Moneyball

When Billy and Paul were sitting in the room with all the scouts and the draft board, 2 weeks prior to the draft, the scouts thought they were nuts for putting these un-heard of guys in some of the top spaces. One of the scouts said Billy was nuts because they couldn't field. Another said they couldn't even catch. Billy didn't care about that. All he cared about was on-base percentage and hitting. He put these guys who had great on-base percentages but terrible fielding, near the top. The scouts tried to talk him out if it. They thought he was absolutely crazy for not paying attention to the guys they think are good. But Billy and Paul knew what they didn't. They even made a catcher, who blew out his arm and hadn't played in a couple years, play first base! When Billy talked to him first about it, he said he couldn't play first base for his life! He didn't even know if his arm could throw well again. When he first tried it out, he couldn't throw at all. He had too hand the ball to the pitcher when he caught it during spring training. But Billy didn't care about fielding or anything, he just cared about hitting and on-base percentage.

Moneyball

Right now, I’m reading a book called Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It starts out about a baseball prospect named Billy Beane, and it tells the story of being a high school baseball prospect, deciding if you’re going to go to college, or become a MLB player straight out of high school. In Billy’s case, he had already committed to Stanford University on a full baseball and football scholarship. He played baseball all through out high school, but stopped playing football after his sophomore year, deciding not to risk any injuries that could affect his playing baseball. Even though he already committed, scouts still tried to talk him out of it and convince him to skip college and play in the big leagues. The scouts eventually succeeded in talking him out of it, and he was the 23^rd overall pick in the 1980 Major League Baseball Draft, taken by the New York Mets. Beane went to Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego, California. Other prospects came out of there, such as Cole Hamels, who is now a starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. Hamels was named the MVP of the 2008 World Series. Beane obviously doesn’t go to college, but in the offseasons when he was playing, he took classes at UC San Diego, where he took economics classes. He made his MLB debut on September 13, 1984 for the New York Mets, and his last game in the big leagues was on October 1, 1989 for the Oakland Athletics.  In his 5 years of a big leaguer, he played for 4 teams. When he couldn’t make the team in 1990, he decided he wanted to be an advanced scout. He held that until 1993, when he became the Assistant General Manager. In 1998, he succeeded the General Manager and became the GM himself. He is still the GM now.