Moneyball

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

I started reading this book today, and I've gotta say it's pretty damn interesting. The coolest part is reading stories about players who were just prospects at the time, but are major leaguers now.


DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN READING THIS BOOK AND DONT WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!



This is probably the most interesting story:

They talk about the 2002 MLB Amateur Draft in great detail. The A's have the 16th overall pick. People are generally sure of wh the first 15 picks will be. Billy Beane is confident that Nick Swisher, a player that Beane is absolutely obsessed with, will fall to the A's. Just then, Beane gets a call that a 17-year old outfielder from Colorado has told the Rockies, who have the 9th pick and intend to pick him, that he won't play for them unless they offer him a ridiculous $2.4 million contract. Just then, his stock drops like crazy, and he's expected to go in the late first round, maybe later.

As a result, the Rockies decide they will take pitcher Jeff Francis. The Mets, who pick one spot before the A's have the following players on ther radar: Francis, Zach Greinke, and two other pitchers who I've never heard of. The Royals are determined to take Greinke, and the Reds and Expos are determined to take the other two pitchers. So, the Mets look for their 5th choice, which is Russ Adams, who is expected to go one spot earlier to the Blue Jays. At which point the Mets are forced to settle for their 6th choice: Nick Swisher.

Billy Beane throws a fit, and scares all his scouts and assistants shitless. A few minutes later he gets a phone call from Steve Philips, Mets GM, telling him that they're taking a high school pitcher named Scott Kazmir. Beane is ecstatic because he believes taking high school players, especially pitchers, is way too risky, and his research shows that college players make it to the majors more than high school players.

So, the Mets take Kazmir (who ends up panning out, albeit for Tampa Bay instead), and the A's get their guy: Nick Swisher.

Also, one of the players that they think about taking before they get Swisher back is Prince Fielder

Pretty cool how they talk about all these guys who are in the majors now

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

Ha, the A's would have been happy to have any of the three. Swisher is having a brealout year this year, Prince Fielder isn't too bad in his early career, and Kazmir looks like he might be a star pitcher, although we all know it won't be for the D-Rays much longer.

Interesting stuff.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Actually, the part where I left off was when one of Beane's assistants said "we could use Fielder here"

Then I read on and saw that if one of the teams ahead of the Mets was "stupid enough" to take Fielder, then the Mets might get one of their guys and Swisher would fall to the A's again.

They talk about how the A's refuse to pass on people just because of how they look, and they actually encourage drafting people who might be passed over because they don't "look" like a baseball player. But Prince Fielder is one player who's actually too fat for even the A's. Pretty funny stuff.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Another cool thing was when they talk about replacing Damon and Giambi.

They figure that Damon's offensive numbers were actually average at best, and his major contribution to the team was in his center field defense. But, how do you quantify defense? All the widely used fielding statistics have major flaws. Fielding percentage, range factor, etc. All terribly inaccurate.

So, they hired a statistics company to figure out the probability of a run scoring at all possible game situations (leadoff batter, or bases loaded 1 out, or runners on first and third 2 out, etc.). So, they figured out the value of each thing you can do offensively by what it added or subtracted to the probability.

So, for instance, they figured out that the average number of runs that score in an inning is .55, but the average number of runs that score after you have a runner on second with nobody out is 1.10 runs. Thus, the value of a leadoff double is .55 runs (1.10-.55=.55)

Next, they tracked down the location and speed of all balls that were put into play for the last 10 years, and what the result of the play was (out, single, double, etc.). For instance, let's say a ball hit at a certain location at a certain speed is a double 95 percent of the time, a single 3 percent of the time, and an out 2 percent of the time. If Johnny Damon makes a leadoff putout in that situation, he's saved approximately .53 runs (95% of .55, plus 3% of however many runs a leadoff single is worth).

Then, they took all the catches that Johnny Damon made, and figured out how many runs he would save as compared to his replacement, Terrence Long. They figured out that Damon would save about 15 runs for the entire season. It doesn't seem like a big difference, but it kinda is.

There is a concept called Pythagorean W-L. Statistical analysis has shown that a team's winning perecentage can be reasonably approximated using the number of runs they've scored and how many they've allowed. A team with a lower actual W-L record has been unlucky, and a team with a higher actual W-L record has been lucky.

Oaklan'd Pythagorean W-L that year was 104-58 (they actually finished 102-60, so they were a little unlucky). By adding those 15 runs that Damon saved, the Pythagorean W-L goes down to 102-60, which means that when you add up all the little bits and pieces of runs that Damon saved, his defense and his defense won two more games than they would have won if Terrence Long (not a terrible fielder) had been playing CF

It doesn't sound like a lot, but also remember that you have to add the defensive contributions from all other players, as well as hitting and pitching contributions (so, you have to add Giambi, Tejada, and Damon's bats, as well as the pitching wins contributed from Zito, Hudson, and Mulder, which make up the bulk of the 104 wins). Plus, two wins can easily make the difference between making the playoffs and playing golf in October.

Then, they thought about offense. They realized they could never replace Giambi's bat, but then they realized that they were replaciong three players: Giambi, Damon, and Olmaedo Saenz. Those three combined to have an OBP of .364, so they needed Terrence Long and two additional hitters to have an average OBP of .364. So, they signed David Justice, who was old but still could draw walks, and Jeremy Giambi, who was a much worse hitter than his brother, but had a decent eye.

As a result, they actually had a BETTER record the following year, at 103-59 (their Pythagorean W-L was much lower...96-66.) and made the playoffs once again, without Giambi and Damon.

A little nerdy, but I find it fascinating

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

That's true and it is really interesting.. Thanks for these posts, I enjoy reading them..

However, with the Damon, Giambi, etc.. combo.. I mean there could have been other factors, like did the A's pitch better that year? I dunno.. When dealing with things like these I guess you have to consider EVERYTHING..

A's are still winning games to this day though, even with no payroll.. I'd love to see Beane in a place like Boston.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Well, their pitching was pretty much the same (only 9 more runs allowed), but they scored 80 less runs (which is why their pythagorean W-L was so much lower).

The thing is, it was basically impossible to replace Giambi and Damon, but by signing players who were undervalued (Justice's OBP in 2002 was over .370, Jeremy Giambi's was .390), they were able to once again build a playoff team.

Essentially, what they did was realize that they were replacing one GREAT hitter (Giambi), one average hitter (Damon) and one terrible hitter (Saenz, who they moved to the bench), so they averaged out to a slightly above-average hitter.

and rather than say "we have to get somebody to replace Giambi" they said "we have to get three average to above-average hitters to replace those three guys". So, even though none of those 3 guys were nearly as good as Giambi, they were all better to Saenz, so their offense didn't suffer THAT much (although it did suffer some)

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Oh, I also took a gender at what Matsui brought to the Yankees, as far as runs and Pythagorean W-L. The left fielder the year before Matsui came aboard was Rondell White. His "Runs Created" was 49. Matsui's was 96 his first year with the club (it was much higher in '04 and '05). So, they scored 48 more runs than they would have if White had played instead of Matsui.

Put that into the equation for Pyth. W-L, and Matsui's bat added 4 wins to the Yankees total.