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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, October 19, 2009
Hey Bissinger…the latest nerdfighter-style happydance project is over. You can stop now.
With large market teams represented fourfold in the league championship series, some have seen fit to reminiscence and kick dirt on the dead horse known as Moneyball. A tired topic, to be sure, it is one that deserves more attention to detail and logic than offered elsewhere. The question that must be answered is whether Billy Beane’s player evaluation methods have failed him and his organization.
Yes, when it comes to amateur talent.
...Even if the A’s did draft well immediately after Moneyball was published, you would be hard-pressed to find major league results. Using Baseball America’s top 10 lists from 2004-2007**, I compared the amount of players on said lists that remained within the organization to start the 2009 season against two other small market teams: the Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Rays. The results are replicated at the end of this post. The Rockies have an extraordinarily high retention rate*** of 72.5% while the Rays/A’s are equal with 42.5%. Keep in mind that, unlike the Athletics, the Rays (a) turned Delmon Young into Matt Garza and (b) were horrible from 2004-2007 for many reasons.
Teams with limited cash resources must be able to develop some of their amateur players into stars. Signing undervalued talents is smart and useful, but relying upon undervalued players for superstar contributions is an impossible feat. The A’s farm system produced the stars of those early 2000**** teams and Beane did an excellent job at supplementing the talents. Whether the new blood is lacking due to poor luck, bad drafting, or awful development in the minors is anyone’s guess and probably a combination of three.
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Yep. No argument there. I'm willing to listen to criticisms that the A's don't know how to develop hitters. The org has done a terrible job sorting through its outfield prospects recently.
What exactly is this supposed to show? The Rockies are credited for developing such stars as Chris Nelson, Chaz Roe, Shane Lindsay, etc. while the A's get zero credit for Swisher, Blanton, Ethier, Street, Nelson Cruz, etc. during the same time period. All this shows is that Beane is way more willing to trade young players than O'Dowd; it tells us nothing about the quality of the players developed.
Just like me, they long to parse meaning from a meaningless study...
2 Moneyball threads this morning. It's never going to end, is it?
I wondered what the bolding meant, too. It's one thing to list Greg Reynolds and Jason Hirsh, who received brief trials. But the guys you listed haven't even gotten their cups of coffee.
Have all the Tampa guys appeared in the majors?
He's without question the most exciting player on the team right now. In a year or two, depending on what Tulowitzki does, he might also be the best player on the team.
2 Moneyball threads this morning. It's never going to end, is it?
No. I just try to ignore all the moneyball threads. I'll give up on this one as soon as backlasher shows up.
I seem to remember him being called a blue-chipper and an impact prospect, but later it was "well, he proved in OAK that he sucks, so he sucks," and now we see him put up decent MLB numbers (811 OPS away) in 2009.
Personally, I think he's a tools goof who might be blossoming under the right tutelage, or maturity, or scenery (I hear the schools in Denver are really good), or whathaveyou. The thing about CarGon is that he never really had success in the high minors until this year (<800 OPS in AA and AAA with Oakland and Arizona, not great considering that its the PCL). Then he was terrible in the majors in Oakland. So, apart from his tools (which are monstrous) and his moderately-young age-relative-to-league, there wasn't a lot of reason for optimism. I think most of the major projection systems pegged him for a 700 OPS or less.
Obviously, Car Gon gets a lot of credit for turning himself into a very good player. As a full-time player, he's something like 3 WAR, maybe more in the coming years.
There's absolutely nothing about Fowler that should be keeping Gonzalez out of center.
Why are the Giants a large market team and the A's a small market team?
Other than New York, nobody can quite define what a "small market" vs. a "large market" is.
Payroll. San Diego is probably one of the richest areas in CA, yet everyone treats the Padres as if they're in rural Nebraska and have no ability to raise revenues.
They play in a bigger, trendier city populated by wealthier people (on average, obviously). I usually think of the Giants as a slightly above-average market and the A's a slightly below-average one. On top of that, the A's do an awful job marketing the team to the public.
Yes. I don't know how anyone can compete in a terrible market like San Diego.
(Pay no attention to the owner going through the bitter divorce behind the curtain!)
That's because A's ownership really doesn't care about the team. Lew Wolff's group bought that team as part of an elaborate get-rich quick real estate scam.
He's Roger Cedeno.
I like this team.
Billy Beane never should have traded for JFK's father.
Or did the author perhaps mean "Joe Kennedy, now deceased?"
Witness their broadcasting deals. The A's bounce every year or two from one second- or third-tier radio outlet to another, while the Giants have been anchored for decades at the Bay Area's primary sports radio outlet. And this year, the A's TV games were moved from Comcast Sports Net Bay Area to a different Comcast Sports network that wasn't even part of the base-line cable package here in San Francisco. I've watched both teams for years, but missed most of the A's season until I got a cable upgrade late in the year.
Ah. I had forgotten that.
Nope, much like Buddy System Bob Geren's managerial stint, it will never end.
When did Philly become "large market" again? When they got good? Or when they built CBP?
Szym's MLE for Gonzalez's AAA numbers in 2009 translate almost exactly to the numbers he put up for the Rockies (.359/.520 MLE, .353/.525 for the Rockies). Whereas 2008 was similarly consistent, but bad (.302/.358 MLE, .273/.361 with Oakland).
If his 2009 improvement was real (or at least most of the improvement), then a typical projection is going to come in low.
The Padres practically are in rural Nebraska when it comes to their media market. They have no territory to the west, none to the east, none to the north and a very limited area to the south. How exactly are they going to raise revenues when there's an ocean to the west, a desert to the east, Orange County and LA to the north, which are already saturated by the Angels and Dodgers, and a third world country to the south?
The Bay Area is the sixth largest media market in the country and most people are Giants fans. Ergo, the Giants are a large market team.
Any Oakland team is going to be at a severe disadvantage to a San Francisco team because of the cachet of San Francisco. Add onto that the consistently bad ownership the A's have had. Other than the Haas family, the A's have been owned by anti-marketing nitwits who court bad PR and flirt with moving the team. Meanwhile, the Giants have been owned by nice people and more recently public servant types.
Philly was always large market. They became big revenue when they got good and built CBP.
So what do they do this off-season? I don't think they're that far. Maybe pick up a 1B bat (LaRoche? Delgado? Nick the Stick?), some insurance for Chavez at 3B (Jerry Hairston? Robb Quinlan?), and sort out the OF mess - Cunningham/Sweeney/Buck? The pitching will have to carry them though, I just don't see impact bats in that lineup.
The Angels are losing some key free agents and could regress quite a bit. I think the AL West could be very competitive next year with four decent ballclubs.
1B is set. Start with Barton and if he flops--again--Doolittle or Carter get a chance. 3rd base is the real question mark as I don't think Wallace is ready. In the OF, just let Sweeney, Buck, Cunningham and Davis rotate in and let them sort out who deserves to play everyday. I want to see Eric Patterson in the mix somehow, too, as the 5th OFer and IF utility guy. Next year is simple: if the young pitchers develop, the team will be competitive. If they go the way of Generation K, the team will be stink-stink-stinky.
Under LL, they actually marketed in Mexico quite a bit. Don't know how much it helped revenues. There are rich people here, and some big companies, but it is not like being in LA or SF. Also, most of the rich people live about 20-25 miles away from PETCO. I am as opposed as you probably are to owners poor-mouthing to get new ballparks (Moores did plenty of it), but the Padres are never going to be DodgersSouth, no matter how smart they are. That said, their main problem has been bad drafting, not market size.
SD is, at its core, an outdoor town, a recreation town, and a transplant town. Local pro sports here are big enough but will never be BIG.
Edit: Geographic reality, as noted, is part of it too.
Clint Eastwood's "True Crime." Also, there are some hints that the pre-flight portion of "Up" is set in Oakland (Pixar is based in Emeryville and they included some local landmarks). The Eric Bana "Hulk" movie and parts of "The Graduate" featured Berkeley. And of course, who could forget the series "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper."
I'd like to see Figgins signed (I'm assuming a 3 year contract with an option?). He'll leadoff and play 3rd to start the 2010. He can move to CF or maybe 2B if Wallace can hold down 3B. If it looks like he's blocking somebody he can probably be packaged with some young pitchers in a year or two and traded.
Other than that keep Pennington at SS (and your fingers crossed) hitting 9th. Hope Ellis doesn't fall off a cliff. Let the OF work itself out with the young guys who will play solid defense and might not kill you on offense. Keep Barton / AAA guys at 1B. Catcher is your best position.
I'd sign a SP to go with Anderson, Cahill, Mazzaro, Braden and Gio and keep the innings down. Maybe put Gio in the bullpen for 1/2 year and see if he can improve his command.
Then you hope the team stays around .500 and one or two of the hitters in the minors comes up and starts raking...
And I'd like a magic unicorn, but the odds of that happening aren't too good either.
I'd actually prefer to lett Eric Patterson try to develop into that kind (Figgins) of player. Figgins is going to be expensive and...he's got the taint of the Angels on him.
And I'd like a magic unicorn, but the odds of that happening aren't too good either.
The A's have plenty of money to throw at Figgins if they so choose. The only guy on the team making any money now is Chavez.
I will watch any movie in which David Warner plays the villain.
Also, any movie in which Mary Steenburgen says "Herbert" a lot.
Obviously, there are a lot more Warner-villain movies out there. But still.
Figgins is going to be highly sought after by some big money teams, like the Angels, Cubs, possibly even the White Sox and ever big spending Yankees. With the moribund A's now officially the worst-drawing team in baseball, they will most likely be cutting payroll and will never offer the kind of contract it's going to take to get him. And I doubt he'd seriously consider going from a great winning situation like the one he's in now to a team like Oakland unless they blew everyone else out of the water.
You really don't kow what you're talking about when it comes to the A's. It's kind of embarassing. If the A's attendance was half of what it was last year, they could still afford to sign Figgins for competitive money. My guess is he sticks with the Angels fo a number of reasons that have nothing to do with what the A's can or can't afford.
Yep. If you're making a movie about bikers or pimps or gangs, Oakland's your town.
But Figgins is the only player to become the Figgins kind of player in the last what, 30 years? Nobody else like him plays third base, or can play as many positions as him either, really.
As posted earlier:
Most steals for a third baseman (>50% of games at third base that season), since 1980:
46 Chris Sabo 1988
42 Chone Figgins 2009
41 Howard Johnson 1989
41 Chone Figgins 2007
41 Paul Molitor 1982
41 Paul Molitor 1983
41 Paul Molitor 1988
37 Carney Lansford 1989
34 Chone Figgins 2004
34 Chone Figgins 2008
34 David Wright 2007
34 Howard Johnson 1990
32 Howard Johnson 1987
32 Aaron Boone 2002
32 Ryne Sandberg 1982
32 Luis Salazar 1982
30 Howard Johnson 1991
29 Carney Lansford 1988
28 Alex Rodriguez 2004
27 Paul Molitor 1989
27 Carney Lansford 1987
27 Corey Koskie 2001
And as is traditional, when Corey Koskie shows up in the leaderboard, we stop with him.
They are so desperate for fans, they actually came out to Hawaii in the 90's to play some games (against the Cards) and market here. I still have my Paradise Series T-Shirt.
Where would he play on the Yankees? I seriously doubt he's willing to go back to super-sub at his age.
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