What ever happend to Jeremy Brown?

[Reds Nd2]

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

by Kevin Goldstein

More than a year ago, an A’s official sent me an email asking me, half jokingly, to stop mentioning Moneyball. It was an understandable request. Baseball changes quickly, and the lessons from Moneyball, or maybe more accurately, the lessons that the readers often perceive from Moneyball, no longer really apply. In 2006, Oakland selected a high school pitcher with their first draft pick, shocking many of the book’s diehard fans, and if you look at their renewed system after all of the trades, the biggest strength of the system is now a plethora of those high-ceiling young arms that give many of the risk-averse shivers. Moneyball is a dead issue it seems, even to the A’s.

And now comes word that one of the players, who often unfairly represented Moneyball, has hung them up, as Jeremy Brown has not reported to camp this year, and informed the A’s that he is retiring. For none of the right reasons, Brown was kind of forced to wear the jersey of Moneyball. The A’s gave him over $300,000 to sign when many teams would have never have drafted him. If you balance the scales in a certain way, Oakland was more right about him in many ways that some of the scouts were. He really could produce offensively, batting .268/.370/.439 in six minor league seasons, including a .276/.364/.469 line last year at Triple-A Sacramento. In 1904 at-bats, he delivered consistency on a secondary skills level, with 115 doubles, 68 home runs and 288 walks.

In the end however, that body, the one that wasn’t selling jeans, worked against him. Brown was often injured, and a downright bad defensive catcher – anything but agile behind the plate, with an arm that wasn’t very strong. With the offensive profile of a backup, as he was never going to hit for much of an average, Brown ended up miscast for the role, as there is little room on a major league roster for an offensive-oriented reserve catcher.

So while overall, I think it’s fair to say Brown turned out better than many thought he would, he still didn’t turn out good enough to be a big leaguer – so at best, it’s a moral victory, and in reality, it doesn’t mean much at all. And with that, I will now finally honor the request that came from that Oakland official.

I’m done talking about Moneyball – and so should you be.

[cincinnati chili]

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.

[Chip R]

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

[Reds Nd2]

Originally Posted by cincinnati chili

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.

I hope he does.

MoneyBall II would sell at least two or three books.

[SteelSD]

Heh.

I’m done talking about Moneyball – and so should you be.

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.

[cincinnati chili]

Originally Posted by SteelSD

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.

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.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by SteelSD

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.

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,

[traderumor]

Originally Posted by SteelSD

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.

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

[lollipopcurve]

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.

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.

[RedsManRick]

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

[lollipopcurve]

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

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.

[jojo]

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.

[lollipopcurve]

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 I find Brown to be more of an indictment of a "scouting alone" approach than he's an indictment of Moneyball.

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.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

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.

You sound like a scout.

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.

[M2]

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

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.

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.