Money Ball

#26
#26
nbakerld said:
That statement pretty much proves you know nothing about statistics. No offense.

Pitching definitely factors. Nobody said it didn't. All I'm saying is that Beane's offense carried them when their pitching was mundane, and the A's were elite when they had great pitching.
Click to expand...

hearing I know nothing about stats from you is the ultimate compliment because it proves I obviously have an impressive knowledge of them. You weren't saying they were elite when they had great pitching. You said their pitching was overrated. But, as usual you change your stance to suit where you're forced to take your argument.

Again, OBP is nice, but it's just one of the many facets that are nice. If it was the end all be all, so many teams wouldn't be winning World Series without it. Because no one cares about who makes the playoffs, they care about who wins it all. The Yankees were building teams that liked to get on base in the mid to late nineties, while Billy Beane was learning sabermetrics from his mentor, the guy who should be getting the glory, Sandy Alderson was building the "new" A's when Walter Haas Jr died and the A's went cheap. Super cheap.
 
#27
#27
volfanbill said:
hearing I know nothing about stats from you is the ultimate compliment because it proves I obviously have an impressive knowledge of them. You weren't saying they were elite when they had great pitching. You said their pitching was overrated. But, as usual you change your stance to suit where you're forced to take your argument.
Click to expand...

Yeah? I took and tutored stats in college, as well as econometrics. Not saying I'm the greatest, but I think I have a pretty good grasp of statistics as a science.

I'm not changing my argument. I'll still say their pitching staff was overrated. They had a great 6-year run. People dismiss Beane by saying "he just won the lottery with that pitching staff", but it's a false statement over-valuing their contribution.
 
#28
#28
nbakerld said:
Yeah? I took and tutored stats in college, as well as econometrics. Not saying I'm the greatest, but I think I have a pretty good grasp of statistics as a science.

I'm not changing my argument. I'll still say their pitching staff was overrated. They had a great 6-year run. People dismiss Beane by saying "he just won the lottery with that pitching staff", but it's a false statement over-valuing their contribution.
Click to expand...

OOOH! I took stats in undergrad and graduate school... OOOH mom look at me! look at me!

As for the big three, no one is saying they won the lottery, they just used their draft picks wisely. At JUCO, Hudson was an All American and 2nd Team All American. At Auburn he won SEC Player of the Year.

People were shocked when the Phillies chose Pat Burrell over Mark Mulder in the draft. Most execs tabbed him as the #1 overall pick. He dominated at Michigan State.

Same with Zito, he was an all everything pitcher in college, earning All American Honors and Pac 10 Pitcher of the Year at USC.

They didn't surprise anybody, the A's just had some good draft picks and picked sure fire winners. Alderson was responsible for drafting Jason Giambi, Miggy and Chavvy. Beane has yet to prove he knows how to draft hitters. Once their contracts were up, Giambi and Miggy bolted, the Giambi move causing Johnny Damon to move and that was it, the A's were history.

Mulder moved and blew out his rotator cuff. That sucks for anybody. It's disastrous for a pitcher. Tim Hudson was still good for the Braves until Tommy John surgery (save one season and I said good, not great). Zito simply got overused. I don't know of anyone that pitched more than Zito did than his first 6-7 seasons with the A's. The Giants were just stupid for signing him to that contract and anyone with knowledge of the game knew that.
 
Last edited:
#30
#30
volfanbill said:
OOOH! I took stats in undergrad and graduate school... OOOH mom look at me! look at me!
Click to expand...

You trash me, then when I give you my qualifications you mock me as a braggart?

If you know so much about stats, why did you think 5 world series champs (2 of whom had great OBP) was enough to disprove my point? On the first day of class you should have learned you can't show anything to be significant without at least 30-40 observations.
 
#31
#31
nbakerld said:
Then why did you say 5 world series champs (2 of whom had great OBP) was enough to disprove my point? On the first day of class you should have learned you can't show anything to be significant without at least 30-40 observations.
Click to expand...

i just took the last five Series Champions. Relax there buddy. This does absolutely zilch to the argument. The true sabermetric argument can't even be measured by your standards. 30-40 observations is reliant upon a very large sample size. Since the "Moneyball" era, there are about 10 World Series Champions, and that's saying since Beane made it famous. If you want to include since the book made it famous, you need to cut it down to 7. I used 5. I more than covered the sample size.

Regardless, getting on base is nice. Having hitters to bring you home is nice too. Having a really good defense up the middle is nice. Having great starting pitching is really nice. Having a solid bullpen is really nice. Having only one, maybe two of those five traits? Well you aren't going to go very far. For example, see the 2011 edition of my A's. Having 3-4 is what wins. If OBP is so important, why have the Rangers only been in the playoffs once in the last forever? They are consistently good at getting on base. Oh yeah, it's because their pitching breaks down every year.
 
#32
#32
images
 
#34
#34
volfanbill said:
i just took the last five Series Champions. Relax there buddy. This does absolutely zilch to the argument. The true sabermetric argument can't even be measured by your standards. 30-40 observations is reliant upon a very large sample size. Since the "Moneyball" era, there are about 10 World Series Champions, and that's saying since Beane made it famous. If you want to include since the book made it famous, you need to cut it down to 7. I used 5. I more than covered the sample size.
Click to expand...

You're taking the wrong approach. You don't look at WS winners. The playoffs is a statistical crap shoot (nobody thinks SF was the best team last year). You look at regular season results to find the correlation between OBP and winning. You have 30 samples per season for however many years you want to look at.

Regular season results indicate who has the best team. The playoffs, though very entertaining, prove nothing in a sport where the worst team frequently beats the best team 2 out of 5.
 
#35
#35
nbakerld said:
I think their pitching staff is a bit overrated. They went elsewhere and didn't do much. They only had 3 guys pitching like aces in 2 years of the 5 year run, IMO.
Click to expand...

Tim Hudson was in the top five for the Cy last year and has been nearly unstoppable the past three months.
 
#36
#36
zjcvols said:
Tim Hudson was in the top five for the Cy last year and has been nearly unstoppable the past three months.
Click to expand...

I love Hudson, and I agree, but he wasn't spectacular in ATL at the start. He had one year with like a 4.9 ERA or something. He's the best of the A's departed aces, to be sure. They were talked about as if they were 3 Lincecums, but after leaving it turned out none of them were Lincecum. That was my point.
 
#37
#37
Read the book, saw the trailer...should be a good movie for sports fans but I have a hard time seeing it live up to the book
 
#42
#42
#1ArencibiaFan said:
Just saw the movie. Loved it. My new favorite movie.
Click to expand...

really?

I saw it yesterday, thought it was decent. Slow, and way too long, but well acted and shot. There just isn't enough there for a 2 and a half hour movie.

It wants to be The Social Network but it is nowhere close.
 
#43
#43
nbakerld said:
In other words, the reason Beane doesn't have an advantage anymore is that everyone copied him.
Click to expand...

That is complete garbage. The problem isn't that everybody else copied him and got better. It's that Mulder, Hudson, Zito, Giambi etc all left town when Oakland wouldn't come off the wallet and they haven't seen the north side of .500 in about 5 years. Not saying that there's not some validity in sabremetrics, but it's comical how people want to hold up Beane as some sort of visionary genius and seem to gloss over the fact that Oakland hit it big with about 7 or 8 prospects that were cheap all at the same time.
 
Last edited:
#44
#44
GAVol said:
That is complete garbage. The problem isn't that everybody else copied him and got better. It's that Mulder, Hudson, Zito, Giambi etc all left town when Oakland wouldn't come off the wallet and they haven't seen the north side of .500 in about 5 years. Not saying that there's not some validity in sabremetrics, but it's comical how people want to hold up Beane as some sort of visionary genius and seem to gloss over the fact that Oakland hit it big with about 7 or 8 prospects that were cheap all at the same time.
Click to expand...

Everybody copied him. Bottom line. It's the reason he hasn't been able to find another Giambi for cheap. Because other teams are looking for the same indicators.

Like I said, OBP is now highly correlated with salary. Before Beane, it was not correlated.

1999 #4 in OBP, #4 in runs, .537 win %
2000 #3 in OBP, #3 in runs, .565
2001 #3 in OBP, #4 in runs, .630
2002 #5 in OBP, #8 in runs, .636 (Giambi had left)
2003 #10 in OBP, #9 in runs, .596
2004 #5 in OBP, #9 in runs. 562
2005 #5 in OBP, #6 in runs, .543
2006 #7 in OBP, #9 in runs, .574
2007 #6 in OBP, #11 in runs, .469
2008 #13 in OBP, #14 in runs, .466
2009 #11 in OBP, #9 in runs, .463
2010 #6 in OBP, #11 in runs, .500
2011 #12 in OBP, #12 in runs, .452

As you can see, regardless of who they had on their squad, their advantage started to disappear as other teams copied their formula. They can't afford to buy OBP in free agency anymore because other teams are bidding it up.
 
#45
#45
There is no one I despise more in the entire game of baseball than Billy Beane.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#46
#46
GAVol said:
That is complete garbage. The problem isn't that everybody else copied him and got better. It's that Mulder, Hudson, Zito, Giambi etc all left town when Oakland wouldn't come off the wallet and they haven't seen the north side of .500 in about 5 years. Not saying that there's not some validity in sabremetrics, but it's comical how people want to hold up Beane as some sort of visionary genius and seem to gloss over the fact that Oakland hit it big with about 7 or 8 prospects that were cheap all at the same time.
Click to expand...

Qft.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#47
#47
NYYVol said:
There is no one I despise more in the entire game of baseball than Billy Beane.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
Click to expand...

I don't hate the guy. He found a niche and worked it like a genius. Lay blame on the guy signing the checks. He changed small-market clubs.

Why the hate, NYY?
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#48
#48
nbakerld said:
Everybody copied him. Bottom line. It's the reason he hasn't been able to find another Giambi for cheap. Because other teams are looking for the same indicators.
.
Click to expand...
The thing is, he didn't "find" Jason Giambi, he inherited him when he got the GM job. It's not that I think Beane isn't smart, I just think he gets way too much credit for being a genius due to a couple of teams that won a bunch of games on the back of some great pitching. He's basically John Shuerholtz without the payroll to go on a long run.
 
Last edited:
#49
#49
Hobock said:
I don't hate the guy. He found a niche and worked it like a genius. Lay blame on the guy signing the checks. He changed small-market clubs.

Why the hate, NYY?
Posted via VolNation Mobile
Click to expand...

No one gets more undue credit than he does.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top