An Alternative Explanation of the A's Success

As readers of the blog know, I am a big Oakland A's fan. I am pleased with the publicity the A's and Billy Beane received from Moneyball the book and film. In the past two days, there is a lot of reflection in the blogosphere, spurred by an ESPN article, posing the question - now that the A's are in last place and the movie halted production, does it look like the theories expounded in Moneyball are defunct?

Most conclude no. In fact, it is the success of the Moneyball theories and the adoption of the theories by competition that prove they work. Basically, everyone else caught up to the A's. You could same the same of HBO. The created an awesome original programming model only to be copied by Showtime, FX, etc, thusly creating competition for themselves.

But as a longtime A's fan, I'm in a unique position to evaluate the success of the Moneyball claims historically, as opposed to theoretically. In short, there is an alternative explanation to the A's successes between 1999-2003 than the sabermetric tools used to evaluate players - luck, steroids, and a culture of success.

Let me clarify luck. Anyone who knows anything about baseball knows starting pitching is the most valuable commodity to any team. Good pitching wins games and championships. Every team except for the very top tier spenders, like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets try to develop good young pitchers. Actually, I would argue all teams try to develop good young pitchers, it's just the top teams don't need to - they can afford to buy proven pitchers from other teams if needed. From 1999-2003, the A's were incredibly successful at developing young pitching talent - Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder were three of the top pitchers in the American League at the time. Mulder and Zito both won Cy Young Awards and if you ask me, Hudson was the best of the three. Not unlike the Atlanta Braves in the early 1990s with Glavine, Smoltz, and Avery (and later Maddux), the A's were blessed with a goldmine. This happens in cycles. Right now, the San Francisco Giants are one of the best teams in the National League because of two young pitchers - Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. A couple of years ago the Detroit Tigers got to the the World Series on the backs of Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, and Nate Robinson. The Phillies world series MVP was Cole Hammel, the Marlins won the World Series with a young Josh Beckett. My point is this - all teams try and develop young pitching talent and success at it goes in cycles. The A's cycle was during 1999-2003. Afterwards, the A's did develop Dan Haren (success, but needed to trade) and Rich Harden (injury prone), and Justin Durchester (injury prone), three more good pitchers, only one of whom is a consistent major league success.

But developing one or two good pitchers isn't enough. It provides the foundation for a pennant, but you also need bats. The Giants will probably not win this year because they lack the bats. Ask the Blue Jays or the Royals or any number of teams with a spectacular pitcher, but who find themselves near the bottom of the standings. How did the A's hit from 1999-2003? Well. They had Jason Giambi one of the best hitters in the league, they had Miguel Tejada an MVP winner, they had Johnny Damon one year, Eric Chavez was looking solid, Jermaine Dye, Ray Durham. Later the A's had Frank Thomas and Milton Bradley and all along solid bats throughout the line up - guys like Mark Ellis, Scott Hatterberg, Bobby Crosby (one year he was good), Terrence Long, Eric Byrnes, etc. But the best A's teams and the ones Lewis writes about in Moneyball, are the teams with Giambi and Tejada as the anchors in the line-up. And let's be honest - those two dudes were juicing. Sad as it is for me to admit, the A's were ground zero for the steroid boom in baseball. The bash brothers - Canseco and McGwire were the OG roiders as evidenced in Canseco's book and McGwire's face. Giambi learned from these two, especially McGwire. Tejada either learned from Giambi or his other Dominican pals like Manny or Arod or whoever. Both these guys were juicing and they were the keys for the A's matching up with the Yankees.

It is not as if the A's were the only team that benefited from roids. Seattle had the best record in baseball in 2000 both because they got Ichiro and Brett Boone went from a .250 hitter to an AL MVP candidate because he started juicing. The Giants went to the world series behind Bonds and Rich Aurelia who one year suddenly drops 40 homers after never hitting more than 20. Lots of teams benefited from roids, including the A's.

Lastly, the culture of success. This is a vague term, but I can't figure out a better way to describe why certain organizations are historically better than others organizations. Why are the Celtics so much better than the Clippers? Or the Lakers vs. the Clippers? Why do the Royals and Cubs suck, but the A's and Twins always surprisingly good? Some teams just have a culture of success. The A's have 9 world series championships, third only to the Yankees and the Cardinals. This is one of the oldest and proudest organizations in baseball. And you can see how "trouble-maker" players cast off from other teams (Milton Bradley) came come into Oakland and play well and generally be cool. This is what happened in Boston where Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett came in and got swooped up into the Celtic mystique and won a championship. This happens for Oakland and not for say, the Texas Rangers. The Yankees win not just because of their big payroll, but because there is a mystique to being a Yankee and a culture of fans, owners, and players who demand and expect success. You see it all around the world in different sports - Barcelona, Manchester United, The Lakers, the Dallas Cowboys, the 49ers. Sure, sometimes teams sag, but if you look at these teams historically, they are winners. The A's are one of those organizations. If you applied Billy Beane's sabermetrics to the Kansas City Royals, the Chicago Cubs, or the Los Angeles Clippers, those teams will still lose.

Lastly, the best critique of Moneyball is the book itself. It was written in 2003 and if correct, should be predictive. Let's examine the players Beane picked in the book:

Pitchers:

* Jeremy Guthrie - Cleveland, #22 (1st round)
* Joe Blanton - Oakland, #24 (1st round)
* Jeff Francis - Colorado, #9 (1st round)
* Luke Hagerty - Chicago Cubs, #32 (1st round)
* Ben Fritz - Oakland, #30 (1st round)
* Robert Brownlie - Chicago Cubs, #21 (1st round)
* Stephen Obenchain - Oakland, #37 (1st round)
* Bill Murphy - Oakland, #98 (3rd round)

Hitters:

* Nick Swisher - Oakland, #18 (1st round)
* Russ Adams - Toronto, #14 (1st round)
* Khalil Greene - San Diego, #13 (1st round)
* John McCurdy - Oakland, #26 (1st round)
* Mark Teahen - Oakland, #39 (1st round)
* Jeremy Brown - Oakland, #35 (1st round)
* Steve Stanley - Oakland, #67 (2nd round)
* John Baker - Oakland, #128 (4th round)
* Mark Kiger - Oakland, #158 (5th round)
* Brian Stavisky - Oakland, #188 (6th round)
* Shaun Larkin - Cleveland, #274 (9th round)
* Brant Colamarino - Oakland, #218 (7th round)

This was at least 6 years ago, a fair amount of time for these guys to develop. Blanton is a real MLB starter, but not even close to an All Star. Swisher plays, but now is batting 8th for the Yankees, despite being hot earlier this year. Let's just say, this is not an impressive list.

Maybe Moneyball, like Communism, works best in theory.