Bobby Valentine, Book Critic



The former Mets/Rangers manager was interviewed in yesterday's Newsday by Jon Heyman.

Bobby Valentine, one of baseball's controversial figures, took on "Moneyball," baseball's most controversial book, criticizing the bestseller for what he views as wrongheaded conclusions about the increased value of statistics, the decreased value of managers and the reasons for Oakland's surprising small-market success.

"I thought that was a travesty of thought process for our game and it has to run its course," Valentine said. "I think it was a well-written book. [But] it didn't deal with the reality of what went on in Oakland. It dealt with an offensive theory and trying to say that this offensive theory had something to do with the success of a team that was built on pitching."

The book has had its impact, and Valentine suggested it might cause owners not to hire hands-on managers like himself. And maybe it already has.

Valentine, a computer aficionado from his Rangers days, argued that this dispassionate view of baseball ultimately will be shown to be flawed. Athletics general manager Billy Beane, the book's hero, viewed his players almost as commodities.

"Talk about not having contact with people; you're talking about Billy Beane," Valentine said. "Drive around in a car and you don't watch a game and you don't know your players and you're not going to talk to them and get too close to them and become distracted from the objectivity of the situation. It is ridiculous.

"It is all about being in contact with people. One game isn't. But 162 [games], or 130, or a seven-game major pressure cooker is all about people and what they can do and will do, and how you can get them to do it."

Valentine said when he was in Texas, GM Tom Grieve was among the first to hire consultants who evaluated players by statistical analysis. But Valentine concluded: "Numbers are very important to evaluating talent and they are one of many criteria that goes into building a team. If we're going to take the humanistic approach to dealing with a team out of it, then I don't want any part of it."

Perhaps Valentine has been quoted out of context, but he, like many other critics of Lewis' "Moneyball", misses the point. It isn't so much that there's a purely numbers-based theory that determines all decision making in Oakland, but Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta sought to eliminate much of the guesswork that seemed to govern player evaluation. And given the A's limited financial resources, taking past performance into account was as much a matter of necessity as anything else.

And it isn't as though the importance the A's placed on OBP didn't help them get the most out of a budget roster, or identify players that other organizations might've written off.

Of course, Bobby V. speaks with authority when he talks about "the humanistic approach" and spending quality time with his players. If you don't believe him, just ask Pete Harnisch or Todd Hundley.

Posted: Fri - March 26, 2004 at 06:21 PM      

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