Gerry Fraley still doesn't like Moneyball
Or Billy Beane. I thought carping about Moneyball went out of style about 5 years ago, but hey...
over 2 years ago
Adam J. Morris
25 comments
0 recs |
Email
PrintComments
Gerry Fraley
Takes me back to another time.
"I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the [MLB] for guys to fall in love with [the Rangers’s] sloppy seconds." (thanks cstorm)
Fraley
Well, to be fair, 5 years ago was about the last time anyone gave a damn what Fraley thought about anything…
And curse that Billy Beane for writing that book!
"I dont care to debate with a troll." - Sharky
people gave a damn about what fraley thought?
I cant’ remember, did Sharky like him?
I’m pretty sure wufdog kept calling him Fat Fraley. So then, yeah, I really don’t know that ANYONE cared what he thought
"I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the [MLB] for guys to fall in love with [the Rangers’s] sloppy seconds." (thanks cstorm)
I may need to re-read that book
its probably pretty funny in hindsight.
"I saw a soldier try to dig a foxhole with his bare hands. He didn't notice that he'd torn off all his fingernails. I got him out of there quickly; not for his sake, but for ours. Fear is poison in combat...destructive, contagious." - Band of Brothers
I was thinking the same
Last season I sat down to re-read it and never finished
"I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it." - Mitch Hedberg
I occasionally re-read parts of it for leisure
It’s still a good book, but hindsight shows Beane’s decisions (and DePo’s computer) weren’t infallible.
He hit the jackpot with Swisher and Blanton in the 2002 draft, Teahen turned out to be a nice minor league trade chip and a decent enough player, but the rest of those picks (Brown, McCurdy, Obenchain) didn’t work. Considering that most draft picks don’t work out, I guess Billy did about as well as anyone else does in the draft crapshoot.
The biggest problem with Moneyball is that 75% of the people who talk about it don’t even understand its premise (and unfortunately, Josh Lewin is one of the worst offenders). It’s not a book promoting Beane’s belief in building a team based on OBP. It’s a book about exploiting market inefficiencies to build a baseball team under limited resources, using OBP because at the time the market undervalued that asset. Moreover, it’s a great business/entrepreneurship book about thinking outside the box to outdo your wealthier competitors.
Ultimately, Beane kind of got screwed by the book. In the old days he was building a club in a “separate market” as Lewis termed it, because for a long time the GM ranks were filled with idiots who ignored logic and new frontiers in knowledge because they didn’t jive with what the old “baseball men” believed. But when Beane showed how to outsmart the old way of thinking, other teams jumped on the bandwagon to varying degrees and leveled the playing field. That, plus the fact that the market has equalized for a lot of the old inefficiencies, has made it a lot harder for him to swindle the rest of the world like he did back in the day.
Beane is not infallible, nor does he have the corner on new-wave baseball intelligence, but he should be lauded as a pioneer for opening the door to what is almost SOP for the better front offices these days.
"wORLD sEIRES HERE WE COMER!!!!!!!!!"by bigsteve on May 29, 2009 10:21 PM PDT
"Elvis Andrus has just performed a miracle." -Eric Nadel
Billy Beane and water-walking
Your first three paragraphs are fine, but…
because for a long time the GM ranks were filled with idiots who ignored logic and new frontiers in knowledge because they didn’t jive with what the old "baseball men" believed.
You know, that’s just ridiculous, and the only people that believe that are Beane, Lewis, and a bunch of A’s fans. Do you really buy that outlandish characterization? He may have been ONE of the GMs utilizing non-traditional baseball execs, but he wasn’t the only one, nor was he doing it years before anyone else caught on, nor was he playing chess while others were playing checkers, as the book and you seem to assert. And Lewis’s juvenile mockery of career scouts is considered fucking laughable to most baseball cognoscenti today. It was an obnoxiously egregious over-simplification.
But when Beane showed how to outsmart the old way of thinking, other teams jumped on the bandwagon
the fact that the market has equalized for a lot of the old inefficiencies, has made it a lot harder for him to swindle the rest of the world like he did back in the day.
More hyperbolic, semi-mythological braggadocio espoused by Beane and parrotted by Lewis.
Come on homey, you’ve clearly bought in to the hype, hook, line, and spreadsheet. If you truly believe that all or even most of the other front offices were these dinsoaurus boobs, who didn’t have their own formulas and self-conceived methodologies, I’d like to offer you a nice price on some oceanfront property.
Beane is an excellent GM; but Michael Lewis is either a baseball dullard or a dishonest motherfucker.
I'm Matt mutha-effing Bush, bitches, and mutha-eff East County.
"I'm as passionate and knowlegeable as any fan out there." Josey Wales
by Brian Thomas on Jul 1, 2009 6:56 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
I like how you say all this without providing any examples.
I honestly wanna know who else was doing something revolutionary at that time. I didn’t really follow baseball back then so I want to know who else you would say was doing so much with so little.
The only other team I’ve heard of that had a front office approach similar to the A’s back then was the Twins (~$41mil payroll, making it to the ALCS). Who were you thinking of?
by Lum on Jul 1, 2009 7:15 PM CDT up reply actions
*Sigh*
Did he say Beane wasn’t a good GM and/or didn’t deserve praise?
No. In fact, quite the opposite.
Plenty of GM’s were out there innovating and fielding winning teams without a monstrous reserve of resources. (The Twins, the Braves, the Marlins, the Indians of the early/mid 90’s, the Blue Jays of the early 90’s, the Mariners in their 116 win season, etc.)
No one is saying that Beane wasn’t/isn’t a good GM worthy of praise and study, but this idea that he’s the bestest most innovative GM out there while everyone else was just an aging dinosaur unable to see the one true statistical truth that Beane could see oh so clearly… well, that idea is shit.
The 40 Trumps All!!!
Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the subject of fun?
You are a quicker mind than me
I started a couple minutes before you, and finished 15 minutes after. Ha.
Maybe I am Old Paintycan Thomas…
I'm Matt mutha-effing Bush, bitches, and mutha-eff East County.
"I'm as passionate and knowlegeable as any fan out there." Josey Wales
I like how you say you like i did something, when you really mean you are scoffing at it
Your question is a fair one, except you address points I wasn’t making. Misses 95% of the gist of my post.
And by the way, the Twins FO approach and the A’s were and are significantly different. Payroll is mainly what they have in common.
What, exactly, do you think Beane was doing that was so unique? I never said he didn’t have a high level of success for a small market team. He rocked ass in that regard. But what are these groundbreaking strategolutions he envisioneered? Market inefficiencies makes for a catchy book theme, but it seems pretty counter-intuitive to me that every other low scrilla club wasn’t scouring far and wide for bargain bin acquisitions, and the idea that the Marlins and their ilk weren’t scratching and clawing for all diversities of statistical information is pretty silly. Just because they didn’t get a book deal, does that mean they were Pa Kettle declaring “If it were good enuff for Casey Stengel, it were god dern good enuff fer me?” But that’s the way Beane and Lewis sold it, and what also seemed to be Wes McAggleton’s take, which is the counterpoint I was making.
And I’m unclear why you implied “doing so much with so little” extrapolates to “because for a long time the GM ranks were filled with idiots who ignored logic and new frontiers in knowledge” is a true statement. Seems like apples and oranges to me.
You ask who ELSE was doing something revolutionary? My point is, no one really was, Beane included.
I'm Matt mutha-effing Bush, bitches, and mutha-eff East County.
"I'm as passionate and knowlegeable as any fan out there." Josey Wales
Definitely didn't mean to scoff at it.
Look – I’m not the best at stating my questions/points. That’s why, as you could probably tell, I don’t actually post that often.
Dirkatron: I never said that Beane was the bestest most innovative GM evar. I truly, truly don’t know that much about teams’ methods and front offices back then. I only started really following baseball since 2006.
So if i came off as uninformed…it’s because I am. I was asking a question and just wanted to know where he got his thoughts from.
Wasn’t trying to accuse or insult or upset anyone…just asking a question. Sorry.
/goesbacktolurking
by Lum on Jul 1, 2009 9:47 PM CDT up reply actions
Ha ha
Forget about it. If my response came across as dickish, I apologize. Tone is difficult to convey in a forum like this.
And don’t just lurk, man, wade in. LSB is chock full of interesting, brilliant, funnyass motherfuckers. You’ll only get a pittance of the satisfaction lurking that you would with active interaction.
And by all means, don’t hesitate to question my semi-literate baseball brain. There are 50 guys here who have chunks of guys like me in their stool. Just don’t ever, ever challenge Zywica when he deigns to dumb down the venezuelan under-12 summer league for us mere pubescents. He will eat your measly scrotum and then wet-fart the vas deferens across your femmely dimples.
But seriously, don’t just lurk. You won’t regret.
I'm Matt mutha-effing Bush, bitches, and mutha-eff East County.
"I'm as passionate and knowlegeable as any fan out there." Josey Wales
by Brian Thomas on Jul 1, 2009 10:17 PM CDT up reply actions
That was extremely graphic but thanks for the advice!
And i’ll try not to ask any more stupid-ass questions xD
It wasn't a stupid ass question at all.
You kind of injected yourself in the middle of a long running dispute on baseball blogs (Beane and Moneyball) and by your question we naturally assumed you were a mindless Beanehead (I even checked your screenname out, sure to find you were a visitor from A-Nation and was surprised when you weren’t) scoffing at the idea that Mr. Beane was not the one true light.
Your question is actually extremely complex.
It’s hard to point to another GM’s specific innovations and what he was doing during those periods because, frankly, none of those dudes had an uber-popular insider book written about them. (At least not to my knowledge. If Michael Crichton did an insider’s view of John Schurholz and no one has told me about it yet, I’m gonna start stabbing babies.)
Look, Moneyball had some really great insights into the game, front offices, Billy Beane the GM, and into Billy Beane the man.
But it also suffered from a serious case of myopia and a serious case of delusions of grandeur. Everything Billy Beane did in that book was a stroke of genius and everything everyone else was doing was stupid. There seemed to be no middle ground. Drafting Jeremy Brown was pure brilliance! These idiots relying on “scouts” (SNICKER!) were just that- idiots!
Baseball is a multi-billion dollar a year industry with 30 different teams all scrambling like mad to get a leg up on the other 29 teams. To think that none of the others were innovating or trying new strategies is silly.
Did Beane do a good job of innovating and exploiting a hole in the market? He sure as hell did.
But so did a lot of other teams, in a lot of different ways.
So… this is getting long.
Summary: Beane is good, just not God.
The 40 Trumps All!!!
Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the subject of fun?
Heh, now I feel like the dick hole.
I’d pretty much like to mirror what Old Painty Can Thomas said.
It’s hard to convey tone on a board, so we obviously got the wrong idea, but don’t let that hold you back.
Dive right in.
The 40 Trumps All!!!
Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the subject of fun?
Thank you.
The 40 Trumps All!!!
Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the subject of fun?
Wow. It seems that Fraley’s half-rotten carcass still pulls itself towards a keyboard every now and then.
It's ... it's ... ALIVE ... gewewwwww!!
"We're One Nation Under a Groove"
- Ayjayem
by inactive lsb user on Jul 1, 2009 7:07 PM CDT up reply actions
Fraley is the shit.
Insightful as fuck analysis, thy name is Fraley.
The 40 Trumps All!!!
Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto I could afford. Should I therefore be made the subject of fun?
You should make a list called "The Worst" for all possible metaphorical applications, through all of time.
Surely Fraley would be listed amongst the exegetists.
"We're One Nation Under a Groove"
- Ayjayem
by inactive lsb user on Jul 1, 2009 7:15 PM CDT up reply actions
Money Worries Kill A-List Film at Last Minute
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31707482/
“One reason was to win the approval of Major League Baseball, which was not happy with some factual liberties in Mr. Zaillian’s version. Such approval is crucial in a baseball film that intends to use protected trademarks.”
by GregoryM on Jul 2, 2009 4:38 PM CDT reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
