What does that have to do with the topic brought by Mitch which was how Oakland didn’t win a title with the best pitching staff?

Why didn’t they win?

Utley only played in 103 games
Polanco only in 122
Victorino only 132

They had pen issues!

Thats why they didn’t win….

And no having the best team and the best staff doesn’t always mean you win…
But that doesn’t mean craeting the worst and cheapest team is a good idea either!

The Phils had Halladay-Lee-Hamels-Oswalt… pegged by many with good reason as the greatest rotation in many many years, maybe even in the last 30+ years.

They didn’t win. Having the best team or best staff doesn’t always mean you will win it all. The fact they didn’t win has 0 to do with Utley and Howard getting hurt in 2012. Because you’re talking about today, I’m talking about the past.

The question was

“How did the Athletics manage to never win a World Series with those guys on their pitching staff?”

My reply is that the same way the Phillies didn’t win with the greatest staff many of us have ever seen.

I have done nothing but PRAISE and defend Terry this year!

I blame the GM who left him crap and worse crap to work with!

My statement was in regards to the Marlins as proven by:

“would not be the typoe of guy who could straighten out a guy like Hanley”

Try reading before you make a fool of yourself next time!

Because when you go for High OBP instead of High BA the Batter is incapable of maintaining those numbers for you because the majority of what you went for was the product of someone other than the batter himself! Namely the Pitcher who can reduce a guy’s OBP merely by throwing strikes and playing to his low BA!

High OBP is no substitute for High BA! High BA automatically means High OBP!
So if they had simply gone for the High BA they would have gotten the high OBP and maybe more!

Getting on base doesn’t require skill. Hitting a ball to get on base does!
And if you do that good enough the Pitcher will take his chances on walking you more as a result.
Because unless the bases are loaded a walk does not get awarded an RBI!

Two years straight that the front office has demoralized the club. And it shows.

We can all be subjected to circumstances that create this type of behavior. Just as much as our bosses can make working a pleasant expereince, how often have some also created situations so difficult that one found it hard to go to the office and discovered he or she needs to double and triple check their work noticing the stress, disgust or less enthusiasm was causing them beginning to make errors as well? It’s happened to me and I’m sure it’s happened to many others as well.

I also think the GM has forced him to play Bay up till now and Terry pushed the issue to bring up Harvey and since the press got behind it Sandy did it just to stay of the critical eye.

He sure didn’t want to bring him up!

Attendance as of today is up only 56 seats per game and it’s going to drop the further they get out of the playoff picture.

With the GM openly saying this team is not good enough to try and salvage a season that means even fewer people will go and buy tickets this year!

They lost 70 Million with Last year’s attendance and they only cut 55 Mil from the Payroll which means they are on track to lose another 15-20 Million this year before they try and extend Wright!

So if that truly is the goal then Sandy failed at that as well!

Your example of Philly is so off I don’t even know where to begin…
They would not be where they are today if Howard, Utley and Halladay didn’t get hurt.
And they fell one game short the same way the Oakland team did!
Because they too spent all thier effort on the Pitching instead of upgrading the Hitting they lost when they let Werth go!

You know you can’t goosestep your way to the podium, say Hitler was right and then later claim your no Nazi!

But I digress…Onto your other bad habit of taking a quote out of context and twisting it to mean what you want other than what it is!

Yes the book Moneyball (not the philosophy) changed the way the game is run but thats because it exposed Sabermetrics to the league, not the Moneyball aspects and you have said before Sabers are different than moneyball!

Truth is Moneyball didn’t really use sabers much at all it ignored the top of the Sabermetric list and went for guys who were on it who didn’t cost much!

Oakland thought OBP was the important thing to have but they didn’t go after the top guy in OBP they went after the guy who would up around 20th or even 30th on thier list because they threw out any player from the list who cost too much!

Sure lots of teams use Sabers but they all skip the part where you throw away the top earners because they cost too much!

Both Boston and Yankees have high payrolls which makes your statement that MONEYBALL changed the game just another twist of the tounge in order to defend a strategy you love and wish to see implemented here!