Ping: Moneyball Fans

[The_herd]

I watched Jeremy Brown play here in San Antonio tonight....


And he's everything you read in Moneyball. The guy does not, in any way, look like a ballplayer. Doesn't run like a ballplayer, doesn't even move like a ballplayer. But he is pretty impressive at the plate, despite the fact he came in hitting around .270. He's got patience that you can see from the 1st pitch. Went 0-3 with a walk, but hit the ball very hard all 3 times. Thirdbaseman made a great play on the 1st, 2nd was a rocket right into the pitchers glove, the 3rd was a monster shot to center that was dropped at the wall.

Anyway, it was great to see him play. They had just called up a MR named Huston Street that pitched the 9th and Oakland fans will probably be seeing in the future. Mid 90's, nasty stuff.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Street was UT's closer this season (last too, I think), and IIRC he pretty much dominated the season until cracking against CSF in the CWS.

[pennywisesb]

Originally Posted by The_herd

I watched Jeremy Brown play here in San Antonio tonight....


And he's everything you read in Moneyball. The guy does not, in any way, look like a ballplayer. Doesn't run like a ballplayer, doesn't even move like a ballplayer. But he is pretty impressive at the plate, despite the fact he came in hitting around .270. He's got patience that you can see from the 1st pitch. Went 0-3 with a walk, but hit the ball very hard all 3 times. Thirdbaseman made a great play on the 1st, 2nd was a rocket right into the pitchers glove, the 3rd was a monster shot to center that was dropped at the wall.

Anyway, it was great to see him play. They had just called up a MR named Huston Street that pitched the 9th and Oakland fans will probably be seeing in the future. Mid 90's, nasty stuff.

That Street kid will probably be the A's closer for years to come. Once he finished the College World Series with Texas, he started to play in the A's farm system. Hopefully in a year or two he'll be ready to rock for us because Rhodes and Dotel are obviously pretty iffy.

[The_herd]

Originally Posted by pennywisesb

That Street kid will probably be the A's closer for years to come. Once he finished the College World Series with Texas, he started to play in the A's farm system. Hopefully in a year or two he'll be ready to rock for us because Rhodes and Dotel are obviously pretty iffy.

I had front row seats behind the "bullpen" area and it was obviously the kid's 1st day with the team. The pitching coach and several of the relievers got up to watch him warm up and as the pitching coach passed the guys sitting on the bench he made a comment on how nasty his slider looks.

[nilodor]

There are alot of guys who look real hot coming out of college but crack due to pressure, lifestyle changes or just plain injury. Injury is a huge reason alot of young studs never pan out. However, in Street's case injury probably won't be as much of a concern considering he is coming out of college.

[The_herd]

I wanted to add this last night but forgot. I saw a new low point in American society while at the game. During the singing of the National Anthem, a lady 2 rows behind me was talking on her cell phone. Not just having a regular conversation, but trying to talk above the person singing the Anthem and laughing throughout it. I also want to add that Fridays are Military night at Mission's games and the Air Force trainees are there, making up about 10% of the crowd. I have never in my life seen anything as rude as that.

[dawgfan]

Question for you - do you see very many Missions games? If so, have you seen Felix Hernandez pitch yet, and if so, how does he look? How about OF Shin-Soo Choo - does he impress you at all?

As an aside, does anyone else find the premise to Michael Lewis' book fairly compromised by the continued success of the Twins? Lewis was drawn to Billy Beane and the A's based on the success they had with a very limited payroll in competing with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world and pinned it on their extreme performance-based/numbers-based evaluation philosophy. While I appreciate the A's approach as someone raised on Bill James and sabermetrics, the success the Twins have had on a similarly limited budget while using an approach that, while not diametrically opposed to the A's, is at least somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of A's <---> old school scouting shoots a big hole in Lewis' premise IMO.

[The_herd]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Question for you - do you see very many Missions games? If so, have you seen Felix Hernandez pitch yet, and if so, how does he look? How about OF Shin-Soo Choo - does he impress you at all?

As an aside, does anyone else find the premise to Michael Lewis' book fairly compromised by the continued success of the Twins? Lewis was drawn to Billy Beane and the A's based on the success they had with a very limited payroll in competing with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world and pinned it on their extreme performance-based/numbers-based evaluation philosophy. While I appreciate the A's approach as someone raised on Bill James and sabermetrics, the success the Twins have had on a similarly limited budget while using an approach that, while not diametrically opposed to the A's, is at least somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of A's <---> old school scouting shoots a big hole in Lewis' premise IMO.

Haven't seen Hernandez pitch yet. Gonna try and catch him next week or the week after. I just started going to the games 3-4 weeks ago, after I realized I was only 5 miles from their ballpark.

Choo looks like he could be a player. He's got a pretty strong arm in the outfield and good range. Also looks like a guy that should hit .300 in the Majors. Hits a lot of line drives right now and if he gets stronger could develop into a 20-25 homerun guy. He's not going to be a star, but should be a solid player.

I was hoping that Lewis' follow up, Underdogs, takes more of broad look at the different approaches that small market teams are taking. How the Twins and A's get things right, while the Pirates and Brewers have managed to countinually screw things up for the past several seasons. Of course he's welcome to make it more detailed and make the book 1200+ pages, it wouldn't disappoint me.

[Radii]

http://www.rwbl-ootp-online.com/league/p1726.html

Choo has really big a huge disappointment for me so far. He just never developed like I would have liked.

Now I know how the guys who owned Burroughs have felt, just on a smaller scale

[Crapshoot]

Two problems: One, the Twins play in what has been the weakest division in baseball for the past 4 years- and thus get to beat up on more crap. Second, the Twins record over those 4 years is still not as good as the A's I believe- and the A's, Braves, and Yanks are the only teams to make the playoffs each of the last 4 years. The Twins have done a good job, but they have not done anywhere near the job the A's have done.

And lastly, if you think Moneyball is about OBP- you're missing the point.

[lynchjm24]

I remember when I saw Kevin Youkolis in person the first few times when he was in Portland (AA). I never thought he would hit in the major leagues. He might not in the long run, but he's been great for the past few months...

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Aadik

Two problems: One, the Twins play in what has been the weakest division in baseball for the past 4 years- and thus get to beat up on more crap. Second, the Twins record over those 4 years is still not as good as the A's I believe- and the A's, Braves, and Yanks are the only teams to make the playoffs each of the last 4 years. The Twins have done a good job, but they have not done anywhere near the job the A's have done.

Noted. However, they are clearly not the only small-revenue franchise to find success though, and they've taken a different (i.e. more traditional) approach to building their system than the A's.

Originally Posted by Aadik

And lastly, if you think Moneyball is about OBP- you're missing the point.

It is, and it isn't. It isn't in the sense that at its root, the book is about smart people finding edges over opponents with a tremendous financial advantage by being willing to go against tradition and find undervalued talent.

It is in the sense that OBP and plate discipline is the undervalued trait that they are maximizing currently. Their continued success ensures that they are going to lose this advantage as other organizations wise-up, and it will force Beane and his counterparts to find new areas that are undervalued to exploit.

I applaud the A's approach, but I did find Lewis to be too fawning in his praise of Beane in the book; it seems to me that the Twins success puts a bit of a dent in his unbridled praise of the A's approach, especially given the initial impetus for Lewis to write the book in the first place.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Noted. However, they are clearly not the only small-revenue franchise to find success though, and they've taken a different (i.e. more traditional) approach to building their system than the A's.



It is, and it isn't. It isn't in the sense that at its root, the book is about smart people finding edges over opponents with a tremendous financial advantage by being willing to go against tradition and find undervalued talent.

It is in the sense that OBP and plate discipline is the undervalued trait that they are maximizing currently. Their continued success ensures that they are going to lose this advantage as other organizations wise-up, and it will force Beane and his counterparts to find new areas that are undervalued to exploit.

I applaud the A's approach, but I did find Lewis to be too fawning in his praise of Beane in the book; it seems to me that the Twins success puts a bit of a dent in his unbridled praise of the A's approach, especially given the initial impetus for Lewis to write the book in the first place.

I apologize- Id taken you initially to be one of the many who criticized the approach with reading the book. Moneyball in a nutshell is simply a buy low, sell high story. But OBP is long gone- if you notice, the A's seem to be taking DIPS theory and whatever defensive metrics they may have into practice as they built their team this year- Miller, Kotsay, etc were all brought in for their defensive value. OBP was an example- not the example. As for the Twins, I applaud their success, but seriously- its unfair to compare them to the A's. If the Twins played in the West the last 3 years, they would probably have been hard pressed to finish 3rd in the division each year - and we wouldnt be having this debate. As it is, in the Central, they have the 2nd highest payroll this year- in their competitive enviornment, they really aren't an small market team. The A's have had the lowest payroll in their division every year- and still compiled a better record. Every team in their division has had at least a $20-$25 million advantage, every year. I see no sense in rewarding the Twins for coming in first without adjusting for their level of competition- its akin to saying Todd Helton in Colorado is a fair comparison to Todd Helton in Pac Bell, circa 1999-2001 (when it played as an extreme pitcher's park).

[lynchjm24]

Originally Posted by Aadik

I apologize- Id taken you initially to be one of the many who criticized the approach with reading the book. Moneyball in a nutshell is simply a buy low, sell high story. But OBP is long gone- if you notice, the A's seem to be taking DIPS theory and whatever defensive metrics they may have into practice as they built their team this year- Miller, Kotsay, etc were all brought in for their defensive value. OBP was an example- not the example. As for the Twins, I applaud their success, but seriously- its unfair to compare them to the A's. If the Twins played in the West the last 3 years, they would probably have been hard pressed to finish 3rd in the division each year - and we wouldnt be having this debate. As it is, in the Central, they have the 2nd highest payroll this year- in their competitive enviornment, they really aren't an small market team. The A's have had the lowest payroll in their division every year- and still compiled a better record. Every team in their division has had at least a $20-$25 million advantage, every year. I see no sense in rewarding the Twins for coming in first without adjusting for their level of competition- its akin to saying Todd Helton in Colorado is a fair comparison to Todd Helton in Pac Bell, circa 1999-2001 (when it played as an extreme pitcher's park).

If somehow you could combine Minnesota's player development people with someone who would maximize what they have they could be a juggernaut.

I noticed Morneau hit number 11 tonight. I live in lovely New Britain and I almost felt his pain when he was back here to start 2003. The amount of stud prospects that have come through here is absolutely amazing. Kubel and Durbin didn't stick around long and it's been a long boring year here, but the past 8 or so have been amazing.

I am a little bitter that Mauer is going to rehab in Quad Cities or Rochester... New Britain wasn't one of the options I saw.