An Untimely Reading of “Moneyball” and Why the Dodgers Will Suck This Year

So I finally got around to reading “Moneyball,” which was all the rage a couple of years ago. That’s about my standard curve for things that get a lot of hype. I think I finally caught Fear Factor in Season 3 or so. The first Police Academy movie I saw was the one where they made Bob Goldthwaite one of the cops. I had dial-up for 5 years before going high speed. Though I did wait in line for midnight showings of the first 2 Star Wars prequels, so go figure.

But anyways, it was a good read. I knocked it out in a couple of days. It raised some very interesting points, most of which I’m cursorily familiar with by following baseball as close as I do. I know well the current fascination with “alternate” statistics like On Base Percentage, On Base Plus Slugging Percentage, Number of Pitches Seen per At Bat, etc. I’ll admit that I was willfully ignorant to a certain degree because it’s contrary to what I’ve grown up accepting as baseball dogma. I’m still not ready to pledge fealty to the sabermetric god of slide rules or nominate the Oakland front office for a nobel prize, but the facts and statistics are, frankly, irrefutable.

But the thing that struck me the most is the very frank admission by Billy Beane himself that his system only works given a large enough sample of games. In a 5 or 7 game series, most of it comes down to luck. That’s not good enough for me. When you’ve got arguably the best 3 man rotation going in short series, won a hundred games, and can’t make it to the Series year after year, that’s just too much luck for my liking and starts to get into the area that I believe in that Moneyballers are so quick to discount—chemistry and the other intangibles that statistics will always fail to measure.

The argument over how a club has chemistry (whether winning breeds it or you have it and it breeds winning) is for another time. I believe that it exists and I believe that it’s essential to championship teams. One of the things in the book that really stuck out for me was when Beane was going through a mental checklist of all the things he was going to do as soon as he took over the Red Sox (which he ended up not doing). One of the things on the list was “get rid of Jason Varitek.”

Now, almost to a player, everyone on the 2004 Red Sox will tell you that Varitek not only was “the” guy for them last year, but also the one guy they couldn’t afford to let walk prior to the 05 season (as evidenced by the above-market price they paid for him).
Theo Epstein, the General Manager of the Red Sox, has successfully fused the Moneyball statistical evaluations with the intangibles that are absolutely part of the game. Johnny Damon wasn’t a Moneyball player even when he was in Oakland. Stole too many bases, risked too many outs. Epstein signed him anyway. Varitek certainly isn’t, but again, ask the Sox who the one player they couldn’t have done it without.

I am of the belief that you make your own luck, as intangible as that is. They say chance favors the prepared mind, and that leads back to chemistry. Guys on the same page or whatever cliché you want to throw at it. The point is that walks and slugging percentage alone won’t do it for you. Neither will assembling a statistically predictable club. There’s that certain something else that guys like Varitek, Jose Lima, Steve Finley, Paul LoDuca and Alex Cora can bring your team.

Those last 4 guys, in case you don’t know, were unceremoniously dumped from the Dodgers. Not even offered serious contracts. They low-balled Lima so he’d leave. Why? They don’t fit Dodger GM Paul DePodesta’s computer model of what a team should look like.
Apparently a fat starting pitcher with a history of arm troubles does.
Apparently a shortstop with a frightfully low batting average does. If he’s going to play 3rd base for you. (Jose Valentin’s On Base Percentage sucks also, in case you’re wondering)
Apparently a past-his-prime second baseman who’s never been much with the glove and been much less in the locker room does. At eight and a half million per.
Apparently a minor-league catcher compared to Ivan Rodriguez, not because of his arm, but because of his ass does.
Apparently a right-fielder who considers it an accomplishment to have finally played 145 games in one season does. But he walks a lot. To the trainers room. And to the DL. A lot.

JD friggin’ Drew has the audacity to show up for Spring Training and demand to play Center Field because Right Field is too hard on his knee. Right Fucking Field? The Out Fucking Field? Base Fucking Ball? If you’re not pitching or catching, you’re sitting on your ass waiting for something to happen 90% of the goddamned time any way. Is he going to have someone pinch run for him every time he gets one of his sacred walks? What’s harder, loping under a fly ball in the corner or going from 1st to 3rd on a single?
Oops, sorry, going from 1st to 3rd on a single is one of those things Moneyballers don’t care about. That’s a “heady” play. And you might get thrown out.
And this just in, Assfuck, the Dodgers already have a Center Fielder. His name’s Milton Bradley and he just happens to still be pissed that he had to move to Right last year to make room for Finley. Centerfield is the safest place for Milton Bradley and baseball fans everywhere. For a thrown object to reach him or for him to reach a fan, it’s the furthest distance and the odds are greater that a teammate or security guard might be able to intercept him. As long as he doesn’t go through right field, wouldn’t want JD McPussy to hurt his knee in the process. If the guy’s knee can’t take the “rigors” of playing the outfield, maybe he needs to join the World Poker Tour instead.

Dodger fans have grown to love guys like Kirk Gibson. Paul DePodesta gives us a cross between Bartleby the Scrivener and a glass slipper. People say that Drew will have a better year than the guy whose money he’s making, Adrian Beltre. All I’ve got to say to that is-- name the stakes.
Adrian Beltre was a Dodger his whole professional life. They signed the bastard when he was 9 or something. They stuck with him, let him learn at the big league level. The guy went out and almost won an MVP last year on one leg and what does he get for his effort? An empty promise from an owner with no money and not even the courtesy of a phone call in the offseason to say “Sorry, we’re going in a different direction.”
Oh, LA made a posturing contract offer after Beltre’s agent called to say, “By the way, 3 teams have offers on the table, do you want to even bother making one?”
The Dodgers spin it like he chased the money, but all he wanted was a little respect. Not too much to ask in the grand scheme of things.

So the bottom line is that DePodesta is going to throw a bunch of walkers out of the field who have never played with each other managed by a guy who doesn’t even have a managerial style that lends itself to the kind of club DePo wants to build and he expects to win the division again?

Screw chemistry. Screw MVP’s.

We’ve got Hee Sop Choi (and he’s cheap!)