Rotoman said the following smart thing in his column this week at mlb.com.
“The real problem is that as a ballplayer there isn’t a lot to recommend him over Scott Hatteberg, who the A’s are paying a lot of money ($2.45M) to be their first baseman this year. Another way to put it is that the As are paying Scott Hatteberg a lot of money this year to do a job that Dan Johnson could probably do nearly as well for a lot less. ”
We, as roto owners and the A’s as real life owners can’t cancel contracts or trade something ‘smart’ like playing Dan Johnson for pennies against playing Hatteberg for two and a half mill. But what Rotoman says here is VERY smart. There is not a reason to play Johnson over Hatteberg to be sure, but that this is a discussion at all means that there isn’t any reason to pay Hatteberg 8 times what you would pay Johnson. Nothing you can do about it now of course, but next off season when you are looking at your Mike Matheny’s and Omar Vizquels….why not heed the Rotoman and tell yourself that your 2.5 mil guy might not be appreciably better than your triple-A ‘non’ prospect.
You give me too much credit to be sure, but you remind me that what I was trying to say was that this situation is exactly the situation that Moneyball GMs have to avoid.
The money to Hatteberg isn’t outrageous, but given his contributions versus the cost of replacing him, it may well mean an obvious upgrade someplace else.
The mistake was obvious the A’s gave Hatteberg the multiyear deal, which I think suggests that the new way isn’t as very different from the old way as many think. Wasn’t Billy Beane saying something with the Hatteberg signing like, “Continuity and loyalty do count for something?”
To be truthful…I think not. I think they valued (and value) hatteberg for other things than what we normally value, or look at. Pitches per AB for example.
And I think there was a confluence of events. First that They were able to get Durazo. Second that although they probably knew that Koonce wouldn’t pan out, they thought Johnson was a year behind where he was (possibly a miscalculation caused by keeping Koonce visible at AAA and shelving Johnson not only for other eyes but their own?).
And further….I am getting the feeling that they steer pretty well in A ball…and awfully well at AAA…but almost not at all in AA. It almost looks like the ‘moneyball’ aspect is fine and good, but centralized decision making might be paralyzing the the jump from A to AAA.
Bear with me as I ramble for a second. I worked with a guy who was absolutely the best in his business – a pretty specialized business. He absolutely knew what he was doing and steered with a firm and confident hand through everything. He could do everything quickly, accurately and with more panache than anyone in the business. The problem was that He knew this, and was a control freak. As a result, a business wherein he dealt with 500-600 clients a year (and extremely well) became a business where he had 40-60,000 clients.
Now anyone who choses can deal with 500-1000 clients a year and well as long as it is once or twice a year in confined time. No ne can deal with 40K clients in a year if it requires a personal response to even a single request. at best you have 250 days and at best you can answer a question – even if it is a simple Email or picking up a phone for a 2 minute conversation, more than 100 a day…if you want to do it well. If your business require 5, 10, 50 times where you have to pick up a phone or click “reply” just to the client, much less suppliers. it’s absurd to think you can do the whole interface and servicing of the client even if 99% of them are groups with a single contact person.
My Brother, a senior VP for an investment bank pissed of some major players by using the extra-expensive phone use tracking software to go into his reps cubicles and tell them…you’re talking to too MANY people to do it well. He’d have been fired except…of course….his people did it VERY well, because he insisted.
I say this because I see AA Sacramento (CA)…A Stockton (CA)…and AA Midland (TX). I wonder whether Billy Beane – a control freak extraordinaire (I wonder whether He has found a new DePodesta as yet someone he trusts and can delegate to) IS hyper sensitive to A and AAA, but blind to AA because he logistically doesn’t get there as often. There’s no real reason Barton and Suzuki are at Stockton, they ought to be in Midland (Brown ought to be in AAA, Baker and Jackson? Please!!)
Lewis describes DePodesta’s answer to the contract in Moneyball. and it is what you would expect. Yes, too expensive, but to get the numbers we needed OBP, Pitches taken and so forth for x number of years until we can replace him would have costed x dollars more than Hatteberg.
IF Johnson doesn’t rip a new orifice out of the minors last year, hit better than pretty much their whole major league team this spring…and now….
I was really impressed with him when I saw him exiled to left to accommmodate Koonce at first last season at the end of the year against Portland(physically much more imposing) who was 1/10th the player.