We're still using "Moneyball" reference to bash the A's? Really?
Sep 3, 2010, 8:20 AM EDT
When you read stuff like this from the Daily News’ Bill Madden, you have to ask yourself two questions: (1) At what point will columnists stop using a now seven year-old book as a hook to write about the A’s? and (2) would Billy Beane have been better off if he had never provided
Michael Lewis the access to write “Moneyball” in the first place?
Bud Selig and the major league poobahs ought to be ashamed to be charging major league prices of $100 and stiffly upward for what amounted to be the $200 million world champions vs. Sacramento. What’s especially wrong with this picture, however, is that these are the same Oakland A’s that, in Michael Lewis’ 2003 best-selling book “Moneyball” – now being made into a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt as A’s GM Billy Beane – were depicted as the model franchise for all of baseball because of their ability to make the most out of spending the least.
Given the time that has passed — one of the main subjects of the book has retired already for cryin’ out loud — I can’t help but wonder if it’s really all that enlightening to critique the 2010 Oakland Athletics by referencing the book. And really, given that teams like the Yankees owe a lot of their recent success to co-opting and improving upon many of Beane’s ideas, it’s rather amusing to see “Moneyball” slammed over and over again like it is.
More importantly, the Athletics have played pretty respectable baseball this year. They’re certainly doing better than a lot of people thought they would before the season started. I know Madden is a New York guy and that he’s focusing on the A’s-Yankees series here, but for him to bash them as a AAA product based soley on four bad games in the Bronx seems a bit unfair.
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- Johnnyb10 - Sep 3, 2010 at 8:38 AM
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I don’t know Craig – the A’s looked pretty bad in those 4 games against the Yanks. A.J. Burnett beat them for crying out loud.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 8:42 AM
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Madden’s a tool. Move along, nothing to see here.
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- Jim Abbott's Right-Hand Man - Sep 3, 2010 at 8:46 AM
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Moneyball references aren’t, I don’t think, going anywhere.
If anything, a “Moneyball” movie is just going to provide fodder for all the writers who would have been inclined to make MORE references but didn’t want to bother reading the actual book to familiarize themselves with it (or didn’t want to have to keep explaining the material to readers who they know probably don’t ever read books). Now they–and their audience–can watch the Cliff’s Notes version of it and finally jump into the discussion, feeling more confident in their own grasp of the material and feeling more confident in their readers being up to speed. So now, all the guys who didn’t already beat the horse dead are going to finally show up to the party. Plus, you’ve got all the guys who showed up to the party years ago and never bothered leaving, and you know they’re just looking for excuses to bring it up wherever they can.
It’ll be a long time before people stop using this angle to tell stories about the A’s. When they’re good, people’ll talk about Moneyball implications. When they suck, people will talk derisively about the Moneyball implications. And ’round and ’round we go.
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- Professor Longnose - Sep 3, 2010 at 9:05 AM
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Moneyball is important. It was an important means for making the sabermetric revolution accessible to a much bigger audience. People should be referring to it for decades. What Madden and the rest of them should stop doing is misinterpreting it.
And the A’s aren’t even a small-market team these days. Until they get the San Jose thing settled, they’re a no-market team.
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- jdl1325 - Sep 3, 2010 at 9:28 AM
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I think what’s funny is that the most people took one aspect of Moneyball and made that the central idea, on-base percentage. Craig is one of the few people who correctly identifies the real premise, which is finding a value in the aspects of the game that are currently undervalued by other teams. Just look at the number of steals the current A’s have to see how far this current team is from the ‘moneyball’ teams of the early 2000′s.
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 9:35 AM
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Moneyball is to stat geeks as Dianetics is to scientologists as The Bible is to Christians. I still find it absolutely hilarious that so much was made about a system and a GM who NEVER won a World Series.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 9:52 AM
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And this is exactly what Professor Longnose was talking about when he said people should stop misinterpreting it. Moneyball is hardly a sabermetric bible (if you’re looking for that, perhaps you might be interested in The Book, or the complete works of Bill James). It’s about finding market inefficiencies and exploiting them. The Twins are a Moneyball team, and they hardly do any advanced statistical analysis at all. The White Sox are a Moneyball team, because they find cast-off pitchers they can teach a cutter to and make them useful starters. The Cardinals are a Moneyball team, because Dave Duncan reclamation projects let them exploit another type of cast-off pitcher that nobody else can. Stop pretending Moneyball was about statistical analysis.
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:00 AM
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Yes, Kevin, because God know that NOBODY was finding pitchers and teaching them cutters or exploiting cast-off pitchers before Moneyball, right? That’s just ludicrous and to give a stupid book like Moneyball credit for it is absurd. That’s my beef with the book.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:15 AM
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You miss the point, completely. Moneyball didn’t invent these things, it described it. Just like it didn’t invent the particular methods the A’s were using at the time – it just described them. You’ve got an awful lot of pent up anger towards something you have no fucking comprehension of and are probably too stupid to read even if you wanted to haul yourself out of the dark ages.
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- Dan in Katonah - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:30 AM
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Coincidentally, there is a article relevant to this discussion over on BP. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=11890
One thing to consider, that after 7 years, many teams followed the similar formula to exploit an undervalued resource (most notably the Red Sox and Rays) so the pickin’s got a little slimmer for Oakland. Also, they may have swung too far to the numbers. Plenty of room for debate and hyperbole.
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:35 AM
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I read the book. It was actually a pretty good story. I didn’t agree with most of it and don’t consider it such a huge deal. I also wish it was never written because it spawned a bunch of stat geeks, like yourself obviously, who don’t watch the games but instead refer to their Excel Spreadsheets whenever a debate comes up about who is the better player. Why is it that stat geeks always have to get so damned personal when someone has something negative to say about their bible? Geeze dude…you say I have pent up anger, then you get all personal with me? I’ll leave you alone to worship at the altar of Billy Beane and Moneyball-ology.
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- El Bravo - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:45 AM
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Don’t waste your time with Fiorentino, he’s as stubborn as he is blind to facts. Sorry but to say the book is trash, is trash. Moneyball is important but by no means the Bible to baseball. What is most annoying is people that are blindly opposed to the book b/c the A’s aren’t good or whatever other stupid reason you come up with. Describing, in detail, what some organizations have done or looking at baseball from another perspective (what the book did) is important, no? Baseball is a science (or math really) and this is simply another hypothesis based on stats (facts) and other calculable attributes. It is not 100% groundbreaking or life-changing to baseball or how players are put on teams, but it is the foundation to what a lot of organizations have embraced over the last decade. To deny that, makes you an idiot of the highest degree. I have a sneaking suspicion CF is still part of the backward crowd asking where Obama was born and preaches heliocentricism, creationism, and douchism. Waste of time presenting facts to these folks.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:48 AM
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How can you possibly have read the book and claim it spawned stat geeks – there’s no comprehension there are all. Also, nice job getting all offended that *I* made things personal, after months of putting up with your juvenile attacks here and on Poz’s blog. I typically go to a dozen games a year in three or four different cities (five this year, because I was able to hit Milwaukee) because I fucking love watching baseball. I just don’t buy into your false dichotomy that I can’t enjoy watching baseball without wanting to further understand what makes teams win. Also, nice job with the “Excel Spreadsheets” jab – I’ve never heard that one before. You aren’t angry that I made a personal attack – you’re angry that I stooped to your level. Clearly a mistake on my part.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:50 AM
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Yes, I know, but I’m totally this person: http://xkcd.com/386/
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:52 AM
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No El Bravo, I don’t care where Obama is from. He’s our President and it is what it is. What bothers me is when I am told by the stat geeks that Adrian Gonzalez had a better 4 year stretch than Ryan Howard from 2006-2009. Why? Because his “WAR” for those 4 years was 16.6 and Howard’s was only 16. LOL. That is the type of thing that drives me insane. Look, I’ve never said that sabremetrics is not important. All I say is that it is not the Gospel. And for that, I am crucified.
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:53 AM
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The only attacks I make are that you stat geeks are brutal when someone disagrees with your sabremetric point of view.. Thanks for making my point.
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- El Bravo - Sep 3, 2010 at 10:59 AM
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ahahahahahahahahahahaha
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:00 AM
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“Look, I’ve never said that sabremetrics is not important.”
Bull and shit. You deride them, and people who believe they are useful, every single chance you get.
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- El Bravo - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:05 AM
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Listen I get what you’re saying but your comments make you sound pretty much pig-headed. Yes, there’s more to baseball than the numbers like the actual game and it’s infinite intangibles. But why do you insist on splitting the baseball fan base into geeks who watch Excel and “cool” dudes like yourself that watch the actual game? No one is crucifying you, I am simply underlining your stupidity. We all love baseball, that’s why we get into arguments on this blog. We all watch baseball. We all like the stats involved and arguing which are better, worse, irrelevant, etc.. Can we at least agree on that?
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:08 AM
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Nope, never have said that. I said that when someone tells me that Adrian Gonzalez had a better 4 year stretch than Ryan Howard because his WAR was .6 higher, then somebody needs to use their eyes a little more and stop looking at the spreadsheet. That’s all.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:16 AM
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You’re so incredibly stupid, you can’t even see the derision implicit in the term “stat geek.” You have been anachronistic when people have tried to explain their point of view to you patiently, spouting off in return with “But teh RBIz!!!!1!1!”
Take, for example, the fight you started here, in the mid-50s: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/07/11/war-what-is-it-good-for-picking-all-stars/
Or here, around 60ish: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/04/28/howards-end/
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:19 AM
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El Bravo…where do you get the idea that I say I am cool and sabremetric guys are not? “Stat geek” is a term that you guys spawned to describe yourselves. I didn’t just make it up out of the thin air. And when you say this, “No one is crucifying you, I am simply underlining your stupidity.” what you are saying is that because I don’t consider the same stats important that you do, I am stupid. Whatever.
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:19 AM
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So, sabermetrics are okay only when they agree with your eyes?
For the record, anybody claiming that a .6 WAR difference over four years makes one player better than another is misinterpreting WAR. I’ve seen you making that comparison for a long time now, though. Are you sure that “stat geeks” were saying that, and that you didn’t just do a WAR-sort on Fangraphs and assume that since A-Gon was ranked slightly higher, that meant all “stat geeks” automatically felt he was clearly better than Howard over that stretch?
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- Kevin S. - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:32 AM
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If you really think “stat geeks” came up with the term “stat geek,” and not hidebound traditionalists like Murray Chass who want to cling to baseball in it’s 19th century form, I really don’t know what to say to you.
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- Chris Fiorentino - Sep 3, 2010 at 11:33 AM
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Yeah, those were two of my favorite blog “debates”. Although, with a stat geek, you can’t really have a debate. If you think RBI are even somewhat important, you are a “mindless idiot” who lives in the dark ages and probably can’t read. Ryan Howard averages 50 bombs and 143 RBI a year for 4 years, while Adrian Gonzalez averages 32 and 100 over the same span, and yet, he somehow had a better stretch? LOL. That’s where I get off the sabremetric bus.
