Idiots Write About Sports

So Bill Simmons is down on the Red Sox. And you would cry, too, if all this happened to you.

You can understand his disappointment. Hell — I feel badly for the guy, and I delight in Red Sox losses. But I suppose if my team swung a deal for one of the top starting pitchers in the game, signed the best reliever not named Mariano as a free agent, and generally beefed up an already strong squad only to be eight-and-a-half games out of first before Independence Day, I’d be pretty miffed about it, too.

(Actually if the A’s did all those things, the first thing I’d do is check to see which lucrative market Steve Schott moved the team to that allowed him to up the payroll. Then, I’d be miffed.)

But there’s one thing Simmons wrote in his column that I can’t let slide, even if it’s fueled by 86 years of championship-free bitterness.

There was a creepy inevitability during these past two nights — the crowd smelling blood, the Sox falling apart in sections, the Yankees going for the kill. They just have a better team. Last year it was debatable; that’s what made the ALCS so special. Not this year. These Red Sox give away outs, butcher easy plays, suck the life from their pitchers. Other than Pokey Reese and Jason Varitek, none of the defensive players on the roster could even be called “average.” It’s like a talented softball team, Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” vision sprung to life. Just keep getting guys on base and everything will be fine. Or so they say.

Of course, Beane’s Oakland teams haven’t won a playoff series yet. And that’s the problem. I’m not sure you can win this way. Teams that ignore the Little Things — turning crisp double plays, taking the extra base, cutting off balls in the outfield, getting bunts down in big spots, running the bases without looking like you’re drunk — never seem to succeed in October. Eventually, you reach a point where the other team is just as good as you, so you have to roll up your sleeves and beat them by playing some baseball. You know. Like the Yankees did in the seventh and eighth innings last night.

Let’s ignore the fact that “Billy Beane’s Moneyball vision sprung to life” may be the stupidest phrase composed in English this calendar year and just concentrate on how depressingly wrong-headed those two paragraphs are.

1. “Just keep getting guys on base and everything will be fine. Or so they say.”

Yeah, that’s a pretty good Cliff’s Notes version of the philosophy guiding the A’s and other teams that place a premium on statistical analysis — but it’s not the only thing those teams care about. And to pretend that it is, is to be either lazy, stupid, or deliberately obtuse.

2. “Of course, Beane’s Oakland teams haven’t won a playoff series yet. And that’s the problem. I’m not sure you can win this way.”

Winning a World Series is the ultimate measure of success — there’s no denying that. And Oakland’s failure to win a playoff series is certainly vexing (as any fan of the Red Sox should know). But I’m not sure that a best-of-five series — or even four of them — provides you with a relevant enough sample size to accurately measure success. What I do know is this:

2000: 91
2001: 102
2002: 103
2003: 96

That’s the number of games the A’s have won over the past four years. If you can’t add up numbers quickly, that’s 392 wins. That’s more than every team in baseball over the same period except for one — and even with Seattle’s record season in 2001, they’ve still only won one more game than the Athletics. And need I remind the jury that the A’s have accomplished this as their best players have left for more lucrative — if not necessary more winning — environments?

So you can win by emphasizing on-base percentage, power and pitching. Whether or not you can win any one game with this philosophy, I can’t really say — after all, a lot of random things can affect the outcome of just one game. But my team has at least reached the postseason in every one of those four years I’ve mentioned up above — only fans of the Braves and the Yankees can claim likewise — and I’m willing to take my chances each fall.

3. “Teams that ignore the Little Things — turning crisp double plays, taking the extra base, cutting off balls in the outfield, getting bunts down in big spots, running the bases without looking like you’re drunk — never seem to succeed in October.”

I know Simmons was probably venting his frustration with the Red Sox performance, but if he thinks that blanket statement still applies to the A’s — and I’ll freely admit that it has in the past — he clearly hasn’t been watching many Oakland games this season.

For instance, go to the fielding stats Major League Baseball keeps for each league. As of this writing, the A’s are tied for first in fielding percentage in the American League. Oakland has committed the second-fewest errors in the AL (and if Scott Hatteberg holds on to a hastily made throw by Esteban German yesterday, they’re tied for the fewest). Any simpleton can tell you the A’s don’t steal bases; yet, when they do, they’re succesful 69 percent of the time (roughly the same percentage as the Yankees who can apparently run the bases like they aren’t drunk).

My point: if there’s a point in Moneyball where Billy Beane is quoted as saying that it’s his dream to build a team of one-dimensional sluggardly sluggers, I guess I missed it.

Then again, Simmons isn’t the only guy to try and make the same tired point — Moneyball bad! Bill James bad! On-base percentage over-rated! — this week. I already commented on Rex Hudler touting the praises of a first-inning, no-out bunt in this very space. And Kevin Kernan wrote much the same thing as Simmons in the New York Post the other day:

In Red Sox management’s lust for offensive-minded players, the braintrust has neglected the other facets of the game — speed, defense, determination and small ball. Perhaps young GM Theo Epstein is learning that all knowledge cannot be derived from reading the complete works of Bill James with a Moneyball chaser. …

The Sox are so one-dimensional they have the look of a beer-league softball team. But life in the championship lane is not just on-base percentage.

But Hudler is a goofball and Kernan is a knucklehead — Bill Simmons is a bright guy who actually puts some thought into what he does. And even he’s not immune to the phenomenon sweeping the nation that I’ve come to call Joe Morgan Disease.

I diagnose Joe Morgan Disease thusly: any time a poor play or undesirable outcome happens to the A’s (or the Red Sox or the Blue Jays or any team that puts any sort of stock in on-base percentage and other statistical analysis favorites), it must be an repudiation of the entire philosophy. The A’s score fewer than three runs in a given game? It’s the fault of that damn Moneyball. Bobby Crosby boots a routine ball? Well, what do you expect from a Moneyball team? David Ortiz makes a crucial error? Take that, Bill James! You and your life’s work have clearly been exposed for the frauds they are!

Which is all well and good, I suppose. Except that the logic never goes both ways. Because if every mistake, loss, or instance of plain bad luck that occurs to the A’s and their brethren undermines their organizational philosophy, shouldn’t small-ball teams be held to the same standard?

Last week, I went to the A’s-Angels series finale in Anaheim. The A’s won 2-1, thanks in large part to some stellar pitching by Mark Mulder. But Mulder didn’t start out strong — he gave up a leadoff double to David Eckstein to start the first and then walked Chone Figgins. A deep fly out by Vladimir Guerrero advanced Eckstein to third; he would score on a sacrifice fly by Garret Anderson. That brought up Jose Guillen, who entered the game with 13 home runs and 52 RBIs. But he never got a chance to add to those gaudy totals because Figgins got thrown out trying to steal second.

Guillen led off the bottom of the second with a hit (shame there was no one on base, huh?). He moved to second on a wild pitch before Mulder could retire Tim Salmon on a grounder. So even with the bottom of the order due up, the Angels have a runner in scoring position with only one out and an opposing pitcher with a pitch count in the high 20s before the second inning is even over.

So naturally Jose Guillen tries to steal third. And he’s thrown out.

That’s two innings in a row where the Angels ran themselves out of an inning. Now, considering that Mulder was able to settle down — an Angel runner didn’t reach second until a two-out hit in the sixth — and pitch a complete game that Oakland won by a single run, you could make a convincing argument that the Angels’ philosophy of taking extra bases, stealing at every opportunity, and scratching out runs didn’t really pay off for them. In fact, it sort of backfired and gave the A’s a way back into a game they were struggling to win.

While the game was on ESPN, I have no idea how the announcers reacted to this turn of events. But I’m going to guess they didn’t use it as an opportunity for a nine-inning lecture on the perils of small-ball.

Look, no baseball strategy is foolproof. But to ridicule people who think on-base percentage is instrumental to success because the Red Sox dropped a three-game set to the Yankees in early July or to blame Moneyball for every hardship that befalls Oakland is simply close-minded and willfully ignorant. Kevin Kernan, Rex Hudler and their ilk would have made wonderful Luddites. It’s a shame to see that Bill Simmons would, too.

Not to further bolster my status as a Philip Michaels fanboy, but you're right on the money again with this one. It's a shame to see one of my favorite sports writers revert to the tired anti-Moneyball screed in the effort to explain his team's futility. I find myself increasingly unable to sympathize with Simmons' Sox articles -- it's a bit pathetic for him to constantly criticize the Evil Empire for getting to spend more than everybody else when his own team outspends 28 other squads.

Plus, why won't anyone mention that bunting and sacricing wouldn't have done a single thing to prevent the freak baserunning mistakes (Tejada, Brynes), mysterious injuries to ace starters (Mulder, Huddy), back-breaking pitching letdowns (Koch, Foulke, etc.), and just plain bad luck (ump's failure to see Jeremy Giambi beating Jeter's miracle toss) that have brought down the A's the past four years?

i, too, am tiring of hearing laments about the bosox, but i know i go on about the giants far after anyone here in texas would have been interested.

i cannot, however, let the moneyball-bashing slide. what has happened to the sports guy? he's been on auto-pilot for everything but the nba, and has been comically pretentious at times (his poker column). has LA fried his originality?