On my holidays last year I read a book about finding the secret of success in baseball, this might seem to most people as a total waste of time, but stick with me because I am going to attempt to link it to my team, a team with not a pot to piss in money wise; Killie!
The book in question is Moneyball by Michael Lewis and centres around the time the author spent following the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane.
Actually this is a pish poor entrance to what I am trying to say, what I am trying to say is that I am a big baseball fan, all stemming from a holiday in Canada where I went to watch the Toronto blue jays, since then I have watched it on channel 5 and now the NASN (top channel by the way). In the major league baseball, MLB as I will call it, there are certain rules as regards wages and money in general. And like any major team sports there are the big rich teams that everyone loves to hate, namely the New York Yankees! They are the richest team with the biggest salary and all the negative feeling from rival fans that are attributed to the Rangers and Sellics of our own wee country. On the channel 5 coverage this book is name checked every once in a while so I checked it out. In American sports there is a salary cap, an amount that each team can spend on their players’ wages, if you go over this amount due to the amount of cash yer rich owner is willing to fire in, you have to pay the other pishy wee teams for the privilege of having a huge wage bill.
The Oakland A’s who this book is about, are one of those pishy wee teams, they are at the time of writing which was 3 or 4 years ago amongst the bottom 3 or 4 wage bills in the whole of the MLB. 2002 season Yankees payroll $126 million dollars, the A’s $40. How can it be possible to compete when the financial difference in what teams are doing is so far?
Well the Oakland A’s did compete, they reached the playoffs with just such a payroll, however when there they hit the skids but this was because the system employed didn’t stretch o cup knockout style of competition more the long hard slog of the season.
I feel as if I’m not being clear with this, what became clear to me during the season was how I felt I was reading about Kilmarnock, a big league player but without the big league money to compete successfully, not just in terms of book balancing which we are continually told is success, no the real success that fans want teams winning and goals being scored, that sort of thing, the book talks of the science of winning an unfair game, if that doesn’t resonate with Kilmarnock fans, what will? When I was reading the book, the idea that this system could work for us kept creeping into my mind and since finishing it I still haven’t worked out how it could be possible so what I am trying to do is ask if anyone out there is a maths whiz, a statistics fiend who would be intrigued by what I am saying and read the book and apply it to our own Scottish problems, I would do it myself but sadly I am neither a maths whiz or statistically minded and read the book in July and still don’t know how to work it, although I am certain there is something that can be done!
So far, so the longest ever introduction. I have still to describe what was done, well that might not take long, but here goes, Billy Beane the general manager and ex player decided to go against the usual scouting system and reading of stats which had been around for years, he employed a statistics and maths man, a Harvard educated man called Paul DePodesta, who had came up with a new way to look at baseball players performance and how they are scouted. Traditionally the crème de la crème of the players were said to be 5 tool players, ability to run, throw, field, hit and hit with power, this is why we always hear about the Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez’s, they are the traditional 5 tool players. Also the stats looked at were things that most non baseball fans but sports fans would understand without knowing a lot about the game, lots of home runs good, stolen bases means speed so again good. However their was many teams, Texas rangers, Baltimore orioles who were spending shit loads on wages for 5 tool players and getting nothing in return, no post season play off action.
What DePodesta implemented was a system that looked at run generation, what tools were needed to generate runs. Simply because to win games you need to score runs and if your big hitting money guzzling player keeps striking out because he is slumping then you cant win games. Him and Beane looked at stats of how often they got on base, whether by singles or walks (this is all a bit technical if your not well versed in baseball terminology, think rounders, a player needs to go round the 4 bases, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and home, they can do it 1 at a time, or more depending how far they hit it) if the player is on base they have a better chance of scoring in an inning. So their new stats criteria is fed into a computer and as all the stats from major league and minor league and the up and coming college players are recorded they search for players that fitted the bill. And it threw up some real oddities, really fat guys, really old guys, really young guys but all guys that the major clubs didn’t want as they weren’t the archetypal 5tool player. But these guys could generate runs. So to put it in football speak, they had a player called Jason Giambi who they traded to the New York Yankees, he was a five tool player, but was at the end of his contract so instead of simply letting him be released they picked up some players for him, what he could do as 1 player, hit run and field they picked up 3 cheaper players who did his job. so we have sold Naismith, we now look for players who take as many shots as him perhaps and complete as many dribbles, or set up as many goals and see in the whole of Scotland who fits the bill, ultimately were looking for consistency rather than mavericks. If players consistently shoot they will eventually be rewarded with goals. I think.
Another point that Beane and DePodesta came up with was that some positions that the rest of baseball thought was a key position they didn’t. the closers role in baseball is to come in and pitch at the end of tight games when you are up by a few runs and strike out the opposition without losing any runs, these guys get paid a fortune because they are supposed to be so composed and unflappable, but Beane feels that this is false economy, any pitcher at any point can strike out 3 in a row so why the pressure and ultimate esteem on this closer. So he used to breed closers, they got the runs on the board with their tremendous hitting so he used to make anyone of his pitchers the closer, and then punt them for a fortune because he never coveted the position. In football, it could be goalkeepers, not that I am knocking the role but, much emphasis is put on them, how they improve with age for example, which seems to be all bullshit, some of the best goalies are great at 19! So why not produce them, put them in a winning team and punt them? Or another position, that is merely an example, a position where traditionally certain merits are put on it but actually don’t mean much. Impossibly tall centre halves, penalty specialists, free kick specialists, these things can be coached, practiced and marketed to a point where other teams have to have them.
Anyway, this book made for fascinating reading, the A’s won more games than anyone that season, but blew it in the playoffs. Billy Beane came across as a bit of a megalomaniac but was still alright with it. And in the after word it was said that Billy Beane had received calls letters and emails from NFL teams, NHL teams the lot about how he did it, what his secret was, and it was at this point that I really saw that the potential for it to work in this country could be achieved to a degree. A lot of other baseball teams work in this manner now as a result.
So again, this isn’t my answer to the problems we face as fans of a provincial team, constantly fighting a battle against the increasingly rich opponents. But if were not getting in any fairy godfather with more money than sense then is this something we should look at? nor the examples I gave actually what I think should happen, as I said I read the book months ago and came up with nothing, I’m simply trying to get across the points in the book to people who dont understand the glorified rounders as its known on these shores, but, and it’s a big but, surely its something someone can look at? And finally this isn’t a dig at the current scouting or any of the players we have on the books or have been signed recently, merely an idea. The book was an eye-opener for me and would be for any sports fan; you don’t need to understand baseball to get its concept though it helps if you do get the terminology. Surely we have at least one genius fan who reads this gets it and thinks it could be worked out in some way, if there is they can borrow ma copy of the book!
Ruud Kerouac
'To go home and wear shorts forever...'
10 hours ago
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