent to field competitive teams...but it hasnt happened.
LaRussa is seen by many to be "old school" but he doesn't discounts stats...they just aren't the end all be all. Duncan, his pitching coach, is the father of the "chart every single pitch and the result against the hitter". LaRussa was HUGE on pitching and hitting matchups...there are many times Tony would use 3 pitchers in a single inning based on statistical matchups. He experimented with batting the pitcher 8th...under the logic that a decent the 9th place batter is statistically more likely to be on base for the top of the order than an poor hitting 8th place batter would fail to drive in runs left on base from the meat of the order.
As to your assertion, CDu, that great Cardinal players typify good OBP and OPS...well of course they do! Those stats were invented to describe good hitters...and will describe great hitters throughout the game no matter the situation. Players that formerly were described to "have a good eye" or "have great power" now have the accompanying stats to describe them...that does not mean moneyball changed the game -- managers will always take good hitters with good eyes and great power if given the option...I think where the real difference happens is where you are dealing with a .250 hitter -- some managers have less patience for hitters with low averages than others. Take a batter that hits .243
with a .330 OBP and .400 slg. The other batter hits .273 with a .310 OBP and a .400 slg. Well, the higher OBP will be on base more...but you only get 1 base per walk, whereas the .273 hitter will have more hits which is better for driving in runs...(players on the bases can advance more than base on a hit)...its an interesting question...which is more valuable, which is better.
The pitching philosophy for the STL Cardinals actually is less about Moneyball than the hitting could be described. The LaRussa Duncan philosophy has been about finding quality/overlooked veterans with small flaws in their game and then correcting them in a way that promotes contact/groundballs and limiting walks, usually by the introduction of sinking pitches.