Shakedownsports.com

Earlier this week, in a completely insignificant move, the Athletics designated Jeremy Brown for assignment in order to make room on the roster for Colby Lewis. Brown, of course, was the underrated, overweight catcher Billy Beane and the A’s selected with one of their seven first round picks in the so-called “moneyball” draft of 2002. Brown’s release means the book can be closed on all seven of those famed first round picks.

Infielder John McCurdy (26th), pitcher Ben Fritz (30th), pitcher Steve Obenchain (37th), and Brown, who the A’s chose 20 rounds higher than expected at 35th overall, can all be considered complete busts. That leaves Nick Swisher (16th), Joe Blanton (24th), and Mark Teahen (39th), who as a minor leaguer was traded to the Royals, as the only three of the “Moneyball” picks who became quality major leaguers. However, as those familiar with the draft might recall, Swisher and Blanton were the two players Beane drafted who everybody regarded as extremely talented players. Beane was ecstatic that both of them fell to him. That means that out of Beane’s five true “moneyball” picks, only one became a serviceable major leaguer (Teahen), and it was for a different team.

While Beane’s strategy of emphasizing on base percentage built the small market A’s into a contender and was undoubtedly ahead of its time, his draft strategy was not as successful. Drafting players who had excellent OBP’s and strikeout ratios in college did not prove to work out as well as acquiring players who had already excelled in those areas in the major leagues. The draft picks’ college statistics just didn’t translate to the major league or even minor league level as Beane had hoped.

Five years later I give Beane a C for the draft. He did find three quality players, but in terms of the undervalued players he skillfully “discovered”, only one out of the five became a major leaguer. Moreover, having seven first rounders was an opportunity to transform the franchise and build a dynasty. Beane’s “moneyball” strategy just didn’t quite accomplish that.

1 Comment »

Last Week Brian Billick delivered the commencement address at Johns Hopkins University, and he had some interesting words for the new graduates.

“In a bacon-and-egg breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. “Be that pig.”

With those words I don’t see how the new graduates could possibly go out and not be successful. As the DC Sports Bog points out, Billick has had some issues with graduation speeches in the past. Two years ago in a UM-Baltimore speech Billick shared a story about his vasectomy.

1 Comment »

On the night of Tuesday May 25th, at around 8:50 P.M. EST, the hopes and dreams of everybody in the Memphis Grizzlies organization were shattered. Well, at least the hopes and dreams of everybody except Pau Gasol, who did not immediately know the results of the lottery because he was fast asleep at his house in Spain. Granted it was 2:30 in morning, but come on Pau, the future of the franchise is at stake and you can’t force yourself to stay up a few more hours. I’m sure the Grizzlies fans in Spain stayed up to find out the results of the lottery. Nothing says “trade me” like sleeping through the most important moment in the history of a franchise. At least Gasol “rushed to a computer” to find out the results once he woke up Wednesday morning.

2 Comments »

In honor of Bob Barker’s retirement I present the greatest “Price Is Right” clip of all time. This clip illustrates everything that makes Bob Barker so great. He’s intelligent, patient, honest, and never afraid to call somebody out for being stupid even on national television.

2 Comments »

There is one thing about the sport of boxing thatmakes it different than any other sport. In boxing the competitors don’t know who is winning. Think about that for a moment. In every other sport, an individual or team knows where they stand and they can then alter their strategy based on that. In football teams that are behind throw the ball down the field. In basketball they push it up the floor and take three pointers. These strategies are conducive to creating an exciting sporting event, because they increase the chance the game will be close.

In boxing you have none of this because people don’t actually know who is winning. What you end up getting is two fighters who play defense for the last three rounds because each thinks he is winning. Simply put, keeping the judges scores a secret creates less exciting fights. Is there anybody out there who doesn’t think the final rounds of the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight would have been more exciting if De La Hoya knew that he was behind on two of the cards? It’s also unfair to the fighters to not let them know where they stand. How many fights have there been where a boxer was shocked to lose a decision after taking it easy in the last round because he thought he had a lead.

It’s time for boxing to have the judges publicly announce their scores after every round. This may not actually fix any of boxing’s problems, but it’s worth a shot. Boxers may still feel like they get cheated out of victories, but at least they’ll know when it’s happening and have a chance to change the outcome before the fight ends. Most importantly, boxers will now be able to alter their strategy based on the score. The boxers who trail will be trying to turn the final rounds into a slugfest. The boxers who are ahead will likely accommodate them. Fights will become more exciting. Making scores public may sound like an unheard of idea in boxing, but it’s how every single other sports works. It’s time boxing joined them.

1 Comment »

The NFL announced that it will hand the 20011 Super Bowl to the city of Dallas and its sparkling new $1 billion stadium. Good for Dallas. Not good for Indianapolis, the city that desperately needed the Super Bowl but fell short by two votes. Indianapolis city officials estimated the Super Bowl would have pumped $262 million into the local economy. Instead, the city will now have to bide its time, wait for another chance to host the big game, and hope Peyton Manning will step up his commercial filming enough to pump the $262 million into the economy himself.

No Comments »

The Warriors may have been eliminated from the playoffs, but the spirit of coach Don Nelson is apparently still going strong inside Jerry Sloan. The Jazz coach has adopted Nelson’s motivational technique of completely disparaging his team while lavishing praise on their opponent. After Utah’s game 1 loss Sloan suggested his team was intimidated by the Spurs. Then on Tuesday Sloan told the media that the Spurs are better than the great Stockton-Malone Jazz teams he coached in the late 90’s. Publicly saying the Warriors were a longshot to beat the Mavs worked for Nelson. We shall see if the same kind of thing works for Sloan and the Jazz.

No Comments »

The most important soccer match of the year kicks off tomorrow (2:45 EST, 8:45 GMT) when, for the second time in three years, Liverpool will attempt beat AC Milan in the Champions League Final. Two years ago AC Milan was a heavy favorite, and they became an even heavier favorite when they jumped out to a 3-0 halftime lead. (If anybody knows, I’m curious as to what the odds were on Liverpool winning at that point. 100-1? 1,000-1? 10,000-1? Nobody in their right mind could have thought Liverpool would win) Liverpool responded, and with the help of Steven Gerrard’s brilliance, they tied the game by scoring three goals in a 7 minute stretch. Liverpool would keep Milan of the board the rest of the way and take the game on penalty kicks.

This year should be another good matchup. Just as they did two years ago, Liverpool edged Chelsea in their semifinal. In the other semifinal, AC Milan dominated Premier League Champions Manchester United. The Reds are still led by Gerrard, and they hope to control play with their slow deliberate style. Milan relies on superstar Brazilian midfielder Kaka, whose tournament leading 10 goals have everybody saying “Ronaldinho who?”

Liverpool is currently tied for 3rd in the Premier League, while AC Milan’s match fixing penalty has them mired in 3rd as well. That means hoisting the Champion’s League trophy is the only thing either of these teams have to look forward to. Expect both of them to leave everything on the field.

No Comments »

This week 76ers chairman Ed Snider became the latest person to criticize the NBA draft lottery. Snider’s reasoning is that the current system encourages tanking and rewards teams for poor performance.

“There should be just one Ping-Pong ball per team.  Teams should not be rewarded for being inept.”

It seems that Snider is just angry his 76ers only have a .7% chance of winning the top pick, because the NBA lottery system (which was recently adopted by the NHL) actually does more to deter tanking than any other sport.

In both Major League Baseball and the NFL a team’s draft position is 100% determined by its won-loss record. That means a team that intentionally loses games can be sure it will improve it’s draft position. In the NBA a team can only increase its chances that it’s draft position will improve. The lengthy NBA season also makes it harder for teams to tank. In the NFL the season is only 16 games long. That means a team can easily tank the last quarter of the season without anybody batting an eye. Even this year the Bucks and Celtics were hard pressed to throw away that many games that easily.

Another thing lottery detractors fail to realize is that giving every lottery team an equal chance still rewards being inept, only in this case it rewards being slightly inept instead of being completely inept. Think about it. This year teams like the Kings, Sixers, and Clippers barely missed the playoffs. Should they then be rewarded with a 1 in 7 chance of landing Oden or Durrant. Giving every team an equal chance wont even eliminate tanking. Sure it would have stopped the Celtics and Bucks from intentionally losing games this season, but isn’t it possible a team like the Kings would tank because they would rather have a shot at Oden than be the 8th seed in the West.

Finally, the biggest reason the NBA lottery system doesn’t need to be changed is that this season was a freak occurrence. The fact that there was not one, but two highly touted players meant that every drop in the standings increased a team’s chances on landing a franchise player twice as much as if there was only one superstar. Most years a team would never even think of tanking because there’s nobody at the top of the draft they’re dying to get. Just look at last year. Sure, what the Celtics and Bucks did this year was not good for the NBA, but this kind of situation doesn’t arise very often and it’s certainly not a valid reason to tinker with the NBA lottery.

No Comments »

The “sport” of bass fishing has once again begun using lie detectors to make sure competitors catch their fish in an honest manner. Apparently cheating has become so rampant (in the last month two men in small tournaments were caught hiding fish) that anglers must now pass a polygraph test before leaving the weigh-in site. This got me thinking about what it would be like if other sports decided to use a lie detector.

NBA—After every playoff game officials hook up Manu Ginobli and force him to admit how many times he flopped.

MLB–Fans finally find out what Alex Rodriguez really thinks of Derek Jeter.

NFL–Bengals players are forced to confess to all the crimes they committed that authorities never found out about.

NHL–Members of the 1999 Dallas Stars must admit they won the Stanley Cup on a bogus call.

Golf–Tiger Woods admits he sometimes lets other golfers win to “keep things interesting.”

Tennis–Rafael Nadal will reveal why he actually likes wearing capris.

No Comments »