2/2/12

Mack On Baseball – Moneyball


Mack On Baseball – Moneyball


So much has been written about the movie “Moneyball”. People ask if that was the way it happened and I remind them that this was a production out of Hollywood. I have no idea exactly what went on in the front office of Billy Beane, but I guarantee you that the book was closer to the truth.

The new word, Moneyball, is far more a concept than an actual plan. The movie portrayed it as an operating agenda that Paul DePodesta, currently the Vice President of the New York Mets said on MLB-TV was to help build a team from nothing, with nothing. 

The premise was to build a team almost exclusively based on the player’s on-base percentage, or OBP. The idea is, if you have players that get on base more often than the norm, then your team will score more runs than the teams that have players that don’t get on base as often.  The statement makes tons of sense on paper, but we also have to remember that we haven’t ever seen Beane accept The Commissioner’s Trophy from Bud Selig.

First, I don’t like the word. To me, Moneyball better described what the New York Yankees have been doing for many years. I grew up in New York so I’ve had the pleasure of rooting for teams that are tagged “big market”.  It took a move to Pittsburgh in the 1980s for me to get an idea of the frustration fans have with the free agency system currently in place in baseball.

Moneyball to me means how much money is left after you sell tickets, food, cable fees, and paraphernalia to fans of your team, pay your players, and run the operation of your organization. We used to call it profit.

The revenue intake for a team in a city like Pittsburgh is far less than ‘big-market’ teams in Chicago or Los Angeles.  You’re not going to be able to bundle together some gazillion dollar cable deal to create the kind of money top players are demanding, and getting, in the 21st century.

Forbes Magazine[i] said that the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks produced a gross revenue of $172mil. What happens to the balance sheet of this team if they sign four ballplayers in the $15-20mil per year salary range?

You can’t regroup this kind of operational cost, even if you do make the World Series. Fans in towns like Phoenix are not going to be able to pay the same parking fees as you can charge in Boston.  At last glance, the Los Angeles Dodgers were charging twelve bucks for a beer. Go ahead and try that in Kansas City.

General Managers of small market teams have been operating like Billy Beane for years. They never called it Moneyball. It was called ‘cheap’.

This is not a perfect world and building a team solely on one statistic is sort of silly. In 2011, the Boston Red Sox led every other team with a combined .349 OBP[ii]. They also were ranked number one in slugging percentage (SLG)[iii] and on-base + slugging (OPS)[iv].

They also didn’t make the playoffs.

Baseball isn’t just getting on base. Hitting and pitching work together like words and music (by the way, the same Boston team spoken about two paragraphs earlier came in ranked 22nd in earned run average (ERA)[v] and 16th  in walks[vi] and hits per inning pitched (WHIP[vii]).

Let’s stay on this “money” ball theme.

In 2011, the New York Yankees ($207mil), Detroit Tigers ($106mil), Texas Rangers ($92mil), Philadelphia Phillies ($166mil), Milwaukee Brewers ($83mil), and Arizona Diamondbacks ($56mil) went to the playoffs as a divisional winner. As you can see, team payrolls[viii] were all over the place.

Who exactly was the big winner here? Was it the Yankees who spent the most (and also made the most) money or Arizona, who got to the playoffs on the cheap?

I will tell you one thing that the movie taught the general fan. You simply can’t get to the World Series unless you build the foundation of your team through the draft and international signings.

This is how I would play Moneyball.

Yes, both the Yankees and the Phillies are stocked with free agent talent, and both Detroit and Texas have signed even more expensive players during the 2011-2012 hiatus, but the fact still remains that the foundation of all four of these teams still came from their organization.

I have never understood why teams didn’t go all in at draft time. I’ve watched the Mets draft a couple of big names and then shy away from the next big bonus baby. I think all teams make a genuine effort to pick a stud on their first pick. Sometimes, it carries over to the second round, but eventually your pick comes around and there’s a player like RHP Anthony Renaudo or LHP Matt Purke still left unpicked.

There might have been a high risk due to a previous injury or the public knowledge that a player wouldn’t sign for the slotted money, but seriously, if you knew the player could have the ability to excel in a game so few do, why wouldn’t you invest a million dollar bonus rather than pay the same person twenty million dollars a year, years later, when they become a free agent?

Of course, all this is a moot point now that the new collective bargaining agreement limits the amount a team can offer players as a bonus.  Still, it sickened me to have watched teams pass on potential stars because they either were spooked that the player was going to attend college.

Beginning in 2012, teams will be assigned a specific total amount that can be allotted to bonus money and exceeding their total aggregate cap will create at least a 75% penalty tax on all overages. They also could be fined future draft picks if they don’t play by the rules.

What would I do?

Well, I’ve done the numbers and I know the small percentage of baseball players drafted after the third round that go on to pro glory.  The new rules demand a team to be aggressive.

If allowed, I would spend my allotted money on the highest ceiling players still available to me at the time I drafted, especially through the first ten rounds.

At that point, I would quietly draft based on positions needed to fill in my organization.

There isn’t a team in baseball that has ten “A” rated baseball prospects in their system at the same time, so why in hell are they trying to pay 50 players a year to play? To hell with the ‘diamond in the rough’ approach that someone like Omar Minaya used in the past. Do you offer the most money to the free agents on the market that haven’t blossomed yet, but you think are going to?

Let’s look at the 2011 draft and cite a few examples:

·        The Arizona Diamondbacks draft high school OF, Justin Bianco, in the third round and sign him for a $369K bonus[ix]. They could have picked LHP Matt Purke, who went to the Washington Nationals two picks later for a $4,4mil bonus.



·        The Boston Red Sox draft  high school catcher, Jordan Weems[x] ($50K bonus), with the 111th pick overall, when they could have picked one of the top first basemen in the draft, USC’s Ricky Opressa ($550K bonus), who went five picks later to the San Francisco Giants.



Both of these were third round picks. Both teams chose high school kids with unproven, higher ceilings rather than established, less projectable college juniors.

Are you supposed to be trying to save money in the first three rounds? And, is there something wrong with starting off your picks at the A+ level because, technically, they just completed three years of “organized ball” while in college?

I could go on like this all night.

Are you asking if the Red Sox needed a first baseman rather than a catcher? The answer to that is they need both at this point in a players development. A college player has the chance of making it to the pros in three years. High School graduates project out at around five.  And, it really doesn’t matter how many great first basemen you have in your organization. You can always eventually trade one for, oh, an established prospect catcher.

The problem with the movie was there was no mention of then 26-year old SP Tim Hudson (15-9, 2.98, 1.25), 24-year old SP Barry Zito (23-5, 2.5, 1.13), 24-year old SP Mark Mulder (19-7, 3.47, 1.14) and 28year old SS Miguel Tejada (34-HR, 131-RBI). You can spend three hours taking about Scott Hatteberg and David Justice, but these are the reasons this team made the playoffs in 2002.


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6 comments:

David Groveman said...

I'm interested in seeing how the new rules affect the draft.

February 2, 2012 at 10:45 AM
Mack Ade said...

David -

This is a very weak college draft this year and, coupled with all the new rules changes, I'm expecting at least 20 high school kid drafted in the first roun. Maybe the second also.

February 2, 2012 at 11:03 AM
USMF said...

Great write up, one of the best looks at "Money Ball" I've read.

Teams have two basic ways of approaching how they will run their team. They can gamble and spend big on players hoping that it will lead to winning which should lead to making money...or, they can not spend money on Free Agents and hope that their young and cheep players lead to winning, but they'll make money anyways. Look at the Leaked payrolls of Pittsburgh and Florida, they were making money despite not winning or signing big names.

While you can make the playoffs using both approaches, spending money (can) buys you consistency. The big money spenders are almost always considered favorites to make the playoffs.

Even back in the 90's when the Yanks were the most dominate and had a lot of home grown stars, they had a pitching staff built off of trades and free agent signings.

The thing that spending is consistency. Teams that spend will almost always be contending, while teams that don't have to rebuild and hope that their mix of players will work out, but they have to consistently take steps backward and keep rebuilding every couple of years.

I do have this one questions, no one ever answers it. Why are the Yanks always considered to have a strong farm system? Other than Cano and Wang (both are free agents signings, who have they drafted and developed in the past ten years that have achieved anything close to stardom?

They've been riding the backs of Jeter, Posada and Mo and a bunch of mercenaries for 15 years. And seeing that the Yanks have giving huge contracts to Jeter and crew that no other team would even consider or afford, can we really still list them as home grown stars?

If I was managing a team, I'd focus on drafting and developing pitching. I'd never sign a FA pitcher older that 28 to a big contract and never sign a position player to a big deal after they are 33.

Good starting pitching is very hard to find and gets very expensive. There are plenty of ways to build a solid line up though your system or FA's. Spend money evenly, sign the big names when they are young to carry the team, but don't get stuck in long term deals for guys who will be making ton of money who are way past their prime in the 2nd half of the contract.

February 2, 2012 at 12:25 PM
Mack Ade said...

Thank you.

One of the reasons the Yankees are always considered a good system is the fact that they have produced good players, many of which only got to the majors playing for another team.

Omar tried to emulate this with the Sanatana trade.

February 2, 2012 at 12:38 PM
USMF said...

Other than a few players who have become nice pieces, Tyler Clippard comes to mind, are there any players from the Yanks that could be considered real stars?

Even Clippard took a few years in the Nats system before he developed in to a good reliever.

Even a guy like Jesus Montero, who had a nice 18 game career, is still considered a one dimensional player who is best fit as a DH.

February 2, 2012 at 12:48 PM
Mack Ade said...

USMF:

Then again, you might be right...


(psst... email me at: macksmets@gmail.com... wanna ask ya something... )

February 2, 2012 at 3:26 PM

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