Open Post To My Guy Mike

One of the joys or writing this blog is to get reactions like the one I received from my friend Mike, who is a very knowledgeable and impassioned sports fan. It's guys like him and Rossi, that will go tooth and nail with anyone when they think they're right, and I'm more than happy to accommodate either one of them when they feel the need to come at The Beard. So a big "Keep up the great work guys!" to not only Mike and Rossi, but to Joe, Steven, Thomas and the rest of you dear readers as well! You make Whitey Guccione a fun place to be!

With all that said, I'd like to post a rebuttal to Mike's "Moneyball" comments, but since I don't think I'll have enough room in the comments section, I'll just take a whole post instead since Mike provided a whole lot to chew on, and I'll need to systematically go through certain excerpts.

1. "The job of a GM is to get the team in that position in the first place.": No, the job of a GM is to build a team that wins the World Series, period. GM's have no other expectations whatsoever. Everything they do is designed to achieve the goal of a World Championship. Any GM that's happy or satisfied with anything less than that, will be let go/terminated by any self-respecting organization, and being happy with just going to the playoffs from a fan perspective is nothing but Loser Talk, plain and simple. You can ask your heroes Boers & Bernstein if you don't believe me.

2. "Hudson, Mulder, and Zito were part of Beane's pitching evaluation." : That's perfectly fine, but I would ask you this. Are you aware of where Hudson, Mulder, and Zito went in their respective drafts? Don't worry I'll spare you having to look it up. Hudson was drafted in the 6th round from some small, no-name school called AUBURN. Hudson represents the lowest picked of the three. Mark Mulder was taken #2 overall in the 1998 Draft...number 2. Barry Zito was selected #9 overall in the 1999 Draft. So what's more believable? That Billy Beane scoured the earth using every available resource he had to find these three pitchers that nobody had ever heard of and they turned out to be 3 of the best pitchers in the league because Beane believed in them, or that those 3 were very well known and highly evaluated pitchers going into their respective drafts and the A's were just plain lucky enough to be in position to draft them? I think the latter part is more accurate, so let's not act like Billy Beane's genius evaluation skills were responsible for their success when it's more likely they were going to be successful no matter what.

3. "It's unfair to judge Beane's efforts based on the playoffs. He admits his system applies only to the regular season where the sample size is large enough to evaluate what's going on." : OK, well what's been the problem lately then? I hate to bring this to your attention but his wonderful system hasn't worked too well. In the past three seasons since their last playoff appearance they've finished at least 10 games under .500 each season, and the best part is, their pitching has been pretty good the entire time. Check out this breakdown:

2007 A's AL Rankings : Team ERA (6th out of 14); Team Runs Scored Per Game (11th out of 14)
2008 A's AL Rankings : Team ERA (5th out of 14); Team Runs Scored Per Game (14th out of 14)
2009 A's AL Rankings : Team ERA (3rd out of 14); Team Runs Scored Per Game (9th out of 14)
2010 A's AL Rankings : Team ERA (2nd out of 14); Teams Runs Scored Per Game (11th out of 14)

So while they may not have The Big 3 anymore, it's not like they haven't gotten any solid pitching since they've finished in the top half of the American League in Team ERA the entire time, wouldn't you agree? Assuming you do, you also have to concede that the A's Offense has been terrible the past 3-4 seasons. When you have a book written about how brilliant you are for valuing On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage above all other offensive metrics, and your team that YOU put together still finish in the bottom half - including a last in the league ranking one season - in Runs Scored Per Game, that is a HUGE Indictment of your ability and effectiveness as a General Manager. Or is the sample size not big enough?

In closing Mike, I would also ask you these questions. I had heard from an anonymous source, that you place a tremendous over-emphasis on regular season win totals in baseball. Is this true? If so I would like to ask you where the 1993 San Francisco Giants rank in your "greatest baseball teams of all time"? That team won 103 games and didn't make the playoffs. Since I'm one of these people that believes Championships are the best way to rank the greatest teams of all time, the 93 Giants don't really come up much in that conversation, but I'm curious to see if they come up in your conversations?

I can't wait for your comments buddy!

Why? (Part II)

As I was driving south on I-880 on my way to work today, I noticed a funny thing at the Oakland Alameda-Coliseum. The tarp covering the top rows of seats was missing. This is unusual during baseball season, and since there's no Raider preseason game happening anytime soon, it struck me as odd for a moment. Then I suddenly realized why the tarps are off....today was the first day of principle photography for the movie adaptation of Moneyball.

The other thing that struck me as odd, is that after being initially shelved, the Moneyball Project was re-lit with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin taking over. For the life of me, I still can't figure out why this movie is being made, much less which casting director is high off their ass for casting Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Art Howe? For those who never got around to reading the book, the best way to succinctly summarize it is that the Oakland A's were the first team to use sabermetrics in their approach to fielding a winning team NOT because they WANTED to, but because they were forced to because they don't have nearly the budget, fan attendance, or television/radio deals the Major Market teams have.

The book is a good read overall, if not an arrogant read. It's written by a very smug, know-it-all guy in Michael Lewis who's a great writer, just ask him and he'll tell you. Lewis also writes in a way that almost seems like lecturing the reader at certain parts. In a way he was perfect for writing about Billy Beane, as Beane is very much like Lewis in that he also believes he has a better pot to piss in.

Both Beane's and Lewis' arrogance and perpetual self-congratualtions would be fine though if there wasn't one little flaw...it didn't work. The Oakland A's have won exactly ONE playoff series in 11 years that they've been implementing sabermetrics in their organizational philiosophy. They claim that no matter what you try to do as an organization the playoffs are a "crapshoot". Funny how the Yankees don't really believe that, but OK. The other problem Moneyball has, is the Minnesota Twins. Up until recently, the Twins didn't have any damn money either. Rather than dive in with both feet into the Sabermetrics pool, the Twins actually did something crazy and built a farm system that was designed to develop young players that are very skilled defensively to come in to replace any superstars they developed once they left for greener pastures financially (read Torii Hunter and Johan Santana). The Twins also managed to beat those genius Oakland A's in the 2002 playoffs.

I could go on and on about why I don't think Moneyball is the End All Be All, but that's not the point. The point is, what is this movie going to be about? If it's about the role Sabermetrics played in getting baseball fans to rethink and re-evaluate players and teams, fine. I actually agree with that, and have come to appreciate baseball more as a result of the advanced stats, but I'm not sure that really translates to the big screen though? If it's about the genius and courage of Billy Beane, then the movie is going to have a VERY unhappy ending. If it's about charismatic characters, then they are going to have to take a lot of liberties with the truth because 90% of the people involved are about as interesting and dynamic as a block of cheese.

Which leads me to my original question, why is this movie being made? More importantly, who is it being made for? A's fans? I'm not sure they'll be too thrilled about this trip down memory lane. Baseball fans? Well....OK I guess but again there's that whole near ZERO playoff success thing. See where I'm going with this?

Obviously Stephen Soderbergh figured out this movie is destined to be a box office turd. Aaron Sorkin has done some good work in the past, but even he will be faced with a challenge that nobody seems to be able to answer:

How was Moneyball something more than just "Hudson, Mulder, and Zito"?