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1/3/18

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 8th 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. 








17 comments:

  1. All you had to write was no Reese

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  2. Money Ball is played by Beane Bags.

    It is a flawed draft approach and is evident in the bottom-scraping minorleague quality/talent ranking compared to other MLB organizations. Draft guys with elite tools; most may never make it but you may end up with an Aaron Judge Greg Bird Paul Goldshmidt or Rhys Hoskins if you do. That is what matters at the major league level...if you want to thrive.

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  3. Ugh the money ball with money saying ... the Mets are flawed from top down... Wilpons then their henchmen to do thier biddings... will it ever get better...

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  4. Reese,
    Moneyball, just like Sandy Alderson, us overrated and is something that only small market clubs should consider because they basically don't have a choice.

    Take a look at the dominant teams in MLB, Yankees, Dodgers, RedSox, Cubs, Nats,etc. What do they have in common? they spend money. There are exceptions like the WS winner Astros but overall, the high payroll teams tend to be the best.

    The Mets, as usual, are stuck between the two because they can't seem to commit to either plan. You can't do the Moneyball when you don't draft well and when you have owners that drastically change the payroll from year to year, you can't build a proper team by free agency either.

    Where does that leave us as Mets fans? well, remember that smell...under the street where flies live ...?

    Make no MISTAKE. Bringing back Omar Minaya (whom I have said time and time again that should have been kept and put in charge of scouting) is an admission by Sandy Alderson that they are both, over the hill and overwhelm when it comes to finding talent.

    Sandy, along with Terry, should have been given a gold watch and a fishing rod and sent packing. But that is not something this organization does well either because they are stupid from the owners and down the line.

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    Replies
    1. What years was the payroll "drastically" changed?

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  5. Reese -

    A lot of teams missed on Judge.

    Using him as an example is not fair.

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  6. I disagree. They drafted Conforto and Alonso since Alderson took over. That's not exactly a rubber stamp on the value of power hitters.

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  7. Judge was selected #32 in 2013, comp pick for Nick Swisher. Mets picked Dom Smith #11.

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  8. Tom -

    That means 31 teams passed on Judge, right?

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  9. Reese -

    You are bringing Alonso and Conforto into my comment on Judge.

    ???

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  10. What I meant by that is they do not value power hitting. Look at the guys they have drafted. Conforto and Alonso are the only power hitters in 280 selections during 7 years. If they valued power hitting they might have chosen Judge. But power hitting in and of itself is anti-Moneyball.

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  11. Pretty basic business approach you have to spend money to make money and you can quote me on that. The only thing that makes sense here is the Wilponzies ARE making money under the current regime and it appears it'll be business as usual going forward much to our chagrin.

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  12. Mack, that is true, and similar to the year Mike Trout was drafted around # 25 - what were the first 24 thinking?

    What would have been fascinating is if Judge wasn't selected yet when the Mets picked Andrew Church about 15 picks later - we'll never know, but would they have picked the uninspiring Mr. Church anyway, rather than a flier on Judge's hyper-power?

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  13. "Mr. Church" and his family are daily readers of Mack's Mets.

    Maybe your comment about him will be the proper incentive to turn his pro career in a different direction.

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  14. The Moneyball approach may or may not work, but the bigger issue with the Mets has been the actual players selected. Regardless of your philosophy, the actual picks are what matter and Sandy’s early round selections have been mostly underwhelming.

    So, you can keep doing what you have done and expect a different result (I.e. insanity), or you can try a new approach and hope that it is both different and successful (like bringing Omar back, perhaps).

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  15. Look, you all know that I have tracked the draft every year for well over 10 years and went into every draft with an Excel sheet of well over 300 top prospects.

    This has nothing to do with the players that the Mets drafted. They all had great careers either in high school or college, and deserved to be drafted by some team, somewhere, in the draft.

    That being said, 80% of the time Sandy and Company made a pick in the draft, I had to shuffle my papers and frantically search for the details on this pick.

    I'll give you this... the three draft days does make me wonder...

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  16. Where would you have picked Mike Piazza?

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