Is Moneyball Relevant in The 2008 ALCS?

Editor's note: This article was written during the 2008 ALCS featuring the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox.

Written by James Brown, Gatorsfirst.com Co-Founder

Moneyball is easily the most misunderstood sports book I can think of.  It's very title has become like a catch phrase, and many people who talk about it have probably never even flipped through a copy (don't bother looking for pictures, there aren't many).

First, allow me to give you some basic themes from the book:

1.  Sports have rapidly ascended to big business.  But in the process, baseball was very slow to revise processes for evaluating talent or running a front office.  These jobs were handed to ex-players as if they were members of a secret society, and the knowledge they possessed as "baseball insiders" would give them special insight into the decision making processes of a multi-million dollar business.

2.  In the past, talent evaluation was done almost exclusively by scouts, and used measurables such as height/weight/fastball velocity/footspeed and the "trained eye" to scout players.  Statistics kept were the same ones that have been used forever- batting average, RBIs, fielding percentage...some from the 1800s! 

These methods led to some obvious all stars (the Ken Griffey Jr's of the world), but also had a habit of missing on many players (notably Billy Beane, who was the type of player scouts loved, but didn't turn into an MLB star).  Bill James (among many others) began rethinking baseball stats, and using new techniques to evaluate talent. 

These new techniques could track which sort of players were undervalued in the MLB draft, as they would be statistically more likely to contribute to the major league club but were not valued as highly by the old scouting methods.  Billy Beane was probably drawn to these methods as he was one of the "sure things" that flamed out; Oakland was a good fit because, as a smaller market club, to be competitive they needed to get better value out of each of their MLB-assigned draft picks.

3.  The central theme of the book is that in baseball, as in any market, significant advantages can be had by exploiting undervalued assets.  For Oakland to compete with the larger-market teams by playing their own game was going to be next to impossible.  Billy Beane and the rest of his organization were forced to focus on gaining an advantage in areas where they were competing on a much more level playing field: the amateur draft. 

The fact that they evaluated talent differently than almost everyone else in baseball also allowed them to make the "soon-to-be-big-money free agent for prospects" deals, and get more of the players they coveted that other teams undervalued.  In many ways this was better for them than the draft, as minor league players had significantly more and better data to be used in their analysis.

Allow me to point out some common misconceptions about this book, and its continued relevance (the 2002 draft is long gone).

1.  It was not written by Billy Beane.  He was on the leading edge of this movement across sports, and the author was granted access to Oakland, so the A's are prominently featured as an example of how re-evaluating management practices used throughout pro sports can be beneficial to the on-field product.

2.  While the book promotes on-base percentage (OBP) as a major area in which scouts undervalued player production, the focus of the book is NOT to get batters taking 100 pitches/game.  Rather, this is an example in the book of an undervalued asset that was exploited by the A's, as other organizations in Boston, Toronto, San Diego, etc. began utilizing the same principles, of course there would be a market correction, and perhaps some other statistics/player attributes that would be undervalued.

3.  The Moneyball idea is not a set philosophy of how to play the game of baseball.  Don't listen to Joe Morgan.  The idea is to use some intelligent processes for player evaluation, projection, and development to more efficiently run a sports business.  The ideas presented can be used in any sport, and probably any business (though sports are the most glaring example of following a—pardon the cliches—set-in-stone, old school, good ole boys approach when a more modern, analytical approach would mean better business practices).

Now I'll make an aside concerning the book:

Oakland should not be a "small market."  The Bay Area is huge, a much bigger metropolitan area than Boston.  Perhaps in addition to rethinking player evaluation and development, they should have rethought marketing or other areas in which they could have acquired a larger fan base.  Not really part of the book, but I think a point worth making.  A true sporting-world "small market" is Green Bay.

Now that my mini-review of the book is complete—how does this all tie in with the current state of the Red Sox and Rays?  After all, that is the series that is foremost in the national eye this week, and could highlight a lot of the common misconceptions about this book.

Let me begin by saying I expect most people to take the knee-jerk 'Rays spend significantly less money on baseball players than the Red Sox, and have a better team (at least on 10/14/2008), so they must be the better example of the ideas behind MONEYBALL.  Now, I'm no expert on sports business, and definitely not privy to the inner workings of either front office.  But I feel I understand enough where I can enter into an intelligent dialogue of the factors behind the success of each ballclub, and in the process illuminate some of the common misunderstandings behind the famous book.

How did the Rays get here?  Obviously, finishing dead last or near dead last for 10 years helps you get some nifty draft picks.  And the top-10 of the first round type draft picks are not the focus of Moneyball, as the one-of-a-kind talents, consensus #1 picks have a great history of becoming MLB players.  At least high enough that having 10 such picks should automatically qualify you for having several young stars under your control for very cheap (MLB salary structure allows you to pay this players relatively little for the first few years of their contracts).  So let's look at some more subtle points.

1.  Scott Kazmir.  Rays fans love him, want him included in "best pitcher in MLB" discussion.  While I don't think he's that good, he's obviously a top starter, and Tampa Bay has him on the cheap.  So how did they land him?  The Mets dealt him in a horrible deadline deal.  Kazmir was not anything like the classic Moneyball-type undervalued prospect, he was considered the top young pitching prospect by many, many evaluators and publications.

2.  Aki Iwamura.  Don't laugh.  I actually loved this move by the Rays.  He was a top 3B in Japan, went into the bidding system at the same time of others who received more fanfare (Dice-K!), and the right to negotiate with him came relatively cheaply.  He's a good example for Moneyball ideas, because he was undervalued while the other clubs focused on Dice-K and Kei Igawa, but also because a large component of this year's Rays ascension is defense- and his ability to move to 2B (moving the defensively-challenged BJ Upton to CF, and allowing the excellent glove—and excellent bat—of Evan Longoria to occupy 3rd).

3.  Troy Percival, Dan Wheeler, Cliff Floyd.  The first two I've taken some credit for.  I've been saying for a couple years that the Rays needed some veteran arms to allow their young guys to develop a little more slowly, and to close out games.  Cliff Floyd has provided a veteran presence to help the everyday players mature, and been a stabilizing figure.  You could make the Moneyball argument for Percival, because many clubs thought he was washed up, and the Rays got him cheaply.  You could also make the argument that they made a gamble and it paid off.

4.  Evan Longoria.  He's a major component of this year's team, but as the #3 overall pick, and coming from a college that is a pipeline to the majors (Long Beach State- Bobby Crosby, Troy Tulowitski).

5.  Matt Garza/ Jason Bartlett.  They came from the same trade.  Bartlett's defense is another part of the vastly improved team defense—which has significantly boosted the entire pitching staff.  The pitching staff, needless to say, has historically been the weakness of the Rays.  Garza, while young, was an intelligent get, as the Rays got another veteran arm, and only dealt one of their 800 OF prospects (Delmon Young, the 03 #1 overall).  I don't think it was a bad deal for the Twins, as they have a lot of pitching, and though Delmon's pop was disappointing this year, he could still be the middle of the order guy that they always seem to lack.  Back to the main point: I'd hardly call this a "Moneyball" trade.

Now, let's look at the making of this latest Red Sox run.  I'm going to ignore the Moneyball-ish move for Kevin Millar, but his value, as well as a lot of the '04 team as constructed by Theo, to the current Red Sox team, by winning that first World Series in 86 years, cannot be overstated.  Anyways, here's some more recent arguments:

1.  David Ortiz.  I think enough has been written over the years how they got him off waivers from Minnesota.  Basically, no one wanted him, and he became a perennial MVP candidate.  At least when he has two wrists.  An early move of Theo Epstein, if the Red Sox projection methods had any part in predicting that he could become such a monster, this is an ideal Moneyball candidate.  Resigning him for many more dollars and years, however, is entirely an advantage Boston has over some other markets.

2.  Manny Ramirez.  Signed by big-spender Dan Duquette during the summer of gigantic contracts (A-Rod also signed with Texas that summer).  Obviously it's near impossible to make an argument for Manny in any way being a Moneyball player.  I will say I think he's actually underrated, but I'll let you go read the Bill Simmons two million word essay on him instead of making that argument myself.

3.  Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell.  They came over in the same trade.  "Big Market" advantage means taking on bad contracts (Lowell) and trading for a 25-year old, former World Series MVP, staff ace.  They gave up #1 fantasy player Hanley Ramirez, but this is just a trade.  No shrewd maneuvering, etc.  Unless you count that almost no one wanted Lowell, at any price, and he became a World Series MVP.  But I'm not sure Boston's front office really gets credit, as I doubt they predicted that one.

If the argument ended here, you'd say the Moneyball argument is 100 percent Rays.  But the reason many people are calling this the beginning of a Red Sox dynasty are these guys:

1.  Jonathan Papelbon.  A former college pitcher turned dominant major league closer.  An 18th round draft pick.  Don't remember him being touted at all coming out of college, but can't claim him either way as a Moneyball, undervalued player.  Certainly the focus of college pitchers being undervalued back in '03 are points in favor of calling him a product of the Moneyball ideas.

2.  Dustin Pedroia.  He's like four feet tall.  Definitely not the old-school scout's dream, you have to consider him a Moneyball guy.  The fact he was in the AL MVP discussion (and could still win it).  The eighth SS drafted in '04.  You've got to consider him a Moneyball guy.  I'm not sure more traditionally drafting teams would have taken him that high.

3.  Kevin Youkilis.  This one's easy.  He's in the book, as the "Greek God of Walks."  Scouts weren't impressed with him at Cincinnati, but his knowledge and command of the strike zone got him noticed by Beane.

4.  Jacoby Ellsbury.  Certainly played a big role in last year's run to the playoffs.  "Homegrown talent" is the theme of these new look Red Sox.  Certainly points in favor of calling the Red Sox a 'Moneyball' type team.

While you can't seriously compare the current Red Sox to the Moneyball A's teams in the book, their renewed focus on homegrown talent, along with their ability to make shrewd moves like the Kevin Millar (and, to a lesser extent David Ortiz) signings agree with the basic principles of the book.  The scary part for other teams in the Majors has to be that a team with a lot of resources (i.e. the ability to make Matt Clement-level mistakes, JD Drew-type signings, and win the rights to Dice-K) also takes advantage of the same Moneyball-like principles of an Oakland, you have the best-run franchise in the game.

I am in no way saying the Rays are not well run.  How exactly they could be called a 'Moneyball' franchise, any more than the "evil large market Red Sox," however, is beyond me.  If one were to vote as to which team follows 'Moneyball' more closely, I'd say you have to vote for the Red Sox.  Not only did they hire Bill James, but Theo Epstein's rapid success with the club really made the idea take hold (as less than a "maybe the A's just got lucky a couple times" and more of a "maybe this stuff is real"). 

The main point in making this argument isn't that the Red Sox are the most 'Moneyball'-ish of all franchises, but more that the idea behind the book is pointing out ways in which decisions about the game of baseball (e.g. spending money on player acquisition) can be made more intelligently.  I'd call the Red Sox "nouveau-Moneyball," for taking it further with their expansion to include risk on the big-time prospects, while building a solid farm system with lower-level draft picks (regardless of your opinion on what constitiutes a "successful" draft pick, you must agree it is harder to have success with lower draft picks).

You could train a monkey to draft strictly by the Baseball America rankings and end up with a decent core of a team, Tampa Bay built off of this by making the good moves outlined above.  Boston, in drafting lower, was forced to employ Moneyball concepts to get more out of their picks, but was afforded advantages in free agent signings and taking on contracts in trades that small market teams are unable to afford.

Any thoughts?

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