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By Gary Armida

As discussed many times on this site, the Oakland A’s and their General Manager, Billy Beane are an interesting study in baseball management. On one hand, they are a team who generally competes with a limited payroll using the famed Moneyball approach, which is finding undervalued talent who possess good on base skills. On the other hand, they are a team who has never gotten to the World Series and one that is fading fast off the radar in the American League West. After a surprising start to the season, the A’s are 5-25 in their last 30 games. That’s right, they’ve won exactly five games in a month’s time. To put that into perspective, the Brewers C.C. Sabathia has won four games in the past month. With a pathetic offense and uncharacteristically weak performing pitching staff (they are -8 in run differential), the A’s are suffering through a horrendous and potentially damaging (for the long-term) season. With that, the once lauded Billy Beane is coming under fire for failing to produce a winning, entertaining team like he had in the past. Quite simply, there is trouble in Oakland. Is this a team in the midst of a simple rebuilding rebuilding year or is this a team that will never win the big one? The San Francisco Chronicle’s long-time sports columnist, Ray Ratto, will help FCP break down the situation in Oakland.

Is ‘Moneyball’ no longer Money?

The Michael Lewis work that detailed Beane’s then unique approach to evaluating talent was groundbreaking. It gave the baseball world another option for player evaluation. The A’s, because of limited resources, were forced to look for that undervalued player as they were never able to outbid the big market clubs in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Beane seemed successful with the approach for looking for players who drew walks, had high on base percentages, and had a high OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage). From 2000 to 2003, the A’s made the playoffs each season while winning over 100 games twice during that stretch. From 2004-2006, the A’s made the playoffs just once, but they won at least 88 games in each of those seasons. The media darlings were proof that with creative management, a small market team could succeed. The 2007 and the current 2008 season have seen the A’s fall from their once proud perches. They no longer live at the top of the on base, walks, or OPS categories. Is Moneyball failing? Ray Ratto says no.

“The Moneyball approach is about maximizing value in areas that bigger spending teams don’t pay as much attention to. The problem is that everyone is on to the value of OPS, walks, OBP etc. This is to my mind a bit like how teams caught up to the Raiders in the ’80s by using a lot of Al Davis’ scouting and development methods, thereby evening the philosophical field, and then being more willing to refine the ideas they took from him. There is no longer a team that doesn’t value OPS, OBP and walks so the opportunity to get such players in bulk that other teams don’t value is dramatically limited. And that’s when a $40 million payroll kills you; because if everyone is looking for what you’re looking for and is willing to outspend you to get it, you’re in trouble.”

Mr. Ratto makes a tremendous point here. The A’s seemingly brought this landmark scouting and team building strategy, but now everyone is using it (well except for the Nationals-they don’t seem to have a plan at all). The champion Boston Red Sox values it. The Yankees talk about on base percentage. Now that teams are putting emphasis on these skills, the A’s are essentially beaten at their own game because they are back to square one. They seemingly can’t compete financially with the “big boys” of baseball.

Billy Beane: Hype or Genius?

Awhile back, there was an FCP piece that compared Billy Beane to the character, Big Brother in the George Orwell classic, 1984. Essentially, Beane has purged his roster twice since the glory days of Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and the famed trio of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito. Because of economics, Beane has implied that he must stay ahead of the game by trading away his future high cost talent to bring in another group of young players. It seemed to work on the first purge as Mulder netted Dan Haren. Hudson netted Juan Cruz, Dan Meyer, and Charles Thomas (in retrospect a poor deal, but at the time it was praised). On the second and more serious purge, Haren, Nick Swisher, Rich Harden, and Joe Blanton were all dealt for many prospects. Now, the A’s are a young, struggling, and often boring team. Beane’s luster seems to have worn off as the A’s are in the middle of the second consecutive losing season. However, Beane is generally regarded as the genius who revolutionized baseball.  

“I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I think he is over-praised because people like to redefine success as some sliding scale dependent upon how much money you are saving for your employer; I think we are raising a generation of efficiency experts, which leads me pray for a meteor.”, says Ratto. The idea of praising someone because they have some success without money is ludicrous, especially when that success seems to be fading. Ratto goes on to discuss the Billy Beane regime, “Beane’s positives include thinking about old problems in new ways, and in providing winning baseball with a lower payroll, although he isn’t the only one or even the best one to have done so… I think his shortcomings include the fact that his way of constructing a team does not take into account the fact that baseball is entertainment, and a steady stream of unfamiliar/young/untested players  with no useful veteran core  is not the best way to  win, or to  generate interest in a team beyond the hardcore fan.”

Beane has, indeed, changed the way that the majority of teams construct their rosters. He laid the plan for the next way of doing business, much like Tony LaRussa laid the plan for the one inning closer. Once baseball sees that something works, it is a copycat business. However, Mr. Ratto’s take on his shortcomings is correct. The A’s are the most boring team in baseball to watch. With most of the roster having little or no experience (and possibly talent), there is no chance for true competition. Getting a gaggle of prospects for one player is great, but only time will tell whether or not that prospect is going to be serviceable.

Is it a Money Issue?

Even the most hardcore baseball fan acknowledges the inherent disadvantages that franchises like the A’s, Royals, Twins, and Pirates face. Money is always a factor when considering their competition can have a payroll over $150 million more than they have. Competing is hard. However, is this perception really reality? Don’t all teams have billionaire owners who can put more money into their team instead of pocketing the revenue sharing money? Mr. Ratto offers a different perspective on the A’s. He asserts that money is not a problem for the A’s and this under-spending culture is something that is vastly overrated.

“Under-spending for talent is no more a virtue than overspending for it, and that is an ownership issue. The A’s have never hurt for money, but they have chosen a model that needlessly restricts their options.” He goes on to say that it is the ownership’s choice to work under this model. “The A’s have all the money they need; the Fisher family, Schott and Hofmann and the Haases all had assets of well over a billion dollars. The Haases spent a lot of money relative to their competitors and became a dominant team. Schott/Hofmann and John Fisher have not. I have never understood the fetish for wins per dollar spent, because the only thing that matters is the wins. I believe Billy Beane can spend money well (he has done it often), so why deprive him of that asset?”

Perhaps the baseball fan, even the well-educated one, puts far too much emphasis on the “Small Market” team doesn’t have the financial resources to compete. A team can choose whether or not to invest in the team. As we’ve stated before on FCP (read here), teams who do not invest in themselves are the biggest crooks in the sport.

The 2008 A’s

The 2008 version is young, with the average age being 27 years old. The young prospects received for the aforementioned Haren, Swisher, Blanton, and Harden have begun to make their appearances in the major leagues. Young starters, Gio Gonzalez, Sean Gallagher, Dana Eveland (who’s at triple-A), and Greg Smith have all made starts. With each of these pitchers 24 years of age or younger, one would think that Beane has reloaded for another run reminiscent of the Hudson, Mulder, and Zito days. Ratto, having seen all of these guys make their starts has a different take.

“I don’t think anyone on the current staff (and yes, I include Duchscherer because he has only been an elite pitcher for four months now) rises to that Zito/Mulder/Hudson level – at least not based on any current mathematics. Maybe one will emerge, but Zito, Hudson, and Mulder were all home grown, while most of the A’s pitching prospects now actually came through other organizations and were found either wanting or not sufficiently valued. That isn’t necessarily a red flag, but it should cause at least a measure of concern when trying to evaluate a player — you not only have to see him, but try and figure out why someone else didn’t like him enough to keep him.”

If Mr. Ratto’s logic is correct, this is a huge red flag for Oakland fans. As previously stated earlier, trading for prospects is a risky proposition as one never knows how they will develop or, as Mr. Ratto rationalized, they weren’t good enough to stay on their original teams as all teams are looking for young, cheap pitching that they can control for as many years as possible.

With an offense that ranks 14^th, 13^th, and 14^th in batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage, the A’s are not only a poor team (56-67), but they are borderline unwatchable. Only 24 year old catcher Kurt Suzuki is having a solid season for the young A’s (.292/.358/.389). Daric Barton and Carlos Gonzalez have both shown little thus far (they’re both 22 years old so time is still on their sides). If Beane is a talented offensive guru, then perhaps he should be judged harshly for this lackluster team. Ratto states, “The current A’s are a bland, unaccomplished, deeply flawed team which happened in part because Beane had to dump useful players and assets to rebuild a bereft farm system, which is odd for a guy who believes so much in development. This is not a good team upon which to evaluate him as a general manager, but it does highlight his flaws, in the same way that the ‘08 Yankees are highlighting Brian Cashman’s flaws. These seasons happen to any general manager, but he had better hope a healthy number of these prospects he has traded for hit it big, because he has spent a lot of good will in the fan base without much return lately.”

Closing Thoughts

The 2008 A’s are indicative of a climate change in baseball. As more teams utilize the same methods for player evaluation, there will be fewer, if any, undervalued players. But, Beane must still build a winner. His task as a General Manager of a team is not long-term competitiveness. Instead, the task is to build a pennant winner. Fans deserve as much. Beane should be commended for affecting change, but either he or the A’s ownership (likely a combination of both) needs to commit resources to get the A’s in the right direction. The 2008 version is proof that the success of the early 2000’s is not longer in sight. The fans deserve better.

 ”The fans are tired of this season, and they should be. It’s plainly awful to watch. This is a team that doesn’t hit, strikes out a lot, is no longer loaded with good young pitching, and in general leaves you to think that wins are surprises rather than hints of a grand plan unfolding.”

With that statement, it is obvious that the upcoming offseason is crucial to the A’s and their fans. Without significant improvements (and quickly), the A’s will find themselves without wins and more importantly, fans. If that happens, Beane could be next without something…his job.