Is Billy Beane Overrated? Some Relevant Data
Above: He’s not a major league player anymore, but he always plays hustling, heads-up baseball!
The run differential/payrolls of some selected teams so far:
- Oakland: +121/$83.4M
- NY Yankees: -29/$203.8M
- LA Dodgers: +13/$235.2M
- Philadelphia: -52/$180M (If you understand how Ruben Amaro still has his job, you’re ahead of me.)
- Boston: -12/$162.8M (But, yes, yes, defending World Champions)
- Los Angeles Suburban Warriors of Orange County: +29/$155.7M
- Kansas City: -19/$92M
I include the Royals because they’re the team that’s been most explicitly run by the precepts of old-school bullshit, and the result has been another decade-long faceplant although they’ve spent as much or more than Oakland.
Although 150 runs per 70 games might be overstating it (and might not), the A’s are in fact a much better team than the Yankees. But there was that time the As lost 3 out of 5 to the Yankees in the postseason, so Beane is a total fraud.