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Small Ball - Friend or Foe?

October 16th, 2006 | Thaq Diesel

By Thaq Diesel

I just finished reading Moneyball, the study about the Oakland A’s and their success in reaching the playoffs despite having a smaller payroll. The book rambled at length about Billy Beane in both positive and negative light. The main thrust of the book was that statistical analysis was more important than baseball’s conventional wisdom.

One big case made by Moneyball was that making an out (e.g. a sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, caught stealing, etc…) was statistically worse for scoring runs (the lifeblood of winning baseball) than leaving the runner on base and trying to hit them in. It also argued that taking pitches and on base percentage, that is taking walks, was much better than aggressive hitting.

This flies in the face of many things that I have espoused on this website this year. I once got incredibly angry at Deion Sanders (a Reds player at the time) in Riverfront Stadium because he couldn’t get the ball out of the infield with the bases loaded and one out. He didn’t execute even a sacrifice, dagnabbit! Since he made an out, Primetime didn’t execute the Billy Beane Moneyball system either, but I was apparently mad at Deion for the wrong reasons.

Or was I? I was amazed in the series versus the Tigers at how much the announcers railed against the A’s reluctance to steal. To bunt runners over. To do the things Detroit was doing (well except chain smoking like old Jimmy Leland). Despite Oakland’s success during the regular season the past few years, they get unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs. Usually in sweep fashion. Moneyball blamed a “small sample size.” That is, if the playoffs were, say, a 15-game series, the A’s would win 9 out of 10 times. It’s like blaming the house in Vegas because you ran out of money before you could count enough cards in a six-shoe deck to win your rent for the month.

I don’t know how to analyze this one. On one hand, the A’s have done a lot with seemingly anonymous rosters sprinkled with castaway and stray cat free agents. Yet they haven’t won in the playoffs. Do they drop what got them there and start smallball like their opponents once the playoffs start?

Permalink | Posted in 2006 Season

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