Billy Beane Research Paper
As the Oakland A’s enter the 2002 baseball season they are faced with trying to
create a championship team with less money than anyone else in the league. To do this
Billy Beane not only took some risks and put everything on the line but he fought many
battles along the way.
The Oakland A’s are under new owners in 2002 and they cut Billy’s budget down
for recruiting. “On the long cafeteria table in front of Billy sat an invisible cash register,
and inside it the $9.4 million his owner had given him to sign perhaps as many as thirty-
five players. The A's seven first-round picks alone, paid what their equivalents had
received the year before, would cost him more than $11 million” (Lewis 100). $9.4
million seems like a lot of money …show more content…
Billy wanted
guys who were matured and he also wanted guys whose stats showed the proof of their
success. Billy didn’t care about batting average; he cared about on base percentage and
walks. He wanted players who were patient and smart hitters. He showed his
determination to have these oddball players when he put Jeremy Brown in the 1 st round
draft for the A’s. Until Billy suggested Brown no one was even considering Brown at all.
To the older scouts he was “a bad body catcher” (Lewis 33). Billy looked at Browns
performance and not is physique. He had 300 hits and two hundred walks and that’s all
Billy cared about.
Billy Bean showed tremendous belief in sabermetrics. For him it was finally a
way to make sense of baseball and recruit not with the eyes but with stats. He focused on
on-base percentage, walks, age of player, and hits. His method for picking what he
thought was the best option was looking at long-term statistics of a player. He mostly
ignored the old ways of thinking about baseball and adopted a new system that would not
only save money but also make the A’s
create a championship team with less money than anyone else in the league. To do this
Billy Beane not only took some risks and put everything on the line but he fought many
battles along the way.
The Oakland A’s are under new owners in 2002 and they cut Billy’s budget down
for recruiting. “On the long cafeteria table in front of Billy sat an invisible cash register,
and inside it the $9.4 million his owner had given him to sign perhaps as many as thirty-
five players. The A's seven first-round picks alone, paid what their equivalents had
received the year before, would cost him more than $11 million” (Lewis 100). $9.4
million seems like a lot of money …show more content…
Billy wanted
guys who were matured and he also wanted guys whose stats showed the proof of their
success. Billy didn’t care about batting average; he cared about on base percentage and
walks. He wanted players who were patient and smart hitters. He showed his
determination to have these oddball players when he put Jeremy Brown in the 1 st round
draft for the A’s. Until Billy suggested Brown no one was even considering Brown at all.
To the older scouts he was “a bad body catcher” (Lewis 33). Billy looked at Browns
performance and not is physique. He had 300 hits and two hundred walks and that’s all
Billy cared about.
Billy Bean showed tremendous belief in sabermetrics. For him it was finally a
way to make sense of baseball and recruit not with the eyes but with stats. He focused on
on-base percentage, walks, age of player, and hits. His method for picking what he
thought was the best option was looking at long-term statistics of a player. He mostly
ignored the old ways of thinking about baseball and adopted a new system that would not
only save money but also make the A’s