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Moneyball – win some, lose some

26/9/2011

6 Comments

 
The movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, has yet to reach Uzès, but the brilliant book by Michael Lewis stays with me wherever I go.  It is the book which, according to Sox GM Theo Epstein, ‘handed out the blueprint’ of using sabermetrics, advanced statistical analysis, to rate and value baseball players. The methodology is now mainstream. Every club has its own version of Theo’s Carmine, the huge computerised database which has been fundamental in every deal the Sox have cut since Theo arrived at Fenway. (Billy Beane himself turned us down.)

I’m writing this as the Sox travel to Baltimore for the final series of the regular season with a buttock-clenching one game lead in the Wild Card race, having gone 5-for-23 during September. And I’m musing on those factors which Carmine doesn’t appear to address. Like how the most successful team in baseball for four months can suddenly become the second-worst when it really matters. Like how the starting pitching can implode, including ace Jon Lester and the egregious John Lackey. Like how $140 million worth of Carl Crawford can have such a below-par season, offensively and defensively, that Francona leaves him out in a key match-up against the Rays.

Carmine is not infallible. If it was, we wouldn’t have had Gagné or Penny, Beltré or Renteria, for example. These guys were not bad ball players: they just couldn’t hack it in Boston. What the old scouts looked for, as well as the ability to ‘look good in designer jeans’, was the human factor. And that is not quantifiable on a spreadsheet.  The character and emotional make-up of a player, especially in a market such as Boston where scrutiny from fans and media is intense and constant, is not the subject of statistical measurement. 

The sub-title of Moneyball is The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Sabermetrics helped to even out the playing field briefly, but Billy Beane’s As have not had a winning season for five years. The game is not fair. The whole MLB structure is not fair. So is it back to payroll?

Well, the two biggest payrolls are first and second in the American League. But the Rays are only one game back, and their payroll is a mere third of Boston’s, probably a quarter of New York’s.  I understand why so many neutrals are rooting for them. As the Sox know to their cost this year, they are a very, very good ball club.

But so are the Sox. Carmine plus money gave us what, on paper, looked a potential World Series-winning team. It’s still possible. I’m pretty sure, though, that if we do go all the way, it will be down to the human factor. It will be because of above-and-beyond heroics from Pedroia, because of stunning athleticism from Ellsbury, because the frustration Papi has been showing in the dugout explodes in one beautiful bases-loaded swing, because Josh and Jon reassert themselves as the aces they are. And maybe, just maybe, because John Lackey overcomes his personal and pitching problems by sheer force of will to prove to us that he is, after all, a real Red Sox.

Today’s listening: Jefferson Starship, from the Uptown Theatre, Napa, CA in July this year. Kantner, Freiberg et al are the dirt dogs of rock, grinding out the old and the new on their own Never Ending Tour. I’m enjoying their stuff as much as they clearly are.

6 Comments
parn123
28/9/2011 04:09:35

Max, while I'd love to come up with a witty comment to your post, I'm afraid my knowledge of Baseball and it's arcane world is pretty well non-existent - despite having lived a year in Baltimore, Maryland - home of the Orioles.
On the other hand, I was tempted to look seriously into Maryland’s official team sport, lacrosse, to which the city’s heart is said to belong.
You may not know this, but, I quote:
"Known as the oldest sport in North America, lacrosse was played by Native American tribes for centuries before it became popular on college campuses throughout the Great Lakes region and along the East Coast during the late 1800s, with the University of Maryland fielding its first team in 1910. In fact, when lacrosse made its Olympic debut in 1928, it was the Johns Hopkins University’s team that represented the United States."
Sadly, I wouldn't earn many Facebook likes these days if I were to post this little nugget of information. So, I'll join you in wishing the Sox all the success they deserve!

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myers
28/9/2011 16:09:22

Max,like you, pre April, I had high hopes we could win the whole dam thing [optimistically we still might] but the implosion during this month has been nothing less than extraordinary, forfeiting a 10 game wildcard lead is a record no team wants. The pre season hype around Carl was also extraordinary [in retrospect] being well off the mark - hitting .255 is no where near good enough for the bucks shelled out.We look to Lester to extricate us from the hOle's we are in - go get them - Go Sox!

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Max Smith link
29/9/2011 02:23:20

So sabermetrics plus money didn't work. In the end, it came down to the human factor. To $140 million worth of left fielder failing to make a pretty straightforward play and capping it with a lollipop throw to home plate. And to a team from Tampa Bay which went 0-7 down against the Evil Empire and still believed they could win. So they did.

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Sean
29/9/2011 03:09:44

I wish I'd written my comment yesterday when I intended to.
After my intense disappointed I'm sure I'll remember that this is why sport is such a vital part of my life.
It's unscripted drama of the highest calibre that can shock, elate, deflate and have you on your feet screaming to the moon in anger, frustration, joy, pain, delight and incredulity in an instant.
My disbelief and annoyance will pass and my connection will be all the stronger come next spring when the tentative shoots of hope return once more.
October will be a long month.

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Rick Hough
29/9/2011 20:13:29

[re. game 162: among the many considerations upon which to reflect, it seems nobody wants to factor in the amount of water absorbed by the turf through which Crawford dashed to get to that cheesey bloop fly. It looked to me like he went down sooner than he'd planned. The throw was bad but I'd bank $$ he knew from the progress of the runner he had no shot at a play. Stylish? No.]
Conflation of the Sox payroll breaks down mostly into rewarded homegrown performers and Beckett/Drew/Crawford/Gonzalez/Matsuzakaalong with the bullpen, plus money still likely being paid to Lugo, Manny. I'd argure that while it's disingenuous to call New York the Evil Empire as we pursue the same strategies, the Sox are in a division that demands that it keep to a very robust pace. The sox roster is studded (pun only slightly intended) major talents who came out of Pawtuckett and would get huge contracts anywhere.
Billyball doesn't really work out, in part because it focuses so much on workaday numbers when the game frequently requires something more and in part because it doesn't allow retention of talent once it matures. The dynamics of the game necessitate at least a couple of stud ballplayers around which to pivot the reliable OBP guys eg. the 3 and 4-hole guys.
Bill James' gambit looms pretty big in the Sox front office and it sometimes costs them big $$ at the expense of intangibles like character (Lackey, Drew - and likely Crawford) but I'm of the mind that they make a decent stab at a hybrid version of Moneyball, one that serves in a division which includes the House of Steinbrenner.

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kp link
2/10/2011 17:02:23

Sorry, late blog!

Watching bottom of 9th in 2nd ALDS. Not here to fan fires of sporting rivalry, but I am reading this blog at time Posada hit his first triple in post season.

Would Billy (or Carmine) predict that!

A 38 year old catcher, batting DH, with shot knees pushing himself to the limit for the cause.

Managers with their calculations and money can't buy guts & pride - they can't predict who will make that special play when the heat is on.

Strange thing is, we know, the fans, we know who has it and, especially who those who do not!

Two out, two on, two behind, 0-2, bottom of the 9th. Cano at the plate, he has that special fan juice, can he do it?

Not tonight.

But for ten minutes an old Yankee displayed what we all love about this game, whichever team you support, all a fan asks from their team is heart and soul.

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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