What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=761

by Kevin Goldstein

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

Well, the A's want them to stop talking about Moneyball, but I've heard Michael Lewis say a couple years ago that he plans to do a follow up at some point.

Good story.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

Maybe he's going to be the one selling jeans now. ;)

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

I hope he does.

MoneyBall II would sell at least two or three books.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

Heh.

Why?

Regardless of what Jeremy Brown does, the A's 2002 1st Round produced Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton, and Mark Teahen in the first 40 picks. Seems to me that when you start drafting in the second half of the first round and then hit on a majority of your selections, you've done a really good job.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

I didn't take the comment to be a slam of Moneyball. By "done," I think he means that the A's have moved on to exploiting different irrational behaviors in the baseball market. For example, by the time the book came out, they were already using more sophisticated defensive analyses than their peers. The term "Moneyball" has taken on a life that neither the author nor the A's predicted. I think that's what we're supposed to move away from.

Goldstein knows that the draft went well for them, even if Brown didn't work out.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

Way I see it this, in a industry that finds some one is getting an advantage. Teams with boat loads of money close that gap quickly. It is the old live and learn approach. With teams that must maximize there money assets I am sure mid level teams wised up slowly but finally even the dinosaur guys figured it out,

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

But what do those picks have to do with inefficiencies in the marketplace at the time the picks were made?

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

The As had 7 first-round picks (including the supplemental first round, where Teahen was picked), so it's not exactly true they hit on the majority of their 1st round choices. Still, I think you make a fair point. 3 out of 7 solid-above average major leaguers is a very nice haul.

However, it should also be pointed out that the As have gotten zero from the rest of that draft. Not a single major league inning, nor a single sweetener to bring back talent in trade -- and none of the players who are still around appear to have a big league future. The one other player who has made it seems to have been poorly evaluated by the As while he was with them -- Jared Burton.

It was a solid draft for the As -- but it did not serve to revolutionize the draft in any way. They got what they did because they let free agents go and stockpiled picks.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

I agree that anybody who thinks Jeremy Brown = Moneyball should probably stop talking.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

I don't think this is quite fair. I read Moneyball last year for the first time, and I was surprised at how prominent Brown is in that book. He is used as one of the main referents for the Beane's/the A's "out of the box" thinking, so I think it's an exaggeration to say Brown does not in some important way represent what the Moneyball approach was about.

I was also surprised to read the As take (at least as interpreted by Michael Lewis) on the drafting of Scott Kazmir and Prince Fielder. If I recall correctly, the As were quite pleased that other teams were selecting Kazmir and Fielder because, as high schoolers, these players did not appeal in the least to Oakland. Probably one of the reasons the Oakland folks are now trying to distance themselves from the book.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

The As might be tired of talking about Moneyball because it's often used as an irrelevant cliche. Basically Moneyball suggests the As generally value stats over scouting and that approach has helped them identify market inefficiencies to exploit in the past. Michael Lewis used Brown as a the poster boy for the As approach. The As themselves might not agree exactly with Lewis' depiction of them in the book. Also as many clubs have begun integrating sabermetrics into their player development efforts, it's probably safe to assume any snapshot in time of the As represented by Moneyball has become dated and less accurate.


IMHO, any draft pick the results in a player posting .276/.364/.469 in AAA can't really be considered a failure. Drafting is a huge crapshoot even under the best of conditions. A traditional scouting approach would've suggested Brown had no chance to accomplish what he did in his professional career (reach the 99.99999999th percentile in his field).

This kind of stuff makes for great debate/discussion but I guess if the choice has to be between one or the other pole (and I don't think it really has to be defined that way) I find Brown to be more of an indictment of a "scouting alone" approach than he's an indictment of Moneyball.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

The guy had no defensive ability. Unless he was going to DH, he was never a viable prospect. You can pluck dozens of guys out of college ball who could put up a decent hitting line through the minor leagues -- doesn't make them big league prospects.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

You sound like a scout. :cool:

How many draft picks even get an at-bat in the majors?

It's pretty tough to cast Brown as the ultimate failure of concept IMHO.

Re: What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?
 

What makes a "viable" prospect? Was Mark Schramek, taken five picks after Brown, a "viable" prospect?

Brown progressed to AAA and health is what really kept him from being a backup C in the majors. That you can easily find college bats to hit at a respectable clip through the minors is nothing but a pile of Szymanski. It gets even trickier to find a catcher who can do anything positive with the stick.

Obviously the A's could have made a better pick. Brian McCann and Chris Snyder were drafted in the second round that season. That's two big league catchers, one from the college ranks, taken shortly after Brown.

The A's also missed on some college talents from later rounds - Dave Bush, Jesse Crain, Curtis Granderson, Rich Hill, John Maine, Pat Neshek. In fact, when you look at the 2002 draft, the A's were fishing in the right waters. They just missed on some of the prize fish.

So, for me, the real crux of it isn't that Brown was an awful target so much as what mistake did the A's make in placing more value on him than Granderson or Hill. Wrong as they may have been about Fielder and Kazmir, they never had a chance to draft either one. The lesson that ought to be learned, IMO, is that their college-centric approach to the draft needed refinement. They had a solid draft that season, shore up a few blind spots and it could have been a killer draft.

My take is the A's should have done more due diligence on the scouting front after they had identified potential value picks. For instance, a good scout might have been able to make the case that Snyder had a bat plus quality defensive skills. A good scout might have been able to make the case for Granderson's tools or the movement on Maine's fastball. The A's could have taken a numbers-plus approach.