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: 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-.

Jason Giambi, and the big veteran pitch hitter.

Every National League team needs (and every American League team could use) someone like Jason Giambi. Giambi, 40 years old, once the top slugger in baseball (and an admitted steroid user), is no longer a player that can play 150 games a year, or hit 50 homers and drive in 100. However, he isn't making 20 million dollars a year anymore. He can still hit too, and hit it hard. In 123 At-Bats, he has 13 homers, meaning he homers every 9.5 At-Bats. Albert Pujols homers once in about every 15 At-Bats (this season). His OBP is a very respectable .368, an OPS at 1.022 (!), and he has driven in 32. This is a guy that the Rockies can bring off the bench to hit for the pitcher (or in a key situation) and expect real results. Not to mention that he gives the Rockies a formidable DH in interleague play, something many NL teams simply do not have. He has a WAR (wins above replacement player) of 1.2 and an 13 RAR (runs above replacement player). Making a million dollars, his WASP (Wins above Replacement player and Salary Per) a very nice 833. He has also shown that he can play the occasional first base, as he did last night, with a .1 WAR on defense.