Reese Kaplan -- Does Moneyball Work for the Mets?

If you go back and look at Billy Beane’s Moneyball theory on which the Mets are supposedly built, there appear to be some stark differences of what was preached and what the Mets have chosen to do given the reality of the execution. 

They have embraced some of what was preached.  For example, Moneyball professes no desire for the traditional scouting rankings of speed, power, quickness, throwing and mental toughness.  You need to look no further than Sandy Alderson's majority of draft picks to see that he indeed places little value on these attributes.  How else could you explain the dearth of speed, power, etc. present in many of the higher selections he’s made?

Beane’s approach is a much simpler one which only relies on two questions – can a batter hit and can a hitter get on base?  Now all sarcasm aside, that approach might explain the selections of people like Gavin Cecchini and Brandon Nimmo as opposed to guys like Aaron Judge.  On base percentage carries an overwhelming weight in making personnel decisions, though to be true to the Beane model, slugging percentage should rank very highly as well.  In fact it was Beane working with Bill James that developed the now universally evaluated OPS stat of On Base Percentage Plus Slugging.  While no one is surprised to see guys like Mike Trout and Aaron Judge atop the league leaders in this category, you might be stunned to see names like Tony Pham, Marwin Gonzalez, Avasail Garcia and Justin Smoak making it to the top 30 in the majors.  It’s those types of undervalued players that Beane sought to find. 

Interestingly, given the choice of someone with power and someone with plate discipline, Beane would opt for the latter with the assumption that it was easier to develop power (hence all the launch angle stuff you now see coming to the forefront) than it is to teach someone selectivity and the value of taking a walk.  Perhaps that is why, if Sandy Alderson is indeed modeling the Mets on this approach that he’s not big on the traditional power hitters, but you’d think people with steady doubles power would at least be on his radar.

Beane was also an advocate of drafting college players who would require far less development work (and risk of injury) than the high school studs who may have excelled against lesser competition but would need to refine multiple aspects of their game to progress towards the majors.  You have also seen Alderson taking many more college players than younger ones as well.

Another key tenet of Moneyball is the emphasis on the Bill James formula for Runs Created (RC):

Runs Created = (TB) (H+BB) / (AB+BB)

If you buy into this approach, then that old Little League cliché you heard from your coaches – “A walk is as good as a hit” – is nearly accurate.   Perhaps the new adage should be a walk is as good as an infield single.  

It is for this reason, perhaps, that Sandy Alderson embraced a player like Curtis Granderson who was clearly on the down side of his career when hired, who failed to produce a replacement level batting average, but buoyed his game with a large number of walks.  Unfortunately the execution during his Mets career was around .778 which falls between .750 (mediocre) and .800 (serviceable).  For comparison’s sake Wilmer Flores last year was .795 and Brandon Nimmo was .797. 

Does this approach work?  Well, an academic study was done to analyze the 1997 draft between high school and college players and there was a definite uptick in both SLG and OPS for the college vs. the high school players.  However, the authors attempted to factor in the force feeding of high draft picks into the equation and concluded that small budget teams might do well to draft college players in the later rounds who are less expensive but to go for the highest overall talent in the earlier rounds. 

That distinction might indicate where the Mets have somewhat gone off the rails with their drafting.  They push the high draft picks through the system who are good Moneyball choices but not necessarily the most talented.  However, the money (and front office credibility) invested in them means they are almost forced upwards regardless of output in the minors whereas guys like T.J. Rivera who put together a minor league career OPS over .800 had to wait until age 27 to get a shot at the majors since he did not have the high draft pedigree. 

When Sandy Alderson and company came on board it was announced that they would develop the organization to be “Moneyball with money.”  Going into the 8^th year now it would appear that while they have been fairly consistent (to an annoying degree) with Beane’s philosophy, the on-the-field results have simply not been there.  Now that the Collins 7 year reign of losing (overall, don’t cherry pick) coming to a merciful and long overdue end, you will get to see with the unchanged personnel approach if new on-field leadership can deliver better results or is the whole theory simply wrong.