Article regarding "Moneyball"
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Stop the revolution . . . I want to get off
By Art Garfamudis
Page 2 guest columnist
(Archive)
Updated: March 5, 2008, 2:46 PM ET
So Jeremy Brown has called it quitskies, huh? You'd think that the retirement of a guy who is built somewhat like me would make me sad, but it doesn't. Instead, I danced a hora when I heard it.
At least, I did the dance after the person who told me about the retirement explained to me who Brown was. I had never heard of the guy myself. For those of you who, like me, made the smart literary choice and didn't read "Moneyball," Brown was the undraftable catcher the scouts passed on, but whom Oakland GM Billy Beane took with the 35th pick of the 2002 draft. (A lot of people think Beane wrote the book. Not true. The author, Michael Lewis, was an A's intern who wanted to make the boss look good.) When books are written about guys like Brown, you gotta wonder about the intelligence of the American book-buying public that made it into a best-seller.
Don't get me wrong. I love "Moneyball." Though I never spent more than $3.99 for the book, I probably own more copies of "Moneyball" than anyone in America. I've got one propping up the table I'm writing on right now. I trained a puppy with two other copies, and lined the cages of some parrots with a couple of others. I don't even like birds, but I saw an opportunity to do what was right with that book, so I bought the birds and resisted the temptation to pluck 'em and fry 'em. To this day, they do nature's business on the silly words contained therein.
I have a copy of "Moneyball" under the sink in my bathroom for when we run out of toilet paper. When I go to the pistol range, I always bring one along and hang it on the line. I know book burnings have gotten a bad reputation, but if a guy came to the door and said he was starting a bonfire with copies of "Moneyball," well, I'd donate the high-test.
Here's the thing: We used to enjoy baseball just fine before all this "Moneyball" stuff started. You'd go to the ballpark or to a bar and people would talk about the game and never mention made-up stats like VROOM or SHIRK or PMS. Everyone got along just fine. Teams played, pitchers pitched, batters batted, the won-loss columns would fill up and, at the end of the year, you'd have the World Series. What was so hard about that?
Now, I look at the stats page and it has more columns than the Parthenon. Puts an antebellum plantation to shame. What do we need all these extra numbers for? The game is being ruined by people who would be better off watching "Star Trek" (come to think of it, one of their co-ck-amamy [sic due to filter] stats is called WARP). What was wrong with the way things used to be? Was the game losing fans because it didn't have enough ways of measuring itself? (Did I mention the stats page has a lot of columns? It has more than the rich-boy frat house at an Ivy League school.)
The first thing we need to do is go back to our roots stats-wise. Stats pages on this and other Web sites should get back to basics. I suggest these time-honored baseball accounting practices, laid across the page in the traditional format: games played, at-bats, runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, homers, runs batted in, batting average and maybe, if there's room, stolen bases. That's 10 items. For pitchers, there's games, games started, wins, losses, winning percentage, saves, innings pitched, hits, strikeouts, walks and ERA. That's 11, which might be too much. Forget strikeouts. If the guy's getting people out, it will show up in his ERA.
What else do you really need to know about a guy? If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, there's something seriously wrong with you -- I mean brain-damage wrong. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, then maybe your daddy was drunk when you were a baby and he dropped you on your head and never told anybody because he was too embarrassed or didn't remember. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, maybe you ate some lead paint in the basement or crashed your motorcycle and hit your head against a telephone pole. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, maybe Timothy Leary was your family doctor, or maybe it's just that you don't know very much about baseball.
Here's the problem: All these extra numbers that the figure diggers brew up in their maternal subgrade lairs (that's moms' basements for you laymen) make it possible for people like Jeremy Brown to try to crash the party, and that can't be a good thing.
The number-crumblers like equations so much, so here's one for them:
Infinite stats = infinite players
Makes sense to me: Keep adding statistics and eventually, you'll find something that will qualify everyone on the planet for being a pro ballplayer. Mark my words: Jeremy Brown was the first step on the slippery slope that will eventually lead to the ballplaying ranks being filled with ungainly looking types who should be stocking shelves or digging ditches. This is the kind of world that the "Moneyballists" have wished on us.
That's why Brown's retirement is such good news. Maybe this so-called revolution is being strangled in the crib. Though this country was founded on a revolution, that doesn't mean all revolutions are a good thing. Here's hoping this one is DOA, and that it has died without a single championship to show for itself. What a fitting end to a bad idea borne in a bogus book. Here's a vote for leaving the game to the real athletes and getting the stat pages that contain their heroic deeds back to normal.
Art Garfamudis is a writer and secretary-treasurer of the baseball chapter of the SLWEA -- the Society for Leaving Well Enough Alone.
Link
Stop the revolution . . . I want to get off
By Art Garfamudis
Page 2 guest columnist
(Archive)
Updated: March 5, 2008, 2:46 PM ET
So Jeremy Brown has called it quitskies, huh? You'd think that the retirement of a guy who is built somewhat like me would make me sad, but it doesn't. Instead, I danced a hora when I heard it.
At least, I did the dance after the person who told me about the retirement explained to me who Brown was. I had never heard of the guy myself. For those of you who, like me, made the smart literary choice and didn't read "Moneyball," Brown was the undraftable catcher the scouts passed on, but whom Oakland GM Billy Beane took with the 35th pick of the 2002 draft. (A lot of people think Beane wrote the book. Not true. The author, Michael Lewis, was an A's intern who wanted to make the boss look good.) When books are written about guys like Brown, you gotta wonder about the intelligence of the American book-buying public that made it into a best-seller.
Don't get me wrong. I love "Moneyball." Though I never spent more than $3.99 for the book, I probably own more copies of "Moneyball" than anyone in America. I've got one propping up the table I'm writing on right now. I trained a puppy with two other copies, and lined the cages of some parrots with a couple of others. I don't even like birds, but I saw an opportunity to do what was right with that book, so I bought the birds and resisted the temptation to pluck 'em and fry 'em. To this day, they do nature's business on the silly words contained therein.
I have a copy of "Moneyball" under the sink in my bathroom for when we run out of toilet paper. When I go to the pistol range, I always bring one along and hang it on the line. I know book burnings have gotten a bad reputation, but if a guy came to the door and said he was starting a bonfire with copies of "Moneyball," well, I'd donate the high-test.
Here's the thing: We used to enjoy baseball just fine before all this "Moneyball" stuff started. You'd go to the ballpark or to a bar and people would talk about the game and never mention made-up stats like VROOM or SHIRK or PMS. Everyone got along just fine. Teams played, pitchers pitched, batters batted, the won-loss columns would fill up and, at the end of the year, you'd have the World Series. What was so hard about that?
Now, I look at the stats page and it has more columns than the Parthenon. Puts an antebellum plantation to shame. What do we need all these extra numbers for? The game is being ruined by people who would be better off watching "Star Trek" (come to think of it, one of their co-ck-amamy [sic due to filter] stats is called WARP). What was wrong with the way things used to be? Was the game losing fans because it didn't have enough ways of measuring itself? (Did I mention the stats page has a lot of columns? It has more than the rich-boy frat house at an Ivy League school.)
The first thing we need to do is go back to our roots stats-wise. Stats pages on this and other Web sites should get back to basics. I suggest these time-honored baseball accounting practices, laid across the page in the traditional format: games played, at-bats, runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, homers, runs batted in, batting average and maybe, if there's room, stolen bases. That's 10 items. For pitchers, there's games, games started, wins, losses, winning percentage, saves, innings pitched, hits, strikeouts, walks and ERA. That's 11, which might be too much. Forget strikeouts. If the guy's getting people out, it will show up in his ERA.
What else do you really need to know about a guy? If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, there's something seriously wrong with you -- I mean brain-damage wrong. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, then maybe your daddy was drunk when you were a baby and he dropped you on your head and never told anybody because he was too embarrassed or didn't remember. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, maybe you ate some lead paint in the basement or crashed your motorcycle and hit your head against a telephone pole. If you can't tell how good a player is from those basic stats, maybe Timothy Leary was your family doctor, or maybe it's just that you don't know very much about baseball.
Here's the problem: All these extra numbers that the figure diggers brew up in their maternal subgrade lairs (that's moms' basements for you laymen) make it possible for people like Jeremy Brown to try to crash the party, and that can't be a good thing.
The number-crumblers like equations so much, so here's one for them:
Infinite stats = infinite players
Makes sense to me: Keep adding statistics and eventually, you'll find something that will qualify everyone on the planet for being a pro ballplayer. Mark my words: Jeremy Brown was the first step on the slippery slope that will eventually lead to the ballplaying ranks being filled with ungainly looking types who should be stocking shelves or digging ditches. This is the kind of world that the "Moneyballists" have wished on us.
That's why Brown's retirement is such good news. Maybe this so-called revolution is being strangled in the crib. Though this country was founded on a revolution, that doesn't mean all revolutions are a good thing. Here's hoping this one is DOA, and that it has died without a single championship to show for itself. What a fitting end to a bad idea borne in a bogus book. Here's a vote for leaving the game to the real athletes and getting the stat pages that contain their heroic deeds back to normal.
Art Garfamudis is a writer and secretary-treasurer of the baseball chapter of the SLWEA -- the Society for Leaving Well Enough Alone.
So basically my kid won't be able to go to college, but at least I'll have a set where the three most expensive cards are of a player I despise ~ CDsNuts
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Comments
Since this writer (whiner?) didn't read the book, he wouldn't have read the large section that shows pitching can be evaluated by a mere three basic stats that are almost 150 years old
I really wonder what evaluation this guy uses that doesn't put Billy Beane among the top five or 10 general managers. And if he does agree that Beane is among the better GMs in baseball, isn't that proof that MoneyBall was not only good writing, but also an accurate description?
The funny thing is, that everything the author whines about has nothing to do with the book. Everything he champions is championed in the book "the won-loss columns fill up," that is how you evaluate talent. Nothing more, nothing less. It just so happens some teams have less money to try and accomplish that task, hence the title Moneyball. If it was about the stats it would have been called something entirely different
Bosox1976
<< <i>Everyone is entilted to their own opinion, but isn't saying the Michael Lewis was an A's intern a complete lie? >>
That was my first thought too. Why would a successful author suddenly be an intern for the A's? That's stupidly off-base.
Moneyball however is now 5 years old and can be now reviewed as far as how successful the draft and how it helped the A's since that was the bulk of the book. Listed below is a summary of Oakland's 1st round draft
The draft for Oakland that year was
16- Nick Swisher
24- Joe Blanton
26-John McCurdy
30-Benjamin Fritz
35-Jeremy Brown
37-Stephen Obenchain
39-Mark Teahen
Listed below are players that were featured in the book and where they are now:
Chad Bradford- Traded in 2004 and now on his 3rd team since. Alot of focus on the book was about how his delivery was different so that is what kept him from the majors and left him unsure of himself (he is a submariner). He is still an effective player and appeared in 78 games last year but far from being an out machine, hitters hit .294 off him in 2007.
Nick Swisher- Traded in 2007 to the White Sox. He had a good 2006 season with 35 homers and 90 RBI's but his K's where higher than his BB's. He was among the league leaders in walks. He posted his highest OBP in 2007 but also saw a 30 point drop in his Slugging as his homer amount dropped by 13.
Scott Hatteberg- signed with the Reds in 2006. Since leaving the A's, has posted career highs in BA, Slugging, OBP and OPS.
Joe Blanton- Averaged 14 wins in his 3 seasons already. Posted a career low 1.22 WHIP in 2007. By far the best player Oakland drafted in 2002.
Jeremy Bonderman- Subject of Beanes wrath for being drafted w/o his consent in 2001. Traded to the Tigers. Injured in 2007 and posting his highest WHIP and ERA in 4 years, did not have great season for the Tigers. Still posted a 3 to 1 K/BB ratio and is still a good starting pitcher that has averaged almost 3X more K's than walks in the last 3 years. Posted over 200K's in 2006.
Eric Chavez- Beane compared him favorably to the likes of Pujols. Injuries and an anemic bat have dropped this slugger from All Star caliber to platoon material. He compares more favorably to Scott Rolen than he does Pujols.
The rest of the 2002 1st round draft class.
Benjamin Fritz- 11-11 at AA with a 1.62 WHIP and a 5.67 ERA.
Jeremy Brown- spent entire season in minors at Sacramento. Posted respectable numbers of .276, 14 HR, 58 RBI, .364 OBP, .833 OPS. Now retired.
Stephen Obenchain- Did not play in 2007.
Mark Teahen- Traded to the Royals. In 2007 had a big power swoon as his HR's dropped from 18 to 7 and he lost 111 points of slugging. Not another Jason Giambi there.
After 5 years you would have thought this great draft class that the author expounds upon would now be yielding fruit. And it's true, 2 bonafide ML players came out of that draft but they missed on 5 other players for a success rate of 28.5%. Not much better than guessing as Beane called it. Players they could of had, Cole Hamels #17, Matt Cain #25 and Jeff Franceour #23. Only 1 player is still actually playing for the A's.
There also is a section where Ron Washington and Thad Bosley lie (saying they had like 80 in a season when they had 10) about the amount of SB's they had in one season and Lewis never even looked it up which is pretty sloppy (I think it was an inside joke on Lewis who never caught on).
<< <i>The first thing we need to do is go back to our roots stats-wise. Stats pages on this and other Web sites should get back to basics. I suggest these time-honored baseball accounting practices, laid across the page in the traditional format: games played, at-bats, runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, homers, runs batted in, batting average and maybe, if there's room, stolen bases. That's 10 items. For pitchers, there's games, games started, wins, losses, winning percentage, saves, innings pitched, hits, strikeouts, walks and ERA. That's 11, which might be too much. Forget strikeouts. If the guy's getting people out, it will show up in his ERA. >>
Nothing like that "Time Honored" stat like saves! LOL! I also like how he has RBI as a time honored stat, but leaves out walks. My first suggestion to the fella is a history lesson.
The second suggestion for him to realize is that all the more advanced stats are already based on AB, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, and BB. Those events are the building blocks to a players value. The players who get the most 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI and BB with the least amount of cost(outs which is basically At Bats needed to achieve the events), are the best hitters. Obviously, a HR is of more value than a 1B...and one must know the run value of each.
He makes the same mistake many other fans make...they don't understand this, yet it is quite simple when you break it down.
Drafting players is an extreme estimation. You can't use stats when drafting a player. High School stats are absolutely meaningless! So are College. I played with a college pitcher among the top 20 in the Nation in ERA, and he was nowhere near going to be a pro, yet he was top five in ERA for MANY REASONS!
Drafting is done based on tools and estimations, and eyes..AND MAYBE THAT IS WHY THEY ARE WRONG SO OFTEN! Did the writer(and anti stat observation guys)ever think of that? Since drafting is done almost solely on a guys judgement of physical tools(and no use of stats), that is one of the reasons why they are wrong all the time...THEY DON"T HAVE ANY OBJECTIVE DATA TO GO OFF OF! It is almost all speculation and subjective info. Kind of like the guy in the stands who 'feels' like Jim Rice was the best simply because he 'felt' it.
Not until a player plays in the Minor Leagues do his stats take on any meaning for future MLB value. Even then, it is still hairy for many reasons(just ask all the Dodger farm hands in the 80's, ala Greg Brock).
Minor league numbers can however, give an objective estimation of a players ability to a degree. It is not until they play MLB do you get an objective idea how good they are. It is measured in their performance...and the use of the events they achieved.
I shutter when I think of how many players were never drafted because they didn't have the 'tools' that scouts look for. Especially the hitters. I have seen guys who got passed up because a scout 'thinks' they won't be good when they are 27 years old...but they are just guessing. Or they think they won't be good because they don't run the 40 a few tenths fast. Then they go and draft guys who they 'think' will develop, and they blow. They are wrong ALL THE TIME. They are throwing darts. They have no objective useful data to go on, and that is one reason why they are wrong. A stop watch is not a useful objective data. Stat performance in HIGH SCHOOL or College is not either.
Thank goodness there are valid objective measurements for free agent signing etc.. But the funny thing is, some GM's are still stupid enough to not know what to look for, and that is where you get the Adrian Beltre signings! Some GM's are far better than others. Money is a big factor obviously.
By time a player is being recognized for MVP, or HOF, there is no excuse for not using the best valid measurements to determine his worth...no excuse.
<< <i>The guy has some serious issues, first Lewis was not an intern, that is silly. Second you should never criticize anything you haven't read.
Moneyball however is now 5 years old and can be now reviewed as far as how successful the draft and how it helped the A's since that was the bulk of the book. Listed below is a summary of Oakland's 1st round draft
The draft for Oakland that year was
16- Nick Swisher
24- Joe Blanton
26-John McCurdy
30-Benjamin Fritz
35-Jeremy Brown
37-Stephen Obenchain
39-Mark Teahen
Listed below are players that were featured in the book and where they are now:
Chad Bradford- Traded in 2004 and now on his 3rd team since. Alot of focus on the book was about how his delivery was different so that is what kept him from the majors and left him unsure of himself (he is a submariner). He is still an effective player and appeared in 78 games last year but far from being an out machine, hitters hit .294 off him in 2007.
Nick Swisher- Traded in 2007 to the White Sox. He had a good 2006 season with 35 homers and 90 RBI's but his K's where higher than his BB's. He was among the league leaders in walks. He posted his highest OBP in 2007 but also saw a 30 point drop in his Slugging as his homer amount dropped by 13.
Scott Hatteberg- signed with the Reds in 2006. Since leaving the A's, has posted career highs in BA, Slugging, OBP and OPS.
Joe Blanton- Averaged 14 wins in his 3 seasons already. Posted a career low 1.22 WHIP in 2007. By far the best player Oakland drafted in 2002.
Jeremy Bonderman- Subject of Beanes wrath for being drafted w/o his consent in 2001. Traded to the Tigers. Injured in 2007 and posting his highest WHIP and ERA in 4 years, did not have great season for the Tigers. Still posted a 3 to 1 K/BB ratio and is still a good starting pitcher that has averaged almost 3X more K's than walks in the last 3 years. Posted over 200K's in 2006.
Eric Chavez- Beane compared him favorably to the likes of Pujols. Injuries and an anemic bat have dropped this slugger from All Star caliber to platoon material. He compares more favorably to Scott Rolen than he does Pujols.
The rest of the 2002 1st round draft class.
Benjamin Fritz- 11-11 at AA with a 1.62 WHIP and a 5.67 ERA.
Jeremy Brown- spent entire season in minors at Sacramento. Posted respectable numbers of .276, 14 HR, 58 RBI, .364 OBP, .833 OPS. Now retired.
Stephen Obenchain- Did not play in 2007.
Mark Teahen- Traded to the Royals. In 2007 had a big power swoon as his HR's dropped from 18 to 7 and he lost 111 points of slugging. Not another Jason Giambi there.
After 5 years you would have thought this great draft class that the author expounds upon would now be yielding fruit. And it's true, 2 bonafide ML players came out of that draft but they missed on 5 other players for a success rate of 28.5%. Not much better than guessing as Beane called it. Players they could of had, Cole Hamels #17, Matt Cain #25 and Jeff Franceour #23. Only 1 player is still actually playing for the A's.
There also is a section where Ron Washington and Thad Bosley lie (saying they had like 80 in a season when they had 10) about the amount of SB's they had in one season and Lewis never even looked it up which is pretty sloppy (I think it was an inside joke on Lewis who never caught on). >>
Very impressive and well thought out insight, Morgoth.
Thank you for sharing.
John McCurdy- Did not play in 2007. Hit .274 with 12 HRs and 57 RBI's in 361 ABs in 2006. Definately not the on base/patient hitter the A's were looking for. He has a career .302 OBP and a 4 to 1 K/BB ratio. In 2004 he walked 18 times to 115 Ks. He improved in 2006 to 17 walks against 79Ks.
I think Beane's system maybe gave him an edge at one time. His draft's haven't been outstanding compared to other teams not using his system. By ignoring HS players completely he has taken alot of potential talent out of his system IMO. Look if drafting college guys is only succesfull 10 - 30% of the time anyway what do you have to lose drafting a HS player with huge upside potential?
His system is much better at identifying current players on other teams or in the minors that are undervalued. I think his reputation has caught up with him and now can't "dupe" GM's anymore.
The book also talks about how smart the A's were to draft Barry Zito over Ben Sheets but barring health issues, Sheets has been statistically better the last 3 years than Zito. Zito in 3 out of the last 4 years has a WHIP over 1.35 while Sheets' hightst WHIP over the last 5 has been 1.25 with one year sub 1.00. I think most GM's would take a healthy Sheets over a healthy Zito at this point.
They passed on Hammels, Franceour and Cain for Swisher. So far, Swisher has provided more value than each of them in the bigs. It will be a Hammels/Swisher race from here on out. Knowing the arm problems, I would put my money on Swisher. Then they took Blanton before Cain. That one will turn out to be a mistake, no doubt. Like I said above, it is a lot of dart throwing!
After that, they took those other guys who didn't make it...but how many picked after them(by other teams) made it as well?
Some of those guys that they picked had arm problems, and thus were derailed too.
They also took Jonathan Papelbon in the 40th round that year. He didn't sign, and was drafted again the next year.
Barry Zito clearly has had a better career than Sheets(not even considering health). He has him in ERA+, and his Runs saved is much higher.
His being stubborn on only taking college guys may have cost him here or there, I agree. But I am not sure how anybody can deny the man the most proper due. Look at what he has done with that puny payroll and his hands tied. Just look at the guys they had to let go due to financial reasons! Just imagine being able to keep that core, and then adding the Dan Haren's of the world that he did add.
The funny thing is, the first time I heard Billy Beane's name mentioned years back...I thought, is that the gay player that came out of the closet! LOL!!
On the points about Sheets vs. Zito, I was refering to the last 3 to 4 years that Sheets has become a better player. Zito has started to regress and hitters have started to hit off him at a much higher clip now. I still think that if healthy most GM's pick Sheets over Zito right now. Zito has had a better career to this point I agree.
He will be 27 this season. He showed more eye improvement last year. In 2006 he had 97 walks and 152 strikeouts. In 2007 he had 100 walks and 131 strikeouts.
He is now entering his prime power years. I would not be surprised at all to see a string of 30 HR seasons from him, coupled with a near .400 OB%. That is pretty good. If he does that while playing CF, then it is outstanding.
If you like to play fantasy ball, he is a good candidate for value. Let everyone look at last year's numbers, disregard the continued hidden growth he is showing, and then disregard the park change...then grab him!
Swisher is looking more average to below average every day and every stat but HRs has dropped for him this year.
Blanton now gone from the A's so no players left in the MLs from this draft with the A's. Blanton becoming very mediocre year as well. He might be hurt as a big increase WHIP and decrease in K's.
Swisher still retained a good eye, and his bb/k rate is still there, as well as was his HR rate. I suspect some bad luck with the low batting average(and subsequent OB%).
His previous two years of OPS were .865 and .836, which is good. I don't see how that is average. He dipped to .759 this year.
Do you care to wager that his OPS next year will be closer to .850 than it will be to .759?
You clearly stated that Zito has had a better career than Sheets, that should include his current stats correct as they are part of his career? So do you still stand by that evaluation or is Sheets better now?
It just shows that this draft was a total flop compared to the hype it received by the book. There should be another version written in 2012 about how bad it turned out and drafting HS players may not be that bad of an idea.
The solution is simple, do you care to wager that Swisher will be closer to .850 next year or the .759?
I stated Zito has had the better career when this thread was posted, and you agreed. No, I don't think Zito will end up better being that he lost his fastball. Stuff like that(a sudden drop in velocity) changes outlooks, and that is prettty unpredictable. Besides, Beane didn't get any of the Zito badness anyway. So in a way, that actually makes it even more the wise that he made that move.
ANY draft is a crapshoot. All you have to do is reprint that on the title of a book, and you have the world's shortest book that gets to the point. This isn't some sort of revelation.
Beane's stuff on drafting didn't work out the way he wanted, but I will say that what he has done with Oakland considering his restraints, has done a better job than pretty much any other GM in baseball.
The thing is, you are acting as if you 'got me' on a prediction. Hey, if I make a prediction that comes out wrong, I take them in stride...that is part of the game. The good thing is, the good outweighs the bad on that ledger for me.
I didn't predict anything in regard to Zito. I did on Swisher, and I was off for this season...though he will end up close to the 30 HR I said. I say he will bounce back OPS wise next season. You can win a few bucks if you disagree.