The Day Moneyball Died
Posted: June 16th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 155 Comments »
Well, yeah, I’ll admit it, I don’t really get what’s going on in Oakland these days. Fans write in every few days to complain that GM Billy Beane, the man who for better and worse helped stage a baseball revolution, the man Brad Pitt will play in the movie, the man who threw the chair through the wall, the man has become bored with baseball.
They say he only cares about soccer these days.
Now, I’ve thought this was probably overstatement — though it is undeniably true that Beane has become a full-fledged soccer fanatic. You could see that passion growing through the years. I remember distinctly reading this story three years ago where Beane referred to his love affair with Tottenham Hotspur of the Premier League and how he spent five hours a day listening to soccer podcasts and how he fought for the remote with his wife because, “She wants to watch the baseball highlights on SportsCenter. I want to watch Fox Soccer Channel.”
OK. He likes soccer. Then, though, there were rumors building up that he was thinking about quitting baseball and taking his unique management style into the soccer world. Those rumors never quite died down.Then, this year, the story came out that Beane didn’t even know Dallas Braden had a perfect game going until there was one out left — he was listening to his soccer podcasts.
All of this is pretty interesting … but I’ve always kind of thought it was mostly beside the point. Sure it SOUNDS good when someone in sports says they think about their job 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But, I don’t think it really IS good. I suspect that having other interests, getting away from the grind, opening up the world a little bit is generally helpful for people, no matter the job*. Billy Beane is a smart guy with a lot of energy; I have no doubt that he can spend five hours a day listening to soccer podcasts and another five hours studying up on cricket, and STILL be an excellent baseball GM if that’s what he wants to do.
*I say this even though writing this post while on vacation with my family at the beach** … so maybe I’m not the best example of “getting away from the grind.”
**This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I was just scanning some minor league numbers at Baseball America — because what else are you going to do with the palm trees swaying in the wind and the waves crashing into the shore — and I happened to see that down in Northwest Arkansas, Mike Moustakas ALREADY has 29 home runs and 109 RBIs. Um, what? I know I’ve been gone for a few days, but this had to be a misprint. I mean, you know how I feel about RBIs — but 109 RBIs in mid-June?
It is a misprint, of course. Moustakas has 15 homers and 55 RBIs — he’s hitting .337/.411/.680. I mean that’s awesome hitting — he has re-emerged as one of the better hitting prospects in baseball, no doubt about it. But after the 109 RBIs thing, that just felt like a bit of a letdown.
But there have been some troubling signs this year with the A’s. Well, one, there as the preposterous intentional walk by Bob Geren that I have already called my least favorite move of 2010. Throughout, I had to wonder how Billy Beane — observer of the world, student of Bill James and such — could just stand back and allow something goofy like that to happen.
But it turns out … that was nothing. A couple of days ago, the excellent Susan Slusser in San Francisco wrote an interesting piece about Daric Barton. The story focused on how he’s finally living up to his potential. It’s not an unfamiliar story. Barton talks about how he was young and wild but then through Casey Chavez, younger brother of Eric, he found faith and that has been a big part of the success he’s having. All of which is fine. Barton is having a nice offensive year — he has a .394 on-base percentage — and at 24 he seems to have matured and figured out some things. A nice little story.
Only then, there was this: “He’s adding another element to his game. Barton felt as if he was letting the team down too much the past two seasons by failing to move runners from second to third with nobody out. So this year he’s bunting in those situations. He has nine sacrifice bunts already.”
I had to read this paragraph about nine times — one for each sac bunt. Daric Barton, the team’s first baseman, is leading the league in sacrifice bunts? For the Oakland A’s? And he’s doing it by moving runners SECOND TO THIRD with NOBODY OUT? And EVERYBODY IS HAPPY ABOUT IT? (That’s Barty,” hitting coach Jim Skaalen said. “Team first, a professional in all areas”). What in the hell is going on over there in the Bay Area?
Apparently, Barton has been sacrifice bunting on his own … nobody is asking him to do it. Nobody, not even the craziest bunting manager on earth, would ask him to bunt in the situations he’s been bunting:
April 11: Sacrifice bunted in the first inning to move runner from second to third with nobody out. … Later, in the eighth, did exactly the same thing, bunting runner over to third with nobody out.
April 17: Fifth inning, bunted runner from second to third with nobody out.
April 30: First inning, bunted runner from second to third with nobody out.
May 15: First inning, bunted runner from second to third with nobody out.
May 23: Eighth inning, bunted runner from first to second with A’s up 1-0.
May 25: First inning, bunted runner from first to second with nobody out.
May 28: First inning, bunted runner from second to third with nobody out.
June 11: First inning, bunted runner from second to third with nobody out.
Holy $#@$!%. Somebody tell that man to stop doing that immediately. Holy #@!$#@$. Seven of his league-leading nine sacrifice bunts were, just as he said, bunting a runner from second to third with nobody out. This isn’t just a waste of an out, it’s crumpling an out, stomping on it with disdain, and then purposely not putting it into the recycle bin. Why would you do this? There’s no double play in order. A single might score the run. According to the BaseballProspectus Run Matrix, bunting a runner from second to third reduces a team’s run expectation level from 1.09 runs to .93 runs.
But it gets much worse. Five of the nine sacrifice bunts were done in the FIRST INNING.
Stop that guy already! Use a cross-bow if necessary.
Impossible. It would seem impossible that any team would allow its first baseman to do something this ludicrous. But for Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s — a team that was supposed to be breaking through baseball’s mythology and illogic? How can this be happening? Can we get someone in to do a quick Moneyball rewrite?
And it makes me wonder if, yes, maybe Billy Beane is spending a bit too much time worrying about beating offside traps.
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Circle me Charlie-O.
Circle me Bo Jackson.
And I think Poz wrote Ken Macha when he meant Bob Geren.
circle me lenny dykstra
FIRST!……totally agree with you Joe, maybe Billy is just done with Oakland, do you think he’d maybe be a little more excited if he had a bigger budget?
Also, man you guys are quick, guess I’m not first after all, bummer
How does Daric Barton look in jeans?
I wouldn’t mind seeing Billy Beane come to Everton and help the Toffees.
Here’s how out of the loop I am: I thought the ownership group behind the Oakland A’s also owned an MLS team based in San Jose. And further, I thought Billy Bean was some kind of advisor or GM for that team. Did I completely make that story up? Was it a one-time rumor?
You’d think he could afford two TVs, or at least picture-in-picture.
I agree with Spud 100%. How on earth is it possible that a man in his position cannot manage more than 1 TV?
@ 9 & 10 -
If you’d read Moneyball, you’d know he didn’t like to watch his team play. He got too worked up over it and would do things like make trades based on 1 bad game. This is a bad idea. He doesn’t watch so he can remain calm in his business.
Other than that, I’m not sure why they are bunting and all that. Maybe the SABR stuff coming out of Oakland was really Depodesta and J.P. etc. ?
Joe, did you happen to watch the Cubs/ Sox game on Sunday? Lou Pinella should be a candidate for worst baseball move of 2010, only it didn’t end up costing him: top of the ninth, Marmol comes in with a runner on first. He walks Andruw Jones, then BALKS, putting runners on second and third with one out. He strikes out Alex Rios, but then Lou does something so dumb I screamed at the top of my lungs in the car: He WALKS Rios to get to PAUL KONERKO. Then I thought, boy, I hope Joe Posnanski is watching this right now so he can be as pissed off as I am.
I mean, I’m not a Sox or Cubs fan (Tigers guy) but I was seriously pissed and really wanted to see one of the hottest home run hitters in the game hit a bomb onto Waveland Ave just to make Pinella look like an idiot.
Of course, Marmol made Konerko hit a little dribbler in front of the plate and the runner on third was out on a force play, implicitly making Pinella look like a genius. Then the Cubs won on the next hitter.
But Pinella deserves a Joel Zumaya fastball firing squad for that one. I still don’t believe it.
Not sure if you read Moneyball closely, but he kept talking about how the game wasn’t his priority to watch. He never watched games, and in fact, when he watched the games during the 20-game win streak, he got really pissy when they almost blew the 20th game.
After the fact, he should be laying into them for bunting. But he doesn’t watch the games.
Even the perfect ones.
Sounds like some of the insane game management Ron Washington has been employing this year in Arlington. Elvis Andrus has 9 sac bunts this year as well, with at least 2 or 3 from my recollection of the 1st and 2nd, nobody out variety. Any manager stupid enough to kill a potential big inning by giving away an out in such a situation should be fired on the effing spot.
I find it hard to fault Barton on this. After all, it is what “baseball people” would say is “small ball” and “team play”. Just look at the quote from their hitting (sic) coach: “Team first, a professional in all areas.”
The problem is with the manager and/or the hitting coach and/or the GM, etc. If your boss told you to mail 1,000 letters one at a time with stamps instead of a bulk mailing permit, wouldn’t you do it? Even if you KNEW that it was a waste of money?
No, the problem is the same old reliance on “the book” which tells us things like sacrifice good, walks bad (which, as everyone of the Brilliant Readers here knows is utter nonsense). This kind of stuff will continue to go on (and on and on and…) until and unless there are sabrmetric types in public positions, e.g., writers, announcers, bloggers, etc. And I do not expect that to happen any time soon.
There is a story in money ball about someone bunting and Art Howe asking that player to say he did it on his own, because Art didn’t want to get in trouble with Billy. I guess that is the difference between Art and Bob Geren. Geren is Billy’s best friend, so he can let his players do what they want.
Jerry Manuel would love Daric Barton — would probably consider him “gangsta” with all those sacrifices.
Actually it’s really easy to imagine Tony LaRussa doing exactly this. OK, that’s a little unfair, he probably wouldn’t ask his cleanup guy to do it in the first inning … but it often looks like his default strategy with 2B, no outs is to bunt. It sure seems like a knee-jerk response on his part most of the time.
Barton’s a two-hitter, and not a traditional power threat… so the “baseball book” says that he isn’t an RBI man. He only has four homers! Sac that bunt, tote that runner…
Problem is that the two guys who most often follow him for Oakland are Ryan Sweeney and Kevin Kouzmanoff:
Sweeney: .397 slg, OPS+ 103, ISO .095
Kouzmanoff: .413 slg, OPS+ 101, ISO .109
Barton: .424 slg, OPS+ 123, ISO .140
Sure, keep setting things up for the “RBI guys” who not only make more outs than the set-up guy, but who are worse at driving the ball! If Barton was more selfish he’d be more team-oriented.
I think something like this phenomena made it look like Podsednik got off to a hot start.
For the entire time he was batting second behind DeJesus, he would bunt for a hit basically every time he was up and David was on first with no outs. He went something like 5/27 in these situations, but his batting average showed it as 5/5 with 22 sacrifices. I know I am exaggerating, but it seemed something like that.
That has been one benefit to changing the Royals lineup to have Kendall behind him. There is no point in sacrificing a guy to second when the guy behind you can’t drive him in from second anyway.
If you took away Kendall’s bat and gave him a 60 degree wedge, would anyone notice?
Come on, you Spurs!!!
From what I remember about Moneyball, Billy Beane couldn’t handle watching games, so he rarely did. The ebbs and flows of the game made him too erratic and effected his judgement.
Ummm, isn’t this the ultimate chance to look at the outcome? How often did the runner score? How many of those games did Oakland win?
We know by the hitter’s batting average how often he is likely to move the runner up one base, and possibly scores him from second base with a hit. We know that a fielder’s choice with the out at first or sac fly is basically the same outcome as the sac bunt, even if its unintentional. A double play ball or strike out is a negative outcome. A walk or hit batter or other hit that doesn’t move up the room, but isn’t an out is a semi-positive outcome, because it puts two runners on base. A hit that moves the runner or any extra base hit is a positive outcome.
So, if someone does some digging, we can test the sac bunt’s value. With Barton sac bunting, the runs scores X number of times in nine successful attempts. Given his batting average, strikeouts and walks, we have the odds of other things happening.
What produces the run at a higher rate? Because you most likely can’t have a multiple run inning unless the first guy scores.
Hey Joe, for some reason I thought you were going to be in South Africa covering the WC – no?
@22, look up “run expectancy” and you’ll find your answer — and why the A’s really are crazy to let one of their best hitters bunt like this repeatedly.
The other distressing angle is that the A’s leadoff hitter — the guy on second in some of these situations — is Rajai Davis. Only one of the fastest runners in the league.
@ Jack #12
Rios – .315/.378/.568
Konerko – .285/.390/.585
I’m not sure I agree with the call either but it was far, far, far from the dumbest call of the year.
weasel, the problem with your query is small sample size. Even if the A’s scored that run on ALL 9 opportunities, it would simply be a fluke, not a “case for more sacrifice bunting.”
I think Joe actually DID show that, statistically, you’re more apt to score with a runner on 2nd and zero outs, than with a runner on 3rd and one out.
@25 Drew
I guess I hadn’t realized their similar numbers. I thought Konerko was mashing but I guess he cooled down. Still, this is the guy that hits .359/ .397/ .627/ 1.024 for his career with the bases loaded. Rios is .278/ .270/ .380/ .649. I’d take my chances with him over Paulie.
Drew- you just proved the point. While walking Rios he loaded the bases. Saying that Rios’ BA is higher than Konerko’s OB%. And 390>315
And evertime I watch Marmol he looks as wild as my kid during church.
FIRST. Circle me Stank McJunk.
No no no. This is all backwards. Billy Beane is being perfectly consistent. Moneyball was a book about economics. Nowadays, high OBP guys are overpaid. But the great bunters — they are real bargains. Beane is just exploiting that market ineffeciency.
Just kidding. Maybe its time to stick a vuvuzela in Beane to see if he’s done.
Doesn’t everyone know Al Davis’ ghost runs all 3 franchises in Oakland?
Focusing on soccer to get away from the grind is like cutting off your foot to cure a hangnail.
I’m with Beane, soccer is growing on me. I would rather watch soccer than a U.S. TV commercials with sports (basketball, football I’m looking at you!) mixed in.
“And it’s over, what an exciting match. The final score is 0-0.”
What a boob! And people say baseball is boring!
As an Athletics Nation member I can tell you that the A’s fanbase – at least the online, stat-savvy one – is so fed up with Barton’s sacrifice bunting that we have collectively torn out enough hair to cover every balding man’s head in the Bay Area. It’s insane.
It’s just one of many instances that make me think, ok, so you’re Bob Geren. You see one of your better hitters do this constantly. Is it not a job requirement to investigate this? To scrutinize? To check out the research done on sacrifice bunting, and tell your guy to stop it? Why does this not happen? If you were someone’s boss at an office and you saw one of your top employees GIVE MONEY AWAY for no reason, would you call him a gamer? No. You would tell him to stop, or fire him.
Yeah, it’s not a perfect analogy. But it feels that way.
Once – hmm….
Twice – hrrrmm…
Thrice – Okay, Daric, ya gotta cut that out.
NINE TIMES? – Sheesh.
Jack,
That is hardly the worst move in baseball. The Cubs were up 1 run in the bottom of the ninth, so a third baserunner means nothing.
Addtionally, there was only one out, so getting a force out at home greatly reduced the risk of exactly one run scoring on the current at-bat, which SHOULD be their only goal in that moment.
Not saying Lou knew this… but it was the correct call.
According to FanGraphs, that walk was worth +.008 WPA…positive move
Thanks you, Joe. Have an enjoyable vacation, and make sure you’re not on the ol’ cpu so long that Margo gets mad. We miss your more frequent posts, but enjoy the break. You deserve it. Until we meet again.
the bunt has for a long time been a symbol of good baseball values: one bunts, so the conventional wisdom has it, because one understands that individual goals are less important than team goals. character, etc.
what’s ironic is that this symbolic appreciation for the bunt persists even in situations where the bunt’s real effects are negative.
thus, the case of Barton: an individual player’s desire to be perceived as a team player is hurting that player’s team.
Where was that photograph taken? What’s the occasion?
And whatever it is, there seems to be a full-blown diversity hiring programme in operation . . . cos that looks like a burqua-wearer in the background.
If you posted this on April 1st…
Beane has never actually watched the games. This was a big part of Moneyball. I doubt he even knows. He’s responsible for personnel moves, and is currently doing a pretty nice job rebuilding the A’s. They’ve got a lot of great young arms already in the majors, and some good hitting prospects in the minors. It’s not really his job to tell Daric Barton when he can and can’t bunt, that’s on the manager.
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I don’t think it’s too different than the “Moneyball years”. There really haven’t been too many progressive managers and even during the early 00′s, A’s managers didn’t seem sold on the front office’s strategies (at least on the in-game aspects).
Where are all the progressive managers anyway? I guess Manny Acta and that’s pretty much it? Do we have to wait for Banny to retire to get one?
Are you sure he’s a Tottenham fan? I remember reading an article in which he said he loved Arsene Wenger’s style of management and the way Arsenal plays. You cannot love Tottenham and Arsenal at the same time. It’s impossible. It’d be like being a Red Sox fan and a Yankees fan at the same time. Only if the Yankees moved to Boston.
Anyway… just checking.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ca9c6514-3e7d-11df-a706-00144feabdc0.html
Found that article.
[On the phone]
Billy Beane: Are you also aware, Bob, that Daric does not have what we consider to be an exemplary hitting approach?
Bob Geren: I don’t understand.
Billy Beane: He has sacrificed himself an unacceptable number of times. In the opinion of this general manager, Daric is not taking his growth as a hitter seriously. Now I’ve spent my morning examining his records. If Daric thinks that he can just coast through this season and still be hitting second in our lineup, he is sorely mistaken. I have no reservations whatsoever about dropping him in the order during the year.
Bob Geren: This is all news to me.
Billy Beane: It usually is. So far this season he has sacrificed nine times.
Bob Geren: Nine times?
Billy Beane: Nine times.
Bob Geren: I don’t remember him sacrificing nine times.
Billy Beane: That’s probably because he wasn’t asked to. He was sacrificing on his own. Wake up and smell the coffee, Bob. It’s a fool’s paradise. He is just leading you down the primrose path.
Bob Geren: I can’t believe it.
Billy Beane: I’ve got it right here in front of me. He has sacrificed nine times…
[His computer screen begins counting down from nine to two. Daric is in the clubhouse looking at the same screen]
Daric: I asked for an extension, I got an iPad. How’s that for being born under a bad sign?
I remember that about Moneyball and how Beane couldn’t stand to watch his team play. But he and his wife were allegedly arguing about watching highlights.
The bunting craze has really caught on. Alfonso Soriano had his first sacrifice bunt in four years tonight.
I actually count SIX of the nine in the first inning, according to the list.
While I’m here, I would like to submit the entire Indians infield and Shelley Duncan for “Worst Defender of the Year.” This is only peripherally related to bunting, in that they gave up two bunt hits and six infield singles Tuesday night, but I needed to put that out there.
I’m normally anti-sacrifice. But as a recent ACTA showed, anti-sacrifice is not necessarily anti-bunt. Does Barton have any success at beating out bunt hits? If he’s decent (say, .333 with bunt singles, which sounds fine but remember that the OPS will only be .666 because of no extra base hits) then I’d say that bunting could be a net positive, especially for a team with a weakish offense and good pitching, where one run strategies become more valuable. Or the team might have a freakish 28-2 record when they score first, making those first inning bunts seem to be worth more. But if he’s going for straight sacrifices, then he’s a loon, a nutcase, move him out of the 3-hole.
Number one sign you’re paying more attention to soccer than you are to baseball?
Signing Ben Sheets for 10 million bucks.
Joe, Moneyball will never die. Moneyball is an eternal truth, which is that human biases lead to market innefficiencies, which can be exploited by anyone smart enough to recognize it.
Moneyball wasn’t actually about sacrifice bunting and drawing walks, it was about determining what in baseball was overvalued, and how to take advantage of that.
I became totally fed up with the A’s the minute they traded Nick Swisher, and especially, Marco Scutaro
Chris @ #53
“it was about determining what in baseball was overvalued”.
With minimum wage in MLB at $500k and a bleachers ticket to Oakland v Baltimore $15, what in baseball isn’t overvalued?
Weaselbill @ 22: “Ummm, isn’t this the ultimate chance to look at the outcome? How often did the runner score? How many of those games did Oakland win?”
Runner scored 7 of 9 times after Barton’s bunts
Runner scored twice when it appears he otherwise would not have scored, plus one that is debatable from the description (with runner scoring from third on “1B to short right).
The above includes a 4-3 win where the runner that was bunted to 3rd scored on a Sac Fly.
Oakland is 5-3 in the eight games Barton recorded a sac bunt.
So, really, it doesn’t look that bad in context. Of course, the problem is that we we have no idea what Barton would’ve done if he hadn’t bunted. Maybe he’d have gone 0-for-9 with 4 K’s and 5 fly outs. Or maybe he have gone 5-for-9 with 3 doubles. Who knows?
“Barton felt as if he was letting the team down too much the past two seasons by failing to move runners from second to third with nobody out”. I had to re-read this too. It is a very specific thing that he’s worried about. It’s not that he’s worried about moving the men around, or driving men in. He’s specifically concerned about moving men from 2nd to 3rd. And that’s not the end of it, he even adds the qualifier of nobody out – not at all worried about it if there is 1 out it seems. I reckon he’s over thought this.
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Linked at Beltway Baseball.
“According to the BaseballProspectus Run Matrix, bunting a runner from second to third reduces a team’s run expectation level from 1.09 runs to .93 runs. ”
This is the MAJOR problem I have with the stat people, the worshippers of the Excel Spreadsheet, the Pythegorians who have taken the sport I love and turned into a strat-o-matic wet dream.
COMMON SENSE dictates that a man at third with less than 2 outs scores on a deep fly ball to the outfield every time. And if it is early in the game, that runner on third will score on almost any ball put in play, as the opposition will usually not bring the infield in and will concede the run for an out. And if they DO bring the infield in, they just increased the chances the next batter up will be able to get a hit.
If Barton makes an out without getting the runner over, he has squandered the chance for the next guy to score the run via an out.
Those of us who watch baseball with a modicum of COMMON SENSE know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Barton is doing. He isn’t Babe Ruth. He isn’t Lou Gehrig. He is Daric Barton, a good young player who knows how to help MANUFACTURE runs. As someone who could care less what a spreadsheet says, I applaud him for sacrificing his own numbers for the sake of the guy behind him and the sake of the team…no matter what all the Sabremetricians say.
@Ed Rooney – well played. I was hoping someone would do that.
Danke schoen, baby, danke schoen.
@Chris F – under certain limited circumstances – late in close games where that first run will tie or win the game, for example – then yes, giving the out to move the runner helps. Otherwise? Provably bad.
Baseball Prospectus didn’t invent those numbers. They measured what actually happened in thousands of baseball games – and what happened is, teams scored more runs by hitting away in that situation, instead of bunting. Barton is throwing away runs. “1.09″ doesn’t sound like much more than “0.93,” but add it up over a whole season: Barton’s done this nine times in 60+ games… he may get to 25 by the end of the year. Well, that’s four extra runs the A’s have given away because he didn’t swing. Doesn’t sound like much but that can be the difference to swing games.
As a result, when you quote what you quoted and then say you like manufacturing runs instead, it sounds rather odd – as if you said that you don’t care what those Bavarian brewmasters say, you like Natty Ice because you like beer.
All a bunt can do is move the runner to third – but a hit can score him. Then Barton is on base and the next two hitters are in the same position, only Oakland has a run to the good. Even a walk puts another runner on that can eventually come around.
@ 60
It’s funny how the anti-stats people uses all the clichés about baseball in the old days….
“unique management style”
You mean getting lucky with a couple roided up MVP’s?
The Tigers have plenty of hitters in their lineup where the fans would be perfectly happy if they bunted every time up.
Ryan Raburn – .185 with 27K/89AB. Gerald Laird – .180 with 29K/133AB. Alex Avila – .219 with 24K/96AB. Don Kelly – .219 with 12K/69AB. Adam Everett (before he was released earlier in the week) – .180. One could even make a case for Brandon Inge (.251 only because of a current hot streak, but 53K/227AB). That’s an awful lot of bad bad hitting.
I scream at the computer whenever these guys come up with runners on and -don’t- bunt. It can’t be any worse than what they’re currently doing.
nightfly@62. I may be wrong about this, but wasn’t there an analysis done that showed bunting in the situation described above results in more consistent run scoring? In other words, teams that bunt will score runs, say, 8 of 10 times. If there is no bunt, teams will score only 6 of 10 times. The difference was that with no bunt the teams scored more runs that inning. In the end, it averages out that no bunt results in more runs.
Avoiding the bunt keeps the big inning alive. Bunting allows for scoring at least 1 run more consistently.
Again, my memory may be off on this.
This just shows how unimportant baseball strategy really is. Managers do the wrong thing and it works out; they do the right thing and it doesn’t. Fans with a Saber focus get bent out of shape when managers do these things (it drives me nuts when Bobby Cox plays for one run in the first inning), but ultimately, I doubt that it makes much difference. Tactics, IMO, are the least important part of a manager’s job.
And, statistics just indicate trends, not absolutes, ie, what will happen on average, not what will happen in any specific situation. I think, ideally, a manager would understand the advanced statistics and let his decisions be informed by then, but I don’t think every single tactical decision should be based on that because the specifics of the situation may vary. That’s not to defend the mindlessness of much of baseball decision-making, but to suggest that managers need to think about what they are doing rather than simply following the “book”–whether it’s the traditional book or “Moneyball.”
Does anyone else think Jon Hamm (of “Mad Men”) would be perfect to play Billy Beane in the movie?
@ Chris F (#60): COMMON SENSE dictates…
The problem with common sense is that it’s not all that common.
I think it’s a little funny. You hate the stat heads because they come up with these sorts of analyses. I love them for it. I love that they challenge conventional wisdom and make me rethink what I learned while watching ballgames back in the late 70s and early 80s. I don’t have to agree with them (and I don’t, always). But I love getting the opportunity to challenge what I’ve long held as fact and see if it stands up to closer scrutiny.
*shrug* Different strokes for different folks.
Just another example of my eyes telling me one thing, and silly useless stats telling me something different. I don’t care what the so-called numbers say, a runner on third with one out is better than a runner on second with no outs in MOST SITUATIONS. Sure if you are coming up to the 8 and 9 hitters, you want your #7 hitter batting with no outs and the runner on second. However, if you have your #2 hitter up, you want him to get the guy over so that the #3 hitter, who is supposed to be the better hitter, can drive the ball and even if he hits it at someone in the outfield, the run will score.
This rationalization that EVERY SINGLE TIME it is better to do this is ludicrous, and Joe makes the mistake of saying that they are letting their “first baseman” do this, FORGETTING that THIS first baseman bats SECOND in their lineup. He is not the first baseman that Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Mark Texiera, etc, etc is. He is second because he is a weak hitter, who gets on base in front of the power, and who does the fundamental things properly, including getting the guy over. When he gets the confidence, maybe he will not bunt, and instead give himself up by hitting the ball to the right side. Until then, I see NO PROBLEM at all with Daric Barton bunting the guy over with no outs and a man on 2nd.
[...] The Day Moneyball Died by Joe Posnanski [...]
@69
John,
First, I don’t “hate” the statheads…I hate the stats!!! I have friends who subscribe to the same things, and when I say something like “look at your Excel Spreadsheet” it is only because I know it ruffles their feathers that I say it.
Second, the only thing I don’t like is when a stat-head says something based solely on a ludicrous stat…i.e. the run totals dropped from 1.09 to .93 with a man on second and no outs as opposed to a guy on third and one out. OK, but what were the situations?
Here’s an example…let’s say we have the Phillies vs the Rockies…Halladay vs Jiminez. Shane leads off with a double that the right fielder misplayed and should have caught. Should Polanco bunt him to third so that Utley can have a better chance of driving in the run from third with one out? Or should we take a chance that Placido doesn’t get the guy over, then Utley hits one to the fence and we watch as Shane takes third, but no it is with TWO OUTS?? Should we take the free run if we can get it…especially against one of the best pitchers in baseball and especially with one of the best pitchers in baseball going for our team? Isn’t one run enough for Halladay sometimes?
Again, it is absolutely ludicrous to make the statement that it is always wrong to bunt the guy over from second to third with no outs, and that is the theme of Joe’s article.
@72 “Second, the only thing I don’t like is when a stat-head says something based solely on a ludicrous stat…i.e. the run totals dropped from 1.09 to .93 with a man on second and no outs as opposed to a guy on third and one out. OK, but what were the situations?”
I agree that it’s important to take note of the situation and that it’s silly to apply a statistic across the board. But that is not a problem with the stats, it’s a problem with the people who misuse them. I see that as no different from someone who completely ignores the numbers and relies on anecdotes, referring to them as “gut instinct” or “common sense.”
I think that bunting a running to third with no one out in the eighth inning of a 1-0 game is a defensible move. The game is close, the offense has been unable to generate runs, there’s not much time left, and so it’s worth the out to increase the chances of scoring a single run.
Bunting a runner over in the first inning is almost never defensible, as you are decreasing your likelihood of a big inning for the sake of the shot at a single run. Most of the bunts that Joe referred to are indefensible in my mind, because they reduce the chances of a big inning early in the game.
@73
I disagree because Barton is not a great hitter. He is average at best. He’s a career .260/.361/.402 hitter…very mediocre. Is he having a better year this year? Yes. But at the beginning of this season, he was nothing more than a middling first baseman playing a position of power…without any power. He has to do whatever he can to help the team, and by getting his team in a position to score an early run, he is doing just that. I don’t see the problem here, especially since the A’s aren’t the 1927 Yankees and aren’t really going to have too many “big innings” anyway.
@74
It makes it a lot harder to have a big inning when your #2 hitter is sacrifice bunting with nobody out.
@Chris Fiorentino
Yes, Barton is a career .260/.361/.402 hitter, but he’s also 25 years old and improving. Showing career numbers for a young hitter can hide any progression made, as it does with Barton, but that sorta helps your case and that’s probably the point. He’s hitting .288/.396/.425 this season, and he’s also 2nd in the AL in walks and 10th in OBP.
So, he’s really good at not making outs. Common sense dictates that when you have a guy like Barton at bat, you do not waste outs with him. He has a good chance of doing something more positive than purposely making an out. If he gets a hit, then it’s first and third and no outs and the scoring opportunities still apply. If he walks, you still have two on and no out. All this with the heart of the order coming up. Even if Barton grounds out to the right side–not uncommon for left-handed hitters–the runner on second still advances to third, and you forced the opposition to make the play rather than just gifting them an out.
In the words of Earl Weaver, “If you play for one run, that’s all you’ll get.”
@Chris Fiorentino –
“Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?”, which seems to be the crux of your analysis, is not particularly useful or productive in any circumstance, not just this one.
Many years ago (1980 to be specific), during one of their long doldrums (do the Mets have an equivalent of the “Horace Clarke years”? The “Doug Flynn years”?), I saw Mark “Boom Boom” Bomback start 3 games in person at Shea Stadium (yes, I am a masochist). In 23.1 innings, I saw him give up 1 earned run. Based on my observation, Bomback should have won the Cy Young award.
His stats for the entire season?
WHIP: 1.475
OPS+: 87
K/BB: 1.39
So, should I go by my observation or by the stats if I were picking my starter for Game 1 of the World Series? (Yes, I know the Mets weren’t going to the WS that year. It’s a hypothetical question. Pretend he was traded to the Phillies.)
It is not news that sacrifice bunts have a negative impact on scoring runs, and therefore on winning games. Professor Earnshaw Cook was the first person (that I know of) to study this statistically, and that was in 1966 in his book “Percentage Baseball”. Subsequent analysis and simulation only confirms this.
Specifically:
– Sacrifice bunts reduce the average number of runs scored in an inning.
– Sacrifice bunts reduce the odds of scoring at all in that inning.
– Sacrifice bunts reduce the chance of scoring that specific baserunner.
– A baserunner is more likely to score from his current base than ANY succeeding base with more outs.
The run expectancy that you deride (1.09 vs. 0.93 runs/inning) is based on literally years of statistics. They invariably prove these things. If you would like to check them out, Bill James Online has 24 States Analysis going back to 2002, through 2010. The absolute numbers change over time (e.g., the A’s numbers for this year are 0.830/0.645 in the current case), but the relative output remains the same (i.e., “man on 1st-0 out” is always higher than “man on 2nd 1 out”). (If you’re not a member, I highly recommend it; it costs $3/month.)
Yes, there are extreme cases where sacrificing increases the run potential. If the batter is so likely to make an out without advancing the runner at all when swinging away (e.g., a pitcher who can’t hit and strikes out a lot), sacrificing can be helpful because there is at least a chance that it will be successful and advance the runner. In Cook’s book, he puts the threshhold for this at an OBP of less than .140. Given that teams score more runs nowadays than they did in 1966 (RPG 3.99), that number is even smaller in 2010 (RPG 4.49); I would guesstimate it to be roughly .125 in 2010).
Saying to me, “look at your Excel Spreadsheet”, doesn’t’ ruffle any feathers of mine. It just makes me think that you are ignorant of statistics and what they mean and how to use them, and revel in that ignorance.
And it is precisely because so many “baseball people” think the way you do that “Moneyball” and Beane’s application of its philosophy made the A’s so successful with their limited payroll: the informed, thinking player is always going to beat the uninformed, feeling player in any competition.
@ Chris F
The stats are just a history of what has happened. It is an undeniable fact that sac bunting lowers the amount of runs you’re gonna score. You can choose to ignore it, but it remains a fact.
@78
Moneyball is the single most over-rated idea in the history of sports. How many World Series rings does Billy Beane have? Zero. How many playoff appearances has he made since the last of the Big Three left Oakland in 2006(Zito)? Zero once again.
The stat fanatics drool all over Moneyball, but the fact is that of the 5 years out of 7 in the 2000′s that the A’s made the playoffs, only once, the year 2000, did they do so without the reason being Hudson, Zito, and Mulder. And that year they ranked SECOND in the AL in Home Runs, not exactly proof of the “Moneyball” we have all been told about.
2001-2004(3 of the times in the playoffs for A’s)
Hudson – 81-37 3.31
Zito – 65-36 3.49
Mulder – 72-32 3.65
Now you tell me…WHAT DID MONEYBALL HAVE TO DO WITH A TOP THREE OF A STAFF PITCHING LIKE THAT???? Any type of hitting would win the division with a staff like that. Also throw in a couple career years from the late Cory Lidle, solid years out of Lilly and Harden in 2003, and the A’s won, not because of any type of “Moneyball” philosophy, but because of their solid pitching. Thus, their struggles since 2006.
They made the playoffs again in 2006 for one reason and one reason alone…FRANK THOMAS. Period. He had one more big year left in him(39/114/.270/.381/.545/.926) and the Athletics won the division, and for the first time ever, and actually playoff series.
What have they done since? UN-GOTTZZZ. So don’t give me the Billy Beane Moneyball over-hyped bullcrap.
Not sure he ever got over not drafting the Greek God of Walks when he learned he was wrong and the guy’s was never actually Greek but just unknowingly faking being Greek — then realizing he’d been wrong on the Greek detail but right all along about the on-base percentage thing as the guy proceeded to lead the RedSox to a couple of World Series championships. It’s the same exact thing that’s caused so many to lead a pointless existence as Spurs supporters.
“Moneyball is the single most over-rated idea in the history of sports.”
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
@79
“The stats are just a history of what has happened. It is an undeniable fact that sac bunting lowers the amount of runs you’re gonna score. You can choose to ignore it, but it remains a fact.”
Maybe scoring the most runs isn’t always worth the risk. In other words, if the score is 1-1 in the bottom of the 8th, and the leadoff guy hits a double, shouldn’t the second batter bunt him to third? Isn’t the 1 run inning better than the minuscule chance at a “big inning” in that situation?
I don’t disagree that a bigger inning is more possible when there is a man on second and nobody out than when there is a man on third and one out. But here’s the question I want from the stat guys…not sure if there is a stat for this, but check it out, and I predict it will be in my favor…
How often is one run(or more but at least one run) scored when there’s a man on 2nd and nobody out? How often does it happen when there’s a man on third and one out?
That’s all I really care about. Not the average amount of runs…how many times are RUN(S) SCORED. Because I am a firm believer in momentum, which can not be shown through stats. I am a firm believer in a pitcher pitching differently when losing as opposed to with a lead. If a guy is down 1-0, he will more likely pitch tighter than if he is up 1-0. No stat will quantify that…it’s just logical.
Now, some guys just plain SUCK and will pitch poorly anyway…case in point, Ian stinking Snell, who was given a 2-0 first inning lead and proceeded to give up 9 runs before recording 6 outs.
But for the most part, especially for the A’s, getting at least 1 run is more important than taking the chance on a big inning…especially with the horrible offense that the A’s have(11th in the AL).
Dusty Baker likes the sacrifice bunt a lot. I yell at the TV for him to stop but he does not listen.
@ 80
It’s amazing how some people still fail to understand what “Moneyball” was actually about.
And FWIW, I’m not sure if the Big Hurt is really the example you want to use as far as an anti-Billy Beane/Moneyball argument. Because he was kind of the perfect example of it working (both in terms of what “Moneyball” actually was, and what many think it was)
Moneyball–it’s like those egghead scientists who keep telling us that the earth is several billion years old! It says right there in the Bible that the earth was created in 6 days, and on the 7th day, God bunted the runner over to third. It’s not His fault Cain and Abel couldn’t drive in the winning run.
@ 83
Is anyone arguing against this hypothetical 1-1 in the 8th inning scenario? The issue is that Barton ISN’T doing this in the 8th inning of a tie game. He’s doing it in the FIRST inning. As a fan of another team with a sucky offense (the White Sox), I would much rather have my team in a position to get more than 1 run than playing and praying for a 1-0 win. Because in the first inning you generally assume you’re going to need more than 1 to win.
Chris F., pick an argument and stick with it, for chrissakes.
You guys think that’s disturbing check out this little gem:
Oakland A’s Stolen Bases: 2002 – 46; 2003 – 48; 2004 – 47; 2005 – 31; 2006 – 61; 2007 – 52; 2008 – 88; 2009 – 133! (good for 4th in MLB).
I think you can just follow this trend with Billy’s uptick in interest for futbol. Maybe this anti-Moneyball thing is the new revolution?
The Moneyball philosophy that I disagree with is that OBP and SLG are better indicators of scoring than HRs, RBIs and BA. That’s a high-level statement…there are some other things, like drafting College guys instead of High Schoolers, etc, that I do agree with in the book.
In 2000, the A’s made the playoffs for the first time in Beane’s regime. Here’s the table to show the years the A’s made the playoffs and their A.L. rank(of 14 teams) in runs scored and runs allowed?
Year – Runs Scored Rank – Runs Allowed Rank
2000 – 3rd – 3rd
2001 – 4th – 2nd
2002 – 8th – 2nd
2003 – 9th – 2nd
2006 – 9th – 3rd
I agree with the “Moneyball” notion that drafting players out of college is better than drafting them out of high school. But I totally disagree with the stat people who kneel at the altar of “Moneyball”. I think that the A’s got lucky with three of the most dominant pitchers of the early 00′s in their rotation and “Moneyball” got all the glory. However, Beane does deserve credit for drafting those guys from 97-99 out of college and THAT part of the Moneyball philosophy I have no qualms with whatsoever.
@90: the “Moneyball Philosophy” is not that “OBP and SLG are better indicators of scoring than HRs, RBIs and BA.”. It was that players with high OPS and low power numbers were highly undervalued at the time, which, of course, is no longer the case, since big teams are now snatching these players up.
@ Chris F
You do realize HRs are a large part of what makes batting average different from SLG right?
@91
I disagree. The Moneyball philosophy wasn’t only that they were cheaper…but that they were also BETTER. Beane and the rest of the statheads, like Bill James, had this “holier-than-thou” attitude that not only were the players cheaper, but they were better and that they could win with their $41 million payroll over the Yankees $120 million dollar payroll because of the players. Maybe they could, but NOT because of the offensive players they had. If you look back at the A’s success, it was predicated on one thing…pitching. Period. The “stats” don’t lie. Yet people take the offensive part of the moneyball concept and say that it is why teams win. I disagree.
@93
The fact that they were undervalued was the whole point of the book. The book, after all, was called “Money”ball, not OPSball, or Walkball. Absolutely nobody was pretending that the featured players were the best players in the game, they were saying they were the best values in the game.
You know who else are “holier-than-thou” statheads? The Red Sox. Except, of course, they have the resources to make a championship team, something Beane never had after the rich teams found out what he was doing.
@94
The Red Sox won because they had Manny, Big Papi, Pedro and Schilling. Nothing to do with Moneyball whatsoever. You can give me Millar, Pedroia, Youk(The Greek God of Walks), Johnny Damon, etc. But the fact is that Manny and Papi were the best 3-4 in baseball from 03-07 and Pedro/Schilling when healthy dominated the postseason.
Manny, Ortiz, and Martinez are not “traditional players” as opposed to “stats players”. Every stathead worth his stolen lunch money knows that Pedro Martinez was the best pitcher in the whole game in 99-00, that Manny was one of the best players in baseball in his tenure with the Red Sox, and all of that. People like Millar, Pedroia, and Youk, on the other hand, were a fantastic supporting cast, created by smart trades, great player development, and a generally intelligent approach to baseball. You think Ortiz, Pedro, Manny, and all of that would still have won titles if the Red Sox were still in their pre-00s philosophy of overspending on washed-up power hitters, rather than spending smart?
What we have is a philosophical debate. If the objective is to score the most runs, then the answer is to hit away, as Joe points out.
When the Baseball Analysts looked at this question a few years ago, they concluded that an American League team, with a runner on 2nd and no-one out and their #2 hitter up, will score 1.214 runs. With one out, a runner on 3rd, and the #3 hitter up, they will score 1.017 runs, a loss of .207 runs.
However, if the question is the increase the chances of scoring any runs, then the bunt looks better. With a runner on 2nd and no one out and the #2 hitter up, an AL team will score 66.5% of the time. With the runner on third and one out and the #3 hitter up, the team will score 70.7% of the time, an increase of 4.2%.
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/07/empirical_analy_1.php
Of course, the question is really not about scoring runs, but about winning games. Does that 4.2% increase in the chance of scoring outweigh the .207 decrease in average runs scored?
In the first inning of a scoreless game, the home team having a runner on second with no one out wins 66% of the time. With the runner on third and one out, the win probability actually declines to 63.5%.
However, if the situation was a tied game in the last of the 8th (runner on 2nd no one out), the home team wins 75% of the time. After a successful sacrifice, the winning percentage increases to…75.2% (and actually, if you swap the home team with the visitors and run the numbers, the winning percentage declines after the bunt from 39% to 38%).
http://winexp.walkoffbalk.com/expectancy/search
So, while the 1st inning bunt would increase the chances of scoring one run, it decreases the chances of winning the game. In fact, it isn’t until the last of the 8th of a tied game that bunting the runner over to third increases the chances of winning.
So, to echo Joe, “Stop that guy already! Use a cross-bow if necessary.”
That’s all I really care about. Not the average amount of runs…how many times are RUN(S) SCORED.
But if you want to actually, you know, win the ball game – they count the runs, not the number of innings in which you scored. One five-run inning beats four single-run innings.
Nor do I think that believing in momentum helps your position. What gives more momentum, a 1-0 lead against a great pitcher, or a 2-0 lead against him? Or a 3-0 lead? What gives your own great pitcher a better cushion to work with? If someone boots a grounder, do you worry more with a three-run lead, or a one-run lead?
Earlier in this thread I posted the relative numbers for Barton, Sweeney, and Kouzmanoff – Barton hits for better power than either of the guys behind him, and makes fewer outs. The idea that he should be giving himself up to move a runner for them is goofy. (It’s comment #19.) In fact, the only reason I can think of for it is that Barton’s trying to be a good, classic two-hitter instead of actually productive. With his skill-set he’s much better off trying to move him over with a single or a deep fly ball, than to meekly bunt him over.
To put it in terms off the odds of scoring at all, the way you asked – if Barton swings away instead of bunting:
Three outs – runner does not advance.
Three outs – runner advances (grounders to the right, deep flies)
Three hits – one XBH, two singles. Say the run scores on the XBH and one of the singles.
Walk.
So that’s two runs immediately in ten tries, instead of none on the bunts. That’s two more times with TWO runners on and none out instead of one runner and one out. That’s three other times where the runner is no worse off than if Barton had bunted.
Four superior outcomes, three equal outcomes, and three inferior outcomes if you swing away rather than bunt. Two of those superior outcomes have a run already in the bag, rather than a guy who could be stranded at third. Of the three inferior outcomes (runner stays put, add an out), one of the two following hitters could still get a hit, and since the runner is already in scoring position, he will score more often than not (all XBH and a good part of the singles).
You’d want hard data to back that up, of course, and not just my logical walkthrough. Well, that data exists:
Runner on 2d, 0 out – 1.09 runs per occurence
Runner on 3d, 9 out – 0.93 runs per occurence
Wow, some people really need to reread Moneyball or stop quoting it.
Moneyball was not about OBP, nor was it about drafting certain players.
Moneyball is not a philosophy.
Moneyball is the title of a book about a general manager who was running a team that didn’t make a lot of money, and who realized that since he couldn’t spend money on players like other teams, he would need to figure out what teams weren’t spending money on and exploit that. It is about market inefficiencies; in fact, baseball is really just the backdrop of the story.
Baseball front offices are much smarter than they were 10 years ago, and Moneyball–again, the book, not the OBP or drafting or whatever–has played a large role in that evolution.
It’s your business if you choose to keep plugging your ears and screaming.
LOL… one out, not nine out! I have stupid fingers.
@94
Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder and CC Sabathia send their best…
@99
I read Moneyball…twice. Once when it first came out and a couple years later when the Red Sox won the World Series and everybody was saying it was because of Moneyball. Neither time did I agree with the notion that the A’s were winning because of Moneyball, nor will I ever believe that. Yet that’s what people are trying to write as the reason for the success of the 00′s A’s. My point was that the A’s won because of the Big 3 pitchers and not because they signed lower priced free agent hitters who were better at getting on base than hitting home runs, which is what the Bill James Sabremetricians are trying to say.
@83 “But here’s the question I want from the stat guys…not sure if there is a stat for this, but check it out, and I predict it will be in my favor…
How often is one run(or more but at least one run) scored when there’s a man on 2nd and nobody out? How often does it happen when there’s a man on third and one out?”
If I am not mistaken, that is what the run differential breakdown that Joe provided is intended to show. With a runner on second and no one out, a team can expect to score 1.09 runs. With a runner on third and one out, a team can expect to score 0.93 runs.
Ergo, bunting the runner from second to third decreases the odds of scoring a run. Or, more accurately (IMO) it decreases the number of runs you are likely to score in that inning.
It’s actually very possible that you have a higher chance to score exactly one run with a man on third and one out, which would explain why it’s a good thing to do very late in a close game.
However, you do stand to score more runs on average without the sacrifice bunt. You just might decrease your chance of scoring exactly one.
Pointing to who has won the World Series is irrelevant to the message of Moneyball. It stated clearly in the book that the Moneyball approach needs a longer time frame…say 162 games…to assert itself….It does not work in short-series playoffs because chance and luck play a much greater role in a 5- or 7-game series.
@104
I agree entirely. It’s all about Risk and Reward. Sure, you COULD score more runs if you didn’t bunt. But unless they are going to do the stats on a “per team” basis, those numbers are meaningless. It really depends on your team. Should the Yankees with all stars at every position bunt the player over with no outs and a man on second? No, I don’t think so. Should the A’s with average-at-best players throughout their lineup bunt the guy over? I think so.
I think that using a general stat like “With a runner on second and no one out, a team can expect to score 1.09 runs. With a runner on third and one out, a team can expect to score 0.93 runs.” is dangerous to apply to all teams. Maybe the Yankees or Red Sox shouldn’t do it in the first inning, but maybe the A’s should. Maybe the Devil Rays shouldn’t do it in the first inning, but the Pirates or Astros should. Who knows? But to generalize it and say that the league-wide average is 100% correct for EVERY team is dangerous.
@Chris
You’re right, the A’s were one of the best teams at run prevention, but they were also an offensive juggernaut in the early part of the decade. Giambi, Tejada and Chavez in the middle was pretty formidable, and they were surrounded by guys like Matt Stairs, John Jaha, older David Justice, Erubiel Durazo, Jermaine Dye, and others. But insisting it was solely the Big Three is sort of killing your argument.
After Moneyball was published in May of 2003, other organizations took notice and adjusted their approach. Since the mid-2000s the A’s have had more trouble scoring runs. This implies their approach was working, but now they’re competing with smarter front offices for the same players. The book also mentions that the Beane was aware that teams were catching on to this, and how the A’s were already starting to shift toward defensively skilled players and focusing on run prevention. And if you’ve been paying attention the last few seasons, you’ll agree that baseball is now much more focused on defense and run prevention. What the A’s were doing when Moneyball was being written is different than what they were doing when the book was released, which is different than what they are doing now.
So wrapping this up, your insistence that the A’s won because of their pitching is somewhat correct, and your reasoning behind it is flawed.
I think SLG is the most misleading and therefore overrated statistic in the game.
@106,
Of course you should not apply a general statistic blindly. Airline travel is statistically the safest mode of travel; that doesn’t mean I’m going to get on a plane that hasn’t been serviced in two years (at least I hope not). The point is that we use statistics (in all walks of life) as a guide to more specific situations. I don’t understand your aversion to using such stats in guiding (although not blindly) your decisions.
Obviously, the Yankees and Red Sox are successful because they have good players. But what is it that makes good players. It’s pretty obvious that one of the big things that has made them good is their ability to work pitchers and draw walks. That translates into OBP. My team, the Braves, have improved greatly this year because they are drawing more walks and this has translated into more runs. That’s why OBP is an important stat. By the same token, if you look at RBIs, it’s highly misleading because it depends so much on the team and where you are hitting in the order. I’m not saying that RBI is a completely worthless stat, but, as an aggregate figure, it’s misleading, in part because you can get a lot of cheap RBIs. For example, guy comes up in the 8th inning with a runner on third and one out and his team is behind by four runs; he hits a ground ball to second and the run scores. Nice–he gets an RBI but has effectively killed the rally. And what has he really done that reflects hitting skill.
Your problem seems to be more with how statistics are used in general rather than with the specific application of them to baseball. You don’t like the use of numbers to replace human intuition. But human intuition, unfortunately, isn’t all that sharp. All stats are simply tools to aid analysis; they don’t tell you what to do in a specific situation but they provide some basis besides simple observation, which is frequently distorted.
In general, it makes little sense to play for one run in the first inning, thereby foregoing the chance for multiple runs. Obviously, the analysis is different if it’s 1-1 in the 8th inning.
@108
Maybe for offense, but it isn’t even in the same league as errors, saves, wins, and all that awful pitching/defense stuff.
I apologize, Chris, for not replying to the question you asked me in post #72. I’ve been stuck in boring meetings most of the afternoon. Lots of other folks have answered your question already, but since you took the time to lay out the example for me I wanted to take the time to reply to it.
Here’s your example (so folks don’t have to go scrolling back):
Here’s an example…let’s say we have the Phillies vs the Rockies…Halladay vs Jiminez. Shane leads off with a double that the right fielder misplayed and should have caught. Should Polanco bunt him to third so that Utley can have a better chance of driving in the run from third with one out? Or should we take a chance that Placido doesn’t get the guy over, then Utley hits one to the fence and we watch as Shane takes third, but no it is with TWO OUTS?? Should we take the free run if we can get it…especially against one of the best pitchers in baseball and especially with one of the best pitchers in baseball going for our team? Isn’t one run enough for Halladay sometimes?
The one key detail you left out, I think, is the inning. If your hypothetical example happens in the first inning, I’m letting Placido swing away. He’s a good contact hitter, so the odds are good he’s going to put the ball in play. Maybe he hits a grounder to short or third, and I’m “stuck” with Victorino still on second. Especially with how they’ve played lately.
But.. . With Utley, Howard, Werth, and Ibanez coming up, I want to do everything I can to get them base runners. At least, in the first inning. Because while I’m quite comfortable giving Roy Halladay a 1-0 and letting him do his thing, I’d prefer to give him a 2-0 or 3-0 lead.
Now, if your hypothetical occurs in the 7th, 8th, or 9th innings and the game is tied, then yeah — Placido is sacrificing Victorino to third in that situation, and I’ll take my chances on Utley driving in the run (or even counting on a wild pitch/passed ball to get the job done). I’m absolutely playing for just one run in that spot, and I’m going to rely on Halladay (and maybe Lidge) to hold the Rockies down.
And I really think that’s the key. There are times the sac bunt makes sense, just like there are times the intentional walk makes sense. But that doesn’t mean that every instance of the sac bunt is an effective use of that particular at bat. Sometimes, going with the sac bunt is the inferior choice, and that’s all this particular post was about — a player on the A’s opting on his own to often make that inferior choice.
@Chris F.
Man do I love it when you start commenting. You consistently fascinate me. I find it odd that you read Joe so frequently since his philosophy on baseball so clearly differs from yours.
Someone already brought the numbers specific to the A’s for this season
They are:
0.830 runs with man on 2nd, 0 outs
0.645 runs with man on 3rd, 1 out
So even when applied specifically to this A’s team, the numbers still say that bunting in these situations (early in the game) is the wrong one.
What I don’t understand is why you are okay with using the traditional AVG/HR/RBI stats to explain baseball, but any other stats are off limits and ridiculous.
Wouldn’t you think if the common sense approach was the best, that the results would actually come out in your favor? If bunting in this situation were truly the best option, wouldn’t the numbers say that?
Its especially telling in this situation that Barton has a higher OBP and SLG than the 3 and 4 hitters behind him, meaning he is more likely to reach base and/or drive in the runner than those two. Maybe he should be moved down the lineup.
@111,
As you point out, just because you don’t sacrifice doesn’t mean that the batter can’t move the runner over. The difference is that if he hits a ground ball to second, perhaps the second baseman boots the ball and the hitter is safe. If he bunts, he almost surely will be out. The question, though, is, in that situation, should the hitter make a concerted effort to hit the ball to the right side in order to make sure he at least makes a “productive out” (which might mean trying to pull an outside pitch)or just swing normally?
Good question, Marc. My personal opinion: I don’t want players trying to make outs. So sticking with the example, I want Polanco to find a pitch he likes and hit it hard, rather than trying to go the opposite way (he’s a righty) so the runner can advance even on an out.
I understand the flip side of the coin, though. You have a guy like Polanco who has good bat control, maybe you do encourage him to try and poke it the other way. I dunno. I just know I hate the sac bunt early in games. With a pitcher at the plate, I’m OK with the bunt. But otherwise, let ‘em swing.
(and can we all agree that this is the absolute worst sac bunt situation: runners on 1st and 3rd, nobody out, and the hitter sacs the runner to 2nd. Gah!)
As much as I enjoyed reading Moneyball, has anyone surmised that the reason for the A’s success might have had more to do with their proximity to BALCO than their management style?
@115
No, because that’s saying only guys on teams close to laboratories did steroids. The 29 teams the A’s played against were just as likely to have as many steroid users as them.
There isn’t a bigger waste of an out that bunting a guy from 2nd to 3rd.That’s as true in little league and in A ball and in the majors. He’s already in scoring position. It accomplishes nothing and wastes one of 27 outs. Why is that credited as a sacrifice when a runner tagging up on a fly in the same situation rightly is not so credited?
Beane might be a victim of his own success. The market for good baseball players took his critique to heart, how getting on base rather than making outs mattered. What was once revolutionary is now a given. When you combine those insights with cash like the Red Sox and Yankees do, suddenly what ever advantage Beane and the A’s had is gone. Ineffiencies have been corrected.
It would be nice if people could discuss how well or how poorly Billy Beane has done as Oakland GM based on the record, rather than on tribalism and perception.
Given the demographics of Joe P’s fans, I’m sure almost EVERYONE here will agree that too many old school fans and reporters have dismissed Billy Beane’s theories too quickly, without even bothering to understand them. Why? Because Billy Beane just doesn’t FEEL like their kind of guy. Old schoolers denigrated Beane’s real accomplishments because they couldn’t identify with him.
Problem is, modern day stat-lovers are making the opposite mistake. They’re dismissing Beane’s very real failures and blunders because they DO identify with him, and he DOES feel like their kind of guy.
Billy Beane did a nice job of keeping the low-budget A’s competitive for a long time, and he deserves bows for that. But the A’s have NOT been competitive lately, and stat-lovers should stop defending him reflexively.
By all means, argue about what Beane’s recent failures mean. MAYBE they mean his theories no longer hold water; MAYBE they mean that there aren’t any easily exploitable “market inefficiencies” right now; MAYBE the theories are still sound, but Beane is burned out and not as focused on his job as he used to be; or maybe there are other possibilities I haven’t considered.
But do NOT pretend that Beane has done a splendid job of late. He hasn’t. Don’t be like the old schoolers- judge the man on his record. Lately, the record hasn’t been impressive.
Phillies-Yankees tonight. Top of the 7th Phils ahead 3-1 Ruiz leads off with a double and is sacrificed to 3rd by Valdez the 9 hole hitter. Victorino is given an IBB and Utley walks to load the bases. Polanco grounds into a 3-2 FC and Howard strikes out to end the inning scoreless.
Move ahead to the top of the 9th same score. Ruiz leads off again with a double and the Yanks call a meeting at the mound. They put on the rotation play thinking the bunt is on but Valdez swings away putting the ball in the hole vacated by Jeter scoring Ruiz. By the time the inning was over the Phils had scored 4 runs and held a 7-1 lead.
Seemed a pretty good tie in to the discussion thread here lately.
Do the Yanks put the rotation play on in the 9th if the Phils hadn’t bunted in the same situation earlier? I don’t know. Do the Phils put up a 4 spot on the scoreboard if Valdez sacrifices Ruiz over in the 9th? I don’t know. Did the sac not work in the 7th and did the lack of a sac. work in the 9th. Infatically YES. What does it all mean? That is the beauty of the game. It means something and it means nothing. It works and it doesn’t. What happens usually, does not predicate that it happens now. Execution wins games no matter what the play call is. If Valdez hits that ball on a line at Jeter it becomes 2 outs instead of a run. That is baseball. That is what we love. That and the fact that the 27th out must be recorded you can’t just take a knee.
First off, I agree with the conclusion. I think it is a bad move. I’ll still be a little bit of a contrarian anyway though. I think there are a few factors that might close the gap on that run expectancy a bit.
A lower scoring run environment would influence the numbers a little bit. I’m not sure where run scoring stands this year vs. the historical average, but it is down a little bit vs. recent history. So it appears to be slightly better (or less bad) to do it now than it has been.
Oakland’s ballpark suppresses offense too, so that is another consideration to throw in the mix. I believe only Petco has a stronger pitching bias in their park adjustment, but I may be wrong on that. Either way, I’m certain it’s in the bottom quarter.
It would be interesting to see the teams they are playing, and the pitching matchups, on the day of sacrifices. It makes less sense if it happens vs. the Yankees vs. the Mariners or Orioles. It’s probably slightly less bad if Brett Anderson is pitching than some of the others. It’s flat idiotic if you’re facing Ian Snell. It’s at least less idiotic if you’re facing Cliff Lee.
And finally, you have to factor into run expectancy the unlikely chance Barton bunts into a hit or forces an error. It’s remote, for sure. But you have to weight that remote chance of a 1st and 3rd with a hit into the equation. You’re forcing the fielder to make a play, so there’s a remote chance you even get a run in on an error and a runner on second too.
Of course, there’s probably a greater chance that Barton doesn’t get the runner to 3rd at all. So, yeah, it’s still almost certainly a bad move. Maybe just not as bad as it looks, depending on those other factors.
“Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of all people know that”
@80 Chris Fiorentino, “Moneyball is the single most over-rated idea in the history of sports. How many World Series rings does Billy Beane have?”. That is not the right measure. The measure of sucess is what you do with what you’ve got. So to see if Billy Bean has been successful or not you need to compare the results of the A’s with other teams with a similar payroll or revenue stream.
The thing with bunting vs swinging is that even if there is a statistical advantage in swinging, you should never appraoch a given situation the same way 100% of the time. In no way should barton be looking to bunt so often in that situation. But at the same time, going by “the book” every time allows the defense to set itself up for their maximum advantage. Choosing to bunt every so often keeps the defense honest, and if it manages to catch the defense by surprise, then there is a potential for both runners to be safe. The frequency of going off the book simply needs to be less than the loss of the .18 expected runs. To make up for the loss of a potential 1/5 run, the choice to bunt needs to be made far less than 1/5 of the time. One time out of ten is a nice number. One out of twenty is even better.
Two things…
First, after thinking it over for an evening, I think I have come around to kinda agree with those opposed to bunting in the early stages of the game. I agree that it may not always be the best idea to do so too early, but I’ll still say that it is not the absolute worst idea of all time either. I do think Joe goes overboard by saying “Holy $#@$!%. Somebody tell that man to stop doing that immediately. Holy #@!$#@$. Seven of his league-leading nine sacrifice bunts were, just as he said, bunting a runner from second to third with nobody out. This isn’t just a waste of an out, it’s crumpling an out, stomping on it with disdain, and then purposely not putting it into the recycle bin.” It isn’t THAT egregious of a thing to do. Joe doesn’t qualify it with “most times”. He seems to think it is ALWAYS wrong, and that is a concept I do not agree with. It seems most people here also do not agree with that notion as well.
Second, regarding Moneyball, I still contend that the concept is one of the more overrated philosophies in the game today. The Sabremetrics people will tell you about the success of the A’s and say that their use of the “other stats” was the main reason. I say the A’s didn’t have all that much success outside of the years they had the Big Three. They won 87 games in 1999. They won the division in 2000 winning 91 games. That’s it. 2001-2003 was because of the Big three. In 2006, they won a weak AL West with the help of a one-year rejuvenation of the Big Hurt. Don’t give me “Moneyball” when their AL Ranks were 7th in OBP and 11th in SLG. They got lucky in 2006 and haven’t done squat since. Sometimes, lower payroll teams get lucky(re: ’03 Marlins, ’07 Diamondbacks, etc) and sometimes they are always good(re: Twins every year).
So all told, the A’s had one good season without the Big Three…2000. That’s it. That’s worth putting together a book and talking about “Moneyball” until it is just accepted as the greatest thing since sliced bread? Ugh. That’s all I’m saying.
Just spent an enjoyable hour reading the last 2 posts and all of the comments. Nice!
@124
Who are you arguing against? I don’t think anybody in this thread is just saying “Moneyball” and plugging there ears. You are arguing against somebody that doesn’t exist here.
I don’t think there is any philosophy that guarantees championships in baseball. All a GM can do is to try and put the best available pieces together, so I guess if someone is really suggesting that Moneyball equals championships, then sure its overrated. BUT, nobody is saying that, especially here.
joe, i know you have plenty of other priorities (like this vacation excuse) but your posts are what i look forward to during my work days…
i’m going to have to ask for less of this occasional posting business. i need regular joeposts.
I know this is selfish and you’re on vacation and everything, but PLEASE come home, Joe! Lunch break isn’t the same without you!
Any book that features Miguel Tejada imagining a baseball turning into a giant slice of cake mid-pitch is fine by me…
… if you haven’t read the screenplay for the please-god-let-this-go-into-production movie adaptation of Moneyball, you sure are missing out!
I always felt that Beane’s approach was to find players who had skills that were undervalued, and build a team more efficiently. As it happens, baseball teams valued batting average too highly and OBP too low. Since OBP correlates extremely well to scoring, his approach had immediate success. Once teams saw the value in OBP, players who could get on base become more expensive, and Beane had to look elsewhere for his value.
I don’t think the A’s decline is that shocking. What’s shocking is that it took the publication of Moneyball to wake baseball up to something that it should have understood long ago.
I also think that what made Moneyball such a polarizing book is that Michael Lewis was much harsher on traditional scouting and management than was necessary. He made conventional scouting methods seem stupid and worthless, which it is not. It helped to create a division between the sabermetric crowd and people who prefer more traditional analysis.
I never read Moneyball because, frankly, I wasn’t all that interested in a book-length discussion of OBP. I don’t think there is anything particularly shocking or difficult to understand about the basic concepts. You are simply saying that certain statistics (OBP) have a greater correlation to success than others (BA). I don’t think it’s a great revelation that working counts and drawing walks is better than swinging at anything and grounding out on the first pitch–except, apparently, to certain managers and hitting coaches.
I will say this, though–while I believe that the sabermetric concepts are better analytical tools than the traditional statistics, their impact on the game has not necessarily been positive. Look at Red Sox-Yankee games. These should be great games but more often than not are almost unwatchable unless you are a fan of one of the teams. This is, at least in part, a function of the way the hitters approach their at bats–running up pitch counts, fouling off pitche after pitch, etc. Similarly, the new approach-as I interpret it anyway-has devalued steals to some extent and focused on power, thus removing an exciting element of the game. (Although this may be coming back as baseball recovers from its steroidal home run binge.) I think it has made it more difficult, in a way, to be a casual fan of baseball. So, I think the new approaches are a mixed blessing.
[...] The Day that Moneyball Died – by Joe Posnanski [...]
Ever the contrarian, I stand in defense of bunting in some situations, even though it might lower run expectancy. Why? Because a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. Or something like that.
There are many situations where by bunting you may lower your run expectation but INCREASE your odds of scoring 1 run. And sometimes the value of that 1 run exceeds that of any potential subsequent runs.
Bottom of the 8th, game tied, home team batting with runner on 2nd and no outs. If the batter bunts the runner over to 3rd doesn’t that INCREASE the home team’s chances of scoring exactly one run, while at the same time DECREASING the home team’s chances of scoring 2 runs, or 3 runs, or 4 runs, etc.
In that situation, who really cares about the 2nd, 3rd or 4th runs? They’d be nice to have, but the critical run is the first run. Score that and your chances of winning are
increased significantly because you’re ahead going into the top of the 9th.
Bottom line is that sometimes maximizing run expectancy does not maximize WIN expectancy.
[...] was Joe Posnanski who declared this excitement over Barton’s (praised, if uncommanded) bunts The Day Moneyball Died. Rob Neyer offered a half-hearted defense of Oakland General Manager Billy Beane’s seeming [...]
@133
If you looked at Post #97, you’d see that in the situation you describe, the win expectancy from a successful sacrifice goes from 75% to 75.2%. In essence, it’s a wash, though a slight change in favor of bunting.
The last of the Eighth Inning is the breaking point. Everything earlier, moving the runner from second with no out to third with one in a tie game decreases the chances of winning. Everything later, it increases the chances of winning.
@Marc
It’s not a full length book about how OBP>AVG. It’s a book about how the A’s found players who were better than traditional scouting would suggest and were also cheap because their skills were not valued. Put another way, it’s about how the A’s exploited an inefficient market and how it was A (not THE ONLY) contributing factor to their success in the early-2000′s. That’s all it was and all it ever would be. Whoever told you it’s about how OBP>AVG didn’t read it very closely.
@Chris
I’ve been following the discussion on this particular thread for the last day or so and felt I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.
“Don’t give me “Moneyball” when their AL Ranks were 7th in OBP and 11th in SLG.”
It’s because Moneyball is not a baseball philosophy based on OBP. It’s a book, by a man named Michael Lewis, about the general business approach of the A’s to use statistical analysis to construct a team that would be cheap and would win. To repeat… Moneyball is the title of a book. A book. Not a philosophy, worldview, tantric ritual, dog, or anything other than a book.
I have a challenge for you. Find one single reference to the term Moneyball used by a single Oakland A’s FO member in that entire book. I really want you to try it out, but I’ll save you the trouble. It’s not there. Because Moneyball is the title of a book. It’s not something else.
I’ll say it again because it needs to be repeated. The book is about finding and exploiting market inefficiencies in order to build a successful team on the cheap. As it turns out, at the time teams were drooling over tools and batting averages and RBI’s and wins and saves and were paying handsomely for them instead of valuing the ability to record outs on defense and NOT record outs on offense. The A’s couldn’t afford to play the game the same way as the Yankees or whoever, so to fill in their roster they got guys with high OBP’s (because they could be had for cheap and would help the team win b/c baserunners=fewer outs) like Hatteberg and Justice and who could record tons of groundball outs like Bradford. They let guys like Giambi and Isringhausen walk because they couldn’t afford them, then scrambled for other choices based on OBP not b/c Moneyball=OBP but because that was what could be had for cheap and would work at the time.
However, the baseball landscape has changed. Big money organizations like the Red Sox went SABR, and others like the Cardinals and Yankees brought in number-crunchers to figure out how to win more games while spending money smarter. Other teams began snatching up OBP guys, so the A’s had to find something else, and honed in on defense which was a big part of the reason they had a good run in 2006. They’ve made some bad moves in recent years (I would consider the Holliday move a bad one, for example), but that doesn’t mean that “Moneyball” is a failed philosophy because it was never a philosophy in the first place. It was a book.
The problem I have (in case anyone cares what problems I have) with this kind of stuff is not the stats or the statisticians, but the haughty attitude of the statisticians.
In the real world, bunting isn’t the worst idea anyone could ever do. Smart people bunt. People who bunt are not idiots. In fact, if Joe’s numbers are right, (I assume they are) then we are talking about a difference of 1.09 t0 .93, which comes out to .16. This is such a narrow margin that it can hardly be called the worst idea in baseball. The people who do it are not stupid. In fact, not only is the difference a miniscule one, but it is also not likely to make a difference in an actual game. Its a margin of error kind of number, not a significant one at all. Even if every single sac bunt attempt falls in line exactly with the odds, then we are talking about maybe three or four runs per season. Maybe. And this is assuming that every single play goes exactly according to the numbers, which we know is unlikely.
We’ve all seen two out rallies and one out rallies and we’ve seen pitchers get out of bases loaded no outs. Statistically, these situations have their odds, and its important to know the odds and try to maximize them to your benefit. However, the small sample size of one inning is not likely to fall in line with the numbers, especially if the numbers are only .16 different.
Thats why so many of the non-stat fans get irritated by the statisticians. Not because the non stat crowd is stupid or behind the times, but simply because they don’t like being made fun of relentlessly for a play that has been popular for 100 years and is only within a small margin of error difference from any other kind of play.
Throw in the fact that a bunt makes it more likely to score a run, and you can understand why the traditionalists don’t see what’s so wrong with bunting and don’t like being harassed about it every time it happens.
Sure, bunting in the first inning is probably the worst time to bunt, and bunting isn’t the best thing to do in the first place, but its hardly an idiotic move that only a crazy person would do. Bill James, Michael Lewis, and the old FJM blog are the primary culprits in the name calling and polarization between the stats lovers and the non stat folks. Heck, calling them “non-stats” people is polarizing in itself, because EVERY baseball fan in the world likes and uses stats all the time. Telling them that “their” stats are stupid won’t get you anywhere, and classifying them as “non-stats people” is simply incorrect.
I love everything Joe writes, but he occasionally gets a little bit condescending to people who go off the Bill James book. I think its this haughty attitude that gets so many people so worked up. Its polarizing to have someone say that some kind of well-known, frequently executed play is terrible. It comes off as arrogant and somewhat naive. Obviously the bunt has been a significant part of baseball for a really long time. A lot of people are going to be insulted if you tell them that what they are doing is idiotic.
Once it gets polarized and everyone who ever says anything good about a bunt is shouted down, then you no longer have decent debate, and anything good that can be said about a bunt is ignored.
If you don’t like bunts because you are against the attitude of “giving away” an out, then fine. I am against it too. I’m against intentional walks and punting and all of that stuff, and I know Joe is. But if you start saying that everyone who does these things is stupid and behind the times, then you are a jerk and it doesn’t matter if they are stupid.
PeteJohn FTW
@Barack
Sure, many SABR-minded fans are rather crude and snarky and make “you’re stupid” jokes. However, the other side is hardly a band of kind and innocent doves, floating through life trying to avoid being picked on by the oh-so-mean stat guys and their fancy spreadsheets.
My personal favorite example is Bill Plaschke helping to run DePodesta out of town, calling him “Google Boy” in print and crushing him non-stop for the LoDuca trade (without bothering to notice that the team still made the playoffs and the main player they got back, Brad Penny, was better than Lo Duca).
My point is this: for every example of a snarky SABR guy making some kind of dumb-joke, you can find a non-SABR guy with a whole bunch of “Stats are for dweebs” jokes. Neither side is innocent, so don’t act like one is.
PeteJOhn
The article is titled “The Day Moneyball Died”!!!! It is a theory used by stat geeks to prove their point that digging deeper into stats is better than using your eyes to watch baseball. It is the theory that makes Derek Jeter a better player than Ryan Howard. I didn’t title the article, Joe did.
Look, the fact remains that the A’s didn’t win SQUAT without the big three pitchers. And once they couldn’t pay them anymore, they haven’t won SQUAT. Period. No stat geek can get past that fact.
And the Red Sox won two world series because of Pedro, Schilling, and Manny. PERIOD. They haven’t gotten there the last two years and won’t get back until they put a big bopper into the middle of that lineup with all those stat geek wet dreams like “Pedey” and the Greek God of Walks “Yoooooouk”, or until they get a knock-down stud pitcher. Maybe that’s Clay. It’s not Jon, not Beckett anymore, and it’s CERTAINLY not Lackey or Dice-K. Maybe with Clay they make another series. Or maybe they get a 40+HR guy in the middle of the lineup. But until they get either one, they won’t win another series.
@139
Yep, looks like you’re right
Chris F – you may be unaware that stat guys love homers… google “three true outcomes” and have a ball.
I mean, you’re mocking sabermetrics, but what’s your big theory on baseball success? Get an awesome pitcher and a great home-run hitter. Gee, thanks Einstein. Everybody’s looking for stud pitchers and home-run hitters. There aren’t that many to be had. How do you obtain them? What do you do if you have trouble affording them? If you can’t get a Pedro or a MannyBManny, how do you build a competitive team, with what sort of players? It’s not an option to ask to be let out of the year’s schedule. It’s not really an option to tank a few years and draft excellent players, because A) the baseball draft is notoriously inexact; B) by the time those guys are contributing to a good team they may be due raises you, again, can’t afford.
For that matter, say you’re the Sawx. You CAN afford stud pitchers and 40-HR guys. Which ones? When do you decide a guy’s past his Best By date? Given three different young pitchers available in trade, how do you judge which one is best for your team? Everyone’s seen them, everyone’s got eyeballs AND numbers on them – so what do you do?
That’s baseball. It’s frankly beyond stupid for you to pretend that a sabermetric approach to the game suddenly doesn’t work because the Sox didn’t win the past two years. They happen to be leading the American League in runs scored right now. They have five different guys with nine homers so far. Even with Lackey, DiceK, and an especially brutal Josh Beckett, they’re above-league average in team ERA. They may win. They’re certainly in the running right now, even with all their injuries and underperforming pitchers.
Seriously, your whole argument has been that “moneyball” (which you simply assume means “stats nerds”) doesn’t work – unless it builds a team like Oakland with their Big Three and balanced offense, or Boston with Pedro and Schilling and Ortiz and Youkilis, in which case it didn’t really work because those guys are awesome baseball players.
@143
No, nightfly. What I am saying is that Boston didn’t win because they went to the Sabremetric approach. And Oakland didn’t win because they went to the Sabremetric approach. And that’s what Moneyball is to the Sabremetric people out there…its their “Dianetics” It’s their way of saying “See, the big stats like HRs and RBIs are not as important as OBP because look at how successful Oakland was following Sabremetrics. And look at Boston, who started using Sabremetrics and then won 2 world series titles in 2004 and 2007″
That’s all I’m saying. Sabremetrics didn’t have anything to do with the success of the A’s or the Red Sox or ANYBODY. Big boppers and stud pitchers win. Period. Yeah, you call me Einstein for saying that, but then you will say Jeter is a better player than Howard in the same breath.
Be a little consistent at least.
@ Chris F.
You seem to think that “stat geeks” attribute all baseball success to sabremetrics, which nobody is actually saying. Once again, who are you arguing against?
You on the other hand want to give zero credit to sabremetrics, when the reality is that its probably somewhere in the middle.
Everybody agrees that hitting and preventing homers will help you win games, but outside of say the Yankees, you can’t always build a team full of those guys, so you must find other ways to maximize your run scoring. This is where the stat stuff comes in. So outside of 40 homer guys, which guys can increase run scoring?
The problem with RBI is not that they are unimportant, but the way in which they are valued by the general baseball community. Knocking in runs is always important, stat guys just suggest that they aren’t the tell all stat that the old guard thinks they are. RBI don’t do a good job of expressing the value of a given player.
All that’s different in the mind of a stat geek is that the RBI went from being a large piece of the pie to a small one.
@ Chris F.
Also who is saying that Jeter is a BETTER player than Howard?
In some circles Jeter may be considered more VALUABLE than Howard, but that’s largely due to his position.
Its not like power hitting 1B are rare in baseball.
I guess I am not making my point clear enough so I’ll just say it once more from the top.
The A’s did not win because of sabremetrics. The Red Sox did not win because of Sabremetrics. NO TEAM wins because of Sabremetrics. Yet the stat people love to claim that sabremetrics, Moneyball, or whatever you want to call it, was responsible for the success of the A’s. And some actually go so far as to say that the Red Sox won because Theo Epstein went with a more sabremetric approach. I say that no team has won a world series using this approach. It is completely overrated. Using a spreadsheet to say one guy is better than another is overrated.
As an example, I have a guy telling me that Livan Hernandez is a “tomato can”. The guy has a 2.82 ERA and has given up 2 or fewer runs in 11 of 14 starts, but because his BaBIP is high and his LOB% is high, he is just lucky. LOL. Whatever. The guy is having a great year so far. If he ends up struggling, then sobeit. But don’t put down what he has done so far because your spreadsheet says he is lucky…he’s been extremely good up to now…admit it.
Chris – no, you are making your point quite clearly. The problem is that you beg the question: you assume that stat analysis doesn’t help, and therefore, that any team that won didn’t do it with stat analysis. It doesn’t seem to matter to you that Oakland and Boston were built with that approach – you just dismiss it with “Big boppers and stud pitchers win” and that’s it.
Well, fine. Define your terms. How big does a guy have to bop to qualify? The ’00 Yanks and ’02 Angels had nobody hit more than 30 homers; they beat teams in the World Series that did. The Angels’ top two starters that season were Ramon Ortiz and Jarrod Washburn – not exactly Schilling and Unit. The ’06 Cards had Pujols… and… well… Jeff Weaver! Jason Marquis! Hot damn.
Did you stop to think that a sabermetric look at a big bopper and stud pitcher would conclude that they were valuable? Maybe Oakland kept their big three pitchers as long as they could BECAUSE they ran the numbers and knew it was their best chance to succeed. Maybe they only dealt them away because money forced them to – making them look for other, cheaper options.
And that is the question you refuse to answer. Everyone knows great hitting and great pitching is a good way to win – what if you can only afford good hitting and decent pitching? How do you identify guys likely to outperform their salaries and get you wins? How do you build a team better than the sum of its parts? Scouting, sure, but you may also want to look at the numbers – they are nothing more than a description of what a player has actually done while playing baseball. A sophisticated analysis of the player’s actual performance could tell you that he’s a bargain you should pursue, as compared to an overpriced soon-to-fade veteran. Yuni Betancourt looked good to someone.
Sure, it doesn’t always work. NOTHING always works. That’s baseball. But hey, maybe it beats just signing guys who had a couple of good years, because scouts say “He looks really sharp, he’s finally healthy, he’s due to rebound.” Would you hire a guy to fix your car if he just looked like a good mechanic, or would you make sure he actually was good? And if you couldn’t afford that shop, wouldn’t you be forced to look for someone else, even if your car wouldn’t be as well-serviced? How would you do that?
@Chris F.
Okay, I took gander at the past 20 World Series Champs (for 1994 I included the top AL and NL teams) to see how they ranked when it came to HR (big boppers) and ERA (stud pitchers)
I also went ahead and threw in that controversial sabremetric stat, OBP.
Breakdown of the results:
Avg. League Rank in HR – 11th
Avg. League Rank in ERA – 9th
Avg. League Rank in OBP – 8th
Number of winners that led league in HR – 1 2009 Yankees
Number of winners that led league in ERA – 2 1995 Braves, 1994 Expos (NL favorite)
Number of winners that led league in OBP – 5 2009 Yanks, 2004 Red Sox, 1998 Yanks, 1994 Yanks, 1991 Twins
Number of winners that finished in the top 3 in HR, ERA, OBP – 3, 5, 8
The Red Sox, the team you frequently mention finished 1st and 2nd in OBP in 2004 & 2007 respectively
Teams win the World Series with timely hitting, timely pitching and a little bit of luck.
At some point that common sense or intuition you speak of will show up in the numbers. Its not just a keen scouting eye that shows Ryan Howard is a good player. His numbers show that as well.
I still find it odd that you have no problem using the common baseball stats like HR and RBI to make your point, but are so against anything else.
Once again nobody is arguing that any one philosophy guarantees a championship, but not all teams can put together the big bopper/stud pitcher teams that you suggest are the only ways to win, so they have find other ways to win games. That’s where the sabremetric stuff comes in.
Bob Geren is one lucky man to have Billy Beane as GM. Otherwise he’d have been fired long ago and be on the street begging for change! Geren is pathetic! Beane is pathetic for hiring him!
Chris F.
I, and surely most people who’ve read this thread, are not the least bit confused about your position. Teams run on SABR-metrics don’t win, and when it appears that they may have, there are bigger factors at play that make the SABR analysis superfluous. You’ve not said it in exactly those words, but I feel that does the thrust of your position justice.
What you fail to recognize is that to bolster your argument, you are using statistics. This reveals the fundamental divide between what we shall call “SABRs” and “Traditionals,” who are most clearly divided over which stats to use when analyzing the performance of baseball players for the purposes of constructing a roster. Forgive the digression, but this needs to be said. By discussing this divide in the macro, I will likely miss some micro-level distinctions but for the sake of brevity I won’t go into them.
Baseball executives have ALWAYS used stats, to some degree or another. Guys have been considered good fielders if they’ve not committed many errors, good pitchers if they’d had low ERAs and lots of wins, good hitters if they’ve recorded high batting averages, and good run-producers if they hit a lot of HR’s and drive in alot of runs. Of course there have always been, and will always be, scouts who look at players in terms of tools, and they assign 20-80 grades in order to put together a somewhat-objective measuring stick of “tools.” A “Traditional” fan/exec may stop there and say there was nothing really more to analyze a player’s performance, and would probably also take into account leadership and clubhouse presence and all that. But to say this position is devoid of statistical analysis is incorrect, as stats are still used as part of the analytical package.
“SABRists” looked at this situation and said hey, wait a minute, I’m not sure these measuring devices are very good. First, errors and Fld% don’t account for balls that slow fielders just never reach and don’t really measure outfield or catcher defense particularly well. ERA and wins are really dependent on that pitcher’s team, and barring some form of transcendent greatness will be significantly and adversely affected by poor teammates, with the inverse being true of course (that good teammates–>inflation of ERA/Wins). Batting average leaves out a lot of plate appearances, particularly guys who also draw a lot of walks. HR’s are great, we love HR’s, but as for RBI… well… those are dependent on how often a player’s teammates are on base and in scoring position. Given enough opportunities anyone in baseball could have 100 RBI when the season was over. Anyone.
So SABRists sought to come up with better measurement instruments, and over time some GM’s have decided that yes, in fact, those new instruments are probably better than the old ones. Newer ones seek both isolation (judging the player in terms of what he does by himself) and prediction (how good will that player be in 1, 2, 5, and 10 years), which were major flaws in the older stats. This where things like UZR, BABIP, FIP, etc. come into play… they are more advanced and preferably ways of measuring actual results.
So the question becomes this… how should you analyze players and put together a team? There are many sub-questions here as well… What if you can’t afford the guys who are obviously good to anyone who knows anything (like Pujols or Longoria or Cliff Lee)? How long can we reasonably expect our players to be useful for? Why exactly has Player X been performing well and is that person worth bringing aboard? How many games can we expect to win given our current roster? And they go on and on and on…
All SABRists have ever said breaks down to this… “We think our measurement instruments are better, so we should use them when evaluating players. Older stats have flaws and no particularly objective way of dealing with intangibles exists either, so we’re probably better off analyzing players in this newer way rather than the older one.” I would say that Traditionalists, on the other hand, would argue that “Hey, wait a sec, there’s nothing wrong with how we’ve been evaluating players in the past, our stats work just fine, thank you very much!”
Which brings us back to you, Chris F. You’ve argued that SABRist GMs haven’t won anything, and when SABRist GM’s did have success it was in spite of them, and that credit should go to the awesome players they had (and of course no credit should be given to the GMs for having these awesome players on their rosters). What you’ve missed while defending the Traditionalist side is the slow melding of the two positions. There are no completely SABR organizations and even the damn Royals are completely Traditionalist. And it really doesn’t even matter. At the end of the day every single MLB game will end in defeat for one team and victory for the other. Nearly every single organization in baseball has decided that some sort of advanced statistical analysis can be of aid, especially when used in conjunction with good scouting and player development and high character rosters. I’m not going to sit here and say that going fully-SABR is a guarantee for a WS championship, but I think the proof is pretty obvious that SABRists have had some great ideas and that they’ve certainly revolutionized the way baseball teams are put together. Someone will win the World Series this year, and the likelihood that that team employs a bunch of smart-number crunchers is 100%, because every single team receives input from numbers people. That’s the way the game is today, and that’s what SABRists wanted all along. A place at the table.
Thanks for the excellent responses, as they were both fun to read and intelligent as well. We all just have a different take on baseball. I don’t consider HR, RBI, AVG, W or ERA as “Sabremetric” stats. The “Sabremetric” stats that drive me up a wall are things like UZR, BABIP, and FIP.
When I see Joe write something like this, “…GM Billy Beane, the man who for better and worse helped stage a baseball revolution” it makes me crazy. Billy Beane used UZR, BABIP and FIP, and had success. Media people will have you believe those two were directly related. I say NO, Beane’s success was directly related to Hudson, Zito, and Mulder, not to using UZR, BABIP or FIP.
And I have ALWAYS given credit to the GMs, including Beane, for picking the talent. I gave alot of credit to Beane’s idea to draft college players in the early rounds. Theo Epstein signing Curt Schilling was a great move by him. However, don’t forget that if Theo hadn’t “retired” for a while, Boston may not have won again in 2007 because he would never have traded his Sabremetric wet dream, Hanley Ramirez, for the stud pitcher they desperately needed, Josh Beckett(20-7, 3.27 ERA 2nd in CY voting)
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