Jeremy "Money Ball " Brown Retires

In some part because he thought the guy would be a good major league player, which he has been, but also because he knew the guy was signable within the constraints of the A's budget. Beane only had $9.4 Million to sign his entire draft class, far less money than most major league clubs set aside.

 

So basically, it's not a system to get the absolute best players, but to get the relatively least sucky less-expensive players.

 

Chass didn't say that Beane didn't take those players, nor did he imply it. He simply made note of the strength of the high school talent in that particular draft, one in which the A's had determined that college talent would be the most cost effective.

It's a fair point. The best talent is seldom going to be the most cost-effective talent. From an organizational standpoint, that strategy is probably going to keep you from having high-cost flameouts but it will also decrease your chances of developing elite players.

 

It's doing what you can to field a competitive team when you are financially contrained by your ownership, something up until last season the A's had done a damn good job of doing.

 

So the answer would be yes.

 

Not to mention that Francoeur would have played football at Clemson if anyone other than the Braves had drafted him ...

 

And despite that, he's drafted better and kept the A's far more competitive than say the Royals, Rays, Orioles and others who remain at the bottom of the league year after year.

The point is, as Cran pointed out, that he couldn't afford to have high-priced draft picks flame out, so he took people that were good players who didn't exactly fit the mould of what people thought a major leaguer looked like, and was right about them a good enough portion of the time to keep his job and keep the A's successful.

And again, this isn't about absolutes, eg. Billy Beane only drafts cheap college players. Its about finding what is overvalued and undervalued when it comes to winning games. If this whole thing hadn't worked, you think he would be currently employed simply because he implemented all of these concepts? If it doesn't work, he's out of a job.

 

The article does mention that Fielder was selected before Swisher. It also mentions that it wouldn't have mattered if Fielder was available...

 

Sounds like finding what statistical anamoly a bunch of cheap players share, and saying, "hey, people don't look for that enough in a player."

 

I believe that he is a part owner now. So I'm not so sure about his job security.

Meanwhile, Bean, part owner of the new San Jose Earthquakes MLS team, is trying to implement a similar system with soccer. I am interested to see how that would work ou.

 

That's true and also what Beene was trying to exploit with OBP .

In past couple of years Beene has been tryiny to exploit market for flame throwing middle relievers.

 

Find me some examples of when I've cited VORP on this site. I'll be waiting.