Moneyball

Yes! in the book (and in your friendly neighborhood MBA-program), this is referred to as "exploiting inefficiencies in the market".

I seem to recall NYY & BOS both made the playoffs comfortably, ie not so important. And Jeetz was lionized for a week.

i mean is anyone calling torii hunter a jackass for banging into those garbagebag-lined twindome walls all the time?

[Reyes'] OBP is currently ranked 152nd among major-league qualifiers and yet he has been the lead-off man for the Mets in 85 games to date. I think there comes a point when a manager gets so sick of hearing a criticism that he digs in his heels and refuses to budge in spite of overwhelming evidence that he's been making a mistake. At this point, Willie Randolph probably thinks it would be a sign of weakness to give in to his critics and drop Reyes to the eighth spot in the order where he belongs. The only other explanation would be that he thinks batting Reyes leadoff helps the team. That can't possibly be the case, though, can it?

basically blows, but i'm a sucker for profiles.

by Gary Richards
Mercury News

Magical moments in life can pop up most unexpectedly.

Like on an airplane trip from Oakland to Chicago last December for my 13-year-old son, Matt, and my wife, Jan.

The seat next to Matt was empty, the last one on the flight. The plane was about to take off when a young man wearing a baseball hat, his wrist clearly healing from some injury, dashed down the aisle, asking if he could take the vacant seat.

As they settled in for the four-hour trip, Jan asked what happened to his hand. He said he got hit by a pitch. It didn't look like a rec league injury, so she asked more about it. ``It happened in spring training,'' he said.

``Oh, really? Who do you play for?'' she replied.

``The A's,'' said the young guy with the engaging smile.

His name: ``Nick Swisher. My dad, Steve, played for the Cubs for a few years.''

Matt sat silently. Later, he would say: ``Mom, when he said his name, my spine froze.''

Matt had devoured ``Moneyball,'' the book on the A's the year after they drafted Swisher. For nearly four hours, they talked baseball, about Nick's upbringing as the son of a big leaguer, more baseball, and his love for his grandmother who would pass away this summer.

They were like two kids, talking about their passion for the game. Only one had just graduated from Little League, and the other had just joined the big leagues.

Matt asked what time players got to the park for a night game. Nick said around midafternoon. They would hit, field and stretch, then head back to the clubhouse.

``Then guess what,'' Nick said. ``You ought to see the neat video games we play.''

For Matt, that plane ride was Christmas.

But the story gets better.

We went early to a game in June and headed toward the A's dugout. Matt wanted to say hi to Swisher. I feared Nick might not remember him. Just before the first pitch, Swisher started out of the dugout. ``Nick!'' Matt yelled.

Swisher began an obligatory wave, then spotted Matt. A big grin came over the face of the rookie right fielder, who cheerfully trotted over and chatted with the boy he remembered.

A few nights later, our daughter, Anne, called from the restaurant in Berkeley where she worked and said Swisher would be there for a radio show. Did Matt want to come?

For nearly half an hour, the two chatted like the pals they had become, Swisher excitedly telling his girlfriend, ``This is the kid from the airplane, the one I told you about!''

I came later to pick Matt up, and over the din of the crowd I whispered to Swisher, ``You have made a young boy very happy.''

And a Mom and Dad, too.

what teams players are on average underpaid? i got twins, indians, marlins (but not d-rays or royals)(trim them payrolls boys! trim that fat!), who else?

Albert Pujols
1B, St. Louis Cardinals
Contract Salary: $14,000,000
Moneyball Salary: $24,563,308

Brad Thompson
P, St. Louis Cardinals
Contract Salary: $334,000
Moneyball Salary: $8,550,189

Adam Wainwright
P, St. Louis Cardinals
Contract Salary: $327,000
Moneyball Salary: $8,526,061

A) wonder why Brad Thompson is worth as much as Adam Wainwright?
B) wonder who on earth would pay closer salaries for middle relief?

where are they now

Hey this reminds me, can someone repost the link to that page with a fancy chart that links a team's performance to its salary?

-- INSANE CLOWN FOSSE (Adrian Langston), Monday, June 12, 2006 8:46 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

i found that fancy fuccn chart btw

http://benfry.com/salaryper/index.html

whoa that is awesome

how the fuck is CHI above STL

by virtue of a better record? by having a higher team salary?

i don't understand the question.

The Bosox have "the Greek God of Walks," don't they? I wanna see him play!!

-- Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 01:58 (4 years ago) Link
Not at Bill Mueller's expense I hope!

-- Leee Majors (Leee), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 22:01 (4 years ago)

hahahahahahaha

funny. on an o's bb i post on, someone has a sig "nick markakis: the REAL greek god of walks."

(youkilis is romanian)

i found that fancy fuccn chart btw

http://benfry.com/salaryper/index.html

<3 the Rays!!!

The chart's nifty but active player salary is a poor indicator of true franchise roi, as it omits dead weight salaries, deferred compensation, bonus, etc.

http://www.azsnakepit.com/2008/6/16/553164/interesting-statistics#comments

The Diamondbacks are paying Russ Ortiz $8M!?!?! Jesus that's awful.

Can you imagine how depressing that would be? The Dbacks people call him the Huge Manatee.

That's why salary charts are kind of misleading.

Well that's why this particular chart is misleading. You could make one at the end of the year that calculated bonuses and debited salary you took on or sloughed off, I guess.

You could have signed eight Mark Priors having season-ending surgery for the price of one Manatee.

Well "misleading" is a bit strong. It is a good indicator of how the paid employees who are actually working are performing. But it probably does not indicate which franchises are spending wisely or anything like that.

supposedly beane is prepared to spend $4M plus on 16 year old superfreak pitcher michael inoa - previous bonus baby record for a pitcher was a little over 1 mil i believe

amazing how much baseball hasa changed in 5 years

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/06/gm-trade-histor.html

Beane doesn't like to spend money on high school players, only jr. high school players.

This Inoa kid is a freak apparently.

"amazing how much baseball hasa changed in 5 years"

I assume you are talking about how well off it is financially, not some change in Beane's modus operandi (which hasn't really changed.)

Ricciardi should really not pick up the phone when Beane calls.

hmm well its certainly evidence that his stubbornness hasnt changed (in that hes obv sticking to his guns hell/high water) - but i do think the A's being a frontrunner for the most expensive bonus baby ever is pretty interesting, esp considering he's a fireballing scouts dream who'd be a soph. in HS right now

the reds of all teams have been the biggest players on the intl front this year - i think youre right that it is mostly about the money, but still interesting stuff

Smart teams are def. realizing that spending money on Latin American talent can basically = getting a top draft pick without having to be Kansas City or Washington. Worth a couple of million dollars I think (less than Rick Porcello got hah!)

You could make one at the end of the year that calculated bonuses and debited salary you took on or sloughed off, I guess.

-- Alex in SF, Friday, June 27, 2008 11:59 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Maybe you could, actually. It would probably be pretty cumbersome to gather the empirical data but it's probably out there.

Anyway, all the benfry chart is trying to do is translate current salary dollars into wins (as opposed to profit). Moneyball focused on the art of winning, not the art of making money.

I suppose for that you'd read Vince Genarro.

right, latin america def was (before this year) the latest obvious area of market inefficiency ripe for exploitation - theres no doubt a lot of those kids were way way undervalued

totally predictable tho, makes you realize how relevant the book still is - the people running this game are idiots!

Chart that calculated bonuses and debited salary took on or sloughed off:

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2008/01/payroll_efficie.php

Word on the street is Inoa is the A's:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2008/266411.html

fancy fuccn chart is pretty but would be more useful w/ slopes!

"Slopes"? I thought this was ILBB? Instead it's just a bunch of nerds.