<....But Beane is presented as a visionary and everyone else as a dummy. The scouts are portrayed as intransigent blind men. I'm sure they had their shortcomings (judging by look rather than results, preference for high school players), but it's hard to believe they had no ability to judge players. Manager Art Howe is a puppet with no power. Earl Weaver, who followed a similar philosophy, is never mentioned....>

In 2002 Tejada hit .308 with 34 home runs, 108 runs, and 131 RBIs.

That's not an outfielder or first baseman. That's the shortstop.

He was overwhelming voted AL MVP.

If I had been a manager and had any of those players, I would have left them severely alone: if it ain't broke, don't fix it has merit at times.

The 2002 Oakland A's put former catcher and apparently mediocre player Scott Hatteberg at first base to replace Jason Giambi, the God of Moneyball (that's stated) who had signed with the Yankee. It worked out pretty well and for little money.

Replacing Johnny Damon with Terrence Long didn't work out as well, but getting 36-year-old David Justice to play rightfield part-time did.

First, they're both shortstops, so there's nothing to adjust there. Rodriguez was an excellent shortstop, and I never heard Tejada was far superior in the field. Call that a wash.

Rodriguez led in home runs 57 to 34, RBIs 142 to 131 and runs 125 to 108, on-base percentage .394 to .354. Tejada's only advantage was a slight one in batting average, .308 to .300.

The Rangers even scored more runs than Oakland, 834 to 800. And the A's scored more at home than on the road.

Tejada clearly got the MVP (21-5 in first-place votes) because his team won 103 games while Texas won 72. And that was because Oakland pitching gave up 654 runs and Texas pitching gave up 882.

"Contreras grounded into a double play, shortstop Galvis to right fielder T.Kelly to first baseman Stassi, Russell out."

That's a 6-9-3 double play.

I'll never fully understand some of these baseball stats...

Hendricks (CUBS) 5 1/3 IP 6H 0R 0ER 2BB 5K 0HR

Pineda (NYY) 6IP 3H 2R 2ER 1BB 6K 2HR

Game score: Pineda 63, Hendricks 59

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_...

Game score (invented by Bill James) is calculated as such:

In that case, Hendricks gets 61, and Pineda gets 56.

But if you look at the box score, under pitchers for CIN, Stephenson, (S,1)

http://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore?ga...

Okay, I know he pitched 3 innings, but when he entered the game, the score was 12-2...

I do wonder if say, a pitcher enters a game where his team is up 10-0 in the 6th, and gives up 10 runs. Blown save?

These saves are more impressive in games like MadBum's 5 inning save in the G7 of the 2014 WS.

On the other side of the spectrum is Wes Littleton's save in the Rangers 30-3 victory in Baltimore, 2007...

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Meanwhile, in San Diego, the battery of Clayton and Austin defeat the battery of Clayton and Austin. Wait what?

This is the right way to go, but it means convincing pitchers and everybody in general that the save is not that important a stat. The best guy has to be willing to come in in the sixth or seventh, and baseball people and fans will have to recognize that the save total is not the key.

However, at one point (still leading by a good margin) with runners on 1st and 2nd, no one out, the best batter on the team popped up to shallow right field, just behind the second basemen. The second basemen lost the ball in the sun, and saw it at the last second, but the ball still ended up just behind him (i.e. he never looked like he could catch it). The bases were initially loaded, but the umps announced that infield fly was called, and the batter was out.

Half the team was like "Really ump", while the other team had no idea what infield fly was. I think I proposed a rule here where on a ball that a fielder <could> catch, the defense is allowed a maximum of one force out if the ball is dropped. This could apply to any ball in the air.

<Do you think infield fly should've been called?> I say no, not only because it didn't look like an infield fly, but I know the 2B would not have been able to start a double play, as defense and general baseball knowledge is non-existent at this level.* But what counts as infield fly? I thought it wasn't infield fly because the 2B wasn't set underneath the ball first. Once he does, infield fly should be called, just in case.

*Just to prove my point, at one point there were runners on the corners, less than 2 outs. Batter hits a line drive to the 3B, caught, runner on 3rd tags up successfully. However, the runner at 1st, who was not going on the pitch, was rounding 2B by then! Instead of throwing to 1B for the out, the 3B throws to the 2B, and the ball sails into RF. The runner ends up tagging up just on time. The runner, he's a pretty good baseball player, but he's more of a cricket guy, and in cricket, he claimed that one would just run on a ball caught in the air.