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The Beaneballers


Bruce Nye

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It is also worth noting that, including this year, Beane's Athletics have made the postseason three of the last four years, while the Angels it has been just 2014 - and with a much larger budget. That means something, doesn't it? He must be doing something  right.

or other teams are doing something wrong, or having bad luck

last years Angels were nowhere near as bad as they played, Tex prospects were way overrated,  and as much as we were snakebit they were sitting on horseshoes.

i recall a quote from the old movie "North Dallas forty", where one of the people warned you need to be carefull to confuse brains with luck"... were the As that good, or just that lucky?  Ive always been in the camp they they have been luckier than they were good, though i know many here disagree with that. 

That isnt to say its all luck, they have made some smart moves and have kept a steady stream of solid pitchnig on the farm which will keep you competitive, but you can only play the odds so long before they catch up with you.

You can almost literally break down moneyball into one sentence regarding offense.. if you have enough guys on base you increase your chance to score with each real hit... and thats true, but that assume those stars align and those people are on base when those hits happen.  Lately, that luck has run out.. their hits have come with noone on and they have left a lot of ducks on the pond.

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Floplag, that's one part of it. The other--and greater--part is optimizing performance with a limited payroll by finding cheap, under-appreciated talent, thus "money-" in "moneyball." Beane tapped into the fact that there are quite a few players out there that can be had for quite cheap, but can perform decently well if given the opportunity. It really comes down to getting the most bang for your buck and, except in rare cases, not over-paying for names (unless those names can perform).

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Floplag, that's one part of it. The other--and greater--part is optimizing performance with a limited payroll by finding cheap, under-appreciated talent, thus "money-" in "moneyball." Beane tapped into the fact that there are quite a few players out there that can be had for quite cheap, but can perform decently well if given the opportunity. It really comes down to getting the most bang for your buck and, except in rare cases, not over-paying for names (unless those names can perform).

 

yeah, i know.. i get the concept but honestly, that not unique to moneyball... and its also part of the reason it fails

every organization looks for those bargains.. moneyball looks for castoffs that have specific skillsets... while ignoring the fact that there was a reason they are castoffs.

it also puts a lot of pressure on the roster with constant platoons and such... instead of needing 9 guys to perform you need 13, 14

it has had success for them at least in terms of being competitive, but at the end of the day it fails in the one area that every team starts spring training as the goal.. winning in the post season.

and now by thier own actions and admission of this, they took the gamble and it still didnt work.  at least not so far... makes me wonder what the real long term legacy of this is.

you act like getting bang for the buck is something Beane came up with, it isnt, hes just the first one to try to do it with an entire roster instead of just the bench, lol

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Yes he doesn't make 100 +million dollars mistakes in the FA market

It is also worth noting that, including this year, Beane's Athletics have made the postseason three of the last four years, while the Angels it has been just 2014 - and with a much larger budget. That means something, doesn't it? He must be doing something right.

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Floplag, that's one part of it. The other--and greater--part is optimizing performance with a limited payroll by finding cheap, under-appreciated talent, thus "money-" in "moneyball." Beane tapped into the fact that there are quite a few players out there that can be had for quite cheap, but can perform decently well if given the opportunity. It really comes down to getting the most bang for your buck and, except in rare cases, not over-paying for names (unless those names can perform).

AJ, the cheapest talent is your minor league. There was only one guy on the A's squad for rookie hazing this season. Everyone else is a late 20's early 30's guy brought in by trade of their minor league talent. It's not really moneyball to fill a roster with veteran cast-offs.

How many rookies, or close to rookie (Calhoun I think was only three games over the limit last season) have the Angels used this season to supplement their lineup? Rookie hazing looked like a pretty good sized softball team this season with 12 guys dressed up including Shoemaker as an Arab Sheik.

Weren't we the team without a good farm system because our guys don't use the advanced metrics that the A's do?

Beane has had a great PR career. His early success was based on a team he didn't build. His long drought was his creation by selling the wrong pieces. His current success has been predicated on a weak AL West and just plain getting lucky spinning the wheel of chance with rosters until he found this group of misfits but he spun it once too often with Lester, trading five days for one.

There are too many excuses made for Beane by guys who really want to believe he changed the industry but the fact us he copied others, even took their people like DePodesta and let an author build a myth around what he was doing. Like he was a pioneer when in reality he us just a guy turned lose with a mismanaged franchise and allowed to put years of mediocrity on the field without getting fired, like most of the other GMs in the last fifteen years.

Edited by Eric Notti
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yeah, i know.. i get the concept but honestly, that not unique to moneyball... and its also part of the reason it fails

every organization looks for those bargains.. moneyball looks for castoffs that have specific skillsets... while ignoring the fact that there was a reason they are castoffs.

it also puts a lot of pressure on the roster with constant platoons and such... instead of needing 9 guys to perform you need 13, 14

it has had success for them at least in terms of being competitive, but at the end of the day it fails in the one area that every team starts spring training as the goal.. winning in the post season.

and now by thier own actions and admission of this, they took the gamble and it still didnt work. at least not so far... makes me wonder what the real long term legacy of this is.

you act like getting bang for the buck is something Beane came up with, it isnt, hes just the first one to try to do it with an entire roster instead of just the bench, lol

so your response to moneyball is, small market teams should just stop trying to win games because they can't sign Albert pujols and miguel Cabrera?

that is ridiculous. In your world, the only winning teams would be the ones that can afford a 150+ million payroll. What a boring sport.

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so your response to moneyball is, small market teams should just stop trying to win games because they can't sign Albert pujols and miguel Cabrera?

that is ridiculous. In your world, the only winning teams would be the ones that can afford a 150+ million payroll. What a boring sport.

 

no, what i said is that it isnt unique to moneyball and every team does it to one degree or another... how you got from that to this, ive no idea

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Lol, Blarg obviously has no idea what it means to run an organization well.

 

It isn't about who you draft, it is about who you have.  He has made many very successful trades and competed against teams with double the payroll.

 

Nate, of course it is about who you have and honestly, Beane has nothing in his minors to help him. Look at his roster for one moment and tell me about all of the great players he drafted to make this team. There was one, count him one, utility player that got 11 games this season under the age of 27. Every other position player on the field is 27 or older and all from some other organization. Cespedes was the only guy they had that was truly an A's player, everyone else is a guy that put in their first few years on someone else's playing field. Now Cespedes is on some other playing field.

 

He neither trusts his own drat picks and trades them away and the A's minor leagues are not preparing them for the big leagues.

 

That is not being successful.

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Personally, I think Beane is a smart guy and he's done a great deal within the system he's in but he's also been honest enough to say that his budget restraints have helped him avoid mistakes he would have willingly made.  He may not have phrased it that way but he's flat out said that had the money been there he would have signed some guys who moved on...   guys who became other team's expensive problems..  He always seemed to get a free pass for having signed Eric Chavez to his long term deal in 2004, Chavez may not have sucked but he fell well short of the expectations and had the Angels or anyone else signed him they would have been ridiculed and not just given the mulligan because of "injuries"...  You know, sort of like the Mo Vaughn deal.  While I do respect Beane and the way he goes about things, it gets old seeing everyone throw the money excuse out to validate him -- IMO the lack of money has been a shield for him.

 

As a side note -- the A's owner are dicks.  They turned an estimated 27 million dollar profit last year while collecting revenue sharing money -- they year before that they showed a 14 million dollar profit...  They seem quite content to cry poor and play the role of the underdog....  Again, they seem content to go about their business with zero pressure to win, which is fine I guess but IMO there is a reason that team isn't supported better and it falls on them...  They have chosen to stay with the status quo...   We lived through that whole small market lie in Anaheim.  Disney claimed we were small market, claimed the team couldn't turn a profit etc etc... have people forgotten how the Angels and Twins (another small market lie), were among the teams listed as possible contraction candidates?  

 

Moreno came on board, spent some money, took some risks and now the Halos are considered one of the haves.   A's ownership seems to cling to their crutch and maybe it all a huge coincidence but we all have seen first hand how the A's played this year when they went from being the spunk over-achiever to the team with the target on it's back. 

Edited by Inside Pitch
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The A's have no quality players?

 

That's not remotely close to what he said.    Truth is they are claiming to be restricted by finances while turning a significant profit, so why would they bother taking risks, spending money, and being held to higher expectations when they've got a built in excuse to avoid doing any of that.

They take five years off to rebuid, reload, etc etc.   It's okay cause they are small market.    It's a wonderful crutch.

Edited by Inside Pitch
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Why spend stupid amounts of money if you don't have to? They've won more games than any team in the AL the past three seasons, without buying albert Pujols or Miguel Cabrera or Justin verlander etc etc

You think arte wouldn't spend less money for the same product?

Edited by Hollyw00d
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AJ, the cheapest talent is your minor league. There was only one guy on the A's squad for rookie hazing this season. Everyone else is a late 20's early 30's guy brought in by trade of their minor league talent. It's not really moneyball to fill a roster with veteran cast-offs.

How many rookies, or close to rookie (Calhoun I think was only three games over the limit last season) have the Angels used this season to supplement their lineup? Rookie hazing looked like a pretty good sized softball team this season with 12 guys dressed up including Shoemaker as an Arab Sheik.

Weren't we the team without a good farm system because our guys don't use the advanced metrics that the A's do?

Beane has had a great PR career. His early success was based on a team he didn't build. His long drought was his creation by selling the wrong pieces. His current success has been predicated on a weak AL West and just plain getting lucky spinning the wheel of chance with rosters until he found this group of misfits but he spun it once too often with Lester, trading five days for one.

There are too many excuses made for Beane by guys who really want to believe he changed the industry but the fact us he copied others, even took their people like DePodesta and let an author build a myth around what he was doing. Like he was a pioneer when in reality he us just a guy turned lose with a mismanaged franchise and allowed to put years of mediocrity on the field without getting fired, like most of the other GMs in the last fifteen years.

Eric I would agree with you to a point that Minor League players are a good source of cheap controllable talent.

However, the economics of baseball change from year to year. Although Minor League players certainly can provide cheap filling for your roster, the economics of baseball (of which AJ mentioned in a previous post) dictate from year to year what is undervalued around the league. In the Money Ball era the undervalued asset was players with high OBP.

This last off season Jerry Dipoto exploited some (not all) teams weaknesses in player evaluation by trading Mark Trumbo's power away for two young cost controlled pitchers.

You mention that the A's have no home grown players but I think that Billy Beane simply found that prospects were being overvalued in the market place and decided to use that "currency" to obtain more MLB level value. Last off-season Billy acquired several relievers at relatively cheap prices. The value of relievers last off-season seemed low to a degree mainly because there were a fair amount of them available on the free agent market.

My overall point is that although having a developing farm system is useful it is more important to identify now and in the future, what the possible baseball market will head towards and try to position your team to take advantage of the next developing inefficiency. Perhaps in the off-season this year it might be young shortstops for instance? There seem to be a lot of decent ones out there? Maybe it is relievers again? Maybe it is aging veterans as the Yankees have certainly tried to take advantage of that during the 2014 season?

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He traded himself into a position where there was nothing to call up. That is not a smart move regardless of what he got in trade and actually a lot of what he got was no better than replacement value or in other words farm talent for MLB money.

WWe always talk about the Angels five year plan and how some deals and trades are short term in value or maybe long term but it always seems to relate to what the position of the team will be in five years.

The A's have only one guy signed for longer than 2015. That is Coco noodle arm Crisp. Doesn't sound like much of long term planning on Beane's part. Like he went all in entirely for this one season and the A's are back to rebuilding.

Maybe that sounds like genius to some.

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regarding moneyball... isnt admitting that it doesn't work in the playoffs admitting that it basically doesn't work at all?  i mean, isnt that the goal, getting to the post season?

Beane has done great things, but i almost thing his success has hurt the game as much as helped it in many ways.

 

 

yeah, i know.. i get the concept but honestly, that not unique to moneyball... and its also part of the reason it fails

every organization looks for those bargains.. moneyball looks for castoffs that have specific skillsets... while ignoring the fact that there was a reason they are castoffs.

Believe it or not, you wrote that. Not me.

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It is also worth noting that, including this year, Beane's Athletics have made the postseason three of the last four years, while the Angels it has been just 2014 - and with a much larger budget. That means something, doesn't it? He must be doing something  right.

 

why do you keep bringing up the Angels when discussing Beane's "achievements"?

 

And if you don't think people here put our GMs (and entire FO) under the same scrutiny as they do Beane, I don't know which board you've been reading

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