billy-beane Page index.xml - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
So what if baseball is just a job for Anthony Rendon?
With the NFL season in the rearview mirror, baseball is back. Spring Training is underway, and baseball reporters everywhere are desperate for something to write about....
Tell me you want out of Oakland without telling me you want out of Oakland
One city’s trash is Las Vegas’ treasure. The Oakland Coliseum has been a steaming pile of a ballpark for decades. After numerous skirmishes with the city over Byzantine budgets, funding, public subsidies, and potential sites for a new Oakland-area stadium, the Athletics announced the purchase of 49 ...
UNSUNG GENIUS: Dissecting Dusty Baker's bullpen brilliance for his sabermetric critics
Dusty Baker “ought to be part of the conversation around MLB’s best-ever managers,” concluded Neil Paine from FiveThirtyEight after studying the most overachieving managers, and “shouldn’t need a ring to validate his career.” Agreed. Let’s go further....
Beware the Prospect Perverts
As another baseball season is about to descend upon us, there’s a scourge you must be aware of that is partially responsible for the state of MLB today. While the CBA was a small step toward progress, we still are dealing with far too many teams diving for the bottom without worrying about the water...
Before baseball’s grandest show, let’s get one last laugh at the Mets
MLB will showcase, at least in theory, its best for the next week to 10 days. The World Series doesn’t usually pair the two best teams, depending on definition, but it does pair the two that are playing best at the moment. And it’s got all the stakes that matter. Whatever the participants, it’s supp...
Beane to Mets rumor is all that’s left to wonder about in moribund Queens
How has September been treating the Mets?...
It’s not Sandy Alderson’s fault, says Sandy Alderson
It’s really hanging one out there to call this Mets season particularly Mets-y. Every season in Queens has an element of the weird and inexplicable to it that only the Mets can conjure. They never settle quietly into the background. But this year, well, through Jacob deGrom’s injury and Javy Baez le...
Damian Lillard was back on his… whatever voodoo that was… last night
If there’s one thing Twitter is good for, and it might not be, it’s alerting you when you might miss something. The Blazers were down 17 last night to the Pelicans with just six minutes to go. They won by one, thanks to a 25-7 run, in which Damian Lillard was involved in 18 of those points. He finis...
Billy Beane changed baseball, but he could never conquer the game
While the movie “Moneyball” has become canon for the analytics movement in baseball — or more accurately those looking to trace its spread to basically every other sport — those who have read the book know that Billy Beane didn’t invent them with some intern he ransomed out of Cleveland (and every C...
Billy Beane Admits That Being An A's Fan Is Hell
Yesterday, the Oakland A’s traded relievers Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Washington Nationals in exchange for reliever Blake Treinen and two minor leaguers. It’s no great crime for an out-of-contention team to unload two aging but valuable relievers—Doolittle and Madson boast 2.35 and 2.43 ...
Billy Beane Is One Of The Biggest Water Wasters In The Bay Area
You may have heard that there is a pretty serious drought in California. Starting this summer, water restrictions went into effect across the state. For customers of the East Bay Municipal Utility District (East Bay MUD), the restrictions include only being allowed to water your lawn twice a week (a...
Report: Josh Donaldson, Billy Beane Had Heated Argument Over Days Off
Now that Josh Donaldson has left the Athletics, we can go to the next step: juicy stories about internal discord leaking to the media. This particular story describes a big argument between Donaldson and general manager Billy Beane....
Billy Beane Says The Athletics' Trades Paid Off
This was the year the Athletics pushed in their chips, acquiring the likes of Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammel, Adam Dunn, and especially Jon Lester. It didn't work out that way: the team with MLB's best record at the trade deadline ended up settling for a wild card and bowing out in a one-game playoff...
Dave Dombrowski And Billy Beane Have An Entertaining GM Rivalry
There are few occasions when you want to hear from your team's general manager. Usually, he's explaining why something went wrong, talking about how the team's trying not to suck, or saying goodbye as he's fired. The best times, though, are in free agency and at the trade deadline—unless your GM's R...
Billy Beane Predicts Baseball's Future
A's GM Billy Beane has what amounts to a written TED Talk in today's Wall Street Journal. It's always worth paying attention to him when he's talking about advances in baseball, but this is Beane at his most expansive: Making bold (if general) pronouncements about how analytics and technology are go...
After Signing Cuban Defector With Weird Workout Video, Have The A's Had The Strangest Offseason Ever?
What is going on Oakland? (No, not this.) Billy Beane's done some things. He traded two young All-Star starters, Gio Gonzalez and Trevor Cahill, to the Nationals and Diamondbacks. He traded away his closer, Andrew Bailey, and Craig Breslow, another reliable reliever. Then he traded away two more sta...
Billy Bean, Openly Gay Former MLB Player, Has Much In Common With His Former Minors Teammate, Billy Beane, The Guy From <em>Moneyball</em>
We've heard from many of the figures on the periphery of Moneyball since the movie hit theaters two weeks ago, but one we hadn't heard from was Billy Bean, the former Tigers, Dodgers, and Padres outfielder who came out of the closet in 1999. Bean, because of that slight difference in names, has ofte...
The Undervaluing Of <em>Moneyball</em>; Or, What You Can Learn By Watching With A Bunch Of Old People
Although advanced baseball analysis had been around for years, Michael Lewis's 2003 book Moneyball, about the Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane's using it to build their roster, helped to start an online industry of carping about player evaluation and team structure. The release of the 2011 fi...
Deadspin's Guide To <em>Moneyball</em>
The much-delayed Moneyball film finally pops into your area cinemaplex today, marking one of nerds' few victories in a September filled with Red Sox defeats. We take particular interest in this film, and not just because we've long yearned to see someone portraying Chad Bradford dance across the scr...