Grade A's
If you're a baseball fan, you have to give a serious look at what's going on with the Oakland A's out West again...
With their 12-3 win yesterday, the A's popped bubbly in the locker room yesterday. Why should this year's team be regarded as special?...Because Billy Beane and the A's management team have done an incredible job with rebuilding their club over the past two seasons.
Yeah, yeah...yeah...Since the release of Michael Lewis's 'Moneyball', every baseball fanatic has been glaring at the feats of the book's now legendary characters in order to wreak havoc on Lewis' theories and the depiction of Beane as an innovator.
A lot of baseball snobs sneer at the productivity of depicted draftees, Jeremy Brown and Nick Swisher, and they claim that Beane's management philosophy is overrated.
A lot of statheads now claim 'stats, percentages, and models' win...But even they're off. Look at the dull moves of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and other squads.
They all sneered at drafting college players because they're more seasoned.
Meanwhile, every team bit on the guy's style and overspent on players with high on-base percentages and overdrafted college players.
So what does Beane do?...He switches up the game. He begins to draft guys like Hutson Street and junior college pitchers out of high school, spends dollars on chemistry guys who get walks and can throw strikes, and gambles on guys who have something to prove.
Yet again, he proves that you blend percentages and the knowledge of people's personalities to generate wins.
For the stat fanatics, what makes Beane different is that he believes success in baseball is about controlling the strike zone. Look at this one from Allen St. John's solid Wall Street Journal article last week that showed Beane's types of hitters, know how to work the strike zone. On the hitting side, the A's are currently only one of seven teams to draw 100 more walks than they've allowed.
What amazes me are the major gambles of Beane's trades. With the dumps that Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson took this past season, Beane is a master of the art of "letting go." Even though the trades of Mulder to St. Louis and Hudson to Atlanta freed up a lot of cash for signing centered around Thomas, Zito, and Chavez, they were incredibly gutsy moves that even Beane said were the hardest moves of his career. You have to give credit to his display of 'letting go', which in deal making is an art.
Don't think so...Well, it's one thing to trade numbers or sheets of paper. It's whole other ballgame when you're shuffling talent that you've been nurturing a guy since he was 18 or 21 for a period of seven to eight years. Players aren't just stock prices in a portfolio.
Now, look at his chemistry moves. He picked up a soid Dan Haren from the Mulder trade. He gambled on Frank Thomas, and look at the wonders of his play of late. Jason Kendall has been an incredible pick-up. He kept Mark Kotsay and allowed Nick Swisher to develop. Hell, this guy even calmed an injured Milton Bradley down enough to contribute.
And this year's team has accomplished all of this their second half climb with key injuries to Bobby Crosby, Huston Street, and Rich Harden...Incredible.
Beane bought and traded for talent on the cheap. He emphasized defense and picking up guys who have something to prove. More importantly, he built a team that has not only wins, but also has cohesion in the locker room.
Major kudos to the A's this year. I'm pulling for this crew in Oakland...
I only wish that I could be there sitting in the Uecker seats in Oakland throughout the month of October. Damn that Oakland fall sunset is sweet...
Wonderball in Alameda,
IronDog
With their 12-3 win yesterday, the A's popped bubbly in the locker room yesterday. Why should this year's team be regarded as special?...Because Billy Beane and the A's management team have done an incredible job with rebuilding their club over the past two seasons.
Yeah, yeah...yeah...Since the release of Michael Lewis's 'Moneyball', every baseball fanatic has been glaring at the feats of the book's now legendary characters in order to wreak havoc on Lewis' theories and the depiction of Beane as an innovator.
A lot of baseball snobs sneer at the productivity of depicted draftees, Jeremy Brown and Nick Swisher, and they claim that Beane's management philosophy is overrated.
A lot of statheads now claim 'stats, percentages, and models' win...But even they're off. Look at the dull moves of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and other squads.
They all sneered at drafting college players because they're more seasoned.
Meanwhile, every team bit on the guy's style and overspent on players with high on-base percentages and overdrafted college players.
So what does Beane do?...He switches up the game. He begins to draft guys like Hutson Street and junior college pitchers out of high school, spends dollars on chemistry guys who get walks and can throw strikes, and gambles on guys who have something to prove.
Yet again, he proves that you blend percentages and the knowledge of people's personalities to generate wins.
For the stat fanatics, what makes Beane different is that he believes success in baseball is about controlling the strike zone. Look at this one from Allen St. John's solid Wall Street Journal article last week that showed Beane's types of hitters, know how to work the strike zone. On the hitting side, the A's are currently only one of seven teams to draw 100 more walks than they've allowed.
What amazes me are the major gambles of Beane's trades. With the dumps that Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson took this past season, Beane is a master of the art of "letting go." Even though the trades of Mulder to St. Louis and Hudson to Atlanta freed up a lot of cash for signing centered around Thomas, Zito, and Chavez, they were incredibly gutsy moves that even Beane said were the hardest moves of his career. You have to give credit to his display of 'letting go', which in deal making is an art.
Don't think so...Well, it's one thing to trade numbers or sheets of paper. It's whole other ballgame when you're shuffling talent that you've been nurturing a guy since he was 18 or 21 for a period of seven to eight years. Players aren't just stock prices in a portfolio.
Now, look at his chemistry moves. He picked up a soid Dan Haren from the Mulder trade. He gambled on Frank Thomas, and look at the wonders of his play of late. Jason Kendall has been an incredible pick-up. He kept Mark Kotsay and allowed Nick Swisher to develop. Hell, this guy even calmed an injured Milton Bradley down enough to contribute.
And this year's team has accomplished all of this their second half climb with key injuries to Bobby Crosby, Huston Street, and Rich Harden...Incredible.
Beane bought and traded for talent on the cheap. He emphasized defense and picking up guys who have something to prove. More importantly, he built a team that has not only wins, but also has cohesion in the locker room.
Major kudos to the A's this year. I'm pulling for this crew in Oakland...
I only wish that I could be there sitting in the Uecker seats in Oakland throughout the month of October. Damn that Oakland fall sunset is sweet...
Wonderball in Alameda,
IronDog
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