DePodesta interview

by UCFKnights on Jan 4, 2008 3:36 PM EST Comment 30 comments

Depodesta Interview

Came across a good read today in which Paul Depodesta answers questions on scouting, analysis, specific players (good insight on Joe Thatcher) and relationships within the fraternity of baseball

http://beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2008/1/4/15148/92664

0 recs | Comment 30 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

I think this is a good opportunity to point out...

DePodesta is a very intelligent man, and he provides some very interesting insight, but only so far as he was Billy Beane's protege. I can only wonder where he might have ended up without Beane's magnificent tutelage and managerial grooming. Billy Beane is the Socrates of MLB, elevating common wisdom and expanding our notions of what General Managers can accomplish. I mean....OBP, drafting college players, getting Haren, Calero and Barton, trading old crappy players for great young prospects.

I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to say he can do no wrong, but I don't think it's unfair to say that he can do no wrong.

Take it away, Dr. B. Now you don't need to imagine a straw man to argue with.

by okteds on Jan 4, 2008 4:17 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Why?

I don't doubt that Beane is an intelligent guy. I think Beane is a great baseball guy who makes good business decisions, but Paul DePodesta is his own guy. Nobody knows Beane's mentorship skills or if he has any at all. Also, I doubt that very many GMs are necessarily great managers of people; I doubt believe that's really why they are hired. I would imagine that DePodesta is probably a better organizational manager than Beane.

I think Beane is a good GM, but let's not get carried away. I think "Socrates" labels should be reserved from Braves office and field management who got them through over a decade of first place finishes.

by count sutton on Jan 4, 2008 5:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Dude, sarcasm?

He was acting out the straw man that DrBGiantsfan seems to see and rail against in every A's fan and Moneyball reader.

by AucklandGM on Jan 4, 2008 5:24 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Nice Try

LOL!

by DrBGiantsfan on Jan 4, 2008 6:44 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

cool

i liked the interview. i thought it was hilarious that he brought up that old SNL sketch.

by jpahk on Jan 4, 2008 4:41 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

quote

DEPODESTA: My definition of a "Moneyball" player is much different than the common usage. I don't see it as having anything to do with walks or on-base percentage or really any statistic. To me that really misses the point. A "Moneyball" player is an undervalued player for any reason whatsoever.

Curtis Granderson fan

by jrose643 on Jan 4, 2008 4:47 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Bingo!

That's the whole point of "Moneyball". It wasn't that OBP was what Beane thought was the be all, end all of baseball. He just knew it was a good indicator of a good baseball player and he knew it was undervalued.

by Lunkwill Fook on Jan 4, 2008 4:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

+1

Yeah, I've seen a couple of debates on this site regarding the "meaning of Moneyball" and I agree with you. Michael Lewis looks at things and reports on them from an economic/sociological standpoint (Liar's Poker, The Blind Side). It wasn't about the specifics, it was how Billy Beane and the A's organization had to look at what was then undervalued and go after those commodities to be able to compete in an unfair playing field. (Unfair in the sense that the Yankees' front office have a Scrooge McDuck-like vault where they consistently go swimming in a fountain of gold coins.) It's a bad, reductivist use when sportswriters describe a "moneyball" player. You know, like Eddie Gaedel.

by waka25 on Jan 4, 2008 5:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Undervalued Players

Every single GM is baseball is trying to find undervalued players. "Not the Yankees," some have responded. Oh yeah? What do you think Brian Cashman was doing when he drafted Ian Kennedy, Joba Chamberlain and Brackman? Drafting players who other teams undervalued? Exactly! Kennedy fell in the draft due to poor junior year performance. Chamberlain fell due to injury concerns. Brackman fell due to both poor performance and injury concerns. Cashman saw their vast upside and decided they were undervalued and grabbed them.

Now, I might agree that an underlying theme of the book is the relative value of players and how that is affected by market forces. What got people's attention and made the bood popular was not the market forces theme. That's actually a rather trivial point, for the reasons I outlined in the first paragraph. I also agree that the book may not be solely about OBP and OPS, rather a major theme of the book is that statistical analysis can trump scouting, or at least augment scouting.

Statistical analysis is something that most college educated people can easily undersand and do themselves. DePo himself came from a business school background, not scouting. Scouting is something that nobody but a scout understands. Suddenly, all of us who stare at statistics, and fantasize about being a GM actually believed we could do it! That was the liberating thing about the book Moneyball, and why I think people are so protective of it.

by DrBGiantsfan on Jan 4, 2008 6:43 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

DePo

DePodesta's first job in Baseball was with the Indians as an advance scout. He also played Baseball in college. So it's not like he went to Oakland with no knowledge of the game.

by Thinkblue on Jan 4, 2008 7:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Thank You

Thanks for the clarification. My point about why people fell in love with the book, and the triviality of the notion that GM's are trying to find undervalued players still stands.

To put it another way: Everybody knows GM's are trying to find undervalued players. This book was different because it pointed us toward HOW some of them find undervalued players and that knowledge made us fans feel like we could do it too.

by DrBGiantsfan on Jan 4, 2008 7:56 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

scouting background

Wasn't he some sort of advanced scout for a little while?

by rsvandy on Jan 4, 2008 8:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

DePo

I've wondered for a little while if perhaps DePodesta was the key to the A's string of great teams. I have done ZERO research on this and haven't even looked into casually, but it seemed that once he left the team had more trouble in drafting talent. I'm a huge BB fan, but it was just a thought I had recently.

by marcello on Jan 4, 2008 5:46 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Thanks a ton!

Interesting to see management's view on Thatcher.

On a side note, I really don't think that highly of DePodesta. He seems like a good guy, but he simply was not a very good GM during his time in LA. However, he is still very young as far as GM's go, and I wouldn't be shocked to see a more tempered approach in his inevitable next go-around, followed by much better results.

It doesn't hurt that he'll know to try and mollify the press for their help. They really can ameliorate a dire situation (like a bad trade) if they say that in time there will be a good team and a great playoff as a reward.

by GuyinNY on Jan 4, 2008 6:00 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

DePo's time in LA

Was too short and affected by a catastrophic amount of injuries in 2005. I think far too many of his critics base their evaluations of him on that season, which isn't fair to him.

by Thinkblue on Jan 4, 2008 7:52 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Raw Deal

DePo did not get a fair chance to show the outcome of his work in LA and got a raw deal there just as Dan Evans got a raw deal when he was let go so they could hire DePo.

by DrBGiantsfan on Jan 4, 2008 7:57 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Exactly right

Evans should have at least been given 2004 to show the McCourts he was worthy. Forcing Dan to interview for his own job and then canning him was pretty classless.

by Thinkblue on Jan 4, 2008 7:59 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Speaking of Moneyball

the draft part looks worse and worse with every passing day. Either the A's front office was arrogant and, worse, stupid or Lewis took heaping spoonfuls of artistic liberties in his serving of telling the story or, most likely, both.

You see the A's laughing at picking Prince Fielder, calling the selection of "Melvin Upton" something along the lines of foolish, the A's gleeful the Mets took Scott Kazmir ahead of them and Brant Colamarino being called "possibly the best hitter in the draft."

That looks really bad in hindsight. Lewis can weave a GREAT story, but it really makes me wonder how much of what he tells is true and how much is embellishment or BS

by nms on Jan 5, 2008 3:48 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

ah heres the wording (pointed out by a Primer post

The selections of Mil picking Fielder, TB picking Upton and NY picking Kazmir are, supposedly, all considered "delightfully mad" but the As FO.

pg. 112:

"The next 5 teams among the most pathetic organizations in pro baseball select high school players. Tampa Bay takes a high school shortstop named Melvin Upton... the selections made are, from the A's point of view, delightfully mad.... when the Milwaukee Brewers take Prince Fielder with the eighth pick, the room explodes. It means that Scott Kazmir will be available to the Mets. And he is. And the Mets take him... "Prince Fielder just saved our paint says an old scout.""

by nms on Jan 5, 2008 3:53 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Prince Fielder

I don't think they are mocking the Prince Fielder selection, they are excited that he was picked instead of Kazmir, so the Mets couldn't pick Swisher.

by jahs34 on Jan 5, 2008 9:31 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

no

in the book they said Price was the one player too fat for even the As

by nms on Jan 5, 2008 2:56 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Thank You!

I want to thank you for posting this. It's what I've been trying to say for awhile now and getting flamed beyond belief. Swisher is a good player and all, but looking back on that draft, considering all the picks the A's had, it doesn't look so hot now, does it?

by DrBGiantsfan on Jan 5, 2008 3:11 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

troll

by I Love Oakland As on Jan 5, 2008 3:15 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

all the picks the A's had

they had a lot of picks, but none were higher than 16. so it's not like they could have had upton, kazmir, prince, or whoever. those guys were gone. at 16 they got swisher, pretty clearly the best player on the board. at 24 they got blanton, who's also been pretty sweet. with 26 and 30 they whiffed (mccurdy and fritz), but if you look at the hit rate of players taken in that range it's not that high. matt cain and blanton are the only guys taken in the 20s that provided any real value to their team.

then they had 3 picks in the sandwich round. they got teahen and two more busts (brown and obenchain). but actually, teahen is the only player from the entire sandwich round who has turned into a MLB regular. (dan meyer, drafted by atlanta, is the only other guy to even make the majors, as far as i can tell.) the rest are pretty much busts or washouts, not guys who are still prospects, with the exception of greg miller, who is pretty iffy at this point with the injuries and the command (89 BB in 78 innings this season!).

by jpahk on Jan 7, 2008 1:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

addendum

at 16, there was one other impact player available: cole hamels (#17, phi). pretty clearly they weren't going to take him, but in the interests of full disclosure, he's turned into a hell of a player and he was still on the board.

having said that, there's still no way you can claim that picking swisher 16th was anything other than very successful.

by jpahk on Jan 8, 2008 2:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

well

I was commenting about the paragraph you posted, i don't have the book right now, lend it to a friend, can you please post what it says about Fielder?

by jahs34 on Jan 6, 2008 10:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

maybe

maybe the book is accurate (about the oakland reactions to all those picks), maybe not. who cares? it's not like they had a chance to pick those guys and passed. if you look at the guys they actually did pick and who was available to them (not only on the board but also signable), it looks like a pretty strong draft.

by jpahk on Jan 7, 2008 1:22 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i wasn't

talking about the quality of Oaklands's draft. I was commenting that either Lewis' took tons of artistic license or, if his story was accurate, Oakland's scouting department (and their philosophies) were stupid and arrogant.

And as for "who cares"? Well many people love that book and it has been held as a baseball classic for its revealing access to ML front offices. Re-reading the draft section it seems one of the main parts of the book was wrong. Either Lewis was significantly altering the truth of what his access showed him (which would take away from its reputation as a great baseball book) or the OAK draft operation wasn't all that genius or revolutionary... and Oakland's genius was the premise of the book.

I'm not saying that this makes the book bad, it still has some great parts and is a great overall read... or that Oakland is a bad org, clearly not.

by nms on Jan 7, 2008 2:51 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

personally

as someone who does think Beane's a genius on the whole and has an unbelievable track record, i've never been blown away by his ability to evaluate amateur players.

that's not to say his drafts have been BAD at all (to the contrary, actually), but i don't think Beane is among the elite GMs at drafting. i don't think it's shocking that Beane has never had a huge edge here, since metrics for amateur-to-pro transitions have never been that good, and Beane would only be screwing himself if he did try relying on these.

personally, i see Beane's genius elsewhere, and he's merely a decent drafter (though i think jpahk makes a good point that the Moneyball draft was a damn successful one). i feel like some of the arguments over Beane's success have come from people acting like all aspects of being a GM are one and the same, when, in fact, each GM has his niche.

by bleedjaxblue on Jan 7, 2008 3:23 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

ah

gotcha. i misinterpreted "the draft part is looking worse and worse" to be a statement about the A's draft, rather than the part of the book about the draft.

i don't think it's a great baseball book. it's a great book, and it's about baseball. not the same thing. i think lewis took some liberties (e.g. drawing lines in the sand between "stats guys" and "scouts guys" when the full picture is much more nuanced) to make it more enjoyable to read, and overall it worked.

apropos of nothing, i just finished reading the blind side, which is also a fantastic read (and may also have oversimplified the technical bits on the evolution of NFL strategies, and particularly the role of bill walsh). i'm curious to see how michael oher will do as a pro.

by jpahk on Jan 8, 2008 2:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs