Moneyball

La Russa's response to 'Moneyball'

By Bill Kolb

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

It's about a three-game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in the heat of an August pennant race. It's about the distillation of one man's 40-plus year career in baseball into a series, a season, and 270 potent pages.

It's not a response to Michael Lewis' "Moneyball". It offers glaring counterpoints to "Moneyball", directly and indirectly, at almost every turn.

Buzz Bissinger's latest offering, "Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager," can accurately be described in two words: delightfully contradictory.

Or contradictorily delightful. You pick.

"Three Nights," a Houghton Mifflin publication scheduled to hit stores April 4, is the product of a collaboration between longtime major league manager Tony La Russa and Bissinger, author of the critically acclaimed "Friday Night Lights" and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

Let's start with the title: "Three Nights in August." Yes, the three-game Cardinals-Cubs series comprises the underlying framework of the book. No, it is not really about that series.

Bissinger uses the trials and tribulations experienced by La Russa and the Cardinals in the course of that series to extrapolate larger, more general observations about the game and life from a man who has managed almost continuously in the major leagues for over 25 seasons with the White Sox, A's and Cardinals, and has won one World Series and five Manager of the Year awards.

Despite his exhortation in the book's prologue that, "This book is not conceived as a response to 'Moneyball,'" Bissinger, ostensibly with La Russa's approval, goes on to mitigate some of the supposed absolutes extolled by Billy Beane in Lewis' work.

"La Russa appreciated the information generated by computers," Bissinger writes. "He studied the rows and columns. But he also knew they could take you only so far in baseball, maybe even confuse you in a fog of overanalysis."

La Russa embraces the humanity of the players for whom he is responsible, asserts that they are more than just statistical sets to be plugged into the grand equation of the game.

Chances are you will walk away from the book with a handful of new insights into the mind of a successful major league manager, and a fresh look at some of the opportunity costs of living the life of a "baseball man" -- things like family and a personal life.

You'll re-examine the hit-and-run through La Russa's eyes, maybe start to think about pitchers, pitching and the starting rotation in a new light.

You'll also have a new grasp on some of the non-baseball issues modern managers have to deal with, and how they handle baseball's archetypal problem children like the pouting bench player and the nonchalant superstar.

Your distaste for Jose Canseco -- whom La Russa calls "the most talented player he has ever managed" -- if it hasn't already hit rock bottom, likely will deepen. Your appreciation for the work ethic and drive of "The Great" Albert Pujols -- "the best player (La Russa) has ever managed" -- will soar, even if La Russa's likening of Pujols' battles against Mark Prior to DiMaggio-Feller, Mays-Gibson and Aaron-Drysdale might be a bit premature.

You might even find yourself rooting for a player, Cal Eldred, to whom you had never given a second thought.

And if the section of the book on the passing of Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile, entitled simply "D.K.," doesn't choke you up a little bit, there's a good chance you're not human.

dude they still hold 'em upside down before they give 'em to ya.

it was all about the suicide soda, bros.

Fuck, them's fighting words.

that's even worse. "my handpuppet."

Really, it is great (like duuuuuuuuuuuuh), and I am getting a little bit of the "oh wow" recognition thing, seeing the names of players mentioned here getting love on the major league level (cf. Francis, Grienke, Greene, Adams, Teahen, and, of course, Jeremy "Chair-Toss Inspiring" Bonderman). MORE MONEYBALL DAMMIT!

News
When the Athletics traded Tim Hudson to the Braves this past offseason, general manager Billy Beane insisted that left handed pitching prospect Dan Meyer be included in the deal. After a 1-3 record, 6.62 ERA, and noticeable loss in velocity at Triple-A Sacramento, Meyer was shut down indefinitely late last week, according to Baseball America.

Views
When pitcher Rich Harden went out with a strained oblique injury, chances are some people in prospect circles were calling for Meyer as a possible replacement. While it was unlikely the Athletics would go that route even if health wasn't an issue, it's that much less likely now. The team is setting no timetable for his return and will take their time to discover the reason for Meyer's lack of success this season.

moneyball is indeed amazing. it should be 5000000000 pages long.

i'm reading ball four for the trillionth time right now. good god it's amazing.

Be sure to dive right into that vomit-caked Mets' wives opening chapter, Stenc.

It's been so long since I read MB I don't recall Greinke in it.

HENCE MY NEW TEAM NICKNAME

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=129

"I'm having a hard time keeping up with the literature that attempts to refute Moneyball. (Much of the time I can't figure out why they bother to refute a thing that was never said--say, for example, that the Atlanta Braves are not very successful, or that there are not other ways to win baseball games than the way Oakland wins baseball games.)...

"Billy Beane had no clue what the book was about until he saw the galleys--and got upset with me. In fairness to Joe Morgan--though why start now?--a lot of sports books are as-told-to affairs. He probably has never been fully exposed to the old fashioned idea of the author."

Book Description
Stats vs. Scouts. Math vs. Makeup. Computers vs. Commuters. College vs. High-School. The debate is a new one in baseball, and it has recently taken on a life of its own. Ever since Michael Lewis’ best-seller Moneyball arrived on the scene, and spurred by the recent World Series victory by the sabermetric advocate Boston Red Sox, the dispute about the best way to build a professional baseball team has raged out of control - until now. In this fascinating and insightful look into what criteria major and minor league baseball scouts use to determine talent, Scout’s Honor shines a bright light on the job done by ‘old-school’ scouts and their killer instincts. The author uses the success of the Atlanta Braves as the focal point for a mesmerizing investigation into the debate of stats versus scouts, and why, if it’s a successful franchise you’re after, there is no debate about the bravest way to build a winning team.
"What makes Scout’s Honor so great is that it brings us into the world of those who determine successful big leaguers by looking into the future, not by looking back at spreadsheets and stats. Now that takes talent. ‘Old-school’ wins, literally. This book is a worthy foil to the Moneyballers." - Lyle Spencer

WTF, that doesn't make the least bit of sense. I guess they're arguing that "stats" = "numbers compiled in the past" and therefore they have limited predictive value ... which still makes no sense. Never mind, trying to interpret these garbage arguments isn't worth our time.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2002334979_sabermetrics14.html

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4216

And the Baseball Prospectus crew's forthcoming analysis of the Red Sox' use of smartball (Goldman said last night it should beout in early September):

http://www.workman.com/catalog/pagemaker.cgi?0761140182

It'll be very interesting to see the awareness level and reception this book gets in the sports media and baseball industry.

??????

are they honestly gonna fucking argue that foulke's better than rivera, or are they talking abt usage?

i'd like to get this for insider info, but i don't think i could stand any sox-worshipping. i know goldman's a yankees fan and he'll probably do a pretty good job at being objective and whatnot, but i think i should've written this book.

silver's major beef w/ scout's honor (its anti-moneyball polemicism) is the one and only reason i'm not interested in the book.