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Taylor Shippee

October 13th 2015


Biography Paper
The sport of baseball has been referred to as Americas pastime for as long as the game
has been played. Everybody knows someone or is someone that has played the game in one
form or another, whether it's little league, a high school team or even college. Summer days are
often akin to attending a baseball game, having a hot dog or beer and just spending the day at
the park. It has always been a leisure activity enjoyed by many. In the last thirty years or so, the
game has moved away from that classic image and more in the corporate world of business.
The sport industry as a whole has grown into a profitable business, and all of the sports that fall
underneath that umbrella have done well, using and generating more money than ever.
Baseball is no exception. They have taken the approach that more money equals more
success. Teams are offering up huge contracts to talented free agents thinking that that is the
key to winning. All of the teams with deep enough pockets were not hesitating to sign those
checks, no matter what the cost. Thats why when Billy Beane came onto the scene with ideas
about small payroll and statistical references, many were skeptical of how successful he would
be.
Billy Beane was born on March 29th 1962 as William Lamar Beane. Growing up, he
lived in Hollywood Florida before relocating to San Diego as part of a military family. He
attended Mt. Carmel High School where he was a three sport athlete excelling at football,
basketball, and baseball. Without a doubt baseball was his niche. He batted an astounding .501
in his sophomore and junior years, finishing with a .300 average after his senior year. When
you play that well, not only do the colleges come knocking, but scouts from the major league
want a piece of you as well. In 1980 Beane entered the draft straight out of high school, where
the New York Mets took him 23rd overall. Along with being drafted, he was offered a

scholarship to Stanford. Many thought that that was the route he was going to take, but instead
he chose money over the education by signing a $125,000 signing bonus with the Mets.
The Mets highly valued Billy Beane, even more so than their first overall pick, Darryl
Strawberry. While they sent Strawberry to play with the other high school draftees, they
promoted Billy to play with the guys that were drafted out of college. Beane struggled right out
of the gate, batting only .220 in his first season. Over the years he slowly improved, and was
gradually promoted up through the Mets system. He made his major league debut in 1984,
playing five games for the big club. After spending most of the 1985 season with the Mets triple
A affiliate, Beane was traded to the Minnesota Twins who ready to give him the starting left field
job coming out of spring training. Beane struggled with this job though batting .216 through a
slew of different injuries. Once again in 1988 Beane found himself on the trade block this time
ending up in Detroit where he made the opening day roster but was soon optioned back down to
triple A. After the season ended Beane was a free agent and the Oakland Athletics decided to
give him a chance. Little did he know then that that was where he was going to be spending a
lot of his future time.
In 1990, after being assigned once again to the triple A system, Beane had decided that
he had had enough of being a career minor league player. One day that April, he asked his
general manager, Sandy Alderson if he could transition from player to advanced scout. This
was somewhat of an easy decision for the general manager, while Beane might not have had
the best physical abilities as an athlete, he did still possess the mental abilities for he was highly
touted by Stanford after all and that speaks volumes even if he didn't accept the scholarship.
Therefore Alderson granted him his wish and Beane held the position for the next three
seasons.
After the 1993 season, Beane was promoted to assistant general manager with a focus
on scouting minor league players. During this time period Walter A. Haas was the owner of the
Athletics. During his reign the Athletics appeared in three straight world series from 1988 to

1990. Following this stellar run the Athletics fell into the money trap that most teams get caught
in, signing multiple players to maximum contracts which ultimately gave them the highest payroll
in the league for the 1991 season. In 1995, Walter Haas passed away so Stephen Schott and
Ken Hofmann took over ownership. Their first command was that Alderson slash the payroll
significantly for they were not going to be able to keep up with all of the contracts that needed to
be paid out. At this point in baseball, finding a competitive team on a limited budget, seemed a
little impossible. Alderson however took the challenge head on and found a system that
focused on on base percentage in hitters and used sabermetric principles to obtain those
players that were constantly undervalued. Sabermetrics question the traditional measures of
baseball skill. Rather than focusing on things like overall batting average, sabermetricians focus
on things like on base percentage or when measuring speed, they look at how many triples the
player had or how many stolen bases they had rather than just looking at how fast they can get
from one base to another. Being the assistant general manager under Alderson gave Billy a
front row seat as to how this system worked and he learned how to pick out values that all the
other teams overlooked. This would prove to be a valuable position since Billy ended up taking
over as general manager in 1997.
Beane kept Aldersons practices in place as he took the team over. Along with the help of
Harvard statistician Paul DePodesta, they used the principles of sabermetrics to their full effect.
The Athletics made the playoffs for four consecutive years, losing in the divisional round every
time. In 2002 they became the first team in the history of the league to win twenty straight
games. People around the league were starting to notice Beane and his methods after that
year. The large market, deep pocketed Boston Red Sox came calling that offseason. They
were in need of a change and they thought that Beane was the perfect candidate to do so. It
was an enticing offer, the Red Sox could supply him with more resources than the Athletics
could not to mention there was more money to spend in Boston. Beane however didn't care
and declined the offer. On April 15th 2005, the Athletics rewarded Beane with a contract

extension through the 2012 season that included a small stake in the team, making him a partial
owner. In 2006 the Athletics finally won a playoff series under Beanes reign when they swept
the Minnesota Twins in the divisional series. However their triumph was short lived when they
in turn were swept out of contention by the Tigers in the championship series.
From 2007 to 2012 the Athletics failed to make the playoffs or even finish with a record
better than .500. During this time the criticism rained down upon Beane and his systems.
People were starting to lose faith and thought that sabermetrics was a one hit wonder. Billy
Beane did not back down however. He stood strong telling all his critics that his methods were
based off research and analysis and therefore it was not the type of team management that
offered a quick turnaround. Things started to turn back around for the Athletics in 2010. Even
though they again finished around .500 and missed the playoffs, they led the league in
defensive efficiency, measured by the percentage of balls put into play and the subsequent put
outs, allowing the fewest runs in the league. This was a major step in the right direction as it led
to back to back division championships in 2012 and 2013.
In the years since Beane has taken over, he has made a major impact on the baseball
world. Many other general managers are adapting his policies and really looking at their
systems from the bottom up. Beane took a heavy look at highschoolers much like himself,
heading into the draft straight from high school. He considered this group majorly undervalued.
In 2003 author Michael Lewis wrote a book called Moneyball:The Art of Winning the Unfair
Game, which was based on Beane and DePodesta used the sabermetric principles to run the
Athletics in a cost effective way. This was followed in 2011 by a major motion picture with Brad
Pitt playing the character of Beane. Both projects were immensely successful and there was a
definite trend shift within the game of baseball.
Billy Beanes accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. Along with others following in
his footsteps, Beane was named to Sport Illustrateds Top Ten List of General Managers in all
Sports and most recently was promoted internally to President of Baseball Operations for the

Oakland Athletics. Beane took what is considered to be an expensive, deep pocketed game of
money and proved that it is possible to play a big money game with a budget. But even more
than that he changed the way in which teams evaluate players overall.

It's more than just who

can hit the most homeruns or pitch the most innings, he really broke down all of the normal stats
and found all of this missing gems within the league, realizing that since they were undervalued
they didn't have to pay market value for them to do the same job that some of the big stars were
doing. There are definitely cases when big players deserve the big contracts, but it is not a
must have in every situation. We are definitely going to see more of a trend towards the
Moneyball approach, especially with more of the small market teams having success, like the
Houston Astros for example. While it's not the quickest of processes, it has proven successes
that will carry it into the future of not only baseball but the other sports as well.

Sternbergh, A. (2011, September 24). Billy Beane of Moneyball Has Given Up


on His Own Hollywood Ending. Retrieved October 16, 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/magazine/for-billy-beane-winning-isnteverything.html?_r=0
Billy Beane Bio. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2015.
http://www.biography.com/people/billy-beane-20839943

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