Buck Showalter has a reputation as an old-school baseball guy who doesn’t like analytics, so no one should be surprised that he’s not a fan of “Moneyball.”
The former MLB manager and now MLB network analyst appeared on OutKick’s Don’t @ Me With Dan Dakich and talked about that and other issues. Moneyball, of course, refers to the approach by Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane to turn the small-market team into a winner in the early 2000s by focusing on analytics. That story was recounted in the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003) and later in the 2011 hit movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt as Beane.
Showalter shared his contempt for the mythology surrounding that term.
“Moneyball was proven to be a farce,” Showalter said. “People in the game know it was just a Hollywood thing; no one talks about the four starting pitchers they had. It was, you know, they embellished a lot of things to make it work, but most people in the game know it was complete fiction. That really wasn’t what happened out there, even the author has talked about it.”
Showalter has a point about the A’s great pitching during that era. While the movie focuses on Beane’s efforts to bring in role players, such as Jeremy Giambi, with high on-base percentages, the Athletics boasted a deep and talented starting rotation led by Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder.
“When I hear somebody mention ‘Moneyball,’ it has a different connotation to people that are on the field,” Showalter said. “They always kind of roll their eyes and go, ‘Yeah, right.’ Nobody mentions Barry Zito and Mulder and all those guys that were pitching for those guys.”
While there was certainly more to those successful Athletics teams than a collection of guys with good on-base percentages, there’s no denying that Beane helped popularize the use of analytics in the sport. Many would argue that’s had a downside.
Moneyball author Michael Lewis recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that the approach has slowed the game and made it less colorful and interesting.
“It turns out that the smart way to play baseball is boring,” Lewis said.
Showalter won four Manager of the Year Awards in his 22-year career.
