Show Me The 'Money Ball'

Ken Macha just got fired, just now. Who the hell cares, right? Well, we should care because with him goes another facet in the argument made by Billy Beane in the 2003 book by Michael Black, Money Ball. Despite introducing us to the world of small market baseball and the sabremetric geeks that make up a small population of the baseball world, the reader was also able to read all about the fundamentals to winning in a small market, dictated through the maniacal dealings of the Oakland General Manager and his minions. The book attempts to paint Beane as a semi-genius who some how has figured out this whole free agency thing, however as time goes by all we are left with is an increasingly narrative that resembles more fiction than fact.

We got the first dismantling of the Money Ball theory last off season, when after guiding the Dodgers to the worst finish in a while, the boy blunder, A.K.A. Paul DePodesta was abruptly fired as the Blue's GM while conducting his managerial search. And to think, he was just on the verge of signing that managerial legend Terry Collins to lead the ship. In any case, DePodesta's implementation of the Money Ball fundamentals lead to more irrational transactions that would make chaos theorists chomp at the bit for an analysis of his actions. Paul LoDuca and the selling of Shawn Green, despite his inability to catch a fly ball these days, for what was supposed to be the catcher of the future Dioner Navarro are a few examples of the brain cramps DePodesta and his IBM Thinkpad had while with the Blue. Getting rid of Jim Tracy was also not the brightest idea in the world; however the maneuver does fit with the Money Ball modus operandi.

As stated in the 'novel,' Beane loved him some Macha because Ken was the type of baseball mind that would be willing to let Beane make managerial moves while his eccentric self was out driving around he parking lot all night during the game. Macha was a yes man, a guy that was willing to play whoever the guys upstairs wanted playing, and a guy that was to rarely receive any of the credit for what happened on the field while taking the brunt of the blame. In essence, the perfect fall guy, stooge, goat, etc. Depo tried this act with Tracy and he walked, partly because Trace is a stand up baseball guy who actually manages the game.

Need more, OK. J.P. Riccardi in Toronto, another Beane disciple, saw his clubhouse completely divided near the end of the 2006 season when manager John Gibbons, another yes man, got into it with Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly. During Riccardi's tenure, the Jays have managed to finish as high as 3rd once, but hey, at least they never finish in last. Despite running off a semi-productive player in Hillenbrand, and alienating pretty decent pitching arm, Riccardi loves him some Gibbons because the brand of mediocre baseball maneuvering that Gibbons brings to the table is just enough to make the Jays fans excited until mid-July, when the Yankees and Red Sox make their traditional visits to Skydome and smack the Jays around for a few series all the while relegating said Blue Birds 15 games out of first. Never has a city cried in chorus for Cito Gasten harder then Toronto.

So what do we take away from all this. Well, Macha is probably better off being fired. Now he can probably join a real coaching staff and actually feel what it's like to manage. However the long and short of it is that managers will come and go in Oakland, however the club, and any other club using a variation on the Money Ball principle, will never win anything because they are built around a statistical fallacy and not on the reality of baseball. That reality being that the human heart, chemistry, and down right desire trump any statistical logarithm or analysis. Fire Kenny Macha, fire Billy ‘couldn't buy a hit in the bigs’ Beane as well.

Psycho Steve Lyons Update

It strikes me a little odd that the same company the employs the perverted sexual harassing Bill O’Reilly and the conservative lying pornographer Sean Hannity would have a problem with a pretty innocuous comment made about Hispanics from Steve Lyons of all people. Now don’t get me wrong, Steve Lyons is pretty annoying and is not for all audiences, however I really don’t mind him and what he brings to Dodger’s Live and the radio calls. So finding out that he was fired about over a comment that quite frankly nobody got, and that as a Hispanic I didn’t take offense to is pretty troubling seeing as how the company employs a network of "people" that say far worst about far more many people on a daily basis. I guess this only lends more credence to the fact that those right wing gas bags over on the Fox News Channel are more actors than journalists, and their viewers are secretly supporting the exploitation of themselves on a really bad reality show.