Athletics sign Jonny Gomes

The Athletics signed Jonny Gomes to a one year 1.1 million dollar deal. He split 2011 between the Nationals and Reds and posted a .7 WAR, worth 2.1 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard. Over the past 3 years, Gomes has averaged a .3 WAR (worth 900,000 dollars) with a .297 BABIP in that time. Offensively, he has a .329 OBP, 106 OPS +, and .330 Secondary Average. He is an above average home run hitter, with an ISO of .209, walks slightly above average, and has a 3.84 Pit/PA. So basically in every offensive category Gomes is slightly above average. Defensively, its a whole other story. His fielding percentage and range factor are both way under average. Depending on which metric you trust more, Gomes has cost his teams 46-40 runs more than an average fielder would in his career. Using runs created, we can measure (we did this in the Jack Cust article) how many runs and wins Gomes will be worth for the Athletics. According to Runs Created per Game metric, Gomes is worth .59 runs per game (technically he has a 5.3 Runs Created per game metric, but that assumes an offense of 9 Gomes', here I am isolating it to 1 Gomes'). Since he has played 428 games in the outfield, he will cost his team a run more than average about every 10 games. An average offensive player would create 65.3 runs in 140 games, while Gomes would create about 82.6 runs, or 17.3 runs more than an average player. Defensively in this time (assuming he never plays DH), he will cost his team 14 runs more than average. This is all a long way of saying that Gomes is worth 3.3 more runs a year than an "average player". There are two ways to look at this, I believe. One way makes Billy Beane and the Swinging A's look like geniuses, and one way makes Gomes' agent look like a genius. First, Beane might point out that the average MLB player salary is 3.1 million. Gomes is slightly better than average, and yet will be playing for a third of that salary. Gomes needs a new agent. Gomes' agent might try to save his job by pointing out that according to the Halladay Standard (a standard we have relied on heavily in this blog), Gomes is worth just $900,000, and so he is making 200 thousand extra dollars. It all depends on which metric you rely on more.

The Trevor Cahill trade

The Athletics have traded Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow for Jarrod Parker, Collin Cowgill, and Ryan Cook from the Diamondbacks.

Cahill had a 3.5 WAR in 2011, and a WAR average of 3.13 over the past 3 years. He did this all at 440,000 and under a year. However, he will make 3.5 million dollars in 2012, a still really nice 1118 WASP. He had a PE of 1.86 in 2011, with a .302 BABIP. His FIP - was 105, and his SIERA was 4.02. This is hardly impressive, but he did have a decent 9.27 TR. Cahill is an above average starting pitcher at a decent salary, but his value can be overstated.

Breslow had a .5 WAR in 2011, but has a WAR average of 1.07 over the past 3 years. He is arbitration eligible, but you can expect him to make more than the 1.4 million he made in 2012. If theoretically we said he would make 2 million dollars, he would have a 1869 WASP, a good number. So the Diamondbacks get two underpaid players according to WASP. He is a reliever and had a really poor PE of 1.54, with a BABIP of .342. While that high BABIP is part of the explanation it is not all of it. He doesn't have a very good strikeout rate for a reliever, but did have a FIP - of 91. His SIERA of 3.95 for a reliever is not overly impressive, but he is above average.

Cowgill has just 100 Major League plate appearances, so it only makes sense to look at his minor league numbers. He has 456 PCL plate appearances, and had a .430 OBP, .984 OPS, 2.12 PPG, and 1.97 PAPP. When converted into International League numbers, they look like this: .400 OBP, .906 OPS, 1.82 PPG, and 2.22 PAPP. This is a very nice 5.36 Simple WAR. Converted to the Majors, this is a 3.87 Simple WAR (worth 11.6 million dollars according to the Halladay Standard, and thats just his offense), with an OBP of .354. Defensively, he had an above average Range Factor and a below average fielding percentage. So we could say he is average at defense (but above replacement). He will make the league minimum $480,000 in 2012.

Jarrod Parker has pitched in just 1 Major League game, and has not pitched even in AAA. However, in 209 AA innings, Parker has a -.43 PE as a starter. He has a reasonable walk rate, and doesn't give up very many homers. His AA FIP is also lower than his ERA, which is a good sign.

Ryan Cook has also just pitched 7.2 innings in the Majors and 22 innings in AAA. In his minor league career, he has pitched both as a starter and a reliever. His PE isn't very impressive at .11. He too has a reasonable walk rate and doesn't give up very many home runs.

The Athletics are able to dump some salary and get a very good hitter in Cowgill, but the Diamondbacks get two underpaid pitchers. Most of this trade is going to depend on how Parker and Cook turn out for the A's, but at this point, I think it is pretty even, the Diamondbacks playing for the present, while the A's are playing for the future.

Free Agent Watch: David DeJesus

David DeJesus was a big disappointment for the Athletics in 2011. He came into the year having a .360 OBP, with a .384 OBP in 2010. He rewarded the Athletics by posting a .323 OBP for his 6 million dollar salary. Despite having a WAR average of 3.27 from 08-10, he had a WAR of just .6 in 2011 (a horrible WASP of 10000). So what happened? His walk rate stayed about the same (actually a slight improvement) at 8.9%, but he hit less extra base hits than usual (just 6.9%). One could say he made up for that by homering 2 % of the time (instead of his normal 1.7%). As one would expect, he was a pretty big victim of BABIP, as it sat at .274 instead of his normal .316. Even though he hit more flyballs, he hit a lot less line drives. He saw exactly the same amount of pitches per plate appearance he  saw in 2011. This is all leads me to believe that 2012 should be a bounce back season for DeJesus. This usually means, although free agency season has been pretty wacky so far, that he will be undervalued. DeJesus Secondary Average and Isolated Slugging are both pretty terrible, as his career numbers are .233 and .137 respectively. With that said, he has 5.3 Runs Created per Game and a .528 offensive winning percentage. He has a career PPS of 93.73, and could be valuable in any lineup. The way he played in 08-10 was worth over 9 million dollars, and while I would hesitate to pay that much, he is a free agent worth considering.

Athletics prospect: Chih Fang Pan

Chih Fang Pan is a member of the Oakland Athletics and is playing for the Taiwan National Team against Major League players in the "Taiwan Series". 4.23 Range Factor at short (Elvis Andrus has a 1.5 D-WAR in 3 seasons with a Range Factor of about 4.46). Fielding percentage of .901 (Yuniesky Betancourt, a terrible fielder, has a .970 fielding percentage and a range factor of 4.25). Fielding statistics are not always helpful, but all signs pointing to Pan not being a good fielder. However, he does have a .386 OBP in both Rookie ball and A-ball. His OPS is .799, but he only walks 7.4% of the time. He has a PPG of 1.225, and a PAPP of 2.6. None of these numbers are that impressive for A-ball. He is only 20, and certainly could improve, but Baseball Cube rankings only give him a 35 patience, 17 power, and 60 speed.

Japanese Moneyball?

The Athletics have reportedly shown interest in Norichika Aoki, playing for Yakult in Japan. In 2011, Aoki had a .358 OBP, .718 OPS, .9 PPG, 2.8 PAPP. This all adds up to a 1.34 simple WAR. In his 4 seasons before 2011, he had a .421 OBP, 1.44 PPG, 2.23 PAPP, and .918 OPS. So there are two different sets of statistics. Which is more accurate? Certainly the 4 year career is a bigger sample, but what does BABIP say? One would think his 2011 BABIP would be low, but it was still .316. His career BABIP was .358, so while both are high (probably because he is hitting the ball hard for that level of play), his 2011 certainly was lower. Especially with the bigger sample, it seems more likely that the pre-2011 career numbers are the most accurate. According to the metric laid out on the difference between hitting in Japan and hitting in the Majors, Aoki would have a .388 OBP, .95 PPG, 2.97 PAPP, and a simple WAR of roughly 3.64. That would be worth nearly 11 million dollars. However, his 2011 numbers run through the metric would be very poor, and there is that danger. The good thing is that because of that relatively poor 2011 season, he will probably be undervalued. I would not pay 11 million for him, but he has shown an ability to get on base that is very valuable, and 5 or so million makes perfect sense, and could be a steal.

Kala Ka'aihue and the stupidity of batting average.

Kala Ka'aihue is living proof that batting average needs to die. If the name sounds familiar, his brother is Kila Ka'aihue, the former Royal that is now in the Athletics organization. As a catcher, outfielder, and infielder, he had a career .366 OBP and .817 OPS with three different organizations. Despite a 1.19 PPG, and 2.55 PAPP, he never reached AAA. Why? Not because of his fielding with a Range Factor of over 8 at both Catcher (only threw out 12% of runners though) and 1st Base. The only reason one can see why Ka'aihue would not be attractive is batting average. His batting average in his minor league career was only .244. Never-mind that he walks 14.7% of the time and homers about 4% of the time. Even the "moneyball" Oakland A's had Ka'aihue and watched him put up a .371 OBP in 23 games at A+ and let him go (he had a BA of .167 and actually had more walks than hits). Ka'aihue spent 2011 playing for the Independent Kansas City T-Bones. There he let the whole league in Secondary Average, was second in Walks per PA, had an OPS of over 1.000, with an OBP of .426. He had a 1.96 PPG, and 1.53 ABPP. These are insane numbers. However, for those in love with batting average, he had just a .286. The power of batting average still dominates baseball, and it is mindblowing.

Free Agent Watch: Coco Crisp

I wrote an article a while back pointing out that the A's signings of Willingham, Matsui, and Fuentes (especially Fuentes, as he is a pricey reliever) didn't make much sense in the context of Moneyball, as they were all overpaid in the 2011 season, The Coco Crisp signing made even less sense. A guy with an average OBP who steals bases made very little sense according to Jamesian analysis and Beane's own philosophy. Crisp has walked just 7.87% of the time in is career, which is below league average. However, WAR really likes Crisp, as he has a 1.99 WAR average in his career, which is better than the average player needed to make the playoffs. In fact, 25 players with equal WAR as Coco Crisp would win 101 games. He is worth about 6 million dollars according to this metric. For the Athletics, he was actually slightly better, with a 2.9 WAR in 2010 (worth 8.7 million), and a 2.1 WAR in 2011 (worth 6.3 million). In his career, Crisp has a .330 OBP (slightly above league average) and 87.62 PPS (below average).In 2011, his OBP dropped to .314, and he had just a 82.07 PPS (league average is around 90). He walked just 41 times and had a Runs Created per game of about 4.3, very mediocre. He did steal 49 bases, while only being caught 9 times, a 84 percentage, meaning his stealing is worth it. His Secondary Average was .267 (.255 in his career), and an ISO of .130. The good news for Crisp is that his 2011 BABIP was .284, under average. If his BABIP was league average, he would have had an OBP of about .332, which is around his career average. So teams scared of his .314 OBP (assuming they want his .332), should take comfort, and perhaps it will drive his price down. Crisp is a good player with a lot of "tools" but not a leadoff hitter. Injury problems and the fact he played for the lowly Athletics may drive his price down some, and make him a bargain.

Newest A's: Evan Scribner and Cedric Hunter

The Athletics claimed two minor league players (they both have very small pointless samples in the Majors) from the Padres off waivers. First relief pitcher Evan Scribner, who also has spent time in the Diamondbacks minor league system. In his minor league career, he has a very impressive -5.012 PE. He is a pretty impressive strikeout pitcher, that doesn't give up a lot of homers. He has pitched almost exclusively as a late inning guy, finishing 152 out the 214 games he pitched. This sounds exactly like a page out of Moneyball (the book at least), getting a cheap prospect to use as a closer. If the plan works out the same, Beane will trade Scribner away before he costs any money and will get more prospects. In AAA in 2011, he had a FIP of 3.48, and gave up a BAA of .243 with a BABIP of .303. Cedric Hunter is a left handed outfielder that spent 5 years in the Padres minor league system. He had an OBP of .347 and an OPS of .739 in this time. His PPG was an unimpressive but not bad 1.24 PPG, and his PAPP was 2.75. He created a pretty mediocre .53 runs per game and has a minor league simple WAR of 1.08. This is all pretty lackluster, but it gets even worse when you look at his AAA numbers, which added up to a -.722 simple WAR. So Hunter is not even a good AAA player (he doesn't get on base either, a .316 AAA OBP). The Scribner move looks like another Beane stroke of genius, but the Hunter acquisition doesn't make much sense.

Rangers Prospect Michael Olt

As the Arizona Fall League has gotten underway, one of the best hitters so far has been Michael Olt, a 3rd basemen in the Texas Rangers organization. So far, Olt has walked as much as he has struck out, has an OBP of .550, an OPS of 1.750 and 18 total bases in just 4 games. This is a small sample for sure, but it catches the eye. Olt was a first round pick by the Rangers' in 2010, and played college ball at Connecticut. At UConn, he put together a .401 OBP, and 1013 OPS. This wasn't just a Billy Beane special "he gets on base in college" guy though, he had a 2.59 PPG in his time there. The production he was putting up would get him on anyone's radar. So far, he has only played in different levels of A ball in the minors. So far, he has been very very good with the bat, .386 OPS, 867 OPS, 1.6 PAPP, and 1.53 PPG. While clearly ready for the next level with the bat, he has been terrible in the field, with just a .945 fielding percentage, and 2.62 Range factor. This should be concerning, and the Rangers may think about switching his position, but so far the bat more than makes up for the terrible defense. We will more than likely get to see him at AA this year, and if that goes well, he should be in the Majors in the next couple of years.

Free Agent Watch: Nick Swisher

Mr. Moneyball himself, Nick Swisher, the first round pick by Billy Beane's A's in the 2002 draft, has an option year on his contract with the Yankees for 2012. The option is 10.25 million, with a 1 million year buyout (which means that if the Yankees decide to decline the option and allow him to be a free agent, they have to give him a million dollars). By definition, if the Yankees select to buy him out, the WAR they would get would be 0, and a 2000 WASP (ironically under the Halladay Standard). In 2011, Swisher gave the Yankees a 3.4 WAR, which would be right around the Halladay Standard under a 10.25 million dollar salary. His average WAR in the past 3 seasons has been 3.8, which would be make him below the Halladay Standard next year. Strangely, 2011 was his best defensive season, at a 1.1 WAR. It is hard to imagine he will put up that kind of season again. His offensive WAR, at 2.3, was lower than it had been in 09 and 10. Is this something that should be expected to continue? Or is it an aberration? This is the big question the Yankees have to face. Remember in the Vernon Wells and Adam Dunn article that there are not very many tells as to whether a player is losing it or not. That is, except for OBP. Nick Swisher has a career .360 OBP, a solid number, but one almost expects it to be better. In 2011, his OBP was .374, his best as a Yankee. His OPS was slightly smaller than it has been as a Yankee, at .822. His PPG was 1.27 in '11, slightly lower than his career 1.3. His PAPP was 2.49 in '11, better than his 2.56 career PAPP. So traditional numbers seem to say that Swisher is fine. What do the advanced metrics say? According to the Secondary Average, Swisher was better in 2011 than 2010 and about where he has been his whole career, and his "total average" was exactly the same as it has been his whole career. His isolated slugging is slightly discouraging, as hit was quite a bit lower than his career number. He is still seeing over 4 pitches per plate appearance, as he has his whole career. Most of his strike percentage metrics are exactly the same as they have been his whole career. He has never ran real well, but he grounded into more double plays than he has ever before. However, there really isn't much else to be concerned about in my opinion. I guess one could be concerned that his power might be waning, but he is only 30, so this seems unlikely. It seems worth it to pick up Swisher's option, and I expect the Yankees to do it, especially with their cash flow. A smaller moneyed club might want to pay the million dollars, and decline the option and see if they can get more efficiency elsewhere.

Moneyball Review: The 3 Unsung Heroes

A big reason the Moneyball A's of 2002 (and even the 2001 A's) were successful was because of their pitching. The movie focuses mainly on the bullpen when it comes to pitching, but the Athletics had an extremely talented starting staff, headlined by 3 young pitchers: Zito, Mulder, and Hudson. 2001 and 2002 were the first full seasons for Barry Zito (the first round pick in the 1999 draft), and he threw well over 200 innings both years. In 2001 he posted a 4.3 WAR and -1.578 PE. In 2002, he had a -1.036 PE and a 6.5 WAR. Because minimum salary was less than it is now, he posted a mind-blowing 49 WASP (you could even double his salary to adjust for salary changes and its still 99, which would make him one of the top in the league). Mark Mulder was the first round pick for the A's in 1998, and 2001 and 2002 were also his first two full years in the Majors. He was really impressive too, posting a 9.5 WAR, 109 WASP, and 1.129 PE over that time. Tim Hudson was the 6th round pick of the A's in 1997, and had already started 53 games by the time 2001 rolled around. In 2001 and 2002, Hudson was spectacular, posting an 11 WAR, 127 WASP, and -0.494 PE. The story of Moneyball is great, and Billy Beane changed the way many teams operate and forever revolutionized the way we evaluate baseball, but we aren't even talking about Pena over Hatteberg, Chad Bradford, and Rincon if the A's didn't have Zito, Mulder, and Hudson. They were high round draft picks that the Athletics hit on, giving them great starting pitching (and as the Rays are showing), that is how to best build a team with no money. You have to draft well, and you have to have starting pitching.

Moneyball Review: David Justice

One of the main players the Athletics brought in to replace Giambi and Damon was outfielder David Justice. Justice was clearly at the end of his career (he never played after the 2002 season), and the Yankees had declared he could no longer play. As the movie stresses, they even were paying half his salary. What the movie doesn't mention is that the Yankees originally shipped Justice to the NY Mets. Exactly a week later, the Mets shipped him to the Oakland A's for Mark Guthrie and Tyler Yates. Guthrie spent 1 year with the Mets, registering a -2.245 PE in 48 innings, earning a 1.4 WAR (he had a 0 WAR in 2001 with Oakland) and 1286 WASP. Yates didn't get into the majors until 2004, and only appeared in 21 games for the Mets. They weren't good appearances either, with a -1 WAR. This means the Mets got a grand total of .4 WAR in the trade. With the Athletics, Justice produced a 1.4 WAR, .376 OBP, 2.48 PAPP, 1.0 PPG, and 5000 WASP. The WASP isn't good, until you calculate that the Athletics only paid half of his salary, then his WASP is 2500 (below the Halladay Standard). Billy Beane and company took a chance on an aging player mainly because of his OBP, and it paid off.

Moneyball Review: Is Johnny Damon really overrated?

After the 2001 season, the Athletics had to replace, as emphasized in Moneyball, Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen, and Johnny Damon. After Billy Beane hires Jonah Hill's character, we learn that Johnny Damon is "overrated" and not worth the money the Red Sox gave him. Now regular readers of the blog know that I am very much on the Johnny Damon bandwagon, so we will see if the numbers side with Moneyball's assessment, or what I have said in previous articles on Damon. First let's tackle the claim that Damon was not worth what the Red Sox paid him. In his 4 years in Boston, Damon's WASP's were as follows: 1542, 12500, 1818, 3437. So two years, he was very much worth it, had one really bad season, and was slightly overpaid his final year. This makes the claim that he is not worth it shaky at best. In Damon's one year in Oakland, his WASP was a very solid 2629, and he only made $150,000 less than he did in his first year in Boston. According to the main statistic of Sabermetrics, Wins after Replacement, he was very much worth his salary, contrary to the claims of Moneyball. The main problem Moneyball raised with Damon was On Base Percentage. In Oakland, it wasn't that good, at just .324. However, as you learn in statistics there are always outliers. Damon's Oakland season was certainly an outlier as far as OBP goes. His career OBP is .353. In Boston, it was .362, New York was .363, Kansas City .351, and Detroit .355. In his career, he has had a nice 1.4 PPG and a pretty good 2.52 PAPP in his career. I think this is one of the (few things really) things that Billy Beane's Moneyball A's got wrong (to be clear, they didn't resign Damon because they couldn't, not because they didn't want to. I am just referring to the notion that Damon isn't worth it).

Moneyball Review: Ricardo Rincon

Early on in the movie, Billy Beane tries to trade for Cleveland Indians reliever Ricardo Rincon. That is when he meets Jonah Hill's character as the trade doesn't go through. During the season, because the Indians are out of it, Beane is able to trade for Rincon. In the trade he gave up minor leaguer Marshall Mcdougall. Mcdougall never appeared in the majors for the Indians. Rincon, on the other hand, played for the Athletics from the middle of the 2002 season until the end of the 05 season. In that time he earned a 2.1 WAR and made about $3.9 million dollars. This gave him a very nice WASP of 1857. I guess there was a reason that Beane and company wanted Rincon.

Moneyball Review: Scott Hatteberg or Carlos Pena?

The face of Moneyball is Scott Hatteberg. Who can replace Jason Giambi? Hatteberg. Why? Because he can get on base. "Play Hatteberg" becomes the mantra of Billy Beane, much to the dismay of Art Howe, who wanted to play Carlos Pena. So who was right? Despite being one of the big decisions, if not the key decision of Billy Beane's moneyball A's, some have suggested that the move is actually antithetical to the principle of moneyball. In 2002, Carlos Pena was making just $202,000, while Hatteberg was making $900,000. Pena was also a much younger player, although this doesn't really matter to Beane. The first question is whether Hatteberg or Pena was better in 2002 for the Athletics. The answer is easily Hatteberg. Hatteberg posted a 2.7 WAR (he bizarrely had a .7 WAR on defense, when the big question was whether he could play first base, he obviously could), while Pena posted just a .4 WAR in his time with the Athletics. Carlos Pena played in 40 games, giving him a WAR per game of .01, while Hatteberg (played in 136 games) had a .02 WAR per game. Hatteberg post a 333 WASP (if you are unsure what any of these statistics mean, check the tabs above), while Pena had a 505. While both numbers are great, Hatteberg was better value, despite having a bigger salary. For what it is worth, Hatteberg was also better in his Athletic career than Pena's Tiger (Pena was traded to Detroit by the A's) career. The big number for Beane and the A's though was OBP (on base percentage), and in 2002 it wasn't even close. Hatteberg had a .374 OBP, and Pena had just a .302. Pena had a PAPP of 2.88, while Hatteberg had a better PAPP of 2.57. Pena's PPG was a bad .875, while Hatteberg's was a better, but still not great .99. So yes, it seems that Beane was right, the stats were on his side in the Pena versus Hatteberg fight.

Moneyball Review: Carlos Pena

Art Howe loved Carlos Pena in Moneyball

A point of contention during the whole movie of Moneyball is Carlos Pena. Manager Art Howe wanted to play Pena because he claimed that he was a better first baseman, while Beane wanted Hatteberg to play because he "got on base" (I will address Pena versus Hatteberg in another article). Beane ends up trading Pena away so Howe couldn't play him anymore. In reality, the Athletics sent Pena, Jeremy Bonderman, and Franklyn German to the Tigers, and got Ted Lilly, John-Ford Griffin and Jason Arnold from the Yankees, and much needed cash from the Tigers. In 4 years as a Tiger, Pena posted a 1.3 WAR. In his final year as a Tiger, he made 2.75 million and posted a 0 WAR, giving him a bad WASP of 5500. Jeremy Bonderman (who was originally the "player to be named later") spent 03-10 with the Tigers, posting a 5.6 WAR. However, he made 41 million in his time there, giving him a horrible WASP of 7380. Franklyn German spent 4 years with Detroit, but couldn't figure it out at a -.2 WAR. As far as the players the Athletics received, Ted Lilly played a year and a half with the A's, pitching 201.2 innings. He earned a 2.3 WAR in this time while making just $453,575 in that time (and part of that could be offset with the money the A's got in the trade), giving him a phenomenal WASP of 197.2. Griffin and Arnold never played for the A's in the Majors, but Lilly alone seems to tilt this trade to the Athletics. The Tigers got better overall WAR in the trade, but the Athletics got much more value.

Moneyball review: Part 1

Over the next few days (or weeks, who knows) I will be posting about Moneyball the movie. Most of the posts will be about the actual trades Billy Beane made at the time, and will try to use some of the same methods (along with some of my own) they used to see if the moves actually worked. However, I would like to give a short review. I am no movie critic, and have no skill grading acting, so I am just giving an opinion. With that said, if you consider yourself a baseball fan, you need to watch this movie. It is now my favorite baseball movie. They used a nice mixture of actual game-footage and simulated acting for game moments, and its the best I have seen in a sports movie. Because it's based on real life events, we don't get the crummy storylines included in many sports movies. The players are real, and the story-line is (mostly, at least) real. Great job on research to not only know all the players involved with the A's but also the players on other teams (I was caught in quite a few "o yeah, I forgot about that" moments, such as that Raul Ibanez played with the Kansas City Royals for a time). For those not baseball fans, it is a good underdog story, with slight political overtones, its the rich versus the poor, the fortunate versus the not so much. Whether sportsy or not, its a good story-line, the good guy doesn't necessarily win, and life is complicated. Of course, the cast is very good as well, headlined by Brad Pitt (for the female viewer, there are many scenes of him working out, and probably one two many closeups of his chest area) and Jonah Hill. A minor complaint might be that Carlos Pena looks nothing like Carlos Pena in the movie, although that is really hard to cast (Jeremy Giambi didn't look like Giambi either). Other than that, there is not a lot to complain about. There are some kind of soft, mushy moments, but they don't over do it, and they seem appropriate. I think everyone should at least give this movie a chance, and I will give it an A-.

In honor of "Moneyball": Mark Ellis and Jemile Weeks.

It has been a frustrating season for the Oakland A's. It is not a good sign when the highlight of your season is when Brad Pitt is cast as your GM. In honor of Moneyball (which is getting mostly good reviews, I will probably be posting mine on Saturday), we should probably look at a very "moneyball" move the A's made this year that is already paying off. Mark Ellis had been a very solid 2nd baseman for the Athletics for several years, but once it became apparent the A's wouldn't be competing for the playoffs they traded him off for a couple of prospects from the Rockies. They didn't just trade him to trade him though, they had someone waiting in the wings. Enter Jemile Weeks, the little brother of stud 2nd baseman Rickie Weeks of Milwaukee. Jemile, unlike his brother, doesn't hit for any power (still no big league homers), but is still a very solid hitter (.298/.336/ .740 OPS). His defense still needs some work (already 12 errors and -.9 D-WAR), but he is only 24. Since he just made his debut this season, his salary hasn't been released, but its probably around $400,000. His total WAR this year has been .9 (remember, he came up in June, imagine if he becomes a better fielder and is allowed to play a full year), giving him a WASP of around 444, which is great value. Mark Ellis, on the other hand, is making 6 million this season (and will be a free agent at the end of the year). He has registered just a .7 WAR since joining the Rockies (and since he has played half the year there), giving him a WASP of 4286 (well above the Halladay Standard). If Weeks turns out to be the 2nd baseman the A's were looking for, then it's safe to say that Billy Beane still has it.

When Moneyball wasn't Moneyball: Overpaid Athletics

As the Moneyball movie comes out (to some very positive reviews), its interesting to look at where the Athletics are currently. Not only are they third place in the AL West, but they have found themselves in some very bad contracts. The whole point of "moneyball" was to maximize production in a very small payroll. This is why they groomed the trio of Hudson, Mulder, and Zito, but let them go when they got expensive, and replaced them with groomed Rich Harden, Houston Street, and Joe Blanton, only to get rid of them when they got expensive to replace them with Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill and Dallas Braden (who can't stay healthy it seems). For the most part, the pitching has worked, but their struggles to develop hitters have cost them. Not to mention, Billy Beane has done something very anti-moneyball. This offseason, he signed/traded for 3 aging players with large deals. Hideki Matsui is making 4.25 million dollars this year (he was clearly worth this much when he was with the Yankees, but didn't show enough with the Angels last year to merit this), but barely has a positive WAR, giving him a WASP of over 6000. Josh Willingham is making 6 million dollars with a WAR of 1.5, giving him a sub-par 4000 WASP. Reliever Brian Fuentes is making a mind-numbing 5 million dollars, and with his .3 WAR, he has a WASP of 16,666. A GM that built his team using sabermetrics and avoiding deals like this has turned into the Cubs, who sign a bunch of old players that are overpaid and watch the thing blow up.

The Nick Swisher Trade

Before the 2008 season, Mr. Moneyball himself sent Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for Ryan Sweeney, Gio Gonzalez, and Fautino De Los Santos. Swisher spent a grand total of 1 year with the White Sox (he currently plays for the Yankees) and had just a .332 OBP with 24 bombs and 69 rbis, with a WAR of -.8 (he made 3.6 million that year). After the season, he was dealt to the Yankees (along with Kanekoa Texeira) for Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez, and Jhonny Nunez. Texeira never pitched in the big leagues for the Yankees (although he has appeared in games for the Mariners and Royals) so we will throw him out. Betemit had just 1 terrible year with the Sox, with a WAR of -.4 with a salary of 1.3 million. In Nunez and Marquez's short time with the Sox (neither are in the organization anymore) they each registered a -.1 WAR (because neither of their salaries were disclosed, we will assume it was the minimum $400,000, and we will do this again later on Santos). The four players drew $5,700,000 from the White Sox and posted a combined -1.4 WAR, giving them a combined 19380 WAR and Salary Per. The Athletics story looks much happier. Fautino De La Santos made his major league debut this year and has pitched pretty well with a 3.54 ERA and a .2 WAR (his salary is not released so we will assume $400,000). Since joining the A's in 08, Sweeney has posted a WAR of 6.7 (further salt in the wound, his WAR was negative as a member of the White Sox) and has received $2,625,000 in salary in that time. Gio Gonzalez has racked up a 6 WAR while collecting $1,635,000 from the Athletics. This gives the 3 a total of 12.9 WAR (meaning that those 3 guys alone have won 13 games for the Athletics, while the White Sox players lost games for the team). Adding their salary together and dividing it by their WAR gives them an incredible 361 WASP (they have a value similar to MVP candidate Jacoby Ellsbury). Both in overall performance and value, this was an extremely lopsided trade towards the A's. I guess there is a reason they wrote a book and made a movie about Billy Beane