Ok...Moneyball is fine and all. Especially over the last year, I have grown to appreciate the SABR stuff more.
But you know what? The A's haven't exactly been threats to win the World Series during the Moneyball era in Oakland.
1989...
21 years ago.
That is when the A's last won the World Series.
They have had some decent teams...don't get me wrong...
But after the Needleball era, the A's have won exactly 1 playoff series. One year they had 103 wins...only to lose in the first round of the playoffs.
What we have seen from Moneyball is the ability to compete consistently for a period of time in a weak division, but the inability to win in October. The A's only have 3 teams in their division to compete with...that's a big difference over the typical 4 or 5.
So where am I going with this?
I don't know...I'm kinda scraping for a story here...
But what I do want to say is this, many concepts of Moneyball are really really good, but at team still needs to overspend, in some cases, to get over the top.
The Cubs have spent the better part of the last 7 years overspending in virtually all cases. A balance should be needed. The Cubs have yet to find that balance. The A's never really found that balance, either, but that may have been more out of necessity than anything else. (They don't exactly make that much money.) The A's have had the advantage of being able to turn over their roster quickly to try something different, which gives them the ability to fix problems in the matter of a single offseason. The Cubs, with their long term contracts don't have that flexibility, and as a result, may need to take 2 or 3 years before being able to place a good team back on the field.
So the A's come to town today. They have had a bit of a resurgence this season. Will they be able to compete with the Rangers and Angels? No, probably not. But this franchise had been pointed out as the model of how a small market team should be run.
But they didn't win the World Series...so it can't be that good of a system, right?
