The 2012 Athletics Are A Great Story That Has Nothing To Do With Moneyball

Going to Michael Lewis for a quote about the 2012 Oakland Athletics because he wrote Moneyball as the author does in this NY Times article is like going to Stephen King for a quote on time travel and the Kennedy assassination because he wrote a novel about time travel and the Kennedy assassination. Lewis’s book was technically non-fiction and King’s is decidedly fiction, but the “facts” in Lewis’s book were designed to take everything Billy Beane was doing to take advantage of market inefficiencies and magnify them into an infallibility and new template that only a fool wouldn’t follow.

Lewis had an end in mind and crafted his story about the 2002 Athletics and baseball sabermetrics to meet that end. It’s not journalism, it’s creative non-fiction. Beane went along with it, became famous, and very rich. None of that validates the genesis of the puffery.

The intervening years from Moneyball’s publication to today were not kind to Beane or to the story…until 2012. The movie’s success notwithstanding, it was rife with inaccuracies, omissions, and outright fabrications such as:

• Art Howe’s casual dismissal of Beane’s demands as if it was Howe who was in charge and not Beane
• The portrayal of Jeremy Brown not as a chunky catcher, but an individual so close to morbidly obese that he needed to visit Richard Simmons, pronto
• The failure to mention the three pitchers Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito
• That Scott Hatteberg’s playing time was a point of contention and Beane traded Carlos Pena to force Howe’s hand to play Hatteberg—Hatteberg was still learning first base and wasn’t playing defense, but he was in the lineup almost every day as the DH from day one

There are other examples and it wasn’t a mistake. The book was absurd, the movie was exponentially absurd, and there are still people who refuse to look at the facts before replacing the genius hat on Beane’s head as “proof” of the veracity of Lewis’s tale.

This 2012 version of the Athletics is Beane’s rebuild/retool number five (by my count) since 2003. The Moneyball club was blown apart and quickly returned to contention by 2006 when they lost in the ALCS. That team too was ripped to shreds and the A’s traded for youngsters, signed veterans, traded veterans, signed veterans, traded for youngsters and finished far out of the money in the American League from 2007-2011.

Then they cleared out the house again and are now in the playoffs. It has no connection with Moneyball nor the concept of Beane finding undervalued talent. It has to do with the young players succeeding, as the article linked above says, and winning “in a hurry”.

Let’s look at the facts and assertions from the book/movie followed by the truth:

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The A’s, under Beane, were “card-counters” in the draft

The only players on this Athletics’ team that were acquired via the draft and have helped the club are Jemile Weeks, Cliff Pennington, Sean Doolittle (drafted as a first baseman and converted to the mound), Dan Straily, and A.J. Griffin. The A’s drafts since Moneyball have been mediocre at best and terrible at worst, so bad that Grady Fuson—along with Howe, one of the old-school “villains” in Moneyball—was brought back to the organization as special assistant to the GM.

The hidden truth about the draft is that the boss of the organization probably pays attention to the first 8-10 rounds at most. After that, it’s the scouts and cross-checkers who make the decisions and any player taken past the 10^th round who becomes a success is a matter of being lucky with late development, a position switch, a quirky pitch, or some other unquantifiable factor. Beane’s “new age” picks like Brown, Steve Stanley, and Ben Fritz, didn’t make it. The conventional selections Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton did make it, were paid normal bonuses of over $1 million, in line with what other players drafted in their slot area received. Brown received $350,000 as the 35^th pick in the first round and his signing was contingent on accepting it.

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Beane “fleeced” other clubs in trades

In retrospect, he took advantage of the Red Sox desperation to have a “proven” closer, Andrew Bailey, to replace the departed Jonathan Papelbon. Bailey got hurt and, last night, showed why it wasn’t his injury that ruined the Red Sox season. He’s not particularly good. Josh Reddick has 32 homers—power and inexpensive youthful exuberance the Red Sox could have used in 2012.

The other deals he made last winter? They were of mutual benefit. The A’s were looking to restart their rebuild and slash salary waiting out the decision on whether they’re going to get permission to build a new park in San Jose. They sent their erstwhile ace Trevor Cahill to the Diamondbacks for a large package of young talent with Collin Cowgill, Ryan Cook, and Jarrod Parker. They also traded Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals for even more young talent including Tommy Milone and Derek Norris. The Diamondbacks got 200 innings and good work (that hasn’t shown up in his 13-12 record) from Cahill and are also-rans; the Nationals got brilliance from Gonzalez and won their division. The A’s slashed payroll and their young players, as the article says, developed rapidly.

Sometimes it works as it did with this series of trades, sometimes it doesn’t as with the failed return on the Hudson trade to the Braves in 2004.

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They found undervalued talent

Yes. We know that Moneyball wasn’t strictly about on-base percentage. It was about “undervalued talent” and opportunity due to holes in the market. That argument has come and gone. Was Yoenis Cespedes “undervalued”? He was paid like a free agent and joined the A’s because they offered the most money and the longest contract. He was a supremely gifted risk whose raw skills have helped the A’s greatly and bode well for a bright future. The other signings/trades—Jonny Gomes, Bartolo Colon, Seth Smith, Brandon Inge, Brandon Moss—were prayerful maneuvers based on what was available for money the A’s could afford. They contributed to this club on and off the field.

Grant Balfour was signed before 2011 because the A’s again thought they were ready to contend and all they needed was to bolster the bullpen. They’d also signed Brian Fuentes to close. Fuentes was an expensive disaster whom they released earlier this year; Balfour was inconsistent, lost his closer’s job, wanted to be traded, regained the job, and is pitching well.

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The manager is an irrelevant figurehead

Howe was slandered in Moneyball the book as an incompetent buffoon along for the ride and slaughtered in the movie as an arrogant, insubordinate jerk. What’s ironic is that the manager hired at mid-season 2011, Bob Melvin, is essentially the same personality as Howe!!! An experienced manager who’d had success in his past, Melvin replaced the overmatched Bob Geren, who just so happened to be one of Beane’s closest friends and was fired, according to Beane, not because of poor results, managing and communication skills, but because speculation about his job security had become a distraction.

Melvin and Howe share the common trait of a laid back, easygoing personality that won’t scare young players into making mistakes. Melvin’s calm demeanor and solid skills of handling players and game situations was exactly what the A’s needed and precisely what Moneyball said was meaningless.

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The 2012 Athletics are a great story; Moneyball was an interesting story, but they only intersect when Beane’s “genius” from the book and movie melds with this season’s confluence of events and produces another convenient storyline that, in fact, has nothing at all to do with reality.

The A’s are going to the playoffs and might win the division over the Rangers and Angels, two teams that spent a combined $170 million more in player salaries than the A’s did. It’s a terrific life-lesson that it’s not always about money, but it has zero to do with Moneyball and Michael Lewis is an unwanted interloper as the Beane chronicler since he knows nothing about baseball and is a callous opportunist who took advantage of a situation for his own benefit.

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General Manager is Not a Baseball Job, it’s a Political Office

Fans of the Mariners should be very afraid if this story from Jon Paul Morosi is true.

Truth is, of course, relative. Mariners’ GM Jack Zduriencik might be following orders from ownership that Ichiro Suzuki is staying with the club no matter what; it might be that he’s saying things he knows aren’t true to keep the media sharks from following him and Ichiro around to ask what’s going to happen; or he could actually plan to keep a declining and old player as a centerpiece of his club on the field and in the lineup. In any case, it’s frightening and piggybacks on the Geoff Baker story from last week that said the Mariners have no intention of contending before 2015.

It’s stunning how the stat people who held Zduriencik as a totem for their beliefs abandoned him. No longer is he referred to as a “truly Amazin’ exec” who worked his way up through baseball in scouting and has embraced advanced stats to build his team. There’s no hope if they intend to move forward with Ichiro. Period.

All of this highlights the difficulty in being a GM in today’s game. Gone are the days when the name of the GM was only known because George Steinbrenner had just fired him. Do you know, without looking, who the GM of the Earl Weaver Orioles was? Or the “We Are Family” Pirates? Or the Red Sox in the 1970s?

No, you don’t. But if you don’t know the names of the GMs in today’s game then you’re not a real fan. It’s not a job anymore, it’s a political office. Not everyone is cut out to be a politician and by now Zduriencik is like a hamster running on a treadmill in some rich guy’s office. If it’s true that he believes Ichiro is still a “franchise player” then he should be fired.

If it’s true that upper management is telling him that Ichiro stays no matter what, he needs to say enough already with the interference and that he must be allowed to run the team correctly if he’s going to stay in the job.

Let’s say that he’s trying to take pressure off of Ichiro and the organization. If that’s the case, then he needs to learn to say the words, “We’ll address that at the end of the season but we have great respect for what Ichiro has accomplished here.”

Now if they do anything with Ichiro other than bring him back, Zduriencik’s inability to effectively play the game of lying without lying is even more reason why he shouldn’t be a GM.

There are the typical GMs and ex-GMs who are treated as idiots by outsiders who haven’t the faintest idea of how difficult a job it truly is. Dayton Moore is great at building farm systems but has proven wanting in making trades and signing free agents. Jon Daniels isn’t that far away from being considered an idiot after trading Adrian Gonzalez for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka. Ken Williams—who’s won a World Series—had to endure all sorts of absurd criticisms for his management style last winter and now has a team in first place. And like a professional wrestler whose ring persona alternates from “heel” to “face” depending on what the company needs and which feud would bring in the most pay-per-view purchases, Billy Beane has the Moneyball “genius” rhetoric attached to him again because some of the young players he acquired last winter are playing well and manager Bob Melvin has the Athletics performing five miles over their heads.

Again, in spite of the Moneyball strategy no longer existing in the form in which it was presented, Beane is serving as validation for numbers above all else, reality be damned.

Which is it? Are they geniuses? Are they idiots? Are they politicians? Are they people trying to do a job that’s become impossible to do without angering someone?

Do you know?

What makes it worse is the “someones” they’re angering are either using them for personal interests or don’t have the first clue as to what they’re talking about.

If Jeff Luhnow thought he’d be safe from their wrath—unleashed behind the safety and anonymity of computer screens—he learned pretty quickly that he wasn’t. The idea of, “they believe what I believe” didn’t protect him from the poisonous barbs and accusations of betrayal from the everyday readers of Fangraphs when he chose to make Brett Myers his closer. Even the paper thin-skinned armchairiest of armchair experts, Keith Law, to whom Luhnow supposedly offered a job (although I don’t really believe he did) went after his would-be boss questioning the decision.

It’s easy to criticize when not responsible for the organization; when there’s no accountability and one has the option of never admitting they’re wrong about anything as a means to bolster credibility. This, in reality, does nothing other than display one’s weaknesses and lack of confidence. It’s no badge of honor to never make a mistake.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to be the “I’d do” guy. I’d do this. I’d do that. But would they “do” what they say they’d do? Or would they want to quit after one day? After one negative column from a former friend? After understanding that being a GM isn’t about making trades, signing players and being a hero, but about drudgery and having to use ambiguous phrasing to keep from saying anything at all?

Do you think a GM or an inside baseball person wants to hear criticisms from the likes of Joe Sheehan? From Law? From Joel Sherman? Could these media experts handle the job and the savagery to which a GM in today’s game is subjected every…single…day? They’d curl into the fetal position and cry.

I’d never, ever last more than a week as a GM because: A) I don’t have the patience to answer ridiculous and repetitive questions from reporters; B) I can’t play the game of giving nuggets that I know are lies or exaggerations to media outlets and bloggers in order to maintain a solid relationship with them and exchange splashy headlines for the stuff I want out there for my own benefit; and C) I’m incapable of placating an owner or boss to the degree where I lose credibility.

Whichever one Zduriencik is doing is grounds for a change.

There comes a time when enough’s enough and this Ichiro nonsense, to me, is it.

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Billy Beane And The Ka’aihue Caper

Which do you want?

Do you want the Moneyball (the farcical book and ridiculous movie) version of Billy Beane where he’s a ruthless Gordon Gekko-like corporate titan who treats the players as chess pieces and moves them regardless of feelings or personalities according to what’s best for the team and winning?

Do you want a hard-edged and intelligent architect who also has the empathy and understanding that is similar (again in the farcical book and ridiculous movie) to Beane’s relationship with his young daughter? A man who triumphed in the face of adversity and and achieved a success in the baseball front office he couldn’t achieve on the field while simultaneously slaying his own demons from that failed playing career?

Make a choice.

The stories about Beane are nonsense. He’s not a genius. He’s not an idiot. He’s not overrated or underrated. He is what he is and what that is is a mediocre GM who found a way to win for a brief time by using statistics and techniques that had yet to become widespread in use or understanding.

As other clubs have taken the successful aspects of stat-based techniques, paid for on base percentage and found other ways to win without spending the money of the Yankees and Red Sox, Beane’s clubs have fallen back to what they were in the mid-late-1990s before Beane stumbled onto his “secret” by luck, necessity or both.

Now the A’s are a haphazard mix of young and old; of players from the past and players for the future; of has beens and never weres; of players who he found and players who he overpaid for. It shows on the fields as, after a surprisingly quick start, they’ve staggered to where most observers thought they’d be at 26-32 and promising to get much worse as the season moves along.

But there won’t be a Major League-style, Barbra Streisand “There’s A Place For Us”, island of misfit toys victory for this group. They’re going to lose 90+ games by the time the season is over and again Beane and his bosses will be pleading MLB for a new ballpark; the freedom to move to San Jose; or some lifeline to save baseball in Oakland.

There is no happy ending here.

But that doesn’t mean that Beane is the epitome of evil or a beacon for the unsung upstarts in the administration of his club.

There’s a large controversy as to the treatment of first baseman Kila Ka’aihue because the A’s designated him for assignment yesterday while he and his wife are awaiting the birth of twins. You can read the story here on Fox and read about the reaction of his teammates at the “injustice” in this slanted, twisted and intentionally inflammatory piece on Yahoo.

Is it injustice? Did the A’s do anything wrong?

Ostensibly Ka’aihue was dumped because Brandon Moss is in Triple A, had an out in his contract if he wasn’t in the big leagues by next week and they were going to need his bat for the upcoming games.

Let’s look at the perceptions of this decision in comparison to reality.

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The A’s dumped a player with no concern about him personally or his family.

The implication is that because they designated Ka’aihue for assignment that they left him hanging with twins on the way, no job and no means to pay for their care.

Of course it’s nonsense. Ka’aihue is still technically a member of the Athletics organization. The designating for assignment is to create space for Moss by removing Ka’aihue from the 40-man roster. A team might claim him, he might clear waivers or the A’s can release him. I doubt any team is claiming him, so that leaves a release or going to Triple A. If he’s released someone will pick him up.

But Ka’aihue continuing his playing career is irrelevant in the context of what would happen if the CBA allowed his medical coverage to be gone once the decision was made to remove him from the 40-man roster.

Here’s news: he’s still covered and will still be paid based on his big league contract. He won’t have to leave Oakland for 10 days and if his babies are on the way any day now, I’m sure the A’s—if they’re going to send him to Triple A—will let him stay in Oakland until everything is settled.

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The A’s gave Ka’aihue a chance to play that the Royals never did.

On an annual basis in the minors, Ka’aihue put up absurd on base numbers with power. But the Royals never gave him a legit shot to play. The closest they came was in 2011 when he started the season as the regular first baseman, received a month and was sent to the minors when he didn’t hit.

The A’s let him play in 39 of their 58 games and the left-handed batting Ka’aihue was consistently in the lineup when there was a righty pitching against the A’s. He got a chance and hit just as poorly as he did in his brief opportunities for the Royals. He, his teammates and the stat-loving people who worshipped his minor league numbers cannot say he didn’t get a chance. A 28-year-old minor league veteran who posted a .234/.295/.398 slash line with 4 homers and below average defense at first base can’t complain about being dumped after 139 plate appearances.

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What else could the A’s have done?

They’re not going anywhere this season so I suppose they could’ve kept him on the roster until the Moss deadline of June 15th and/or waited until Ka’aihue’s kids were born. They could’ve given him more time to see if he started hitting. Or they could’ve done what they did. It’s not as if Moss is a youngster who’s killing Triple A and waiting for a chance to play and Ka’aihue was blocking his path. Moss is a 28-year-old journeyman as well and, as mentioned before, the Athletics’ season is going nowhere.

But this isn’t the monstrous treatment of a player with no leverage it’s being portrayed to be. The A’s needed a roster spot and Ka’aihue was the prime candidate at the position from which they needed to cut some dead weight. His A’s teammates can complain about it but if they look at it objectively, there’s no arguing with the decision because the player wasn’t playing well and this isn’t a charity. The A’s don’t owe him any more than what he’s gotten and will continue to get based on the basic agreement.

He’s still getting his benefits. His family is covered.

So what’s the problem other than the stoking a visceral reaction by twisting facts and tugging on people’s emotions and suggesting that Beane is kicking a pregnant woman out on the street to fend for herself as she’s about to deliver twins or that Beane is hiding behind his assistant David Forst?

There is none.

If you’d like to pick on Beane, there are plenty of other reasons—milking the Moneyball farce; using his “genius” as a shield to do what he wants while wrecking his team; contradicting exactly what he was supposed to be but never was—but the Ka’aihue caper isn’t a reason to attack him. Ka’aihue didn’t hit and he’s getting dumped. It’s as simple as that.

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Yoenis Cespedes To Play Center Field; Coco Crisp To Play Left

Athletics’ manager Bob Melvin announced his intention of playing Cuban defector and inexplicable Athletics’ free agent signing Yoenis Cespedes in center field and Coco Crisp in left.

In a baseball discussion, I defy you to justify this decision.

Crisp was signed because he’s a top-notch defensive center fielder. We don’t know if Cespedes can play center in the big leagues and it’s absurd to think he can be even 75% of what Crisp is defensively.

But this is what they’re doing.

Why?

Because they have nothing else to bank their 2012 season on apart from the development and hope that Cespedes can draw interest and fans to a team that promises to be an absolute eyesore on the field.

They didn’t draw well when they were winning 100 games a year at the apex of Billy Beane’s mythical “genius” in the heady days of Moneyball before the rest of baseball caught on to what he was doing and began paying big money for players who got on base and hit the ball out of the park, doing little else.

So where’s the “genius”?

It’s gone.

Genius is not fleeting and judged on the results in and of themselves.

Genius is innovation. Genius is creativity. Genius is having a plan, following through on it and finding a way to make it work.

Is Beane doing any of that with this current Athletics’ configuration? With a series of desperate trades to deal away young, cost-controlled arms for packages of prospects in the “someday” hope that they’ll develop and be playing in a brand new ballpark in San Jose and the A’s will have the cash influx to compete with the big boys of baseball? That at some point during the contract extension that Beane signed to keep him with the A’s through 2019 that they’ll once again be good and his brilliance will again be validated by the subjectivity of the won/lost column?

He’s banking on Bud Selig and MLB finding a way to get the new A’s ballpark approved with the Giants letting the A’s infringe on their territorial rights; they want to sell the idea of the young players they acquired being part of the A’s renaissance in…I don’t know when! Is it 2015? 2016? 2017?

They re-signed Crisp even though he’s not going to do them much good on the field. They’d lose 95 games with him; they’ll lose 95 games without him. He’s still an Athletics’ player because of his speed and defense in center field. Now he’s not going to play center field. He’s going to play left.

No one knows what Cespedes is going to be and he’s the epitome of the type of player that Moneyball specifically said Beane wanted his scouts to avoid: he looks good with no verifiable results.

Maybe they can use his shredded physique in the tradition of Bo Jackson to sell jeans.

There’s no blueprint and Beane isn’t “smarter than the average bear”.

Don’t claim that this is a baseball move.

Don’t say it’s necessary.

Don’t imply some vague, unseen notion of a plan that’s known only to the evil genius Billy Beane.

And do not reference Moneyball as if the book and movie “prove” Beane’s aptitude in running a major league baseball team as if one thing feeds into the other without reality backing up the assertion.

He’s a baseball GM whose reputation became something that no one could live up to based on creative non-fiction and the sale of a story that doesn’t exist. He’s flinging things at the wall in a similar fashion to the reviled “non-analytical” GMs who were the bane of the existence of those who were promulgating the concept of a so-called revolution that would turn every baseball front office into something resembling a Star Trek convention and take over the world rendering the old-schoolers obsolete.

He’s in a war of attrition and running a dying franchise with nowhere to go and nothing to do to turn things around, so he’s reduced to gimmicks.

And he’s losing.

Badly.

Cespedes to center field is more evidence of idiocy and/or desperation.

Don’t dare say it’s anything else.

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2012 American League West Predicted Standings

	Wins	Losses	GB
1. Texas Rangers	93	69	—
2. Los Angeles Angels*	90	72	3
3. Seattle Mariners	70	92	23
4. Oakland Athletics	64	98	29

* Denotes predicted Wild Card winner.

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Texas Rangers

The Rangers lose starting pitching (Cliff Lee, C.J. Wilson), but find innovative ways of replenishing it.

They lost Lee after 2010 and inserted Alexi Ogando into the rotation and he made the All-Star team.

They lost Wilson after 2011 and finally shifted Neftali Feliz into the rotation permanently and signed Joe Nathan to take his place as closer. Then they won the bidding for Yu Darvish.

They can hit, they can field, they can run, they can pitch, they’re willing to make bold trades in-season, and they’re not constrained by contemporary orthodoxies that are circular in nature and taken as fact because “everyone is doing it”.

If everyone is doing it, it’s probably as good a reason as any to do something else.

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Los Angeles Angels

The Angels were never the team to spend lavishly on the biggest of the big name free agents, but after losing out on Carl Crawford last year and taking on the toxic contract of Vernon Wells, GM Tony Reagins was fired and replaced by Jerry DiPoto. DiPoto was handed what amounted to a blank check to make the team better, they signed Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson and traded for Chris Iannetta.

The bullpen is still a question mark, but they trot out four ace-quality starters and have more bats than they know what to do with.

The balance of power has shifted West and the days of the Yankees and Red Sox being anointed playoff spots as a rite of spring are over.

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Seattle Mariners

Jack Zduriencik supporters are leaping from his ship like it’s the Hindenburg.

Not every negative thing that’s happened with the Mariners is his fault—I find it hard to believe he wanted to bring Ken Griffey Jr. back for a second season in 2010 and if he has a brain in his head, he’d love to be rid of Ichiro Suzuki—but he got the credit, he gets the blame.

Chone Figgins has been a disaster. They’re trying again to give him a starting job at third base and are batting him leadoff.

That won’t last.

The trade Zduriencik made in getting Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi is going to be terrific.

The Mariners are still offensively challenged, are relying on a patched together bullpen with upside, have good starting pitching and defense.

The division is a nightmare and support of this regime is crumbling. They’d better overachieve or Zduriencik is going to be in serious trouble by the waning days of the season.

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Oakland Athletics

Is the intense study of sabermetrics undertaken by Brandon McCarthy going to repair his constant injuries? He’s the darling of the stat guys because he implemented numbers to improve his results—and it worked—but it’s all a bit over-the-top thinking he’s turned a corner, never to return to what he was.

Their number two starter is Bartolo Colon; their bullpen is gutted; the offense is woeful; the defense is questionable.

But ignore the facts. Billy Beane is a genius because a book and a movie said so.

It’s Hollywood and creative non-fiction!! You can believe it if you want…if you’re an indoctrinated, agenda-driven moron.

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Far more in depth analysis is in my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2012 Baseball Guide, now available.

Click here for a full sample of team predictions/projections. My book can be purchased on Kindle, Smashwords, BN and Lulu with other outlets on the way.

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Billy Beane—2012 Baseball Guide Excerpt

I’m sure some of those who are familiar with me, what I do and how strongly I feel about the farcical nature of Moneyball the book and how much worse Moneyball the movie was in terms of factual inaccuracy are expecting me to go into a rant about Billy Beane. Again.

But I’m not.

I’m saving that.

This is straight recapping and assessment.

The A’s began another rebuild phase under Beane as he allowed Josh Willingham, Hideki Matsui and David DeJesus to leave as free agents and traded Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey for packages of youngsters. He was intent—so he implied—on waiting out the resolution of the possible new ballpark in San Jose.

But then he did something strange.

He started making maneuvers that were diametrically opposed to a full-scale rebuild. He re-signed Coco Crisp; he signed veterans Bartolo Colon and Jonny Gomes; and then committed the cardinal sin in the context of verifiable stats and knowing what one is purchasing by investing heavily ($36 million over 4-years) in a Cuban defector, Yoenis Cespedes.

Beane says and does whatever he wants.

There’s always an excuse.

The media was focusing on the job status of Bob Geren (Beane’s “best friend”) so he replaced him not because of Geren doing a bad job, but because of media scrutiny being a distraction.

They don’t have any money, so they clear out the house of any and all veterans.

The ballpark is terrible, has no luxury boxes and the fans don’t come so he has to wait and hope the San Jose deal comes through.

No one wants to play in Oakland, so they have to take chances on the likes of Cespedes.

The Angels and Rangers are powerhouses, so why should the A’s bother to try and compete?

If it’s not one thing it’s another.

It’s not hard to be considered a genius when nothing is ever you’re fault; when the sycophants will find an excuse regardless of what you do and whether or not it makes sense.

No one blames him for anything because they’re either invested in Moneyball, don’t know enough to realize that Beane isn’t a genius whose every decision turns to gold or are afraid to protest for fear of being shouted down and ostracized.

He’s flinging things at the wall and hoping they work. That’s not analytical; it’s not based on numbers. It’s pure desperation on the part of the supposed “genius” and willfully blind silence on the part of those who know what he’s doing and refuse to protest are even more guilty.

His team is still terrible and the new template is 2015.

By then they’ll be good and hopefully have a new ballpark.

People in the media and starstruck fans might not want to admit the truth, but people inside baseball are aware. Beane let it be known through intermediaries leaking it to the media that he was willing to listen if the Cubs came calling to run their club.

He wanted the job.

But the Cubs didn’t want him. They wanted Theo Epstein.

People in baseball know he’s a fraud. And he’s trapped in Oakland.

Beane signed a contract extension to keep him with the Athletics through 2019.

That’s where he is and that’s where he’ll stay.

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The above is a snippet from my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2012 Baseball Guide.

Click here for a full sample of team predictions/projections. My book is now available on Kindle, Smashwords and Lulu with other outlets on the way.

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The Real Reason Moneyball Was Shut Out at the Oscars

You’re wondering how it’s possible that such a wonderful, true-to-life, triumph over adversity story like Moneyball was shut out at an aboveboard and evenhanded event like the Oscars?

See the clip below.

Putting aside the glaring inaccuracies and outright fabrications of the movie and the twisted narrative of the book, I can say that it was watchable though not particularly good and certainly not one of the best films of the year.

I suspect it was nominated as a quid pro quo for Brad Pitt and Bennett Miller and to drum up viewership from the baseball-watching crowd who would normally not watch the Oscars.

Presumably it worked.

You’re being scammed. Again.

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On another note, those that are bludgeoning Billy Beane and the Athletics with the suggestion (amid unfunny quips) that Moneyball didn’t win anything at the insipid Academy Awards as another “reason” that the A’s are “losers” are just as foolish as those who cling to the book and movie as if it’s real.

There’s no connection between any of it apart from what’s convenient for those with an agenda for Moneyball to be validated; for Beane to be a “genius”; or for those who rip Moneyball because they’re too lazy or don’t have the aptitude to comprehend it and refute it on its own merits.

They’re all the same to me.

That’s been my point all along.

It was never worthy of all this attention to begin with.

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Oscars Invitations—Lost In the Mail

With Billy Beane attending the Oscars to support Brad Pitt and Moneyball and their nominations—link—I thought it would be appropriate to suggest some other characters from the book and film who should be asked to attend. Without them, there would be no story.

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Art Howe

The epitome of insubordinate and self-interested evil who refused to adapt to the changing times by adhering to numbers and outright ignored his boss’s entreaties to play Scott Hatteberg.

Except Howe did play Hatteberg—just not at first base.

If you look at the facts (a novel concept they are, FACTS!!!), Hatteberg was in the lineup almost every day as the DH because he was new to first base and Carlos Pena was a Gold Glove caliber fielder.

Check this link if you’re actually invested in the Hatteberg/Howe truth.

The climactic scene in which Hatterberg homered to help the A’s win their 20th straight game was a scheduled day off; the circumstances are detailed in the book!

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Mark Mulder/Barry Zito/Tim Hudson

Private detectives might have to be dispatched to find them since they were mysteriously absent from the film version of Moneyball and only mentioned in passing in the book.

Having three All-Star/Cy Young Award caliber starting pitchers is kinda important to analyzing the construction of a winning team.

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Jeremy Brown

An armrest would have to be ripped from the seats in the theater to fit the morbidly obese film version of Brown into them.

The real Brown was bulky and not fat.

In a clever bit of double entendre, Brown could make a great show of walking to his seat.

Walking.

Walks.

Get it?

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Sandy Alderson

Alderson’s Twitter account is rife with deadpan comedic musings.

Even if the audience needs the jokes explained to them, he’ll still be funnier than Billy Crystal.

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Paul DePodesta

With his reputation tattered by the implication of the computer loving stat geek and saddled with the moniker “Google Boy”; having gone to the Dodgers and, in a career-kamikaze fashion (don’t blame Frank McCourt), trashed the team by adhering to the principles of stat based team building resulting in inevitable destruction, he replenished his image as a respected assistant with the Padres and Mets and smartly removed his name from the film before it did any more damage.

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Jonah Hill

He should be lambasted for inflicting the unwatchable cartoon Allen Gregory on an unsuspecting public.

And I want the fat Jonah Hill, not this new skinny one.

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Keith Law and Michael Lewis

In the pretentious, hackneyed and self-indulgent world of Hollywood, even the Oscar attendees might walk out at the rampant egomania of the toxic combination of Lewis and Law.

Stick them in a steel cage and let them fight it out. It won’t be a feud on a pro wrestling level with Superfly Snuka vs Bob Backlund or Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes, but I know I’d watch.

I’d probably hold my nose and root for Lewis.

Probably.

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Me

The stat guys, celebrating their victorious revolution and—in spite of Moneyball being shut out at the Oscars (it’s not going to win anything)—enjoy their moments in the spotlight and bask in the adulation and validation.

Then I arrive and make my presence…felt.

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Beane’s attendance at the Oscars is a start.

But my version will make it pure perfection.

Genius in fact.

GENIUS!!!!!!!

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2019: A Beane Odyssey

I hadn’t realized that running the Oakland Athletics had become the equivalent of a Federal job where you can’t get fired no matter how poorly you perform.

Or does Billy Beane have tenure like a slacking college professor who can’t be fired no matter what he does?

Here’s an idea for the Moneyball sequel: A sci-fi fantasy with President Newt Gingrich helping the Athletics get their new park…on his moon colony.

It would be just as realistic as Moneyball.

It shouldn’t come as a shock that the Athletics made the decision to extend Beane’s contract to the absurd length that he’ll be there until 2019 since he’s pretty much their only marketable commodity. It’s beside the point that the market is the brainless and agenda-driven that either believe the fantasy of Moneyball or have interests coinciding with the story being seen as accurate.

The prototypical perception has become reality. The phrase, “the man must know what he’s doing to have stayed so long and to have had the success he’s had” only fits if you ignore the facts out of convenience or because you don’t know any better.

Beane’s success was limited to a brief time in the early part of this century when few if any other clubs were using the same strategies that he implemented out of necessity. Once the rest of baseball caught onto what he was doing and started spending for that which he once got for nothing, he could no longer “card count” or trick other clubs into giving him valuable pieces for his refuse.

Only Beane knows whether he actually believes the nonsense in Moneyball the book and movie. Has he become so delusional, drunk with adulation and blind worship that he can look into the mirror like a hopelessly arrogant and narcissistic personality and think that there’s always a reason why he’s faltered and remains a brilliant baseball mind in spite of his team’s decline into irrelevance?

He has to be smart enough to realize that, in other clubs’ front offices, he’s a running joke who’s gotten his comeuppance for taking part in Michael Lewis’s self-indulgent fantasy and profiting from it in terms of a Teflon persona where, in a large segment of the baseball watching population, he can still do no wrong; that he’s a worldwide phenomenon everywhere but where it truly matters: in building a successful baseball team.

How about a stat guy endeavor to create a formula for Wins Above Replacement for GMs? Would that give a gauge on Beane? Would they be willing to make it public if it was calculated accurately and reflected his mediocrity and worse since 2006?

The new pompous and condescending dismissal of anyone and everyone who tries to debate the merits of Moneyball and Beane is to say something snide like, “Yah, Beane wrote Moneyball…” as if all who criticize the book and movie think that.

It’s a strawman.

Only the incurably stupid or total neophyte baseball fan thinks Beane wrote Moneyball.

Well, there’s Joe Morgan—another frequent and easy target for their vitriol because, as great a player as he was on the field with uncanny instincts, he’s one of the typical formerly great players who can do, but not explain. Someone made the mistake of putting Morgan in a broadcast booth and things spiraled from there to him being the totem for the “non-analytical” wing in baseball.

Morgan doesn’t represent me. I represent me.

Beane didn’t write Moneyball. But does that acquit him of all charges that he took part in the book and didn’t clarify the reality of the situation? Or did he go with the flow and choose not to correct his fictional biography and plan of attack because he was making a lot of money away from the field and found himself achieving the fame and fortune that eluded him in his failed career as a player?

And what of the future? What of the next seven years that Beane is now under contract with the Athletics?

Let’s say that at some point in those seven years, the Athletics get a new park; the young players they accrued from this latest rebuild pan out and they’re again contenders; or they even win a championship by (let’s be realistic) 2016.

Then what?

Will his “genius” be validated? Or will the context be applied to say he hadn’t made the playoffs for 10 years, didn’t make it back because everyone else was aware of and using the same techniques that he’d applied and that he only managed to win again once he had a new park and some money to spend on players.

He can’t win if he does win.

When Beane turned down the Red Sox after initially accepting the job in 2002, he did so because, as the movie says, he wanted to stay near his young daughter. But he also stayed in Oakland because it was easier to stay in Oakland and work without the inherent pressure and expectations that would’ve been present from day 1 in Boston. Those pressures would’ve swallowed him up and disproven Moneyball by 2003.

Then what?

So he’s staying in Oakland and it’s not because he’s “happy” there—he wanted the Cubs job this past winter and the Cubs didn’t want him—no one wants him.

Except of course, the A’s.

He’ll be there through 2019.

Maybe by then the bandwagon jumpers will have abandoned him and moved onto something else.

Maybe by then the masses will accept the truth.

Or they’ll have found another way to shift the goalposts to suit themselves, their demagogue and his chronicler.

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Billy Beane’s House of Lies and Simplified Math

Another defense of Billy Beane and his “strategy” for 2012 is presented by Richard Justice MLB.com—link.

Let’s deal in facts, shall we?

Here are the players the Athletics have acquired this winter and their 2012 salaries:

Seth Smith: $2.415 million.

Bartolo Colon: $2 million.

This is a total of $4.415 million for two exceedingly mediocre “name” new additions.

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Here are the departures:

Trevor Cahill: $3.5 million (guaranteed through 2015 at $29 million with options in 2016 and 2017).

Gio Gonzalez: $3.25 million (arbitration eligible for the first time).

Craig Breslow: filed for arbitration and asked for $2.1 million; was offered $1.5 million.

Andrew Bailey: arbitration eligible for the first time; figure a contract of $1.5 million.

David DeJesus: $4.25 million (2-years, $10 million guaranteed from the Cubs).

Josh Willingham: $7 million (3-years, $21 million guaranteed from the Twins).

Hideki Matsui: was paid $4.25 million in 2011 and is unsigned for 2012.

Michael Wuertz: was paid $2.8 million in 2011 and is unsigned for 2012.

Rich Harden: was paid $1.5 million in 2011 and is unsigned for 2012.

All for a total of $29.85 million based on what they’re guaranteed for 2012 or what they were paid in 2011.

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These are the raises for players they’ve kept:

Kurt Suzuki: $1.6 million.

Coco Crisp: $250,000.

Brandon McCarthy: $3.275 million.

Grant Balfour: $25,000.

Brett Anderson: $2 million.

Daric Barton: $675,000

Joey Devine: $180,000

Adam Rosales: $175,000

That’s a total of $8.18 million.

Adding $8.18 million+$4.415=$12.33 million.

Subtracting $12.33 million from $29.85 million comes to $17.52 million.

So from a payroll of $55 million in 2011, the A’s have slashed a total of $17.52 million.

Justice writes:

When (Beane) looked at the A’s after the 2011 season, he saw a third-place club that had neither the payroll nor the Minor League talent to make a dramatic improvement. He had $51 million in contract commitments for 2012 and a $55 million budget even before attempting to re-sign his starting outfield of David DeJesus, Josh Willingham and Coco Crisp (only Crisp will be back).

“I had to look at it honestly,” he said. “Look at the moves the Angels and Rangers have made. They’re going to have payrolls rivaling the Red Sox and Yankees. It just seemed foolish to go forward with a third-place team that was losing significant parts. We felt we had to do something dramatic.”

“Honestly”? Beane uses the word “honestly”?

Where is he getting these numbers from?

They could’ve dumped Crisp’s $5.75 million and found another, cheaper center fielder somewhere who would do pretty much the same things Crisp does. Or they could’ve just stuck Josh Reddick out there and given him the chance to play every day. What did they need Crisp for?

McCarthy just had his first season of moderate health after bouncing from the White Sox to the Rangers and having repeated shoulder problems—which also cost him eight starts in 2011—and failing as a top prospect. The only way the Athletics were able to sign him was because he was short of options for a rotation spot. He’s their new ace?

Someone would take Balfour and his fastball.

Barton was acquired in the Mark Mulder trade (one of the prior teardowns) and Beane clings to him as if he’s hoping against hope that someday he’ll fulfill that potential.

The mischaracterizations and fabrications inherent in Moneyball—the book and the movie—are continuing unabated and unchallenged. Replete with salable buzzwords implying the same party line for his constituency, it goes on and on.

There’s a separation from rebuilding and collecting prospects and ratcheting up the rhetoric to maintain the veneer of knowing what one’s doing, having a plan and executing it.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing?

Lies.

Fabrications.

Political-style calculations.

And the masses are still buying it.

Under no circumstances am I questioning the prospects nor the basis for making the trades of Cahill, Gonzalez and Bailey. We don’t know about the players he received and won’t know for awhile.

That’s not the point.

The point is that he’s spewing the same garbage he’s been spewing for years in a self-interested, self-absolving manner to shun the responsibility for the failures of the teams he built.

They’ve failed to meet expectations when they were supposed to contend and now they’re going to meet expectations by falling to 95 losses.

But it’s not Billy’s fault.

I don’t want to be sold something by a clever marketer/con-artist who’s still clutching and using this nonsensical and faulty biography.

Beane’s become a “means to an end” executive and that end is to hold onto that aura of “genius” that was created by Moneyball. There are still those that believe it and take his word for why he does what he does—they don’t bother to check.

Is it because they trust him? That they want to protect him? Or is it because they’re afraid of what they might find if they dig for facts?

The A’s are going to have a lower payroll and they’re going to be much worse than they could’ve been with worse players than they had because of this “strategy” that is played up in the latest piece about Beane.

When does this stop?

When will the true objective reality be examined and cited?

When?

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