Under The Knife 6/19/23

20 Years Since Moneyball

Can you believe it’s been 20 years since Moneyball came out? The phrase was almost immediately twisted and the meaning lost, but the book and subsequent movie continue to influence generations of baseball fans, especially those that dream of being the next Billy Beane or Paul DePodesta.

Indeed, that first generation of executives - Beane, DePodesta, David Forst, Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, Eric Kubota and more - are all still around the game. There’s been subsequent generations, but the one getting ready to come in are all descendants of that group. Around the league, it’s hard to find a team (aside from the Rockies) not influenced strongly by that group and their methods, even if some are just in reaction to them.

Of course, Moneyball has often been miscast. Billy Beane didn’t write it, as I regularly reminded Joe Morgan. (Joe’s thesis was that Lewis basically ghost wrote a Beane hagiography, which isn’t the case at all.) It isn’t really about analytics, but arbitrage, which makes sense if you know Lewis’ background. That it’s become shorthand for something it’s not is intriguing, like saying Wall Street (the movie) is the reason quants and speed traders took over Wall Street (the place.)

Lewis has gone on to write more important books - and I’m really looking forward to his next one - but Moneyball’s influence over an entire sport has to be unprecedented. And yes, injuries are still the next arbitrage. So, salute to Lewis and his book, and on to the injuries:

TANNER HOUCK, SP BOS (fractured face)

It’s not more balls up the middle, but it’s something. The guess that it’s velocity off the bat is the easy theory, but it doesn’t appear to be significantly up year over year. I don’t have a good way of testing this one, but it feels like extension might be a contributing factor. The ball isn’t going 60 feet and looking at pictures and video of all of these so far this year, the pitcher always goes down well ahead of the rubber, almost off the mound.

The latest to take a comebacker is Tanner Houck. The Red Sox starter was hit directly in the face, breaking an orbital. This is problematic in that the orbital needs to be completely stable for physical activity, lest vision problems that can be dramatic arise. That makes surgery a possibility, to fixate it and make sure those dont happen, even ahead of a full healing.

The timing on this is key for the Red Sox. As much as the player’s health really does always come first, the Sox are short of pitching. With Chris Sale and Garret Whitlock basically a swap, losing Houck for a month or more really puts the rotation shorthanded. Corey Kluber is the easy replacement, but he hasn’t been good, leading many to think that the front office is going to have to find an external solution. I’m hearing the Sox are one of several teams looking at Jordan Montgomery.

TRISTON MCKENZIE, SP CLE (sprained elbow)