Beane Counter

If you haven't read the Michael Lewis story in this week's SI, you need to get a copy and read it. It is an excerpt from Lewis's upcoming book, Moneyball. The Billy Beane story itself is a fascinating one (Beane was a phenomenal athlete -- a real 5-tool guy who didn't make it in the bigs); Beane's new approach to selecting players in the draft for the Oakland A's is an even better one.

As a longtime Bill James fan, this one is a long time coming -- the low payroll teams will more and more look first at players who have proven their worth in college with their performance. Particularly interesting in the article is the A's emphasis on OB% and their not so hard to fathom realization that the walk to strike out ratio is a hugely valuable indicator of a player's knowledge of the strike zone and therefore his ability to get good pitches to hit. The story of the A's shocking first round pick last year completes a great article worth the 10-15 minutes of your time.

I can't wait til the book comes out. :xyzthumbs

 

And BTW, thanks to tarheelfan for pointing me to the article.

 

:xyzthumbs...thanks for the heads up...have to check that one out...as soon as I pay my library fines