Ummm, what happened to MoneyBall?

[OBPlover]

Is OBP down because pitching is up? or Is pitching up, because OBP is down?


If pitching is simply better now, why aren't Strikeouts progressing upwards? The stat has remained eerily consistent for the past 3 years.

[Neato Torpedo]

Check out the batting averages of this Oakland batting order...


More like SnoozeBall

You ask what happened to Moneyball and then show some batting averages......OK then

Moneyball was 1999-2006, a lot has changed since then.

You might as well ask why Reagan isn't president any more

Just found it eye-popping that the OBP guy has a team of Mendozas. But they are 20-19 so Beaner is doing his best at "buying" wins.

Beaner?

[kab21]

Is OBP down because pitching is up? or Is pitching up, because OBP is down?

If pitching is simply better now, why aren't Strikeouts progressing upwards? The stat has remained eerily consistent for the past 3 years.

I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about. Everything that has to do with offense is down.

Fact - Pitching has been better for at least 3 years. If you look at the last ten years then you'll see that K's are up 10% and BB's are down 10%. Power is probably down also but I didn't check that.

[OBPlover]

I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about. Everything that has to do with offense is down.

Fact - Pitching has been better for at least 3 years. If you look at the last ten years then you'll see that K's are up 10% and BB's are down 10%. Power is probably down also but I didn't check that.

What do you mean 10 years ago? It is now almost universally accepted that 10 years ago every other hitter was jacked up on steroids. That's why Offense was up compared to now.

There's no huge increase in great pitching for the past 3 years, strikeouts are NOT up but walks are down, which is proof that teams are not giving OBP it's proper due.

[jcook3127]

OBP has a point..

It's clear that pitching is getting more dominant in comparison to hitting..most noticeably over the past couple years..BUT, that really has very little to do with whether teams are focusing on OBP enough

I think we can agree that at least a much more significant reason behind that is just that the game is being cleaned up...trickling down into colleges and prospects more and more

[OBPlover]

Well sure, you clean up the game and you will see a noticeable decline in runs scored.

But basically, just look at the actions of many GMs to see how little Moneyball has been accepted.

Because I live in Toronto, the team I follow the most are the Blue Jays.

Last year, their lineup was littered with crap. They traded away Mike Napoli. They had in their lineup, Aaron Hill, Juan Rivera, Rajai Davis and a whole lot of sub .300 OBP. At one point, the Jays were regularly starting 6 guys with an OBP under .300 and this was well into the season. They had about 2000 worthless Plate appearances.

So I got onto my Jays discussion forum and I made the bold predicition that the Jays were capable of competing this year. Just replace those 2000 worthless Plate apeparances with major league average OPS. The Jays went out and got Kelly Johnson, Colby Rasmus and brought up Lawrie and even with the riskiness of these players I thought they should at least combine for something major league average this year.

I was blasted. I got involved with a 10 post argument with some guy that insisted that I was just a "homer" and it was impossible for any team to beat the Tampa Rays because they played "Moneyball". I tried to explain to him that the Jays could play "Moneyball" too and when they did, they could back it up with a decent payroll. (Jays ownership are cheap but have more money than just about anyone else).

[bayside]

so basically you started posting in this thread so that you could tell us how you predicted that the Jays would "play moneyball" on some Jays discussion board last year?

[OBPlover]

Ummmmmmm, no. Someone debated with me, saying that OBP was now widely accepted and I am giving a good example of proof that it has not been widely accepted.

[bayside]

Ummmmmmm, no. Someone debated with me, saying that OBP was now widely accepted and I am giving a good example of proof that it has not been widely accepted.

it HAS been widely accpeted. the only reason the Jays had so many hitters with terrible OBP is because Jays management before AA was terrible. AA took over and now many of those gusy are gone or benched, and have been replaced by the guys you mentioned.
And guess what? That old management team (J. P. Ricciardi and Co.) is basically out of baseball specifically because they DIDNT adapt to the "moneyball" strategy. and obviously AA was brought in to lead the team because he DOES know how to play "moneyball" ie exploit market inefficiencies.

If your example held any water then the low OBP players would have stayed the same even under new management. You totally undermined your own argument.

[OBPlover]

Bayside....

1)AA kept Aaron Hill and Adam Lind in 2010 and 2011
2) Traded Away Mike Napoli (and kept Juan Rivera)
3) Signed Corey patterson
4) Traded for Rajai Davis

Oh the list can go on and on..

Sure he made some nice moves. I give credit where credit is due. Trading away Vernon Wells and that big Monster contract for example.

But that's now proof that the LA Angels, yet another organization, don't accept Moneyball as well.