According to the ever-interesting Peter Gammons, the Los Angeles Dodgers have hired Paul DePodesta to be their new General Manager. While Pete's rumour mill is usually about as reliable as the Weekly World News, he rarely gets a news story wrong, so the hiring seems like a go. This opens up any number of interesting points.
The first, of course, is the defection of one more member of Billy Beane's once-mighty front-office team in Oakland. With JP Ricciardi, Grady Fuson and Paul DePodesta surrounding Beane, the late-90s A's were a GM factory waiting to happen (my money's on Fuson to replace John Hart after he's put down in Texas). That's a lot of talent to walk out the door. Gitz would be in a better position than I to reflect on what this latest loss means to the brainpower in Oakland; but as the A's are starting to show on the field, you can only lose so much talent before things start breaking down. DePodesta is unquestionably bright, talented and hard-working, and losing a guy like that can't be good for Oakland's hopes to continue its remarkable run of low-budget success.
Second, we're about to see the so-called "Oakland Model" (more on this later) transplanted to the National League for the first time (though there's an argument that Kevin Towers has already partly adopted this approach in San Diego). The Dodgers were once the vanguard of innovation in baseball (think Branch Rickey), but over the last 25 years, they've come full circle and for many people now represent outdated, complacent, Establishment-type thinking. DePodesta could change all that -- if he's given the authority that Ricciardi received in Toronto. The parallels between the two situations are remarkable, actually: moribund organizations recently bought by new ownership that doesn't intend to spend a lot of money on the team. Don't be surprised if the Dodgers somehow morph into a "small-market" team over the next few years. But also keep an eye on how the "Oakland Model" evolves in a league with no DH, in one of the most extreme pitchers' parks of the last 50 years, with no league competitors operating on that system. More on this later, too.
Third, there are some who'll see DePodesta's hiring as a sabrmetric watershed -- "Beaneball" finally adopted by a major, storied franchise. This argument would have to ignore the Yankees and Red Sox, whose internal philosophies don't differ greatly from those in Oakland and Toronto, but there is a distinction worth drawing: those teams' leaders aren't tied explicitly to the Oakland front office, the way Toronto's is and LA's is about to become -- and throughout baseball, there is no middle ground about the "Oakland Model." Either you like it, or you really, really don't. DePodesta is going to become the new lightning rod for traditional baseball's skepticism (and hostility) towards the "Oakland Model," in a way that Ricciardi, who moved to some backwater north of the border, never was. The Model is about to get its first big tryout in a major media market, and don't doubt that there is a lot riding on that.
And fourth and finally, it's time we looked closely at what this philosophy is and what we're going to call it. Many people still refer to it as the "Oakland Model," designating Toronto as "Oakland North" and LA, one presumes, soon to become "Oakland South." Others call it the "Sabrmetric Model," or as referenced earlier, "Beaneball." The problem, I think, is that none of these names really fits.
For all the talk about the deep ties and numerous transactions between the A's and Blue Jays, I'm convinced that JP's organizational philosophy is not identical to Billy Beane's. The 2004 Blue Jays will not resemble, as far as I can tell, any of the great Oakland teams of the last few years. Starting pitching is a concern, not a strength -- ditto the left side of the infield -- and their drafts seem different (I can't shake the feeling that JP wouldn't have taken Jeremy Brown with a first-round pick). The "Toronto Model" owes its antecedents to the "Oakland Model," to be sure; but it's still a distinct and unique corporate direction and philosophy, one that we haven't yet seen unfolded all the way. It's an oversimplification to call it Oakland North; it is what it is, and so far it looks pretty good. I expect the same thing to happen in LA -- I very much doubt that DePodesta is going to simply recreate the A's approach in Chavez Ravine. Smart folks like Ricciardi, DePodesta and Fuson, much as they obviously agree with Beane on many things, have their own ideas and variations on the theme, and they're going to implement them.
It isn't even fair to call this "Sabrmetric Ball" -- not least because the overuse of SABR in statistical terms undermines and ignores that organization's remarkable work in the fields of baseball history and research. Statistics are tools, and every organization uses them to varying degrees. As DePodesta made clear in this speech, it's not about the stats per se, it's about the willingness to question conventional wisdom, to explore and adopt innovative approaches, and to demand evidence that a certain approach works before allowing it to remain in place. Within that willingness to innovate, to think creatively, to tear down existing structures and to take manageable risks, there is tremendous room for variation, and it's that variation we see in Oakland, Toronto and Boston and that we will now see in LA. I don't expect the Dodgers to start loading up on high-OBP sluggers the way Oakland tried, because I don't think that will work in a National League pitcher's park. But they will do things differently than they've been done before.
If I had to give this "model" a name, I'd call it the "Innovation Model." It's characterized by leaders who are courageous, creative and skeptical, questioning accepted beliefs and applying rigorous standards for performance. In this model, risks are encouraged if their proponents can establish a reasonable basis for their attempt; failures are not criticized but welcomed, in order to encourage more smart risks in future. Everything has a purpose that fits within the overall vision -- and everyone is fully, even passionately committed to the vision. It attracts some people like moths to a porchlight, though it repels others just as strongly -- it has its downsides, including a hothouse, oppressed-minority mentality that can be expressed in impatience and even contempt for divergent views. In the end, though, performance is what counts: "best efforts" are fine and dandy, but winning is the name of the game: the model aims for success and accepts nothing less.
That's the model that has been used in Oakland and Toronto -- arguably, also in Boston and New York -- and that's now coming to Los Angeles. When watching the new DePodesta regime, don't look for Oakland v. 2.0 -- look for the signs of the Innovation Model set out above. That's what distinguishes the new breed of front offices from the old school, just as Branch Rickey once left his competitors in the dust back in Brooklyn. Watch closely, and enjoy it: it's not every day you get to sit and watch a paradigm shifting.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20040212103602999