How can baseball dinosaurs so consistently get Moneyball wrong?

The 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2006 AL Wests, and the 2001 AL Wild Card, all with much less resources than baseball's big spenders.

Being very smart with limited resources doesn't automatically land you a World Series title, but it is worthy of praise.

(That said, the A's suck now.)

I mean, look at this. The A's had the third-worst payroll in baseball and won 103 games. What did the Rangers do with $70M more invested on payroll? The Mets?

 

Go ahead and bash Beane. Or sabermetrics.

But don't make up stats that you think are saber-friendly. It makes one look ridiculously stupid.

 

You're missing the point of the thread. Nobody is debating sabermetrics or Beane's methods. What we are saying is Conlin clearly doesn't know what those methods are.

 

Isn't Conlin also one of the idiots who intentionally leaves deserving players off his Hall of Fame ballot to ensure that nobody ever gets in unanimously?

 

That's fine if Conlin wants to make that argument. That's not the issue. The issue is that he's basing the argument on incorrect grounds.

 

All about the rings, baby. And my favorite stat is the one at the end of a World Series where my team has won four games.

 

didn't read the article did you?

How have the Red Sox done using pretty much the same philosophy?

 

Lazy and simplistic, I guess I should not be shocked.

 

Do you not understand the argument going on here?

Conlin is ripping on Billy Beane for caring about stats that Bill Beane in actuality also thinks are garbage. This would be like an entertainment writer writing, "Tom Hanks's career went downhill as soon as he starred in 'Krippendorf's Tribe,"" and you responding, "Well, did Hanks win an Oscar for 'Krippendorf's Tribe'? Did he? That's what I thought. Pwned!"

 

Wow, just wow.

 

This is a recent Spink Award winner, also.

 

http://crashburnalley.com/2007/11/23/conlins-losing-numbers/