Jonah Keri: Moneyball Comes Full Circle

From Bill Deane to Buddy Deane and back again…

What’s more interesting to me isn’t so much what Giambi will bring to the team as what he represents. When Moneyball came out, those who failed to understand the point of the book ranted and raved about Billy Beane’s lust for guys who walk a lot. They questioned what would happen to the A’s when high-OBP guys stopped being undervalued.

Of course, OBP was never the point. Moneyball provided a snapshot in time of the baseball world and its inefficiencies. At the time that the book came out, OBP was plentiful and cheap (the Red Sox’ signing of David Ortiz, Bill Mueller and Kevin Millar for dryer lint and a couple of buttons being prime examples of this inefficiency back then). Since then, we’ve seen the trend shift numerous times. In the current climate, with analysis of defensive contributions becoming more common and more robust, teams are increasingly targeting well-rounded players who contribute both offensively and with the glove. They have, in turn, heavily discounted big, lumbering dudes who walk a lot, hit home runs, and can’t catch a ball if it dropped on their head during Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.