MLB - 2006 World Series

[Imran Siddiqui]

David Wright has a flair for the dramatic... 4-1 Mets.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'd like to see them win (although I find Minnesota likeable too), just so the people who like to crow about Billy Beane's "**** not working in the playoffs" will have to STFU for once.

-Arrian

Especially since I'm a Moneyball type of person, I agree .

And besides Beane's **** has already worked in the playoffs, but it was Theo that benefited.

[Arrian]

Bah, the Red Sox certainly became more analytical, but I wouldn't say they won by acquiring players who were undervalued in the marketplace (which is the core idea behind what Beane does). They got some pitching.

Crazy, crazy Mets/Dodgers game. That third base coach is TOAST. What a screwup, especially since Wagner coughed up a run in the 9th!

Between that and the "inside the parker" (single & 3 base error if baseball was scored the way I'd score it), it was a wild day.

Rain, rain go away, my Yanks wanna play!

-Arrian

[Stuie]

Go A's!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Arrian
Bah, the Red Sox certainly became more analytical, but I wouldn't say they won by acquiring players who were undervalued in the marketplace (which is the core idea behind what Beane does). They got some pitching.

Really? David Ortiz ring a bell? He was platooning for the Twins (and released by them) before Theo got him. You also had Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, and Mark Bellhorn for real cheap. All were undervalued and contributed heavily for the Sox. Schilling and those four made the Red Sox champs.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by EPW
LOL INSIDE THE PARK HOMERUN BY KOTSAY!!! 4-2

I was watching ESPN a bit and they said the last inside the park homerun was in 2002, amazingly enough it was in a game between the Twins & A's. Amazingly enough it was Hunter who botched a catch in central field that caused it to happen.

That is one hell of a coincidence.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Really? David Ortiz ring a bell? He was platooning for the Twins (and released by them) before Theo got him. You also had Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, and Mark Bellhorn for real cheap. All were undervalued and contributed heavily for the Sox. Schilling and those four made the Red Sox champs.

Ortiz and Bellhorn I'll give you. Millar & Mueller... I'm not really so sure that was exploiting undervaluation in the market. Those guys might simply have been the best available options to plug holes the Sox had. Sure, they weren't top-tier players.

The foundation for the championship was top-level talent. Shilling, Pedro, Lowe, Wakefield (the second two to a lesser extent, but they aren't exactly chopped liver), Foulke, Manny, Damon, Nixon, Varitek.

Yes, they were smart to add some good supporting players, some of whom were undervalued. The real coup was Ortiz, of course, and full credit to the Sox front office for that one.

But don't give me that the Red Sox are a "moneyball" team. They are a rich large market team that learned to also look in the bargain bin (the Yanks have caught on too recently) to augment their team. Bravo, I say, but I question whether or not it's really Beane-esq. Very different situations there. Beane builds his core team that way.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

They are a rich large market team that learned to also look in the bargain bin

And that is what "Moneyball" is all about, finding bargains by looking at the ignored stat of OBP among others. If Beane took the Boston job when he was offered it, he'd do the same thing, and it'd be silly to claim that Beane wasn't following his own way of doing things.

Without Ortiz, Bellhorn, Millar, Mueller, the Red Sox don't win the WS. Hell, without Ortiz, they may not make the playoffs. And all of those players were bargains. In 2004, Ortiz was making $4.5 mil. Muellar was making $2.1 mil. Millar was making $2 mil after being scraped off the plane to Japan. Bellhorn was making $490,000.

Those were all deals that Billy Beane would have been proud of and were integral to the championship run. That's how you work Moneyball for a big market team. It wouldn't make sense otherwise for a team like Boston to have a $50 mil payroll, now would it?

[Arrian]

First off, "Moneyball" is about finding bargains by looking for *any* ability that is undervalued in the marketplace. OBP no longer is, which is why Oakland's team no longer resembles a slow-pitch softball team.

I repeat: Ortiz and Bellhorn were clearly players that were undervalued and the Sox were smart enough to recognize that. Mueller... not so much. He had a career year in 2004 before reverting back to his norm and then getting hurt. They essentially got lucky there, though props for putting themselves in position to benifit. Millar... I guess my question is who else was available for them to stick at 1B? Did they find Millar b/c they were looking to pick the bargain bin or because he's all that was available (and they had a hole to fill)?

Anyway, the Sox won by combining some of "moneyball" with the resources of a rich club which resulted in a roster with both top-tier talent and good complementary players. Full credit to them. I'm not really sure what we're even arguing about.

-Arrian

[Stuie]

I didn't realize Polanco was back! In that case... go Tigers!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Arrian
First off, "Moneyball" is about finding bargains by looking for *any* ability that is undervalued in the marketplace. OBP no longer is, which is why Oakland's team no longer resembles a slow-pitch softball team.

Not entirely. Moneyball was about the sabermetric revolution. It's about how is Beane winning without money. And the way he does it is by engaging in sabermetric analysis which includes OBP, which is (still, btw, because people STILL cite BA like it means something) an undervalued metric.

I tend to agree with the Wikipedia article on it, in so far as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball

The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed. Statistics such as 40 yard dash times, RBIs and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th-century view of the game and the statistics that were available at the time.

Since then, real statistical analysis has shown that on base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success and that avoiding an out is more important than getting a hit. Every on-field play can be evaluated in terms of expected runs contributed. For example, a strike on the first pitch of an at-bat may be worth - 0.05 runs. This flies in the face of conventional baseball wisdom and the beliefs of many of the men who are paid large sums to evaluate talent.

By re-evaluating the strategies that produce wins on the field, the Athletics, with approximately $55 million in salary, are competitive with the New York Yankees who spend over $205 million (in 2005/2006) annually on their players. Oakland is forced to find players undervalued by the market, and their system for finding value in undervalued players has proven itself thus far.

"Their system for finding value" is sabermetics.

These days "Moneyball" is buzz word around baseball for sabermetrics and Bill James type analysis.

It is my contention that the book "Moneyball" is centrally about the sabermetric revolution. Its about the outsiders vs. the insiders (which is theme Lewis likes to talk about) and his vessel for explaining that is the Oakland A's. The A's (with Billy Beane and before that Sandy Alderson), being a low revenue team, used this 'outsider' information to find value in order to be able to compete with the 'insiders' when they shouldn't have been able to.

I repeat: Ortiz and Bellhorn were clearly players that were undervalued and the Sox were smart enough to recognize that. Mueller... not so much. He had a career year in 2004 before reverting back to his norm and then getting hurt. They essentially got lucky there, though props for putting themselves in position to benifit. Millar... I guess my question is who else was available for them to stick at 1B? Did they find Millar b/c they were looking to pick the bargain bin or because he's all that was available (and they had a hole to fill)?

Mueller was undervalued. He wasn't a great player, but he was solid defensively and had pretty good OBP numbers compared to meh BA numbers. While his career BA is .291, his career OBP is .373. Though he doesn't have much power. And his career year was actually in 2003. He reverted back in 2004 (but still had a .365 OBP). He was only being paid $2.1 mil though.

Millar was a bargain bin. They were prepared to go into the season without him, but then he signed with a Japanese club, through Florida, and the BoSox did all they could to pry him away.

Both Mueller and Millar didn't have great BA or power, but had high OBP, which allowed the BoSox to get both of them for cheap ($2.1M for Mueller and $2M for Millar).

I'm not really sure what we're even arguing about.

Beane's stuff not working in the playoffs. I'm contending that Boston's 2004 success shows that a "Moneyball" outlook has worked in the playoffs.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Stuie
I didn't realize Polanco was back! In that case... go Tigers!

Up 4-3

Lets hold them off. Almost there.

[OzzyKP]

103 MPH.

Go Zoom, go.

[OzzyKP]

Tigers win!!!!!!

[Arrian]

Alrighty, then. On to Detroit, tied up 1-1. Many missed opportunities in the game for the Yanks. The Tigers mostly cashed in their chances. Good work by both bullpens.

I only saw the first 2 innings on TV, the rest I tracked online.

...

Imran,

We are going to simply have to agree to mostly agree. My central point is that although the Red Sox clearly did incorporate sabermetrics into their planning, they remain a large-market team built on a foundation of top-tier talent. They're "Moneyball" + a $100+ million payroll.

-Arrian