The Forgotten Man of Moneyball, Part 1
From the article's intro:
He calls himself "the pebble that started the avalanche," the man who taught baseball analysis to Billy Beane. Gandhi, someone wrote, sparking MLK's revolution. Today, Moneyball remains a hotly debated phenomenon. Eric Walker is a footnote. Here's the footnote's story.
This is a two-parter. The first discusses Walker's stint as a consultant with the Giants (more than 20 years before Bill James would secure similar work with the Red Sox). The second, which will run this afternoon, will look at Walker's time with the A's and the evolution and distortions of what's come to be known as moneyball.
Good read. My favorite part:
"At any rate, there I was, finally on contract with a major-league ball club, the Giants, but in a dubious situation. The GM, Tom Haller, was, ah (let us not speak ill of the dead), not a progressive thinker, and the rest of the team's Brain Trust was of the same vintage."
over 2 years ago
GameSix
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look at the amazon link Grant provided, the picture is posted by Lynn Walker “Owlcroft”
I R 5
by say hey nation on Oct 7, 2009 11:28 AM PDT up reply actions
It's vichyssoise, sir
It’s supposed to be cold. It’s a dude writing about himself…
On 5/7, the best part of waking is up LOLDGERS in my cup.
I understand that it was really bad at saying James sucks, I am awesome. It was a good read, though.
I R 5
by say hey nation on Oct 7, 2009 10:04 AM PDT up reply actions
Wow...the Giant's front office hasn't changed much since 1981, has it?
To me, the Giants’ dismissive attitude of Walker’s ideas are eerily similar to what is going on in the FO today. Sabean has refused to embrace these new-found concepts, which are far more credible now than they were in the early 1980’s.
I mean, Sabean can talk about emphasizing “on-base percentage” all he wants, but until he actually starts acquiring players who have nice OBPs , I won’t believe he has changed. Other parts of the organization may be more progressive, but the man running the show, Sabean, isn’t.
Man, it is so depressing that Sabean is coming back next year.
At least he’s started drafting guys who have an actual on-base-percentage.
Still the loving, adoptive father of Hector Sanchez. And who doesn't love switch-hitting catchers with power and patience?
My mother-in-law found this book for me at her work. She works for the company that used to publish it, and she stumbled across it in some storage room. Cool stuff. I had just read about it in The Numbers Game, too.
I read the book back in the day. My buddy and I were working on a baseball betting system. It was the first season of Bill James’ nationally published abstract, and were looking for any edge. A beautifully written book, btw. I don’t know if I still have a copy ( a lot of books in boxes at my ex’s).
by San Francisco Slim on Oct 8, 2009 2:46 PM PDT up reply actions
Part 2 of the article
Loved his footnotes at the bottom, which seemingly are a dig at the Giants. Eric Walker must read MCC.
1 I hear a lot today that “analysis is dead,” meaning that its crucial lessons are few and now understood and accepted as a basis for planning by virtually all organizations. What nonsense! The merest glance at even just team on-base percentages (never mind things like Pitcher Abuse Points) should make it blindingly obvious that a good fraction of ball clubs still Just Don’t Get It.
That gravels me. I cannot think of another industry in which the uttermost basics of how the product works are a mystery to the people in that industry. There is nothing, to any with IQs much over their hat size, mysterious or controversial about analysis: it’s just the way things work, and that’s that. Yet a coach on the major-league level (coaching on a team last in all the majors in OPS) can to this hour be found publicly remarking, “You want to see a walk? Go watch a mailman.” How is that possible? How can businesses with annual payrolls approaching a tenth of a billion dollars not have any least idea how their business works?
On 5/7, the best part of waking is up LOLDGERS in my cup.
Eric Walker must read MCC.
I think we’ve just determined that he does. That’s pretty cool.
/waves to owlcroft
My mother-in-law will be excited.
by Grant Brisbee on Oct 7, 2009 12:54 PM PDT up reply actions
There is nothing, to any with IQs much over their hat size…
Bochy could be a MENSA high-priest and yet his IQ will never surpass his hat size.
by KrazyKrabMeat on Oct 7, 2009 2:48 PM PDT up reply actions
Excellent Article
Thanks Game 6 (and, of course, owlcroft). There is also a very good side article that Eric refers to in his piece, on Billy Bean by Howard Bryant.
Great quote from Sandy Alderson from the Bean piece which very much relates to the Giants ownership/management. The Giants have been playing at a disadvantage because other teams have figured out how to make use of performance analysis and they haven’t (other than default, by employing Barry Bonds).
“The reason ‘Moneyball’ became so important was because so many of the owners read [the book],” says Sandy Alderson, himself a seminal figure in the way baseball is run. “For years, the baseball people would tell the owners, ‘Leave the baseball to us. You wouldn’t understand.’ They kept saying they were different. Then the owners realized the dynamics of baseball — of assessing risk — were the same as the ones they faced in their outside businesses.”
by San Francisco Slim on Oct 8, 2009 3:05 PM PDT up reply actions
I certainly didn’t have everything my way — the A’s despite my continual pleadings, didn’t acquire Mike Aldrete till late in his career (a career that could and should have been a lot more distinguished, the next Keith Hernandez, but he had the misfortune to come up at the same time as Will Clark) — but all in all it was rewarding work.
Neal before Zod!
Official Sponsor of the 1997 San Francisco Giants
by nostocksjustbonds on Oct 7, 2009 12:58 PM PDT reply actions
Well, he did hit .325 that one year. The rabbit-ball year, but whatever.
How was Aldrete’s glove? Anyone remember? In my mind’s eye, he was pretty good at first and pretty slow in the outfield.
Late in the 1987 stretch race I went to a Giants game that ended with Aldrete making a brilliant diving catch into the LF fence (back when it was still that cyclone stuff — so it was still waving back and forth for a minute or so after the game was over) to prevent the tying and go ahead runs from scoring. It’s the only defensive image I have of him — but I think it is the greatest game ending defensive play I’ve ever seen.
(Parenthetically, I was also at the Magellan game, which did end on a notable defensive play but I differentiate between actually making a good play and stumbling into a magical recovery of a brutally bad play).
My Bucardo is better than yours.
A hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill. Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter's myth, it is a vulgarity, like a writer who writes only for money.
My first ever game ended when Aldrete jumped up and caught a hard liner off the bat of Jose Cruz and stepped on first for a double play. Giants had swept the Astros and moved into sole possession of first place in June of 1986.
We're all basically Pedro Feliz.
SSS!!!!!
You two obviously haven’t read enough about baseball and statistical analysis.
by AngelWillSaveUs on Oct 7, 2009 4:42 PM PDT up reply actions
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