Jeremy "Money Ball " Brown Retires

Dools, you're smarter than this. What the A's were looking for were hitters that would have a high OBP, and a patience at the plate that would require starters to throw more pitches, resulting in their leaving the game sooner so the team could get into middle relievers/lesser pitchers. Other teams were looking for guys who could hit the ball out of the park, or run fast. The A's wanted good hitters, because they knew power would come as players developed. As Beane said in Moneyball "Good hitters develop power. Power hitters don't become good hitters."

On the mound they were looking for guys who got people out, not the guy that threw the hardest. They thought the concept of a closer was overvalued, and thus they converted many guys into closers only to trade them onto other teams for players they wanted.

Look at the turnover they've had at closer, from Koch to Foulke to Street. Even with Street's injury problems last season Alan Embree led them in saves. You think anyone thought of Alan Embree as a closer before last season? Of course not, yet there he was closing out games.

 

OK, so Hatteberg...good. Bonds...eww, don't want that. Gotcha.

 

Beane would have loved Bonds if he could have signed him. Bonds was a great hitter at Arizona State who 'developed power', had great plate awareness and patience, one of the best OBP's of all time.

Again, you're smarter than this. You're actually starting to sound like Joe Morgan.

 

Well, I'm smart enough to know that OPS is mixing apples and oranges and trying to get guavas, so I could give a crap about OPS. And using Hatteberg as an example: He's a hack as a catcher. A smart baseball person figures out how good a catcher is at handling a pitching staff, and as long as he hits somewhat better than the Luis Pujols (poo-holes) level, that's who you want. And darn, that's something that a saberhead isn't going to be able to quantify (tho I'm sure someone will come up with some out-of-left-field measure to try).

 

I think I'll sit this one out and let dools handle it.

Nice work so far.

 

Outing alert Dooley is Joe Morgan

 

Well, first up, Hatteberg got moved to 1B the moment he signed with the A's, I'm not sure where you're getting catcher from.

Second, On Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage were, for what the A's were trying to do, more valuable statistics than Batting Average. They wanted to get guys on base, and have them hit the ball far when there were players on base. You don't care how they get on base, whether it's a hit, a walk, an error or a HBP, only that they are there.

Jack Cust, oddly enough of the A's, had a .256 Batting Average last season. But his On-Base Percentage was .408. Wouldn't you like a guy to get on base twice for every five at bats he got?

Or would you rather have Carl Crawford, who hit .315, but only had an OBP of .355?

 

Why do both sides of this argument have to go to such extremes? There is probably a fine balance to be found. To completely dismiss new ways of looking at the game is ridiculous as is dismissing the way the game has been played and scouted for the last 100 years

 

There is a balance to be found JC. As I said there are no absolutes. But it's foolish of Dools to just pull names of former A's out of his arse and say Beane would rather have these guys than Barry Bonds when the facts are Bonds would be prototypical of the player Beane would love to have.

 

Yeah, I think I'll take the All-Star Carl Crawford, who can turn singles into doubles with his speed and plays outstanding defense, over a head case who made one of the worst defensive gaffes in baseball history. People move farther more often with base hits. That's a basic that saberheads forget about. And the Bonds thing may not have been the best choice, the basic point was that a system that values Scott Hatteberg has splaining to do. How about this: any system that doesn't value Lou Brock has some splaining to do. Better?

 

Yes, and how do you measure how far they move when they hit? Slugging Percentage. But that and on base percentage are two of the forbidden stats, right?

Funnily enough, Cust ranked 33rd with a .504 slugging percentage last season, while Crawford ranked 63rd at .466 thanks to Cust's 26 homers last year.

As you said, when someone hits the ball, he often moves farther when he hits the ball, and that's certainly the case for Cust. But he also has good patience at the plate, hence his higher OBP as well.

And while you may not like OPS, the fact that Cust had a higher OBP and Slugging percentage than Crawford should tell you that the difference in OPS was even bigger.

Cust: 24th in the Majors. Crawford: 69th, right behind Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox.

 

Just sayin' --- Brock was also historically bad defensively. That's why a guy with world-class speed played left field, even after Flood was traded. He's probably also the worst player with 3,000 hits and perhaps the worst player elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA in the last 30 years.