Billy Beane's New Moneyball strategy

[mikegallo]

It's clear to me that Beane has seen the future of how to rebuild a club by using what we all know to be the most valuable assets in the game YOUNG PITCHING...

If you look at how he developed this young pitching the last few years its clear he decided to build a Defensive club with great D and any offense was a plus.

He basically created his own two Erik Bedard's and got a ransom back....I think it is clear looking at the A's teams the last couple years this was his plan all along.

Using a great D team and his pitchers ballpark he realized he could completely rebuild his farm system in just a few weeks and indeed he has if you look at his trades with the D backs and Nats.

Beane shows us that once again he is far and away more creative then our own team and while it is yet to be seen if the rebuild will suceed he has a great start.

So now he has his own prospects plus the guys he got in trading these two pitchers (who most likely are not as good as there years seemed behind a really good D and pitchers park), plus all the high picks hes gonna get while he is waiting for his prospects to develop.

This plan, which was a couple years in the making, will def take longer than traditional rebuilds but has such a greater chance of success because of the amount of talent he will have coming through plus it will be timed so much better with prospects coming around the same time.

Billy is setting his team up for sustained Rays like success which he could only dream that our team would have the vision and genius to undertake.

Using the most undervalued asset D he turned it into the most valued asset (young pitching) and now his team is ready to have one of the best rebuilding era's ever.

Imagine if the O's had this kind of guy with our (potential) revenue..Our 14 years of rebuilding might actually give way to sustained success.

[Lucky Jim]

It's clear to me that Beane has seen the future of how to rebuild a club by using what we all know to be the most valuable assets in the game YOUNG PITCHING...

If you look at how he developed this young pitching the last few years its clear he decided to build a Defensive club with great D and any offense was a plus.

He basically created his own two Erik Bedard's and got a ransom back....I think it is clear looking at the A's teams the last couple years this was his plan all along.

Using a great D team and his pitchers ballpark he realized he could completely rebuild his farm system in just a few weeks and indeed he has if you look at his trades with the D backs and Nats.

Beane shows us that once again he is far and away more creative then our own team and while it is yet to be seen if the rebuild will suceed he has a great start.

So now he has his own prospects plus the guys he got in trading these two pitchers (who most likely are not as good as there years seemed behind a really good D and pitchers park), plus all the high picks hes gonna get while he is waiting for his prospects to develop.

This plan, which was a couple years in the making, will def take longer than traditional rebuilds but has such a greater chance of success because of the amount of talent he will have coming through plus it will be timed so much better with prospects coming around the same time.

Billy is setting his team up for sustained Rays like success which he could only dream that our team would have the vision and genius to undertake.

Using the most undervalued asset D he turned it into the most valued asset (young pitching) and now his team is ready to have one of the best rebuilding era's ever.

Imagine if the O's had this kind of guy with our (potential) revenue..Our 14 years of rebuilding might actually give way to sustained success.

I'm not following the "Moneyball" aspect - is there a market inefficiency at work here somewhere?

[TakebackOPACY]

It's clear to me that Beane has seen the future of how to rebuild a club by using what we all know to be the most valuable assets in the game YOUNG PITCHING...

If you look at how he developed this young pitching the last few years its clear he decided to build a Defensive club with great D and any offense was a plus.

He basically created his own two Erik Bedard's and got a ransom back....I think it is clear looking at the A's teams the last couple years this was his plan all along.

Using a great D team and his pitchers ballpark he realized he could completely rebuild his farm system in just a few weeks and indeed he has if you look at his trades with the D backs and Nats.

Beane shows us that once again he is far and away more creative then our own team and while it is yet to be seen if the rebuild will suceed he has a great start.

So now he has his own prospects plus the guys he got in trading these two pitchers (who most likely are not as good as there years seemed behind a really good D and pitchers park), plus all the high picks hes gonna get while he is waiting for his prospects to develop.

This plan, which was a couple years in the making, will def take longer than traditional rebuilds but has such a greater chance of success because of the amount of talent he will have coming through plus it will be timed so much better with prospects coming around the same time.

Billy is setting his team up for sustained Rays like success which he could only dream that our team would have the vision and genius to undertake.

Using the most undervalued asset D he turned it into the most valued asset (young pitching) and now his team is ready to have one of the best rebuilding era's ever.

Imagine if the O's had this kind of guy with our (potential) revenue..Our 14 years of rebuilding might actually give way to sustained success.

The first part that I bolded, I agree with very strongly. The rest is quite assumptious. For starters, you're assuming that this plan will work. Secondly, you're assuming that Beane is a genius mastermind. Thirdly, you're assuming that his plan wasn't to try to win with those players but was always to lose despite their great play and then trade them. Some of his other past transactions say differently.

I agree that Beane is a very smart and creative guy. But to me that means that he didn't limit himself to one exact plan and he's prepared. And let's face it; he's made plenty of bad moves too.

[Slappy]

The Beane worship is so overdone, in my opinion. He's never won a pennant, let alone a WS. Oakland has been below .500 4 of the past 5 years, and the 5th was an 81-81 finish. His OBP strategies were long espoused by his predecessor, Sandy Alderson. His original strategies on defense were just dead wrong.

Don't get me wrong, he deserves credit for helping bring statistical analysis to the forefront. I just don't think everything he touches turns to gold like some people believe.

[mikegallo]

The inefficiency is team Defense which (he used to develop his trade pieces) turned into the most valuable thing in baseball young pitching,,,,Or you could look at it as the inefficiency being typical rebuilds which rarely work versus this planned rebuild in which he developed tremndous assets then used them to facilitate his rebuild.

[Frobby]

The Beane worship is so overdone, in my opinion. He's never won a pennant, let alone a WS. Oakland has been below .500 4 of the past 5 years, and the 5th was an 81-81 finish. His OBP strategies were long espoused by his predecessor, Sandy Alderson. His original strategies on defense were just dead wrong.

Don't get me wrong, he deserves credit for helping bring statistical analysis to the forefront. I just don't think everything he touches turns to gold like some people believe.

I agree with you here. One thing I will say for Beane is that he doesn't hang on to guys for too long when his team isn't good. He's not afraid to get worse in the short run in order to have a better shot in the longer term. But he's no magician, and he really has his work cut out for him with the way that Texas and the Angels are spending now.

[mikegallo]

The first part that I bolded, I agree with very strongly. The rest is quite assumptious. For starters, you're assuming that this plan will work. Secondly, you're assuming that Beane is a genius mastermind. Thirdly, you're assuming that his plan wasn't to try to win with those players but was always to lose despite their great play and then trade them. Some of his other past transactions say differently.

I agree that Beane is a very smart and creative guy. But to me that means that he didn't limit himself to one exact plan and he's prepared. And let's face it; he's made plenty of bad moves too.

I never assumed the rebuild will work read the rest of the sentence you bolded which I say if the rebuild works.....And of course he was trying to win with theses players but he saw he needed much more so went with plan B trade thoses players.

Basically he used an undervauled asset (D) and used it to turn into the most sought asset in the game(young pitching), then saw that his teams hill to contention is even more steep for so went to plan b use these huge assets to jump start a new rebuild.

I just wish anyone in our front office could show any sort of breakthrough in how they build there club, which is something Beana seems to do every few years.

[ScottP]

I agree with you here. One thing I will say for Beane is that he doesn't hang on to guys for too long when his team isn't good. He's not afraid to get worse in the short run in order to have a better shot in the longer term. But he's no magician, and he really has his work cut out for him with the way that Texas and the Angels are spending now.

With the addition of an extra Wild Card team, someone with 87-90 wins could make the playoffs; he may be shooting for that since he can't outspend TX and LAA of A.

[Lucky Jim]

The inefficiency is team Defense which (he used to develop his trade pieces) turned into the most valuable thing in baseball young pitching,,,,Or you could look at it as the inefficiency being typical rebuilds which rarely work versus this planned rebuild in which he developed tremndous assets then used them to facilitate his rebuild.

I'm still not following. What metric are you using to establish that they had great team defense? This suggests that, in fact, they had more sub-par defenders than they did plus-defenders: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=&ind=0&team=10&players=0. As a team, they were -20 in UZR: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0&team=10,ts&players=0. Here, you'll see that team ERA and team FIP and xFIP are largely the same: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0&team=10,ts&players=0.

Frankly, the Rays are the team that has done the best job of what you describe and have been doing it for years. It hardly makes Beane cutting-edge.

Further, everyone in baseball knows that Oakland's home park suppresses offense. Do you really think that Beane is taking advantage of that fact - which requires you to assume that other GMs don't factor that common knowledge into their valuation? Essentially, you've assumed your conclusion and then built an argument out of it.

Is Gio a 3.60 ERA guy rather than a 3.12 guy? Possibly. But there's still a lot of value there.

[mikegallo]

The Beane worship is so overdone, in my opinion. He's never won a pennant, let alone a WS. Oakland has been below .500 4 of the past 5 years, and the 5th was an 81-81 finish. His OBP strategies were long espoused by his predecessor, Sandy Alderson. His original strategies on defense were just dead wrong.

Don't get me wrong, he deserves credit for helping bring statistical analysis to the forefront. I just don't think everything he touches turns to gold like some people believe.

Yeah but Beane has shown a constant ability to evolve, as you say his old defense policy was dead wrong and now he is one of the industry leaders in team D. He clearly is much better than anything our team has had.

[Austin]

Yeah but Beane has shown a constant ability to evolve, as you say his old defense policy was dead wrong and now he is one of the industry leaders in team D. He clearly is much better than anything our team has had.

What stats are you using to determine that Oakland is an "industry leader" in team D?

[Biff Tannen]

Which stats are we using to determine that the A's are a good defensive club?

[Lucky Jim]

I'm still not following. What metric are you using to establish that they had great team defense? This suggests that, in fact, they had more sub-par defenders than they did plus-defenders: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=&ind=0&team=10&players=0. As a team, they were -20 in UZR: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0&team=10,ts&players=0. Here, you'll see that team ERA and team FIP and xFIP are largely the same: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0&team=10,ts&players=0.

Frankly, the Rays are the team that has done the best job of what you describe and have been doing it for years. It hardly makes Beane cutting-edge.

Further, everyone in baseball knows that Oakland's home park suppresses offense. Do you really think that Beane is taking advantage of that fact - which requires you to assume that other GMs don't factor that common knowledge into their valuation? Essentially, you've assumed your conclusion and then built an argument out of it.

Is Gio a 3.60 ERA guy rather than a 3.12 guy? Possibly. But there's still a lot of value there.

What stats are you using to determine that Oakland is an "industry leader" in team D?

Which stats are we using to determine that the A's are a good defensive club?

Hey, get your own argument.

[Biff Tannen]

What stats are you using to determine that Oakland is an "industry leader" in team D?

Good one.

[mikegallo]

I'm still not following. What metric are you using to establish that they had great team defense? This suggests that, in fact, they had more sub-par defenders than they did plus-defenders: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=&ind=0&team=10&players=0. As a team, they were -20 in UZR: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2011&month=0&season1=2011&ind=0&team=10,ts&players=0. Frankly, the Rays are the team that has done the best job of what you describe and have been doing it for years. It hardly makes Beane cutting-edge.

Further, everyone in baseball knows that Oakland's home park suppresses offense. Do you really think that Beane is taking advantage of that fact - which requires you to assume that other GMs don't factor that common knowledge into their valuation? Essentially, you've assumed your conclusion and then built an argument out of it.

Is Gio a 3.60 ERA guy rather than a 3.12 guy? Possibly. But there's still a lot of value there.

I really would take those one year numbers with a grain of salt alot of guys on that roster are known for there D and the year before Oakland by the numbers had really good team D for instance Coco Crisp has a negative UZR -5 he has been known as a really good Defensive guy throughtout his career,

While a guy like KK is only a 1.2 UZR while hes supposed to be an all glove guy....Like keith law an others say many times a public avalible d stat has almost no value at all

Look at alot of those guys who got playing times career stats and alot are plus to plus plus defenders as anyone would say SSS issues with D stats over one year cna drmatically effect how you look at a guy.