I think his system has some merits, but you just can't take things like clutch performing and the other things that stats just can't measure out of the game. Oakland's biggest problem this season seems to be the complete lack of hitting they have, hence the earlier talks about a Sanders trade. Chavez, Kendall and some of their other guys may have had some convincing stats, but they just can't seem to get results when they need to. Beane takes too much power from the manager also.

Weren't the Red Sox last year a good example of how well Moneyball works with actual money?

The A's wouldn't have moved Mulder or Hudson this off-season if they had cash. (Same can be said in the recent past in regard to Johnny Damon, Miguel Tejada, and Jason Giambi.) Oakland is down now, no doubt about it - but having Haren, Meyer, Blanton, and Harden around to be in the rotation (and good eventually) isn't the end of the world.

The short attention span of our generation is mind boggling. The A's have a bad quarter season, which followed a 5 year stretch of playoff caliber teams despite a low payroll - and Beane is suddenly an idiot? (He's been a bit overrated, mind you, but he's still doing a good job when you look at the big picture.)

Levitt's right about Moneyball and the A's pitching, but he's falling into the Joe Morgan trap of Michael Lewis=Billy Beane. Just because Lewis devoted 96% of Moneyball to hitters doesn't mean that the A's were simply throwing darts at the wall when it came time to draft pitchers.

And (to toss out another stathead mantra): Beware small sample sizes. The A's hitting has collapsed and the pitchers Beane traded for this winter haven't been as good as Mulder and Hudson, but... it's May 24. It's beyond premature to start discussing whether this was simply a good run for Beane. Regardless of what the sportsbooks or Beane himself says, the deals they made this past offseason left them better prepared for the future than they would have been if they had simply ridden Mulder and Hudson into the ground. If you're depending on "buy low/sell high", it's easy to get cautious and sell too early. Remember also Mulder’s hip issues and forgettable second half to 2004.

Regardless of whether or not you consider Beane a genius (I don’t), his approach to player evaluation has had a significant impact on the game. The A's dismal start has lightened the bandwagon, but the simple fact is that no system is going to win all the time. It's unfortunate that the stats-based approach took on the aura of inevitability, because it's not. Players get injured, GMs make mistakes, and there's still a significant portion of the game that can't be predicted. Tacitly, Beane's approach hinged on being the only team looking for players in the way they did. Now that teams like the Dodgers and Red Sox are chasing the same guys, it hampers the A's ability to find and sign hidden gems. So I have to disagree that the stats-based approach has peaked. Its growth may have been slowed, but it’s here to stay.

The A's biggest problem this year is just guys having below average years, especially on offense. Take a look at these OPS numbers for their regulars:

Player 2005 Career
Kotsay .728 .766
Chavez .594 .843
Kendall .593 .798
Hatteburg .722 .769
Durazo .691 .869
Scutaro .673 .681
Byrnes .763 .794
Ellis .713 .711
Kielty .875 .780
Ginter .569 .774
Swisher .646 .701

That's some pretty serious underperformance, especially from Chavez, Kendall, Durazo, and Ginter.

matt makes an excellent point: "the simple fact is that no system is going to win all the time"

Look at the Yankees and their presumably infallable plan of throwing money at every problem. Even that' s not as foolproof as some people seem to think.

And regardless, it's still way too early to be claiming the demise of Billy Beane, and those stats quoted above show that the offense is seriously underperforming, something that's likely to turn around atleast to some degree.

Lastly, Beane himself always says you use the first two months of the season to figure out what you have, then use the next two months figuring out how to improve the team via trade. I for one can't wait to see what he does in June/July.

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment of the board that it's a bit more complex than saying "Beane's a genius" or "Beane's done".

I have been saying for awhile though that his remarkable success in spite of a low payroll has been rather lucky and due to having a trio of dominating starting pitching.

Stats based methods for player evalutation haven't "peaked", they are simply becoming more widely used and better understood. The widely used part is drying up the low-hanging undrafted fruit (making it harder for beane to maintain "genius" status) and the better understood part is saying "you can't build a whole team out of cheap value players." There is simply no way to replace players like Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds with bit parts. They require money, they're worth the money, and they are the necessary nucleus of any team, especially championship-seeking teams.

I think Beane is probably a better GM than Cashman, but they are both operating under unfortunate and nearly opposite constraints. One team can only afford value, the other seems only to pursue growth (is it wrong to think of players as equities?).

I think there is no way even Beane would retrade Mulder for our guys if given the chance again and the choice to keep Mulder. Same for Hudson. But he just simply couldn't afford it and did the obvious thing.

I don't believe the demise of Beane or his style is anywhere close to being at hand. I applaud the scientific approach they've taken, especially for what it can mean to small market teams that might otherwise become the Royals or sink into complete oblivion.

However, I think it's central flaw is taking too much of the purely unscientific, human perspective out of the mix. Scouts forced to spend more time on their Ti-35 graphing calculators can miss some really top talent. Now, I'm not a scout or a GM, so I don't have a proper perspective on what they do, but think about seeing a guy with lots of raw talent who stinks because his swing or throw needs to be tweaked. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. So, you don't take the economic risk of signing someone like Ankiel, but you're certain to miss some real talent.

Chavez, an off year? No way the guy's just too inconsistent. An even better move in trading Mulder or Hudson would have been to get some blue chip, can't miss offensive prospect and get some good years out of him. Let's face it, if you're just gunning to be a contender, then you don't need four aces on your staff, other teams have gotten a lot further with a lot less pitching talent. What a mistake keeping Zito was, too eh?

One thing that impresses me about Billy Beane is his ability to sign promising young players to multi-year deals (I'm assuming he orchestrated Hudson and Mulder's current contracts). Just having them locked in at a set rate through the arbitration years made them even more valuable as trade fodder when they neared the end of the contracts, or what would have been the end of their arbitration years, when they would have been traded anyway.