Comments on: Zduriencik Is the New Beane http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/2009/12/15/zduriencik-is-the-new-beane/ Covering America's Favorite Pastime Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:04:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: owlcroft http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/2009/12/15/zduriencik-is-the-new-beane/comment-page-1/#comment-3874 owlcroft Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:27:02 +0000 http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/?p=11452#comment-3874 1. “Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane helped change the landscape of running baseball front offices with help from the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis.” No: not at all. The book documented how Beane was operating in a particular season, and for some time operated. Beane’s “help”, which he first received on being appointed to the position of A.G.M., was a summary exposition of the methods that Sandy Alderson and I developed, which Sandy was, and had for some years been, using. Beane’s reaction to that exposition, which I wrote at Sandy’s behest, is documented in both Lewis’s book (“When Billy read Walker’s [document], he experienced–well, he couldn’t quite describe the excitement of it”) and in Alan Schwarz’s excellent tome “The Numbers Game” (esp. Chapter 11).

2. “[A]s other teams began to notice and borrow Beane’s tactics, his success began to wane . . . .” No; his success began to wane when the A’s shifted their emphasis from the original “moneyball” concepts to others, such as an emphasis on defense. It is a commonplace, but a very wrong one, to say that now all teams know about “this stuff”. Some do, many still don’t.

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]]> By: Brian Joseph http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/2009/12/15/zduriencik-is-the-new-beane/comment-page-1/#comment-3873 Brian Joseph Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:32:17 +0000 http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/?p=11452#comment-3873 whtouche: Friedman's stock is down after the moves of the past 12 months. Signing Burrell, giving away Kazmir and Iwamura to save cash then turning around and using the freed up cash to add Rafael Soriano who is likely to cost $6-$8 million per year.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('3873','Brian Joseph'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('3873','Brian Joseph','whtouche: Friedman\'s stock is down after the moves of the past 12 months. Signing Burrell, giving away Kazmir and Iwamura to save cash then turning around and using the freed up cash to add Rafael Soriano who is likely to cost $6-$8 million per year.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> whtouche: Friedman’s stock is down after the moves of the past 12 months. Signing Burrell, giving away Kazmir and Iwamura to save cash then turning around and using the freed up cash to add Rafael Soriano who is likely to cost $6-$8 million per year.
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]]> By: Brian Joseph http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/2009/12/15/zduriencik-is-the-new-beane/comment-page-1/#comment-3872 Brian Joseph Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:29:41 +0000 http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/?p=11452#comment-3872 I do have to say that I feel like that first paragraph is a bit of an oversimplification since the statistical analysis is more of a layer to the overall talent evaluation process. Last time I checked, the Athletics still employed scouts and invested time and money to actually looking at players. I also like how you give credit to Z for dealing Heilman but don't put Heilman on the "dealt for" side... although doing such a thing would actually nullify Heilman's impact on the "SENT" side which is actually a positive one when considering WAR. So, it's more like 8.0 to -1.9 or 7.8 to -2.1... not that that is a major difference. Interesting read! :)<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('3872','Brian Joseph'); return false;">Reply</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('3872','Brian Joseph','I do have to say that I feel like that first paragraph is a bit of an oversimplification since the statistical analysis is more of a layer to the overall talent evaluation process. Last time I checked, the Athletics still employed scouts and invested time and money to actually looking at players.\r\n\r\nI also like how you give credit to Z for dealing Heilman but don\'t put Heilman on the \"dealt for\" side... although doing such a thing would actually nullify Heilman\'s impact on the \"SENT\" side which is actually a positive one when considering WAR. So, it\'s more like 8.0 to -1.9 or 7.8 to -2.1... not that that is a major difference.\r\n\r\nInteresting read! :)'); return false;">Quote</a></div> I do have to say that I feel like that first paragraph is a bit of an oversimplification since the statistical analysis is more of a layer to the overall talent evaluation process. Last time I checked, the Athletics still employed scouts and invested time and money to actually looking at players.

I also like how you give credit to Z for dealing Heilman but don’t put Heilman on the “dealt for” side… although doing such a thing would actually nullify Heilman’s impact on the “SENT” side which is actually a positive one when considering WAR. So, it’s more like 8.0 to -1.9 or 7.8 to -2.1… not that that is a major difference.

Interesting read! :)

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