Moneyball

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Does anyone know if Billy Bean was the one responsible for drating Hudson, Mulder, or Zito? Those 3 are the backbone of the A's. Beane says to draft college players, but I always thought the scouting department was more or less in charge of the draft.

[Guest The Tino Standard]

Whoever is responsible for getting those three should get a nice fat pay raise (it's not like Oakland is spending that money on any big name free agents.. har har). Seriously, tho, they've built an awesome staff and even when they lose a player like Giambi, they can still be strong. That's good management, especially with limited resources.

[Bored]

I read the book, which is excellent and all baseball fans should pick it up even if your not an A's fan, and I believe that Beane was definently responsible for drafting Zito as many thought he was drafted too high. Mulder was a can't miss prospect in everyone's eyes so anyone would have drafted him and I don't think I've heard of who was responsible for Hudson, although I know he was not regarded as being that great of a prospect due to his height. The book itself actually talks very little about the Big Three.

 

Vern did you read the book? If not it talks about in great detail about how Beane basically took over the draft from the scouting department in 2002.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

I have not read the book. I was curious because Beane is given so much praise, was he involved in the actually drafting of the Big 3.

[Guest Some Guy]

I read the SI article on it and it's interesting to sya the least. I'm not a huge fan of Beane's theories, which stem form Bill James who now works for the Red Sox, but it is interesting how he discarded the "can't miss" guys and drafted some fat catchera nd told the scouts to fuck off about it.

[Bored]

I read the SI article on it and it's interesting to sya the least.  I'm not a huge fan of Beane's theories, which stem form Bill James who now works for the Red Sox, but it is interesting how he discarded the "can't miss" guys and drafted some fat catchera nd told the scouts to fuck off about it.

The fat catcher was Jeremy Brown who is tearing it up in the minors right now and could be in the majors by next year. The book really goes into detail about how ridiculous major league scouting really is. They often put more emphasis on just how good a guy looks in his uniform rather than his production.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

What about character? The Twins really emphasize that aspect of a player. IMO..good character, along with numbers, and to a lesser extent athletic ability are the 3 key components in drating players.

[Guest alkeiper]

Character is very important, as your players will need it when they're languishing in AA while talented players are in the bigs.

[Guest jonstreich]

I think that the book gives credit more to Paul DePodesta than to Billy Beane. Also, did anyone else catch how they made the drafting of Jeremy Bonderman look like a bad move?

[Bored]

I think that the book gives credit more to Paul DePodesta than to Billy Beane.  Also, did anyone else catch how they made the drafting of Jeremy Bonderman look like a bad move?

I don't think the book gives more credit to Paul more than they just had more access to talk to Paul. The Bonderman pick angered Beane because he was a high school pitcher and they used their 1st pick in 2001 on him (selected by then head of scouting Gary Fuson who joined the Rangers after 2001) and that pissed off Beane to no end which led to the overhaul of the scouting department. Beane is completely against using 1st round picks on high schoolers, especially pitchers. No surpsie that Beane eventually trade him. The book is still out on whether or not Bonderman becomes a good pitcher.

[Guest alkeiper]

It's not that Bonderman might not be a good pitcher. Its that the success rate on high school pitchers makes drafting them a risky proposition. And I would note that they traded Bonderman for Ted Lilly, and two prospects who they later traded for Erubiel Durazo. So they didn't fare too bad in the long run.

[Guest undisputedjericho]

I thought Zito was drafted by Texas originally?

[Bored]

I thought Zito was drafted by Texas originally?

Many players are drafted several times before they go pro. Zito was drafted by Seattle originally out of high school in the 59th round in '96. He was drafted by Texas in the 3rd round after his sophomore year '98. He decided to stay in college and trasfered to USC (his 3rd school) for his junior year and then the A's took him with the 9th pick overall in '99.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Mark Prior was originially drafted by the Yankees out of high school.