Beane, Moneyball, Evidence, Faith, and Folklore

[sfer]

Oakland tops the AL West, although it's close, again. Beane is in the NY Times again today, and the same Moneyball discussions are brought up again.

At one point, even taking into account postseason failure, can one point to Beane and Oakland and state, with some reasonable level of confidence, that he's probably on to something? When do the medium to longish term results of the past 5 or so years in Oakland become compelling enough to overturn a century of baseball lore and belief?

[mikeyvegas]

Moneyball aside, it always helps when you can throw Zito, Mulder, and Hudson at opposing hitters.

[bugstud]

As I've said before, I want to see him with a real payroll and see what happens. That being said, his disicples haven't set the world on fire as of yet, so give it another 2-3 and if toronto and LA are also winning, we'll have some converts.

[ThaSaltCracka]

he's found a way for his team to make the playoffs with consistency. However, his teams have also lost in the playoffs consistently.

Toronto is a long way from doing anything.

[nolanfan34]

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Toronto is a long way from doing anything.

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Toronto has a pretty dang good farm system, if they can avoid pitcher injuries they'll be good sooner than you think. Of course they'll still be in the AL East, so they may never get close to the playoffs regardless of how good they are.

[stoxtrader]

[ QUOTE ]
Moneyball aside, it always helps when you can throw Zito, Mulder, and Hudson at opposing hitters.

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I second this, its unclear how much of oaklands success should be attributed to beane's maneuvers vs. getting lucky? with 3 stud arms.

[andyfox]

L.A. is winning; so is Boston.

I'm reading a new book about the history of baseball statistics called "The Numbers Game" by Alan Schwartz. He points out that the original box scores only listed runs and outs. We've come full circle, I guess, with Bill James's runs created/27 outs. Make sense: you get only 27 outs and you win games by scoring more runs than the other team.

[andyfox]

Toronto is fighting New York and Boston; both have spent tons of money which Toronto doesn't have.

On base percentage is important; so is $.

[sfer]

All 3 have played their entire major league careers with Oakland, I believe. I don't know if they were drafted by Beane or traded for, but does it matter the difference? Maybe he was lucky, but having 3 great young arms could have been his savvy as well, no?

[bosoxfan]

[ QUOTE ]
Moneyball aside, it always helps when you can throw Zito, Mulder, and Hudson at opposing hitters.


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That's the part that baffles me. How you can have those 3 and not be able to win a 5 game series.