Bissinger piece on "Moneyball" in TNR

[MWV]

http://www.tnr.com/article/against-moneyball

 

Buzz takes his shots at Lewis and Beane.

[Clem Fandango]

Michael Schur, where art thou?

[Grit amp Heart]

The worst thing about the Internet is that every idiot has their own blog.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Well that was a long article that never really went much of anywhere.

[17 Seconds]

Let me guess.... it's another person that doesn't really know what Moneyball was about.

[Derwood]

Let me guess.... it's another person that doesn't really know what Moneyball was about.

 

Correct.

[wade]

of Ricciardi- "He never made the playoffs, a difficult feat to accomplish when you are in the same division as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox."

 

I had to read that three times and then the next passage before I could figure out what he was saying. At first it read like this - not making the playoffs in the AL East is difficult.

[Derwood]

of Ricciardi- "He never made the playoffs, a difficult feat to accomplish when you are in the same division as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox."

 

I had to read that three times and then the next passage before I could figure out what he was saying. At first it read like this - not making the playoffs in the AL East is difficult.

 

that's some terrible grammar

[rocket]

of Ricciardi- "He never made the playoffs, a difficult feat to accomplish when you are in the same division as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox."

 

I had to read that three times and then the next passage before I could figure out what he was saying. At first it read like this - not making the playoffs in the AL East is difficult.

 

wait, so he's arguing that it should be easy to make the playoffs when you're in the al east?

[SouthSideRyan]

of Ricciardi- "He never made the playoffs, a difficult feat to accomplish when you are in the same division as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox."

 

I had to read that three times and then the next passage before I could figure out what he was saying. At first it read like this - not making the playoffs in the AL East is difficult.

 

wait, so he's arguing that it should be easy to make the playoffs when you're in the al east?

 

I think he'd know, he has a journalism degree unlike these idiot bloggers.

[woodchip2153]

of Ricciardi- "He never made the playoffs, a difficult feat to accomplish when you are in the same division as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox."

 

I had to read that three times and then the next passage before I could figure out what he was saying. At first it read like this - not making the playoffs in the AL East is difficult.

 

wait, so he's arguing that it should be easy to make the playoffs when you're in the al east?

 

well they get two teams in every year, while all the other divisions usually only get one.

[Vanilla Ice]

Beane was also flippant, especially to the ears of anyone who'd ever faced the Yankees' Mariano Rivera in the postseason, about how there was no need to pay exorbitantly for a closer because just about anyone could close--but then he traded away one of his vaunted draft picks for a reliever who turned out to be lousy anyway.

Didn't know you could trade away draft picks...

[Grit amp Heart]

of Ricciardi- "He never made the playoffs, a difficult feat to accomplish when you are in the same division as the Yankees and Boston Red Sox."

 

I had to read that three times and then the next passage before I could figure out what he was saying. At first it read like this - not making the playoffs in the AL East is difficult.

 

wait, so he's arguing that it should be easy to make the playoffs when you're in the al east?

 

I think he'd know, he has a journalism degree unlike these idiot bloggers.

My cat could work her way through a journalism degree.

[wade]

Beane was also flippant, especially to the ears of anyone who'd ever faced the Yankees' Mariano Rivera in the postseason, about how there was no need to pay exorbitantly for a closer because just about anyone could close--but then he traded away one of his vaunted draft picks for a reliever who turned out to be lousy anyway.

Didn't know you could trade away draft picks...

 

Haha. Probably not what he meant, but another example of a lack of clarity.

[mul21]

Isn't DePo responsible for most of the draft picks/trades that brought in most of the current young talent the Dodgers have? Convenient he leaves that part out of the mention of the lack of success Beane's proteges have had.

[Electron Blue]

Beane was also flippant, especially to the ears of anyone who'd ever faced the Yankees' Mariano Rivera in the postseason, about how there was no need to pay exorbitantly for a closer because just about anyone could close--but then he traded away one of his vaunted draft picks for a reliever who turned out to be lousy anyway.

Didn't know you could trade away draft picks...

 

Haha. Probably not what he meant, but another example of a lack of clarity.

 

I definitely read it as "traded away one of his vaunted draftees", but it really is some poor clarity. The AL East thing had me also scratching my head.

[Rob]

Buzz is an idiot.

 

I'll never forget him launching into Will Leitch on some tangent about how his website was condoning all sorts of horrible acts... and to prove his point, he was reading the comments of the posters on deadspin.

 

If Tim were judged by the posts on this board, he'd be in jail.

[SouthSideRyan]

My favorite Buzz moment is him losing his mind on Sciambi's radio show and Sciambi essentially calling him a clueless moron and hanging up. Loooove me some Boog

[Tyrant]

Let me guess.... it's another person that doesn't really know what Moneyball was about.

 

Correct.

 

I don't like Bissinger at all, but the article isn't that terrible. He gets what Moneyball was about, as he says right here:

 

There is no question that Beane greatly advanced the game in terms of how front offices began to judge players on the basis of on-base percentage (although, ironically, the A's have generally been terrible in the category). But that wasn't the primary thrust of Moneyball: The key element was the ability of Beane to do it all on the cheap, and win by doing it all on the cheap. This is what made his innovativeness so exciting.

 

His basic point is that people have caught up with Beane, and he's having a harder time finding inefficiencies to exploit, so he's not winning as much. He's right, since the A's haven't been very good for a while now (averaging 81 wins over the last five years).

 

There's dumb stuff in the article, like his brief passage about DePodesta, but I don't think it's as bad as people are making it seem.