Moneyball has passed for dead-last Athletics
SEATTLE — The year that Moneyball died moved ever so gently into oblivion Sunday.
You remember Moneyball. Michael Lewis’s ode to baseball analytics later made into a Brad Pitt cult movie, Moneyball is the art of using statistical analysis to create winning Major League rosters, with A’s executive vice president (then general manager) Billy Beane as its face.
Beginning with the general postulates that more runs mean more wins and more walks mean more runs, Beane and his chief lieutenants spent the better part of two decades putting together rosters generally heavy on hitters who specialized in high-end on-base percentages and run production.
That and some steady pitching have gotten the A’s by for much of the last decade and a half. But Oakland, a 3-2 winner over the Mariners in Game 162 Sunday in Safeco Field, has had its worst Moneyball experience ever this season. Oakland finished dead last in the American League in both on-base percentage and runs scored. And that doesn’t count finishing last in the AL West, too, although those numbers certainly helped get the A’s there.
True, the 2016 pitching wasn’t great, but much of that can be written off to injuries and to inexperience on the part of those replacing the injured arms.
There is no writing off the offense, which has veered away from the Moneyball model the last few years. It began with the signing of DH Billy Butler two winters ago, followed by the trade of a burgeoning Moneyball natural, third baseman Josh Donaldson, shortly thereafter.
Marcus Semien wound up drawing 51 walks to lead the A’s in that category this season (Donaldson walked 109 times for Toronto). Not only is Semien’s 51 the 35thbest total in the American League, it’s the worst total ever for an A’s team leader in the category. Oakland’s final team total of 442 walks is the lowest team total in 38 years.
Beane and current general manager David Forst and their front office corps put this non-Moneyball offense together. It’s harder to get the kinds of players that fit the Moneyball norm now than it was 10 years ago, because using analytics has become the MLB front office norm. The players that the A’s could sometimes get at a discount are no longer available in the bargain bin.
But as the A’s look forward, they are going to have to find a way to get back to their Moneyball roots, because after consecutive last-place finishes in the AL West, it’s clear abandoning the principles of Moneyball isn’t working.
The A’s did finish with back-to-back wins in Seattle to end at 69-93, one game better than last year.
Oakland did draw four walks, close to double their normal average, none of which figured in the scoring. Stephen Vogt homered on the first pitch off A’s longtime nemesis Felix Hernandez. That was it for Vogt, who ended the season with his average at.251, but Marcus Semien and Chad Pinder, pinch-hitting for Vogt, both delivered RBI in the third.
Gifted with a 3-0 lead, lefty rookie Sean Manaea worked six strong innings, giving up just two runs. It was his fourth start since a two-week sabbatical imposed by a back injury, and in those starts he’s 2-0 with a 1.13 ERA.
“My goodness, I’ve never see anybody make the adjustments in his first year that Manaea has,” Vogt said.
For his part, the lefthander said he’d been at his best since coming back.
“I was able to sit back and relax,” he said. “I feel I’m at my best when I can do that.”
Manaea was one of more than a dozen rookies who made an impression in 2016. And that leaves him optimistic about 2017.
“This season wasn’t what we wanted it to be, but with the group of young guys coming up, I feel we’re going to be really good,” Manaea said. “We had flashes of that throughout the season, and the more experience we get, the more we’re going to take off.”
The A’s are likely to n bring third base coach Ron Washington back for 2017, but only if Washington doesn’t get another managing gig. It’s not clear how many jobs will be open, but with news Robin Ventura is leaving the White Sox, there will be at least one.
“I want to manage again,” Washington said. “But I’m thinking now that I’ll be back here next year if they want me.”
The play of the day was n turned in by 6-foot-5 rookie first baseman Matt Olson, who has gotten some time in right field. He needed every inch of his height to get to a line drive off the bat of the Mariners’ Kyle Seager, a ball that would have tied the game in the bottom of the ninth. “I’m just glad we were playing back in the no-doubles defense,” Olson said. “That made it easy.”
By winning Saturday n and Sunday, the A’s found they will finish with the No. 6 pick in the 2017 draft next June. Had Oakland lost both, the A’s would have finished with the No. 2 pick. The 69-93 record is the seventh-worst in Oakland history.