2012 MLB Regular Season Running Thread

Ah, to be honest I didn't even see that. My eyes glaze over whenever defensive stats get into circulation because they're so meaningless and subjective.

But it sounds like your conclusion is that the Moneyball A's were one of the top five defensive teams in the league and didn't ignore/dismiss/de-emphasize defense. Go with that. I suspect you will be alone in that belief even if you do find yourself discussing this with Billy Beane one day.

 

So what's your theory on why the A's turned balls in play into outs at such a high rate those years?

 

OK. 60 percent then. Still quite the preponderance. And they're still playing fairly meaningful games for most or all of September. The Giants were 4.5 games up after games of Aug. 31 in a race that could easily have gone the other way, which adds extra value in the MVP discussion to Posey's tremendous September.

I'm kind of tired of arguing this point, to be honest, because it's really just a philosophy and you either see it one way or the other, but putting it together when the stakes are highest is a tremendously meaningful part of sports. And since most teams aim not to wrap the thing up by Sept. 1 but merely to be in contention, it's admirable when a player or team does put it together down the stretch.

 

Random luck?

 

My first guess would be advanced data on positioning, which is pretty real and useful. Just a guess.

"Their defenders were actually very good fielders" would be far down my list. Except the Justice-Long-Dye outfield of 2002. Those guys were awesome.

 

Well, that's probably fine, but doesn't that count as "defense." You wouldn't look at an NFL team giving up 15 poinst a game and say "But their *defense* isn't good, it's just their schemes"?

Even more fun: The 2002 and 2003 A's were actually pretty good baserunning teams.

 

I thought I'd put the evidence for that last one in a separate post just to give a dramatic pause.

Baseball-Reference has some fantastic stats on baserunning. While the A's generally eschewed SB attempts, they were actually a pretty solid baserunning team those last two years.

B-R has stats on how often teams a runner on first when a single was hit, a runner on second when a single was hit, and a runner on first when a double was hit, and what percentage of each of those times the team took the extra base (first to third, second to home, first to home).

The 2002 A's were 4th in the AL in percentage of the time they took the extra base, and had the 4th-fewest outs on the basepaths. So they managed to both take the extra bases with aggression and not pay for it with outs.

The 2003 A's were 1st in the AL in percentage of time they took the extra base, and had the fifth-fewest outs on the basepaths.

 

As an aside, I really hate this line of thought.

Billy Beane's A's did not create anything.

Many baseball teams were doing what Billy Beane was already doing in terms of internal statistical analysis and player evaluation ... including his own A's twenty years earlier, under Sandy Alderson (not in 1995, as Lewis writes. La Russa and Alderson were using complex statistical analysis in the 1980s.) ... And before Alderson, it was Earl Weaver and the Orioles. ... And before then, it was Branch Rickey and the Dodgers, who employed Allan Roth as a full-time statistician and used his ideas to great success in the NL of the 1940s and 1950s.

Anyway, that was a decade ago and baseball is a far different world than it was in 2002. Not much in "Moneyball" is relevant to how baseball front offices operate today.

Michael Lewis ignored a LOT of factors (the obvious factor being the presence of Oakland's Big Three and two AL MVPs) in order to create a more compelling narrative. It's a well-written book, as Lewis books usually are. But it really doesn't say anything about sabermetric principles or show any understanding of how other teams operate their front offices. Read Tom Tango's "The Book" if you want a fantastic primer on what sabermetrics is really about. "Moneyball" isn't about sabermetrics at all; it's about Billy Beane.

 

Yes. Only ran themselves into two outs at the plate in the same inning of a playoff game that would have eliminated the Red Sox. Tremendous baserunners.

Re the defense, luck could have something to do with it, yes. It's also probably true that in a 162-game season -- which is what they're looking to win -- that stuff smooths out. But it is more noticeable and detrimental in close playoff games.

 

So that Willie Mays fella... terrible hitter, right?

 

So in other news, Safeco becomes the latest awesome pitcher's park to wuss out and move 'em in:

http://mlb.com/sea/ballpark/wall_dimensions.jsp

 

I don't doubt much of this, but you can't seriously be arguing against the impact of Moneyball. Whether it meets your intellectual standards is one thing -- and I would have loved to hear anyone who's saying this now say it in 2003 when the book came out -- but it is the runaway Number One factor in the increased acceptance of new numbers in baseball. Without Moneyball having been written, by MLB At Bat app still shows me a player's batting average and not his OPS.

The revisionism against Moneyball's impact is quite ridiculous.