I know that ANers were all over the Billy Beane interview at the Biz of Baseball in the DLD, but I was going to discuss it in a post today and I want to make sure that people saw it.
Beane didn't really tread very much new ground, or at least things that we haven't already heard (for example the rise in cost of the high power, high OBP player and everyone's desire for great pitching), but I did find a couple of parts of the interview especially interesting:
Beane: I am perfectly happy in Oakland. With our new stadium, our market shares should change in time anyway. I think there will be an advantage here. I have no desire to ever leave Oakland and I don’t ever see that happening at any point in my career. I consider myself a life long "A", and as long as they want me here, I’m going to stay here.
I think you can basically say that we'll likely see Beane running the ship in Oakland for our foreseeable future. No more talk of him leaving for Boston or New York or any of those other places. Of course, you can never say never, but I just don't see Beane giving up all the control he has here for any other gig.
Beane: I think we felt like we really had good pitching. We’ve struggled a little bit in the last couple of years offensively. Struggled a little bit this year with the injuries that we’ve had. But really at the end of the day, the most important thing is making sure you give up less than the other team. Whether it’s scoring seven and giving up six, or scoring two runs and giving up one.
At the end of the day, it’s really what is the balance between the offense, the pitching, and the defense. As far as pitching, that’s a commodity that everyone wants all of the time. We’ve been fortunate in the last four, five, six years or even longer to have good pitching and we obviously haven’t had a dynamic offensive team for a number of years, but it’s been at least efficient enough to put us in a position to win every year.
He says, "I think we felt like we really had good pitching." I couldn't imagine that they thought that it would be anywhere close to this good, even considering the last couple of games. I imagine if we told Billy before the season started that his rotation would consist of Haren, Blanton, Gaudin, Kennedy and DiNardo for the majority of the season he would've probably groaned and said the season was a disaster. At least I know I would've.
Then again, may7 wrote a diary today that was also kind of bouncing around in my head this weekend. It's probably a tad premature, but I got those knots in my stomach when thinking about Joe Kennedy again. And I've been scared DiNardo was heading in a similar direction. It'll be interesting to see how long Harden stays in the pen if those two falter the next time or two out.
Oh and Happy Belated Father's Day to all you ANers with kids out there. Hope you had a great one. My reward is that Maya is learned how to say, "Holy Toledo!" thanks to a Bill King bobblehead. I plan on posting that video soon. She also loves echoing King's call on a double play ground ball. She needs to play with the bobblehead every night before her bath. It's pretty funny with a naked two and a half year old sitting on the floor saying, "Holy Toledo!" It would be enough to even give Bill a smile, I think.
