Cleveland Browns: Analytics is different from moneyball
By Joel W. Cade
Initially, the newfound Moneyball approach did not work. A purely statistical approach could not account for what would become the greatest obstacle for the 2002 Oakland A’s – the human element.
At the beginning of the season, the Oakland Athletics were not winning games. The group they assembled were not functioning the way the statistics predicted they would. What was the problem? The problem was buy-in. The manager and players either did not understand or actively rejected the vision Beane and DePodesta were trying to create.
Beane and DePodesta resolved the problem by expanding statistical analysis from simply a tool for creating a roster, to an all-encompassing vision around which the entire organization from the major league team to the lowest minor league team would be structured.
The vision changed from exploiting market inefficiencies to the creation of an entirely different way of building a baseball organization built on statistical analysis. The statistic of on-base percentage became a lens through which players at all levels were evaluated. Coaches were taught the vision, then expected to buy in and teach that vision to players.
Players were taught the value of taking pitches in order induce walks and tire out the pitchers at all levels of the organization. The A’s started drafting players that fit their vision. The A’s were now actively structuring their organization from top-down around a specific style of playing baseball.
What started as a way of exploiting market efficiencies by a small market team became an all-encompassing vision for structuring a MLB organization. At this point Moneyball, defined as exploiting market inefficiencies to win an unfair game, was incorporated into a larger scheme. This new scheme? An analytical approach to drafting, roster construction, and organizational strategy and structure.
At the center of the birth of analytics in MLB was DePodesta, who will now try to win with Moneyball in Cleveland.
Next: Moneyball and the Browns