Why don't the A's win any more?

[JC]

It's a common misconception, but "Moneyball" wasn't about exploiting OBP. It's about trying to find whatever area is undervalued at that moment and take advantage of it. Two of the main areas at the moment that are being studied a bunch are fielding and relief pitching.

And Michael, there are certainly better ways for teams with low payrolls to go about trying to win. Finding those areas that are undervalued is important.

If Moneyball was only about finding undervalued assets, then why were the A's at that time training all of their minor league hitters not to swing until deep in the count and mandating that they have ratios of one walk for every 10 at-bats or they would not make it to the major leagues? And why was Billy so gaga over Chavez but couldn't care less about Tejada, the American League MVP?

You mean like the RedSox and yankees do?

 

[LongTimeListener]

It's a common misconception, but "Moneyball" wasn't about exploiting OBP. It's about trying to find whatever area is undervalued at that moment and take advantage of it. Two of the main areas at the moment that are being studied a bunch are fielding and relief pitching.

And Michael, there are certainly better ways for teams with low payrolls to go about trying to win. Finding those areas that are undervalued is important.

If Moneyball was only about finding undervalued assets, then why were the A's at that time training all of their minor league hitters not to swing until deep in the count and mandating that they have ratios of one walk for every 10 at-bats or they would not make it to the major leagues? And why was Billy so gaga over Chavez but couldn't care less about Tejada, the American League MVP?

You mean like the RedSox and yankees do?

My response was to the idea that Moneyball was solely about the marketplace and not about OBP, which I think has been the sabermetric spin of the last 3-4 years as all of the statheads' fawning over Beane has started to look a bit silly.

And I guess we will never know for sure, but I don't think the Yankees and Red Sox would have given up on Tejada, and then Gonzalez, for not walking enough.

EDIT: Case in point, Robinson Cano, career average of one walk per 20 plate appearances. I think he's doing all right.

EDIT II: Case in point, Jacoby Ellsbury, career average of one walk per 14.6 plate appearances. Also doing all right.

 

[Tarheel316]

Having a cheap ass owner doesn't help either.

 

[DanOregon]

The funny thing is, the A's pitching benefits from playing in the Coliseum. And the fallacy of a new ballpark curing all ills is BS. Ask Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Houston, San Diego etc. etc.

 

[Double Down]

It's a common misconception, but "Moneyball" wasn't about exploiting OBP. It's about trying to find whatever area is undervalued at that moment and take advantage of it. Two of the main areas at the moment that are being studied a bunch are fielding and relief pitching.

And Michael, there are certainly better ways for teams with low payrolls to go about trying to win. Finding those areas that are undervalued is important.

If Moneyball was only about finding undervalued assets, then why were the A's at that time training all of their minor league hitters not to swing until deep in the count and mandating that they have ratios of one walk for every 10 at-bats or they would not make it to the major leagues? And why was Billy so gaga over Chavez but couldn't care less about Tejada, the American League MVP?

You mean like the RedSox and yankees do?

My response was to the idea that Moneyball was solely about the marketplace and not about OBP, which I think has been the sabermetric spin of the last 3-4 years as all of the statheads' fawning over Beane has started to look a bit silly.

And I guess we will never know for sure, but I don't think the Yankees and Red Sox would have given up on Tejada, and then Gonzalez, for not walking enough.

So did the A's "give up" on Tejada, or did they decide they didn't want to sign him to a $75 million contract that the Orioles gave him? Let's not rewrite history here just because it makes Beane look bad.

They decided they couldn't keep both he and Chavez, and they chose to give Chavez a big contract. It didn't work out, but I'm not sure how you can blame them. Chavez was a great defender, Tejada was average. Chavez wasn't several years older than he said he was, Tejada was. Chavez (as far as we know) wasn't a steroid user, and Tejada clearly was.

They bet on the guy they thought was more likely to be able to maintain his production, and he broke down. It looks bad in retrospect, but it hardly had to do with walks alone.

 

[HanSenSE]

Billy Beane's Oakland teams are overrated, IMO. His "great" philosophy only produced one playoff series win in five trips. They were 1-9 in playoff series closeout games and TWICE lost first round series after taking 2-0 leads.

That's not just bad luck or being a small market team, as much as Beane used those as excuses. You don't put up that kind of horrible postseason track record just because of bad luck. And as for being a small market team...the friggin Florida Marlins won a World Series during that stretch. The Colorado Rockies and Detroit Tigers got to the World Series. And all the Oakland A's, with three All Star-caliber starting pitchers and the pre-Mitchell Report Jason Giambi, got was ONE playoff series win? ONE???

Still wonder how the No. 6 TV market in the country is a "small" market. Or is it because they share the market with the Giants? That never seemed to be a problem with Finley or the Hasses. In the World Series season of 1989, according to Baseball-Reference.com, the A's drew 2,667,225 and the Giants 2,059,701.Yet the current management seems to have some form of Stockholm Syndrome, telling themselves so many times they're a small-market team, they believe it.

Yes, the Giants have a new yard and will probably sell out the season, but they also market the hell out of themselves. For example, the Giants took the World Series trophy throughout Northern California (plus a side trip to the site of the Polo Grounds) last winter, and mock it all you want (And A's fans do), but in every town it went into, it was front page news and led the TV news as well.

I think it also helps being on a 50kw radio station in KNBR, as they have since 1979. Can't even count how many Oakland's had since then. They even had the one that carried spring training games this year go bankrupt (a long story) right before opening day.

 

[JC]

It's a common misconception, but "Moneyball" wasn't about exploiting OBP. It's about trying to find whatever area is undervalued at that moment and take advantage of it. Two of the main areas at the moment that are being studied a bunch are fielding and relief pitching.

And Michael, there are certainly better ways for teams with low payrolls to go about trying to win. Finding those areas that are undervalued is important.

If Moneyball was only about finding undervalued assets, then why were the A's at that time training all of their minor league hitters not to swing until deep in the count and mandating that they have ratios of one walk for every 10 at-bats or they would not make it to the major leagues? And why was Billy so gaga over Chavez but couldn't care less about Tejada, the American League MVP?

You mean like the RedSox and yankees do?

My response was to the idea that Moneyball was solely about the marketplace and not about OBP, which I think has been the sabermetric spin of the last 3-4 years as all of the statheads' fawning over Beane has started to look a bit silly.

And I guess we will never know for sure, but I don't think the Yankees and Red Sox would have given up on Tejada, and then Gonzalez, for not walking enough.

EDIT: Case in point, Robinson Cano, career average of one walk per 20 plate appearances. I think he's doing all right.

EDIT II: Case in point, Jacoby Ellsbury, career average of one walk per 14.6 plate appearances. Also doing all right.

did you even read moneyball?

 

[YankeeFan]

As for the Yankees & taking pitches, I'd say it has/had more to do with driving up pitch count and getting into soft bullpens than it did with an over valuation on OBP.

Especially in 1998, Jeter & Knoblauch alone were responsible for a lot of pitches, often in the first inning. This wore down opposing pitchers and let their teammates see what the pitcher had.

Quite often, starting pitchers were out of the game with high pitch counts before 5 innings. This allowed the Yankees to feast on middle inning relief. And, many times, they'd get into a bullpen early in the first game of a 3-game series, leaving the opponent with a depleted pen for the final two games of a series.

In later years, they were able to wait out pitchers like Pedro by driving up his pitch count. And, they either went to town on a tired starting pitcher or on the bullpen.

If their starting pitcher could keep them in the game, they had a chance against any opponent's staring pitcher.

 

[LongTimeListener]

It's a common misconception, but "Moneyball" wasn't about exploiting OBP. It's about trying to find whatever area is undervalued at that moment and take advantage of it. Two of the main areas at the moment that are being studied a bunch are fielding and relief pitching.

And Michael, there are certainly better ways for teams with low payrolls to go about trying to win. Finding those areas that are undervalued is important.

If Moneyball was only about finding undervalued assets, then why were the A's at that time training all of their minor league hitters not to swing until deep in the count and mandating that they have ratios of one walk for every 10 at-bats or they would not make it to the major leagues? And why was Billy so gaga over Chavez but couldn't care less about Tejada, the American League MVP?

You mean like the RedSox and yankees do?

My response was to the idea that Moneyball was solely about the marketplace and not about OBP, which I think has been the sabermetric spin of the last 3-4 years as all of the statheads' fawning over Beane has started to look a bit silly.

And I guess we will never know for sure, but I don't think the Yankees and Red Sox would have given up on Tejada, and then Gonzalez, for not walking enough.

EDIT: Case in point, Robinson Cano, career average of one walk per 20 plate appearances. I think he's doing all right.

EDIT II: Case in point, Jacoby Ellsbury, career average of one walk per 14.6 plate appearances. Also doing all right.

did you even read moneyball?

I did indeed. I am not sure what you are getting at, but I read the part where Lewis surmises that nine Scott Hattebergs would be a better lineup than the Yankees had. The "we're not selling jeans" part. The part where Jeremy Brown was a second-round pick solely because he walks a lot. I have also watched the theory in action for the past 10 years, and Billy Beane simply has no need for a player who doesn't conform to his preferred style of play.

 

[dirtybird]

Lest we forget, and to add to my Carlos Gonzalez point, Billy also traded Andre Ethier (.385/.497/.882 in Double A) for Milton Bradley. Ethier outplayed Bradley as a major leaguer the very next year; had he stayed in Oakland this would have been his final year before free agency.

At least Bradley was of some help (though not vital) in getting them to the ALCS, but don't you think the A's might have been better off with Ethier and Gonzalez in the same outfield for the past 3-4 years than they were with partial seasons from Bradley and Holliday?

Another problem key problem. Even good front offices don't get it right all the time. Their luck often seems to go in runs. Beane had a good one for a while, but he also bled out a lot of talent in mid-season trades to push playoff runs. I think that's normally the price of a playoff run. But if you look at some of the talent Oakland was sending off, it was apparent there was a lot of short term thinking involved.

If you want other GMs who were "brilliant" and then suddenly not, just look across the bay. Brian Sabean was very smart during the late 90s and early 2000s, bombed in the middle of the decade, and now gets credit for the world series. But only a few years a ago it seemed clear he'd lost it, and that was with a big payroll.

 

[dirtybird]

I tuned out Billy Beane after the A's lost to the Red Sox in, I think, the 2003 ALDS. It was the series where they led 2-0, and everything turned in Game 3 when a guy was thrown out at the plate because he tried to step over the catcher instead of sliding. This was, of course, after the famous Jeter play a year or two earlier.
Beane said, "We'd beat those guys if we had another $50-$60 million to spend."
No, asshole. You were in position to beat them with your small payroll team. You'd beat them if you taught your roided up freaks how to slide.

Also, just out of curiosity, is there a "Moneyball" chapter outlining a sabermetric for the BALCO effect?

If I recall those outs came when Byrnes got flipped over the catcher and plate, but seemed simply unaware that he had not touched home. I'm not sure if Tejada's issue had as much to do with sliding as it did with slowing up on the base paths to whine about interference. Either way, it's a nice reminder of the weird stuff that can turn playoff series.

 

[DanOregon]

For some fun summertime reading go through the various ratings of minor league systems from three to six years ago.

 

[dirtybird]

Billy Beane's Oakland teams are overrated, IMO. His "great" philosophy only produced one playoff series win in five trips. They were 1-9 in playoff series closeout games and TWICE lost first round series after taking 2-0 leads.

That's not just bad luck or being a small market team, as much as Beane used those as excuses. You don't put up that kind of horrible postseason track record just because of bad luck. And as for being a small market team...the friggin Florida Marlins won a World Series during that stretch. The Colorado Rockies and Detroit Tigers got to the World Series. And all the Oakland A's, with three All Star-caliber starting pitchers and the pre-Mitchell Report Jason Giambi, got was ONE playoff series win? ONE???

The 1-9 thing is a symptom of the 1-5 in playoff series. Would you prefer they were 1-2 in closeouts and never got close? The point is the 1-5. Sorry, that's a sports message board peeve of mine.

And really, why can't it be just luck? Four series lost 3-2, seems like the situation where luck could play the biggest role. Joe Posnanski had a nice writeup on how the playoffs are a big of a crapshoot (better teams' record is pretty close to .500). Watching the Giants this season, I'm not sure how you can come away without thinking luck plays a role (and I say that as a fan). I think the forever underrated thing about those teams was the fact that the Big 3 rarely came up with those "Special" performances. The As had a number of VERY good pitchers, yet the seemed unable to dominate series. Maybe that was something wrong with them.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Billy Beane's Oakland teams are overrated, IMO. His "great" philosophy only produced one playoff series win in five trips. They were 1-9 in playoff series closeout games and TWICE lost first round series after taking 2-0 leads.

That's not just bad luck or being a small market team, as much as Beane used those as excuses. You don't put up that kind of horrible postseason track record just because of bad luck. And as for being a small market team...the friggin Florida Marlins won a World Series during that stretch. The Colorado Rockies and Detroit Tigers got to the World Series. And all the Oakland A's, with three All Star-caliber starting pitchers and the pre-Mitchell Report Jason Giambi, got was ONE playoff series win? ONE???

The 1-9 thing is a symptom of the 1-5 in playoff series. Would you prefer they were 1-2 in closeouts and never got close? The point is the 1-5. Sorry, that's a sports message board peeve of mine.

And really, why can't it be just luck? Four series lost 3-2, seems like the situation where luck could play the biggest role. Joe Posnanski had a nice writeup on how the playoffs are a big of a crapshoot (better teams' record is pretty close to .500). Watching the Giants this season, I'm not sure how you can come away without thinking luck plays a role (and I say that as a fan). I think the forever underrated thing about those teams was the fact that the Big 3 rarely came up with those "Special" performances. The As had a number of VERY good pitchers, yet the seemed unable to dominate series. Maybe that was something wrong with them.

The A's are and have always been TERRIBLE in close postseason games, because the Moneyball ideas are built to capitalize on resources for large sample sizes in a long regular season. They ignore base-stealing/base-running, defense, situational hitting, great bullpen, bunting -- the very things that decide who wins one-run games. As fortunate as the Giants were last year, they were also exceptionally well built in those areas. the Twins ('02) and Red Sox ('03) series, it can be said that they lost because of those deficiencies, and if you want to again say Jeremy Giambi should have slid, that makes three of four.

 

[Double Down]

The fact that the A's didn't win the World Series is hardly an indictment of anything in Moneyball. It's so bizarre to see people repeat that over and over. The fact that they were even IN the playoffs, or IN CONTENTION for the playoffs, is proof that Beane was doing ok. The ******* Orioles and Pirates would love to fail is miserably as the A's have during Beane's tenure, never once failing to win 75 games. Hell, the Cubs would love to suck as much as they A's have despite having twice the payroll.

 

[LongTimeListener]

The fact that the A's didn't win the World Series is hardly an indictment of anything in Moneyball. It's so bizarre to see people repeat that over and over. The fact that they were even IN the playoffs, or IN CONTENTION for the playoffs, is proof that Beane was doing ok. The ******* Orioles and Pirates would love to fail is miserably as the A's have during Beane's tenure, never once failing to win 75 games. Hell, the Cubs would love to suck as much as they A's have despite having twice the payroll.

And yet the Marlins won it all and the Devil Rays and Rangers made it to the World Series on similar payrolls.

To me it's backlash against the sabermetrics/FJM/"you're a ****ing idiot if you value defense and question the supremacy of OPS" side. For a while there was a thought that there is only one way to build a winning baseball team and it was Billy Beane's way and if you argued you were simply an old man who didn't know the game. Now everyone has incorporated a certain amount of the theories, but there were also some flaws in it that can't so easily be explained by "my **** doesn't work in the playoffs" as Billy tried to do for so long.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Tampa Bay is contending with a $41M payroll, far less than Oakland's. The Rays are used to dumping the biggest spenders on their asses for about a quarter on the dollar.

 

[Boom_70]

The fact that the A's didn't win the World Series is hardly an indictment of anything in Moneyball. It's so bizarre to see people repeat that over and over. The fact that they were even IN the playoffs, or IN CONTENTION for the playoffs, is proof that Beane was doing ok. The ******* Orioles and Pirates would love to fail is miserably as the A's have during Beane's tenure, never once failing to win 75 games. Hell, the Cubs would love to suck as much as they A's have despite having twice the payroll.

Disagree. Money Ball started with Beane taking over the drafting from the old school scouts and using his computer geeks to come up with possible draft choices based on high OPS stats.

Idea was that the Beane system would be more accurate than that of the scouts in their lawn chairs.

Based on A's performance since Beane took over draft, it does not look like it has been too successful.

The A's core players prior to Beane taking over the draft were all home grown players, found and signed by old school scouts in the 90's.

Money Ball attributed the A's success to a system that was not in place yet.

 

[dirtybird]

The A's are and have always been TERRIBLE in close postseason games, because the Moneyball ideas are built to capitalize on resources for large sample sizes in a long regular season. They ignore base-stealing/base-running, defense, situational hitting, great bullpen, bunting -- the very things that decide who wins one-run games. As fortunate as the Giants were last year, they were also exceptionally well built in those areas. the Twins ('02) and Red Sox ('03) series, it can be said that they lost because of those deficiencies, and if you want to again say Jeremy Giambi should have slid, that makes three of four.

All caps terrible seems like an over statement. They went 4-9 in one- or two-run games in a 8-12 run over four postseasons (I drop off the fifth since that lacks the stink of failure associated with he first four). You could point out the drop in win percentage, I could attribute the 9.3 percent difference to sample size, and we won't get anywhere.

Now we get to that nice mess of other factors, "base-stealing/base-running, defense, situational hitting, great bullpen, bunting." I'd say some of these matter-defense, bullpen, somewhat base stealing. Others not as much (bunting?). You see situational hitting I see breaks in the game. With margins so small, the tiniest things make the difference, and everything isn't so simple. For example, earlier in the thread you wondered why the A's chose Chavez over Tejada, then it was wrong to give up the MVP, but defense/baserunning MATTER in big postseason games. Miggy was a dud in both aspects. Again it's all relative, although I suppose there's no way I can convince someone who fervently believes managers/players control these things down to the most minute level, that luck and randomness play a hell of a role. Oh well.

Except for Jeff Suppan. The fact that his hot streak made a huge difference in a world series title should strip any belief in the MLB postseason making a lick of sense.

 

[Dick Whitman]

"Moneyball" doesn't have to be all-right or all-wrong. A lot of the concepts were right - the stuff about on-base percentage being undervalued and stolen bases being overvalued, etc. That stuff is pretty demonstrably true. The key - well, the biggest key - to season-long offensive success is avoiding outs. And everyone knows that now. Except Ozzie Guillen.

Other stuff hasn't proven to be true. As Boom has stressed, the idea that Beane was going to revolutionize the draft with statistical analysis of high school and college players has proven to be laughably untrue. As LTL points out, there has probably been some attempts to fit square pegs into round holes in the minor leagues.

Like anything else in the world - Obamacare, Middle East policy, teachers unions, etc., etc. - "Moneyball" doesn't have to be all right or all wrong. It's not binary.