Yeah, you can't argue with the results for the price.

He's in the scouting business. He sees the success that other teams using stats analysis are having, and he's threatened.

Yikes. You realize those electrons are lost forever, as are the two minutes I wasted reading that piece.

Was this supposed to be funny? Insightful? I honestly can't judge it because I have no idea what it was trying to accomplish.

I'm not sure about the first part (who's services?) but as to the 2nd part - the A's/Billy Beane are definitely over-rated and it is nice to see someone point that out rather than fawn over them. And the idea of "lots of wins for the money" is underwhelming - it is basically saying playoff appearances are nice but the A's have no hope or realistic expectation of winning the WS. I don't see how that is commendable.

Phil,

The guy who writes that blog sells a scouting service to MLB teams. His service also sold the Yankees on Kei Igawa, so he clearly knows the game.

To your second comment, if you were a fan of a small market team would you rather Billy Beane lead them to the playoffs consistently or have guys like Littlefield ending your season in April? Billy Beane is not overrated at all and is a proven success. Is Schuerholz a bad GM because he has countless postseason failures on his resume?

Face it, you're a moron if you believe what you just wrote.

"The guy who writes that blog sells a scouting service to MLB teams. His service also sold the Yankees on Kei Igawa, so he clearly knows the game."

And then he went and wrote an entry criticizing the Yankees for paying for Igawa saying scouts were telling them that Igawa wouldn't succeed in America. Until Bill Madden called him out on it.

All I can say is that having lived in Kansas City for the last eight years.. I would have loved to have had the same success as the A's/Beane have had since 1999. Is it the WS? Obviously not, but to have a team in contention every year would be awesome!

I am hopeful of Dayton Moore's performance since he does not put up with mediocrity regardless of salary. Previous GMs & Managers would still be playing Angel Berroa today..

Adam -

I have no problem with being a moron - accepting a situation makes it easier to deal with than denying it (take note Sen Craig).

That being said, your reasoning about my moron-ness is moronic. Billy Beane is a good GM - no one would deny that - but he is over-rated. Pure chance puts the A's in the playoffs twice in eight years (1 out of 4 each year). So 5 is a nice improvement, but then his teams go 1-for-6 in playoff series. That tells me the A's field decent teams in a weak division. I'm not a fan of a small market team so because BB is better than other small market GMs doesn't mean much to me. Your beef seems to be with the inherently unfair structure of MLB. You need a decent payroll to win consistently. The BB story has not proven otherwise. Lets put the A's in the AL East and see how many post-seasons they make.

Phil - if you flip a coin 6 times, sometimes you're just going to get heads once. It doesn't mean the coin can't flip heads "when it counts". I'd suggest you put some time into learning about statistics - it will make it easier to discuss things related to statistics, like Beane's A's. And once you do this, you'll likely realize that 162 games is a far, far better indicator of team strength than a 3 to 7 game series will ever be.

As a Sox fan, I can't help but think back to the 2003 postseason series the Sox had against the A's. The ridiculous baserunning/mental decisions that the A's made... Tim Hudson hurting himself in a freaking bar fight, and consequently sucking in his start... prime examples of the randomness of the postseason. Even the Royals beat the Yankees 3 out of 5 times every few years.

Wow. What an embarrassment. It speaks poorly of their baseball analysis that they can't count wins since 2000 or something like that. Beane has been extremely successful. 2007 sucked, but that's life in baseball.

In the 2003 playoff opener A's C Ramon Hernandez pulled off a wonderful game ending surprise bunt & A's blasted T. Wakefield in 2nd game. That isn't bad baseball. If you want to pick A's all-time bad playoff play, pick on the immortal Jeremy Giambi not sliding at home and costing the A's the game while making an out of position D. Jeter into a hero. Epstein the psuedo-genius took on that Giambi and let useful, popular Brian Daubach walk, just like Epstein plays musical chairs with SS 4 years in a row, you just don't keep changing the most important position player like that and build a cohesive team. As a long time Sox fan, I'll take Beane, who played the game, over Epstein any time.

Getting into the playoffs isn't so hard, especially from a four team division but getting to the WS or winning it is hard and the A's do the first but not the second. Or is that a stat A's fans don't like? Mike, poor baserunning and mental errors are "part of the randomness of the postseason"??? I didn't realize baserunning was a random event. I thought it was a skill. And as for regular season wins, again, they are nice so far as they get you to the playoffs. I think your boyfriend is a clever GM but I don't buy the Moneyball, He's-a-Genius hype.

What surprised me the most about those comments was the level of venom on all sides. The level of analysis just wasnt high enough to justify calling the other side morons, or various other things.

I've always liked Beane. After reading the book, and comments on it, I thought his approach was to go after what was undervalued. I liked that it appears that he tries different things. After years of Suffering with the likes of Sal Bando and Bud Selig here in Milwaukee, I can appreciate not hearing the same tired old adages. The other side often seems to proclaim that he's no genius. Okay. But, there are enough GMs and managers out there that don't seem to be able to grow past the set of preconceptions they came to the job with. (Again, I'm still not over Wendy Selig and the
rest of the family) Beane just seems to be a cut above that.

Lastly, I thought I'd bring up the criticism the Beane disciple that GM'd the Dodgers endured (Sorry, his name escapes me) The trade involving
Penny and LoDuca was blasted for destroying team
chemistry. After that GM was replaced, many of
the mainstream sites predicted mcuh better things
for the Dodgers. Where are they now? Their established old names are breaking down. And,
Penny has been their best pitcher this year.
Somehow, I'm sure that the same people who predicted the Dodgers would be better of without, was it Paul Podesta?.....would proclaim the A's better off after Beane. I'm not so sure they'd be right.

cbuster

Indeed, CBuster, it was De Podesta.