Mr. Yoder II inspired me to take an in-depth, out of the box view at sports with his look at why the Cleveland Cavaliers are better off without LeBron James. For my part, I'll take on one of the golden calves of professional sports - Moneyball. For all of the praise of this new age of baseball thinking, is it worth its weight in gold? Or does a critically acclaimed GM and a best selling book hide the true facts about the A's and Moneyball?
The big news out of baseball today is the trade of Matt Holliday from Oakland to St. Louis for three prospects. While most of the focus will be on the Cardinals successfully finding a guy to protect Albert Pujols in the lineup and make them an NL pennant contender, let's take a look at the flip side of this trade and view it from the Oakland A's perspective.
Moneyball is broke.
Now, before all of the stat-crazed, VORP loving, Bill James worshipping, more sophisticated baseball fans of today start writing in the hate mail from their mother's basements (ok the mother's basements joke is just too easy, I apologize), lets analyze the facts. The new wave of baseball thinking which focuses on higher on base percentages, and enough new stat acronyms to make the IRS jealous might be trendy and progressive, but what has it produced on the field for the team that made it so popular?
This is not a discussion about the viability of "Moneyball principles" and teams like Boston who have succeeded while applying scary new ideas like Sabermetrics. I don't recall being able to shell out $50 million dollars to TALK to Dice-K as a "Moneyball principle." I'm not writing this on my typewriter from the Baseball Old School, nor am I a curmudgeon afraid of change. This needs to be a discussion about the man who started a baseball phenomenon - Billy Beane (right), and an honest assessment of his results.
The book Moneyball is a detailed view of how a team with an inferior payroll (Oakland) can compete with teams that are able to outspend them to a much greater degree. Of course, Beane and the A's experienced a good deal of success from 2000-2006 winning 3 AL West titles and making 4 playoff appearances. But, with all of the praise that the A's and Moneyball have received over the years how many championships have the A's won?
None.
How many World Series have the A's appeared in?
None.
How many playoff series have the A's managed to win in Beane's tenure?
One.
Compare this record to less fancied, low payroll teams who have accomplished more than Beane's Athletics. Franchises like Florida, Colorado, Houston, and Tampa Bay have all either won a World Series, or a league pennant, without having to write the book on Moneyball, something the A's have not accomplished.
Additionally, since 2007 the A's haven't exactly been lighting up the American League. They had almost identical records of 76-86 and 75-86 (don't know where that 162nd game went) the last two years. This year, the A's sit in the cellar of the AL West at 40-56, 16 games out of first place. These three seasons have come right after the A's most successful season when they were swept in the 2006 ALCS by the Detroit Tigers.
Moneyball has brought the Oakland A's and Billy Beane a lot of things. Publicity, notoriety, a model for other franchises, the respect of sabermetricians and progressive baseball minds, and even a possible movie with Brad Pitt starring as Billy Beane are just a few. (By the way, how is the A's story compelling? Scrappy underdog franchise fights for their livelihood against Evil Empire and gets swept by the above average Tigers? Heroic GM continually trades his best players to avoid slipping beneath mediocrity? Are these compelling?! It's going to take a lot of Hollywood's creativity to craft a riveting motion picture out of the Moneyball A's.)
Anyways, outside of all of these accomplishments and plaudits Beane has received there is one thing that Moneyball hasn't brought the A's.
A championship.
In Part II we'll analyze the actual transactions that Billy Beane has made over the years. With the A's in the midst of a 3 year slump, will the aura of Beane and moneyball ever lose its shine? When looking at the moves Beane has made over the past several seasons it's obvious that the Moneyball approach of the A's front office is going the way of the rest of the economy - in the tank.
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