Moneyball: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Few people would think that intellectuals have played a strong role in the history of baseball, because baseball is so clearly a game of action. It wasn’t until the late nineties that a “man of action” applied intellectuals’ ideas to the sport. In 1997, Billy Beane had become GM of the Oakland A’s, and he’d read a lot of Bill James. He agreed with James’s argument that college players were a far better investment than high school players, and his assistant, Paul DePodesta, had made a statistical study of the matter and concluded more or less the same thing.

On the morning of the amateur draft, Billy Beane contemplates some of the unlikely players that he and Paul have identified. One, a lightweight center field named Steve Stanley, is so unimpressive-looking that no scouts have bothered to list him as a prospect, despite the fact that he’s extremely talented. Privately, Billy has negotiated with Stanley, assuring him that he’ll sign him for 200,000 dollars. In public, Billy has tried to give other GMs the impression that he’s recruiting people like Stanley because the A’s are strapped for cash, but in secret, Billy wants players like Stanley because they’re better.

One of Billy’s other scouts has told Billy about a promising but overweight fielder named Jeremy Brown. Brown has been so unpopular with scouts that when the A’s called him with a first-round offer, Brown assumed his roommate was prank calling him. The A’s scouts have told Brown that he can sign with the Oakland A’s, on the condition that he lose weight. Billy is also interested in signing a player named Nick Swisher, whom both he and the scouts admire.

Billy Beane gets a call from another GM, J. P. Ricciardi, of the Blue Jays, telling him that a top prospect, the high school pitcher Denard Span, has refused to sign with anyone for less than 2.6 million dollars. Now, nobody is going to sign Denard. Billy realizes what this means: the Colorado Rockies are going to take a different pitcher, which in turn means that the Mets are going to take Nick Swisher before the A’s get a chance to claim him. Billy is furious—draft day is either the best or the worst day of his year, and in 2002, it appears to be the worst. As Billy shouts expletives, Paul mutters, “I think Swisher will get to us, but I’m not going to say that right now.”

Moments later, Billy calls Steve Phillips of the Mets and asks him about Swisher. Phillips tells Billy that he’s not prioritizing Swisher; instead, he’s probably going to take a high school pitcher “in whom the A’s haven’t the slightest interest.” Encouraged, Billy realizes that he might get Swisher after all. He starts doing the math with Paul: there’s a chance that the Detroit Tigers, who are ahead of the A’s in the draft, will choose a sentimental favorite, Prince Fielder, the son of a former Tigers player. This would mean that the Mets would get a shot at one of their top draft picks, and that the A’s might therefore get a shot at Swisher. As Billy and the rest of his team talk, the draft officially begins.

Billy Beane examines the list he’s put together: eight pitchers and twelve position players. His list expresses “a new view of amateur players,” and includes many athletes in whom other scouts have no interest. However, some athletes on the list are conventionally talented. Two of these, Robert Brownlie and Jeremy Guthrie, both pitchers, are represented by a notoriously savvy agent named Scott Boras. In all likelihood, Billy won’t be able to afford athletes represented by Boras—he needs to save money.

The draft begins with the Pittsburgh Pirates making the first pick of the season: four million on an Indiana pitcher. The next five teams all choose high school players, whom the A’s didn’t want, anyway. It’s strange that the teams with the privilege of choosing first in the draft gamble on high schoolers that, historically, have a high chance of failing to live up to their potential. Billy and Paul aren’t reckless gamblers anymore: they’re shrewd card-counters.

The other teams make their picks: Milwaukee takes Prince Fielder, meaning that the Mets take Scott Kazmir, a player they’ve been eyeing for a long time, meaning that the Oakland A’s get to pick Nick Swisher. For the next rounds of the draft pick, Billy consults frequently with Paul and Erik. To their amazement, nobody takes Joe Blanton, another talented pitcher; as a result, the A’s claim Blanton and Benjamin Fritz, a pitcher who, according to Paul’s computer, is one of the best in the country.

For Billy’s next choice, he selects Jeremy Brown—a choice which will make him a laughingstock. For the rest of the morning, the A’s acquire most of the players from their wish list. Paul is especially proud of picking a first baseman named Brant Colamarino, who “might be the best hitter in the country,” even though none of the scouts know it. Colamarino, like many of the A’s picks, is large and uncharismatic, but he excels in the statistics that Paul has identified.

In all, the A’s succeed in acquiring thirteen of the players on their wish list—most teams would be glad to snag even three or four. Though few realize it at the time, the A’s new strategy will change the way baseball is played. Billy Beane is, in any ways, ideally positioned to change baseball: he’s seen, first-hand, the inadequacy of traditional scouting methods, and he seems set on finding players who are unlike him.

After the draft is over, one of Billy’s scouts tells him that Mike Kriger, shortstop for the University of Florida, who’d previously been told he was too small to play pro ball, has asked the scout to thank Billy. In all, draft day 2002 will be one of the happiest days of Billy’s career. Most of his scouts leave him soon afterwards, convinced—rightly so—that Billy is no longer listening to their opinions. The scouts have no idea that Billy is about to fire a “missile at the conventional wisdom of major league baseball.”