Billy Beane’s iconoclastic genius was immortalized in the silver-screen rendition of Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball,” but the A’s outdid Hollywood last summer, spinning a tale that wouldn’t have been believable had it been fiction.
Yes, the 2012 A’s are a tough act to follow, but Beane’s subtle string of moves this offseason should allow his team to put together a respectable follow-up performance.
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Christmas came early for Giants and A’s fans this season, in two fairly different forms.The Giants’ gift to their wildly fortunate fan base was straightforward. And as far as gifts go, it was pretty inexpensive.It was the gift of continuity, in the form of bringing back virtually every meaningful piece of the team that gave its city a second world title in three years.
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A’s general manager Billy Beane hopes he got another significant addition from the international market.
The A’s finalized a $6.5 million, two-year contract with Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima on Tuesday, filling a void created by the departures of Cliff Pennington and Stephen Drew.
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The last time the Los Angeles Angels rolled into the Oakland Coliseum (May 21), they were eight games out of first with an 18-24 record and their pricey offseason acquisition, Albert Pujols, was struggling through the worst slump of his career, batting .211. The A’s, on the other hand, were in second place with a 21-21 record, despite injuries to Yoenis Cespedes, Brandon McCarthy and Coco Crisp. But few thought the anomaly would last.
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It’s usually about this time of year, the trading deadline, when opposing baseball teams come knocking on A’s general manager Billy Beane’s door looking to raid his roster and bolster their own postseason pushes.
Beane has obliged at times, while other years he has elected to wait until the offseason to overhaul his roster, such as after the 2011 campaign. But the one constant is that the A’s have been sellers in recent years, one way or another.
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Movies about sports often take liberties with the facts, and “Moneyball,” nominated for best picture at Sunday’s Academy Awards, is no exception.
“Moneyball” deviates from the facts in four ways:
- It portrays the 2002 A’s as possessing a secret formula for success that had eluded other teams.
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Issue: Manny Ramirez’s arrival
Analysis: Still looking for the downside to signing the disgraced slugger? Might want to pack a lunch. Outside of taking at-bats from some youngsters this spring while Oakland’s brass determines whether Manny can still mash and merits a roster spot when his 50-game suspension is up, there really isn’t one.
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The A’s? “Team Irrelevant”? Grabbing supposedly the best Cuban baseball playing defector available, Yoenis Cespedes, for $36 million? Then signing Manny Ramirez? The A’s?
Welcome to the New World of Moneyball. No longer when a journalist asks GM Billy Beane whether we’ll recognize any members of the A’s will he be able to respond, if tongue in cheek, “Do you ever?”
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It’s good news that “Moneyball” is reminding people that the A’s were a record-setting playoff team before being bought by Lew Wolff and John Fisher. But the idea that Billy Beane was blazing a new trail that others have copied is nonsense.
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It could have been a classic David vs. Goliath story, a made-for-Hollywood account of the small-market Oakland A’s and their beleaguered general manager, Billy Beane, taking on Major League Baseball’s free-spending powerhouses. But “Moneyball,” Bennett Miller’s sports drama loosely inspired by Michael Lewis’ 2003 best-seller, is more ambitious than that.
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