i don't know about a "god". he does have 3 pitchers by name of Zito, Mulder and Hudson. now, granted, he did draft two of those guys so deserves some measure of credit, but at the end of the day having three pitchers that good all develop at the same time also involves a tremendous amount of luck. we'll see if Beane really is a god in a couple of years when he has to build a team while paying 3 of the ten best pitchers in his league more than $7 million bucks total. plus, the rest of baseball is catching up to him; Epstein in Boston, JP Riccardi in Toronto (Billy's ex-assistant), Mark Shapiro and the rest of the braintrust in Cleveland, John Hart in Texas, heck, even Allaird Baird in KC is starting to get the OPS religion and discard the "tools" bias.
by the way, if you haven't read "Moneyball" yet, get a copy tonite when you grab the new Harry Potter tome. it's Michael Lewis' best book yet (and given what has happened to some of Lewis' previous 'characters', Billy Beane's turn at the bottom of the barrel will come soon enough...)
Cheers |
