A first-round pick in 1980 by the New York Mets, Billy Beane played 148 games over six seasons with four teams from 1984 through 1989 and had a career .219 batting average. He became a scout for the Oakland A’s in 1990, assistant general manager in 1994, and then succeeded Sandy Alderson as the team’s GM in 1998.
During his front-office tenure with the small-market A’s, Beane has had to be creative in analyzing and managing the team’s finances, talent evaluation, and baseball product. In doing so, he has defied some of the game’s conventional thinking. Beane’s approach and methodology are discussed in the book “Moneyball,” by Michael Lewis. Despite the free-agent defection of All-Star players over the years and a payroll that is far less than that of the highest-spending teams, Beane has been able to keep the A’s competitive. This season, with a young pitching staff that is the envy of his peers, the A’s hope to challenge for the top in the American League West,
Q. How is life in spring training?
Beane: The first week of spring training is always good. The games haven’t started. Everybody’s excited to be in and optimistic. And to this point most people are healthy.
Q. Is there an offseason in baseball anymore? Do you take any time off from the job?
Beane: Yeah, for about five or six hours on Christmas day, and even that is not a guarantee. No, there really isn’t. It’s become a 24-hour, 365-day job. Some times are slower than others, but by and large there’s always something to be done and always someone to call.
Q. What has been the most interesting story of the offseason?
Beane: As it relates to the A’s or in baseball in general?
Q. In baseball.
Beane: Oh, man. I don’t want to sound jaded. Maybe I just take some of the things for granted. The most recent one is the [Albert] Pujols’ negotiations…a player of that caliber, who seems to be on his way to the Hall of Fame. You know, we have one of these every couple of years, but there’s always something unique about each one.
Q. What about the A’s?
Beane: For us, the interesting thing is our continued quest for a new venue and our frustration there as we watch every other city come up with a new stadium, Florida being the latest. I think it’s pretty much us and Tampa are the last two waiting for one.
Q. Will a new stadium mean greater revenue and a bigger player payroll budget?
Beane: Selfishly, that’s one of the reasons, but it’s a better fan experience, a better player experience. From a general manager’s standpoint, that’s where I go every single day. I’m there more than anybody, so it’s just a better environment in which to work. It’s updated, and I think everybody would like that. But it’s a lot of reasons beyond just the revenue.
Q. What about the coming season—what are you looking for?
Beane: We’ve had a real tough time with injuries the last few years, and if we stay healthy, I think we’ll have a pretty competitive club. We’ve got a great young pitching staff and some good young players coming up. But for us to achieve what we’re capable of, we’re going to have to keep guys on the field.
Q. Last season was a great pitchers’ year. Was that a reflection of drug testing?
Beane: People will look to that, and I think maybe it’s an easy connection to make. But I also think these things go in cycles. In this game, whenever there’s a void in pitching, you spend your time looking for good young pitchers, putting a lot of investment into them. And the young players come up wanting to pitch because of the opportunity, and then once again that cycle will turn around.
Q. Last summer, during an interview, you said that power is a very expensive commodity. You said, “We take the starting pitchers first and work from there.” Is that still true?
Beane: Yeah, because in this game the one thing that’s constant is that you have to have starting pitching to win. I don’t know if there’s a club that’s been successful that doesn’t have it. If you use that as the foundation from which you build your team, it’s not only a necessity but it’s also difficult to acquire. So, for us, particularly in a small market, it has to be done through the draft or through trades for younger pitchers that develop. But once you have that, that’s about 60 percent of the battle. If you have a good young starting staff, the other part is a lot easier to put together.
Q. I talked to Peter Gammons a few weeks ago and asked him to give me a breakout team for this season. He tabbed the A’s because he said your pitching is so good.
Beane: We hope so. We’ve got a good defensive club as well and a strong bullpen. I think we’ve upgraded the offense. I don’t think we have that 35- or 40-homer guy that you like to see, but the lineup is deeper, and at the end of the day it’s a zero-sum game. So, with the additions to the bullpen and the fact that the starting pitchers should be at least as good and conceivably could be better because of their age, the fewer runs we give up, the less we have to score. You can attack it from both ends, and I think we have this winter.
Q. Gammons also said, “It is amazing how Billy keeps reinventing himself. He’s like the Curt Schilling of general managers. About every five years, he’s completely different.” I should have followed up because I’m not sure what that means.
Beane: (laughing) Well, I think it’s because we have to. We’re not really in a position to follow the herd because of our market and our revenue. We have to look for gaps, look for gold where other people aren’t looking. We’re just not going to be able to compete head-to-head financially with where everybody else is going. Ten or 11 years ago, we didn’t run a lot. We were a big power-hitting club that hit a lot of home runs and walked a lot. Those are no longer skill sets that we can afford in our market, so we’ve turned into a very good defensive club that runs the bases well. And, as always, if you’re going to be good, you’re going to have to have pitching, whether you hit homers or you don’t hit homers.
Q. You emphasize pitchers throwing strikes and batters recognizing strikes.
Beane: It’s a yin yang. If you want hitters who are selective at the plate, you also want pitchers who throw strikes and don’t give up homers. In a perfect world of an offensive team, you have one that hits homers and takes a lot of walks. In a perfect world, your pitching staff throws a lot of strikes and doesn’t give up many homers.
Q. You called Earl Weaver your all-time favorite manager, pointing out that he was not a proponent of giving away outs, either by bunts or on the bases, because you only get 27.
Beane: That’s still the case. The stolen base is a great weapon; the caught stealing is not a very good weapon. So, if you’re going to run the bases well and if you’re going to steal bases, make sure you’re doing it at a high percentage because the caught stealing really hurts you. We’ve been a more aggressive base-running team. If you look at our percentages, [A’s manager] Bob Geren has done a great job of selectively running and doing it successively at a high rate where it becomes an offensive weapon. What we try to stay away from is just needlessly running just because it looks like you’re supposed to, or just for the sake of being aggressive. I think you have to be aggressive and intelligent at the same time.
Q. Last season the A’s set a record for most quality starts by pitchers 26 years of age and under. Quality starts and pitch counts seem incompatible now.
Beane: That’s where it comes down to having guys who throw strikes who are efficient as well. We have a few strikeout guys on our staff, like Gio Gonzalez. But we also have guys who are very efficient with their pitch counts, and that allows them to get deep in the game. Guys like Trevor Cahill and Dallas Braden, who are capable of going through five or six innings and keeping their pitch count down. With strikeout pitchers, it’s difficult for them to complete games just because by virtue of striking guys out their pitch count gets high.
Our defense helped out there. Keeping pitch counts down is also a function of how good your defense is. When your defense doesn’t play well, that adds to the pitch count. We had a great defensive team and some pitchers that, despite their youth, who were relatively efficient.
Q. I’m sure you remember what a bulldog of a pitcher Mike Marshall once was: the middleman, the set-up guy, and the closer back when there wasn’t such an emphasis on pitch counts. He is so derisive about today’s specialists and maintains that the job of a closer is relatively easy because usually he comes into a game in the ninth inning with the lead and the bases empty.
Beane: I think everyone has an opinion on that. The game has definitely changed. It is an age of specialists. It used to be, when Mike Marshall pitched, guys pitched three innings for a save. But some guys have trained now to throw just one inning. I think it’s hard to pick out one era and then compare it to another era and say that it’s definitely easier, because I think athletes are getting bigger, stronger, faster, and better at what they do as time goes on. I would say that what Mariano Rivera has been doing for 15 years has not been easy. He’s arguably the greatest closer of all time, and he’s been doing it when there’s been a lot of pressure on in some of the biggest games. I haven’t pitched the ninth inning, so it’s hard for me to say. But I know that eras change, and it’s hard to compare.
Q. Teams place such an emphasis on closers, but you were able to trade your closer, Huston Street, and get a return on the trade, and then plug in another closer, or a closer-in-the-making.
Beane: Listen, we have been successful—as have other clubs—but a lot of ours is a function of our financial situation, and it’s a necessity for us to move guys. It’s not necessarily because we want to, but financially for us to be able to afford the club that we have. We’re not in a position to be able to afford the luxury of, say, a Mariano Rivera at that type of salary for one inning. That being said, it is still nice to have a shut-down guy regardless of what you’re paying him because it certainly makes life a lot easier. But sometimes, once again, the financial part of it forces us to do that. At times we’ve been pretty successful doing that, but there’s no guarantee that the next time we’ll be as successful.
Q. Who is going to be what Michael Lewis called “the new new thing?”
Beane: From the A’s standpoint, or baseball?
Q. Let’s take baseball first.
Beane: Gosh. Well, two of the most exciting talents coming in to the game are Stephen Strasburg—we saw some of that last year—and this kid Bryce Harper, who as a teen-ager has created quite a buzz already despite the fact that he signed in June. I think everybody is excited about those talents.
Q. What about on the A’s?
Beane: We like to think that it’s some of the guys who are already here. Our starting pitching staff is one of the youngest in the game, and already one of the most successful. So, we’re hoping that they can even break further ground and take it a step further and maybe do some of the things that [Tim] Hudson, [Mark] Mulder, and [Barry] Zito did here a few years ago.
Q. You have always analyzed the numbers and the dollars. For example, looking at the money spent in the first round on high school and college and then analyzing the return on that investment. What are the numbers telling you now? Does anything jump out?
Beane: It’s always shifting. For us, when everyone’s zigging, we have to zag. But I will say that it is getting more and more difficult to find some of the inefficiencies because there are some really bright people out there that also have capital and are doing the same thing. So, any value you might have gotten in one area is quickly going to be discovered by other people. You’ve got to be willing to change and be open-minded. If you have the idea that there’s going to be a template in any business that’s progressive…you’re probably being a fool. So, for us, I think it’s constantly keeping an open mind. And if we do think there’s something out there, try to keep quiet about it until someone else figures it out.
Q. You hear about playing baseball “by the book.” You have refuted some of the popular or accepted thinking. I read where you said, “Liberation means you no longer care what anyone else says.” Does that relate to how you regard conventional wisdom?
Beane: No question. And a lot of it’s because we’ve been forced into that position. We have to think differently because of our marketplace. A lot of the way that you do business is dictated by the business you have. That being said, in our market it does force you to be creative. You’re in a position where you can take some chances that you can’t take in other markets. To do in our market what everyone else does, you’re destined to fail because the resources tell you that you will.
Q. Baseball is a copycat business. What works for one is imitated by others.
Beane: If you’re successful, someone will probably figure out a way to do it better than you do it. And that’s just like any other business. The only difference is, it’s not so capitalistic that you go out of business. But our market forces us to take risks. And in some respects, it’s also very stimulating, too, because it doesn’t let you get too comfortable.
Q. Some teams are working with a bigger net than you, as far as payroll and resources, but maybe the imagination isn’t always there. By the way, where is the imagination in baseball?
Beane: I will say this: There are some very bright people. I think at times there is a lot of ingenuity in small markets because they have to have it to survive. But now there are some big markets that are very intelligent, which makes it even tougher. Look at Boston. And people like to point at the Yankees and assume that all they’re doing is just spending money. I don’t think there’s any denying the capital they have, but the fact is they’re very intelligent, too. Brian Cashman and his staff are far more progressive than people give them credit for. If you go down the line, I think the brainpower that’s come into the game in the last 10 years is the kind of brainpower you saw go into other industries and maybe into high tech in the late nineties. And now these guys dream of running baseball teams, which makes it more challenging for clubs like ours.
Q. It must be tougher to compete with all that brainpower and all that payroll, too. It’s not quite an even playing field?
Beane: Yes. In some respects I guess I’m lucky that I‘m not now starting my career (laughing).
Q. Bud Selig has brought up the notion of expanded playoffs. How do you feel about that?
Beane: On a limited basis. I think one of the beauties of baseball is that the sanctity of the 162-game season needs to be preserved. American sports are very dear towards television and the playoffs, and that’s a fact of business. But I also think that we’ve got to be careful in not diluting the regular season. We need to respect the teams that go out and win 102-103 games and give them a chance to be the champions because they’ve proven it over the course of the season. So I do think we need to be careful.
Some of the other sports, particularly in basketball and hockey, in some cases the regular season doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot and the playoffs are really where the entire season is. I think we’ve got to make sure that we keep interest from April all the way through October. Adding too many playoff teams can dilute that.
Q. What are you reading this spring?
Beane: Keith Richards’ autobiography. I’ve found it far more interesting and fascinating than I thought I would. He comes across as very, very bright. I’m right in the middle of that, and I’m soon to be on to a book about Alex Ferguson from Manchester United. That’s in the queue.
Q. You’ve always been a voracious reader with a stack of books lined up.
Beane: Between the iPad and the Kindle, I end up lining up a lot more because at the touch of a finger you can order one. So I’ve got a long line of books far beyond those that are in the queue.
Q. When do you find time to read—on plane rides?
Beane: You know, I used to fly a lot more than I do. I try to limit my travel when I can because of my kids. I look forward to a long plane ride just so I can get back into a book, but I try to find at least some time during the day or during the night to get some reading in—almost like homework, to some extent.
Q. I don’t have a commute anymore. That was always an opportunity to read.
Beane: That’s one thing I do miss about travel. I enjoy the quiet time when I can actually read something other than what’s necessary for my job. But I do make sure I try to find some time, and, as I said, the books are stacking up on my electronic devices.
