Why don't the A's win any more?

Tampa had the benefit of a lot of high draft picks and made the most of them.

For small market teams Tampa is the model for how to do it right as far a picking players.

 

They also didn't choose to ignore an entire class of players from the selection pool.

 

The part I bolded is the condescension and dismissal of which I speak. Because I question whether OPS and station-to-station ball and dismissal of all other skills is the best way to play winning baseball, I am "fervently" an old fuddy-duddy. You can say it's lucky that the Twins hit a three-run homer in the ninth inning to put Game 5 out of reach in 2002, and I can say Billy Koch sucked and the A's were fools to think they could get through a postseason series with him as the closer. You say the Red Sox barely held on in Game 5 in '03, I can say the A's displayed horrifically pitiful situational hitting (yes, including both Chavez and Tejada). Bunting, again, that's not a good strategy for early in the game but it does have its value in pushing one run across late. And how many runs did the A's give up by not being able to steal a base or go first-to-third on a single?

Regarding your "9.3 percent difference in sample size," think of it this way: The A's were 4-9 in one- or two-run games, and 4-3 in other games. That's a hell of a drop.

 

Billy Beane made decisions based on the limited resources provided by his boss, A's ownership, and for his team, the A's. He bears no responsibility for how others interpreted, misinterpreted or mis-hyped the process. I'm in the dooley and Double Down camp on this. People always focus on one or two aspects and forget or ignore giant dimensions of context and motivation.

 

But Sandy Alderson was the guy who pioneered the idea and did not get near enough credit in the book.

Does not mean it was not a good book. It's a great book that has changed the way many view baseball.

 

Speaking of the Twins, aren't they held up as the symbols of "playing the game the right way," moving runners, bunting, defense, baserunning...

How many playoff series have they won in the past 15 years?

As many as the A's. In fact, the only series either has won has been against the other.

 

I think Billy Beane is a good GM. Not a genius. Not infallible. Not a guy who invented a way to win. But a good GM. I've talked to him many many times and his basic philosophies are sound....

OBP is important
Closers can be replaced
You shouldn't use short term band aids to be half good. If you can't get tot the postseason, you are better off winning 65 games with young players than 75 with veterans.
You can improve your team by improving your strength, not just your weakness.

All these things are the ideas behind his moves, but they don't always work. No GM is right all the time. The parallel to Sabean is accurate. He was a genius, then an idiot then a genius? No, he whiffed on Steve Finley and he hit on Aubrey Huff.

Billy made a great deal for Mulder, a great one for Haren, a great one for Swisher. Lousy ones for Bradley, Holliday, Hudson.

 

The Twins had been one of the few teams without any sort of department responsible for advanced statistical analysis.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/3040/twins-thrive-without-sabermetrics
http://aarongleeman.com/2010/04/01/statistical-analysis-and-the-twins-together-at-last/

 

That's a good point. Two differentiators:

1) The Twins have been good more consistently than the A's. Now, that may be of little or no value in the grand scheme of things, because a lot of those years were of the "half-good" variety you mention Billy advocating against, but they are on a solid 10-year run of hitting Sept. 1 in contention just about every year.

And more significantly ...

2) Nothing has ever been written about the Twins to the tune of "everything you thought you knew about baseball is wrong."

 

They might get heralded as that, but it ain't true.

Gardenhire doesn't bunt, and since Torii Hunter left they've been average defensively. Ask Nick Punto about running the bases.

The Twins success has been based on stockpiling a shitload of No. 2 starters, maintaining a strong bullpen (until this season) and the sheer luck of having Mauer and Morneau come through the system at the same time.

 

I agree that Moneyball did portray the A's as knowing something no one else did, but I blame Michael Lewis for that. Not the A's.

The A's did and still do a lot of things in jus the same way as every other team, but no one wrote a book about that.

 

I suppose that was dismissive, and I don't want to completely dismiss such things. But I do think they are often given too much credit.

Since Koch didn't give up a three-run homer in that game, it was neither lucky or unlucky. And I did write bullpens were important. Koch was decent that year, but probably one of the worst closers for a contending As team. That's where the whole small market part comes in. You can't guarantee a great player at each spot. Perhaps the As were fools that year, but not the other three. Perhaps the White Sox, Red Sox and Card were fools to think they could get through postseasons with the likes of Dustin Hermanson, Keith Foulke (ex-A) Jason Isringhausen (ex-A). But all three won titles.

I can't recall a thing about the situational hitting from that game, though looking at the numbers I see Chavez had a very unmoney-ball sort of pitch count (and what a strange final inning). What stood out more from that game was Zito just spitting up on himself. And what stood out in the series were the baserunning errors. /bitterAsfan

As for the first to third/stealing thing, I have no idea. It seems the inverse of asking the question, how many runs are lost because runners get caught stealing or thrown out being overaggressive on the basepaths.