Billy Beane himself had all the talent to be one of baseball’s truly greats, and yet, somehow, somewhere, couldn’t pull it together. That experience didn’t lead him to think “gee, I needed better coaching, better mentorship, or someone, anyone to help me figure out how to pull it together. If I give that to my players, I’ll turn a dozen almost-rans into the best team in the league.” It led him to say “I was a failure as a player, and I’m not going to waste time on failures. They are expected to pull it together on their own, and we’re not coddling them.” So he found valuable yet undervalued commodities and expected them still to without coaching or mentorship, live up to his demands of what MLB meant. At no time did he take interesting undervalued commodities that were on the edge of value because of their need for coaching and turn them into greatness.

Thinking about that issue, the lack of coaching, the most obvious problem with Moneyball as an educational model is that schools would APPLY IT TO THEIR STUDENTS, not to the teachers. They’ve basically already said “we don’t teach; those who succeed we take credit for, those who don’t we label learning disabled.” They have basically decided not to invest in anything. Just give them the chance to use assessments to find the undervalued commodity, and they’ll exploit that, but will they bother teaching those who aren’t yet showing themselves to be valuable yet undervalued?

I’m just stunned at the lack of basic research that’s gone on here – from Casey to Klonsky. As Colin pointed out, one can avoid these gaffes with Google and 30 seconds. Then again, it’s standard fare in this business.

A commenter on the Edwize site echoed your words re: the real details of the 2002 draft:

http://edwize.org/billy-ball-strikes-out-as-educational-model

http://www.quickanded.com/2008/02/again-with-not-understanding-baseball.html

Maybe I need to reread Moneyball, because I forget whether the As had high picks in the 2002 draft and traded down. Because as I’m reading this, Casey has misinterpreted Chass’s article. Casey writes:

“This is true statistically, as Chass shows, but the difference becomes even more dramatic when one looks at a number of the picks Beane and A’s passed over who went on to become more successful major leaguers than their picks — including one, Scott Kazmir, that the Mets later gave up in their worst trade of recent years. [Sorry, that’s the inner Mets fan speaking.] Others such as Prince Fielder, B. J. Upton, Cole Hamels and Jeff Francoeur, will be recognized by avid baseball fans as superior to the A’s picks.”

The thing is, the As first pick was the 16th. BJ went 2nd, Prince 7th, and Kazmir 15th. Then the As selected Swisher. Hamels then went 17th and Francoeur 23rd, before the As next pick (where they grabbed a solid arm in Blanton). This all took me 30 seconds of research, by the way.

So in reality, they only passed on Fracoeur and Hamels, both good players for sure.

But here’s the thing: which member of the 2002 draft class has outperformed Swisher? The guy is a stud. There’s a couple of close calls. Some might prefer Francoeur due to his fielding, others might opt for Swisher’s superior bat. Fielder might be on his way, but he’s only played 2 full seasons, which is part of the reason the As avoid HS kids. They spend more time in the minors and they don’t get as much value out of their cheap initial contract.

I mean really, when it’s all added up, Swisher is at the very least a top 4 guy out of that draft class, and they nabbed him at the 16th spot. If Casey’s remarks are true, then “avid baseball” fans should pay more attention.