Billy Beane—2012 Baseball Guide Excerpt

I’m sure some of those who are familiar with me, what I do and how strongly I feel about the farcical nature of Moneyball the book and how much worse Moneyball the movie was in terms of factual inaccuracy are expecting me to go into a rant about Billy Beane. Again.

But I’m not.

I’m saving that.

This is straight recapping and assessment.

The A’s began another rebuild phase under Beane as he allowed Josh Willingham, Hideki Matsui andDavid DeJesus to leave as free agents and traded Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey for packages of youngsters. He was intent—so he implied—on waiting out the resolution of the possible new ballpark in San Jose.

But then he did something strange.

He started making maneuvers that were diametrically opposed to a full-scale rebuild. He re-signed Coco Crisp; he signed veterans Bartolo Colon and Jonny Gomes; and then committed the cardinal sin in the context of verifiable stats and knowing what one is purchasing by investing heavily ($36 million over 4-years) in a Cuban defector, Yoenis Cespedes.

Beane says and does whatever he wants.

There’s always an excuse.

The media was focusing on the job status of Bob Geren (Beane’s “best friend”) so he replaced him not because of Geren doing a bad job, but because of media scrutiny being a distraction.

They don’t have any money, so they clear out the house of any and all veterans.

The ballpark is terrible, has no luxury boxes and the fans don’t come so he has to wait and hope the San Jose deal comes through.

No one wants to play in Oakland, so they have to chances on the likes of Cespedes.

The Angels and Rangers are powerhouses, so why should the A’s bother to try and compete?

If it’s not one thing it’s another.

It’s not hard to be considered a genius when nothing is ever you’re fault; when the sycophants will find an excuse regardless of what you do and whether or not it makes sense.

No one blames him for anything because they’re either invested in Moneyball, don’t know enough to realize that Beane isn’t a genius whose every decision turns to gold or are afraid to protest for fear of being shouted down and ostracized.

He’s flinging things at the wall and hoping they work. That’s not analytical; it’s not based on numbers. It’s pure desperation on the part of the supposed “genius” and willfully blind silence on the part of those who know what he’s doing and refuse to protest are even more guilty.

His team is still terrible and the new template is 2015.

By then they’ll be good and hopefully have a new ballpark.

People in the media and starstruck fans might not want to admit the truth, but people inside baseball are aware. Beane let it be known through intermediaries leaking it to the media that he was willing to listen if the Cubs came calling to run their club.

He wanted the job.

But the Cubs didn’t want him. They wanted Theo Epstein.

People in baseball know he’s a fraud. And he’s trapped in Oakland.

Beane signed a contract extension to keep him with the Athletics through 2019.

That’s where he is and that’s where he’ll stay.

—

The above is a snippet from my book, Paul Lebowitz’s 2012 Baseball Guide.

Click here for a full sample of team predictions/projections. My book is now available on Kindle, Smashwords and Lulu with other outlets on the way.

The Point Of Making Trades; Something Not Right With The Phillies

• Trades are a means, not an end:

For competent teams, making a trade is not an end in and of itself. There has to be a point

to making a trade and that point is to get better. I've been going back and forth with Joe at Statistician Magician as to whether the Royals should have traded Ron Mahay at the trading deadline for prospects. The impetus of Joe's blog appeared to be Rob Neyer saying that the Royals hanging onto Mahay was "indefensible" during a live chat on ESPN. (And I know some reaction to this will be: Ron Mahay? Who cares about Ron Mahay?; but the player isn't important in the argument.)
There's an idea that making trades of veterans for young prospects is always the way to go and there should be no deviation in that plan. Billy Beane and his maneuverings are the template for making such moves, but people aren't putting what Beane does into proper

perspective. The idea that Beane makes trades just for the sake of making them is ludicrous. Beane's focus is making his organization better and more efficient. He traded Dan Haren at his highest value and extracted a huge chunk of the Diamonbacks fertile farm system in the process; he traded Rich Harden because he knew that Harden was

always one pitch away from an extended period on the disabled list and Beane struck while the Cubs were panicking to retaliate for the Brewers acquisition of C.C. Sabathia. Beane has yet to trade Huston Street because there are concerns about his health and his performance hasn't been very good; trust me when I say that once Street proves his worth and maximizes his value, he'll be traded too. There's no panic in Billy Beane because he doesn't have to dump salary because he rarely signs a player to an unwieldy contract to begin with.
What would be the purpose of trading a lefty specialist like Mahay other than to dump his relatively reasonable and short-term contract? Mahay's been having an excellent year and the Royals signed him to a two-year deal. Maximizing his value isn't a valid argument either because he's a lefty and will have a job as long as he wants one, has a functioning left arm and still has a pulse. And what were the Royals expected to get for Mahay? He's got another year on his contract and no matter how well or poorly he pitches next season, the return then

and now will be pretty much the same unless someone makes a stupid offer. If that offer (a Larry Andersen for Jeff Bagwell-type) were to come, then Mahay would have been traded.
The Royals aren't that bad this year either; if they get better next year to possibly contend, they'll be in the market for...a lefty reliever. If Royals GM Dayton Moore puts Mahay on waivers now and a team like the Red Sox claims him, here's how an imaginary conversation between Moore and Theo Epstein might go:

Epstein: So, what do you want for him?
Moore: I need a shortstop, a starting pitcher or an outfielder who can hit and run a bit.
Epstein: Names some names.
Moore: How about Jed Lowrie?
Epstein: No. You can have Julio Lugo. (Eyes closed in prayer, please, please, please...)
Moore: Uh, no. How about Justin Masterson or Clay Buchholz?
Epstein: No.
Moore: Jacoby Ellsbury?
Epstein: No.

Then they'd get down to the moderate prospects from the Red Sox minor league system until one or two players that Moore would consider. After consulting with scouts on the moderate prospects, sanity might prevail and Moore would look at the prospects (maybe an outfielder with occasional power and a wild pitcher with a big fastball) and say, "I could get the same thing if I trade Mahay next year; why do it now?" and he'd be right.
Another thing to look at for the Royals is that they're going to win 75-78 or so games this year with their youngsters; if they bring in a shortstop like Orlando Cabrera; an outfielder first baseman with some

pop like Kevin Millar or Aubrey Huff; a starting pitcher like A.J. Burnett or Chris Young; and some reasonably priced pieces, they could win 84-90 games next year if things break right, and they'll be contending for a playoff spot. It's not very likely, but it's possible. Would trading Mahay for some moderate prospects who might or might not be in the majors in 2011 facilitate a quicker improvement when they'd get the same thing next year if they trade him then?
Making trades to appease critics is not the way to run an organization, especially one that has been so bad for so long as the Royals have; they're on the right track and trying to copy Billy Beane without being Billy Beane has been tried and failed before; an executive can only run his team his way, not the way critics like Neyer with only vague (or non-existent) plans suggest.

• Something's out-of-whack with the Phillies:

Just as there was always an air of impending doom with the Mets for much of 2007 even as they maintained their division lead and stumbled their way through the last two-thirds of the

season and eventually collapsed allowing the Phillies to catch and overtake them, there's a similar vibe with this year's Phillies that something is just not right. This has nothing to do with the face-to-face jawing session that Brett Myers and manager Charlie Manuel exchanged after Myers was removed from the game (that stuff's no big deal), but that the team as a whole looks short. From the struggles of Ryan Howard as he heads for 200 strikeouts; Chase Utley's slowdown from his blazing start; Jimmy Rollins's fall to earth after his MVP season; or the weak back-end of the starting rotation or desperation moves made by GM Pat Gillick that are gutting the farm system----there's something off with the team.
The Mets on the other hand, have been an opportunistic, feel-good story since Jerry

Manuel took over as manager for Willie Randolph. They're battling their way through both injury and adversity and getting surprising contributions from their much-decried farm system and scrapheap pickups. Just as the Phillies had the positive feeling about them even as they fell what appeared to be hopelessly behind in 2007, the Mets have a similar positive feeling now and with the way Gillick is going for broke this year, the Phillies had better hope for a better result than that of the 2007 Mets because they may not be back in this position for quite a while.

The Master Of All He Surveys

• Athletics trade Joe Blanton to the Phillies for three minor leaguers:

I honestly believe that Athletics baseball czar Billy Beane is treating the baseball world as

his scientific la-bor-a-tory (as pronounced from the horror flicks of the 30s and 40s), his club as a petri dish and he's doing different things for his own entertainment and to see if they work. After Moneyball was presented as a "blueprint" for running a franchise, Beane turned around and started doing almost the exact opposite of what was detailed in the book. After a few years of drafting predominately college-age players, the Athletics started drafting a bunch of high school players including the dreaded and decried high...school...PITCHERS!!!!!

After eschewing the practice of paying large salaries to his managers, he gave a load of money to Ken Macha and then fired him while still owing a chunk of that contract. Previously reluctant to adopt the practice of huge signing bonuses on unproven, international players based on talent alone, the Athletics won the bidding war for 6'7", 16-year-old Dominican pitcher Michael Inoa. Now, with his team a surprise contender, Beane is still clearing out the veteran pitchers like Joe Blanton and Rich Harden to acquire prospects for the future. With the trading deadline approaching, it's a safe bet to say that if he receives lucrative offers for just about anyone on his roster (especially the highly-paid veterans like Huston Street), they'll go as well.
Trading Rich Harden was a no-brainer given his injury history and salary; trading Blanton to the Phillies for the prospects Adrian Cardenas, Josh Outman (Beane might have traded for him based on his name alone), and Matt Spencer is a smart move given the Phillies desperation for pitching. The minor league numbers indicate that the acquired players have bright futures ahead of them. Beane also used the Phillies situation to his advantage. Their GM Pat Gillick is retiring and wants to win now no matter the cost and Blanton is struggling

and highly paid, but has a reputation as a gutty and durable innings-eater.
Beane has received criticism for his willingness to appear to throw the towel in on the season for reasons other than the standings; he's also received criticism for how his team has failed in the post-season and that he's never won a championship. The argument that he's not a genius because of such flawed reasons is nonsensical. He's a genius because he's fearless and is willing to do the unconventional to benefit his organization and he's a genius because part of him may be doing these things for reasons other than the manual that has been attributed to him; he may be doing them in part for his own amusement, just to see if they work.

• And the trade from the Phillies point-of-view:

Blanton is either going to take Adam Eaton's spot in the rotation as Rob Neyer suggests

on ESPN.com, or he might just take the spot that was being held for Brett Myers to facilitate Myers's permanent move to the bullpen, which Myers seems to prefer. Blanton's numbers are bad this season, but he's been serviceable enough in half of his twenty starts and the change to the

National League should help his results. The move to Philadelphia will probably increase the number of homers that Blanton allows since he gives up a fair amount anyway, but since he throws strikes and gobbles innings, he should hang around in games and keep things close enough so that the Phillies offense will pick him up by outscoring their opponents. His bulldog attitude and personality will also fit right into the Phillies clubhouse. In a few years, they may regret trading those minor leaguers, but it looks like GM Pat Gillick's attitude is that he won't be with the Phillies to see that day regardless, so what's the difference?

Cubs Roll The Dice With Rich Harden

In what can be seen as both a rapid-fire retaliation to the Brewers getting C.C. Sabathia,

the Cubs acquired RHPs Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin from the Athletics for RHP Sean Gallagher; OF Matt Murton; INF Eric Patterson and C Josh Donaldson. In addition to it being a retaliatory strike to a divisional competitor upgrading themselves substantially, the acquisition of a pitcher the with the talent and fragility of Harden is a testament to the Cubs intention to use the fact that the team is for sale to go for it right now without any regard to the future.
Rich Harden is the ultimate high risk/high reward pitcher. He's quite possibly got the best stuff in baseball when he's healthy----a fastball in the mid-to-upper 90s and a wicked slider----but he's never been able to stay healthy. The perfect scenario for A's baseball czar

Billy Beane was if Harden stayed healthy this entire season; the next best scenario was for Harden to show enough to convince another team that he was worth the price that Beane was going to demand to get him and, after spending a chunk of the first half of the season on the disabled list, Harden managed to do that.
The Cubs are pushing everything they have into the pot to try and win right now for manager Lou Piniella and it's either going to be a stroke of

genius or be seen as a desperation maneuver that exploded in their faces (or the faces of whoever the next owner is because they'll be the ones who have to clean up the mess). Harden's the ultimate risk because he's going to be counted on to be a major part of a historic season for the Cubs and he hasn't been able to stay healthy since 2004; and even then he only pitched 189 innings. This is a pitcher who has been predominately injured in both 2006 and 2007 and has provided 13 starts this season only being one tweak, strain or pull from being on the disabled list for the rest of the season. I have no prediction of what's going to happen with Harden because his career history indicates that he's due to get hurt again soon, but the adrenaline of the pennant race and possibility of a long-term contract may keep him out on the mound and performing. If I had to guess, I'd say he's going to get hurt, but the Cubs decided he was worth the risk to counter the move the Brewers made and as far as ability, Harden was probably the best available pitcher.
Chad Gaudin was also acquired by the Cubs. Gaudin was a solid starter last season,

began this year in the Athletics starting rotation and moved to the bullpen. He'll augment an already solid Cubs bullpen and could move back into the rotation if necessary. I get the impression that Gaudin was added to the deal to account for Harden's frailty.
The Athletics and Billy Beane played their hands as well as they could with a pitcher like Harden and they had him healthy at the exact right time. If he were to have had the injuries he had early in the season now, it's unlikely that they would have gotten as much as they did for him. There was much speculation in the media that Beane had to consider keeping Harden if the Athletics stayed in contention, but I knew better. Beane never had any intention of keeping Rich Harden and if he received what he felt was fair value for the pitcher, he was going to move him sooner rather than later, and he did.
As for the players the Athletics got from the Cubs, Sean Gallagher, 22, has been a serviceable pitcher for the Cubs this year in ten starts and his minor league numbers indicate

that he's a strikeout pitcher who has good control and doesn't allow many homers; he has a similar motion and look to Josh

Beckett. Outfielder Matt Murton was caught in a numbers game with the Cubs even though he proved in 2006 and 2007 that he belonged in the big leagues and the Cubs did him a favor by dealing him to a venue in which he's going to play. Eric Patterson is a 25-year-old infielder who has put up big numbers at Triple A with a high average and some speed. Josh Donaldson is a catcher who was a first round pick of the Cubs in 2007; he's struggled with the bat in high A in 2008 after tearing up low A in 2007. He's a few years from the majors.
It's safe to say that Beane knows what he wanted and got it by trading Harden three weeks before it was absolutely necessary; it also couldn't have escaped Beane's eye that there's no way to know whether Harden's next pitch is going to be his last until 2009 or beyond. The Athletics got what they wanted in the young, talented players and the Cubs may have just gotten themselves a trip to the World Series or a long-term disaster. Considering the circumstances for both sides, this was a deal that made sense for everyone.

Nicholson's Words Fit Better Than Mine

• I don't want money, and I don't want medals:

Quoting Jack Nicholson when he's bullying Tom Cruise's character from A Few Good Men

is appropriate in this instance:

I don't want money, and I don't want medals. What I do want is for you to stand there in that faggoty white uniform and with your Harvard mouth extend me some fucking courtesy.

Yesterday while reading Buster Olney's blog, I saw that Olney had made a mistake in saying that when Kyle Lohse wins his next game for the Cardinals, he will win 10 games in a season for the first time in his career; I wrote a comment that corrected the

mistake saying that Lohse won 13 games in 2002 and 14 games in 2003. When I checked later to see if the mistake was corrected, it was----by erasing it altogether. So basically, my comment looks like some random statement uttered into the wind for no reason at all like something Joe Morgan would say.
There's nothing wrong with saying the words, "I made a mistake", but apparently those that make a living writing and talking about baseball haven't yet made that discovery and if that's one of the prerequisites, I'm relegated to my devoted readers who can see through the crud of the "mainstream" media and are aware that it takes more competence to admit that one is wrong than it does to simply try and erase a mistake hoping no one noticed.

• Shaun Chacon's job prospects:

I seem to be in the minority thinking that someone is going to take a chance on Shaun Chacon, but I still believe that he'll get picked up after he apologizes and displays a facade of contrition (real or fake). He has three things going for him: everyone's desperate for pitching and Chacon has experience as a starter and reliever; he's breathing; and he has a functioning

right arm. Add them up and he'll get a job once everything settles down; it'll probably be a minor league contract at first and a quick promotion after the smoke clears.
What I don't understand is how guys like Darryl Strawberry and John Rocker got chance after chance after careers full of controversy and missteps and Chacon's career is said to be over for one incident in an eight-year career that has (as far as we know) been clear of off-field problems. If Chacon apologizes to Wade and Wade accepts the apology, why shouldn't he get another chance with another organization. My one piece of advice for Chacon would be not to ask Wade for a recommendation. (A satirical resolution to this story would be if the Phillies sign Chacon; the not-fully-evolved Phillies fans would probably worship Chacon regardless of how he pitched because the majority of them probably wanted to choke Ed Wade numerous times while he was the Phillies GM and they'd have a player who'd actually done it.)

• Athletics 5-Phillies 0:

Athletics GM Billy Beane is probably doing pirouettes in his office with every dominating

start that Rich Harden provides because he's going to trade him. Mark my words. Other GMs would be teetering back and forth on whether or not the deal the oft-injured righty, but not Beane. The risk/reward factor doesn't enter into his mind. He's got a guy in Harden who is dominant when he's healthy, but is rarely healthy. Other GMs are going to be hypnotized by

Harden's brilliance and Beane's going to use their lovestruck gaze and dearth of available pitching to get some desperate team to empty their vault to get Harden; with every healthy and excellent start, the price is only going to go up with Beane's getting exactly what he wants and the team that gets Harden eventually rueing the day they made the deal with the devil.

• Twins 4-Padres 3; call in the National Guard for the Padres train wreck:

The San Diego Padres are an utter disaster and an organization in shambles. Why is it that no one seems to be taking the Padres to task with the same enthusiasm as they are with other teams like the Mariners or even the Mets. The Padres are one of the teams in the

staggering NL West that is saying they're reluctant to start clearing the decks because their division is so bad and they'd like to give it more time. They shouldn't. The other teams in the NL West have something called hope.
The Giants have that young starting rotation to fall back on; the Dodgers are bursting with talent and have a manager whose teams are known for second half surges; the Diamondbacks are playing badly, but they too are packed with prospects and have too much talent to continue playing like this; the Rockies are fresh off a World Series appearance and many of the young players who carried them there are experiencing a sophomore slump and should level off with some experience; but the Padres?
Other than Jake Peavy (if his arm stays attached to his shoulder) and Adrian Gonzalez, what do they have that bodes well for the future? Chase Headley and Kevin Kouzmanoff could

become All Stars, serviceable big leaguers or underachievers; there's no way to know. As for the rest of the roster, they're a bunch of veterans nearing retirement; journeyman who should be bench players and waiver wire pickups; their farm system is said to be barren. Bud Black and Kevin Towers might get the blame for what's happened, but they're not really at fault. If a baseball wanted poster for incompetence is going to be distributed, it should have one face and one name on it: Sandy Alderson. I expected the Padres fall under .500 this year, but no one could have expected them to descend into this, and what this is is an utter train wreck.