Tag: Billy Beane

Billy Beane is Reportedly Finally Coming to Work at Fenway…to Build John Henry’s Soccer Empire

By on • ( 1 Comment )

NBCSports – Per reports in the Wall Street Journal and Axios, Henry’s Fenway Sports Group — which includes not only the Red Sox, but Liverpool, Roush Racing, and stakes in other sports ventures — is negotiating to sell a stake of 20-25 percent to Redball Acquisition Corp., which Beane co-chairs. That portion of the club would then be taken public.

The shocking part is Beane’s reported role. Because he cannot maintain financial relationships with two MLB teams — he retains a small ownership stake in the A’s while continuing to oversee their baseball operations — he’d have to leave Oakland. But his plan isn’t to join Boston’s front office. Instead, he would reportedly help marshal FSG’s ventures in European soccer, where he’s already a minority owner of a Dutch team.

I’ll be honest, this is not how I expected John Henry to finally get his guy, but it seems like Billy Beane may be finally coming to work at Fenway…Sports Group. You can read the financial details at Axios, which help explain the nature of the deal better, but essentially Beane’s company Redball Acquisition is looking to buy a stake in FSG so he would be more of a partner or a chairman rather than an employee of Henry’s. Beane has been quietly building a sports empire since Michael Lewis profiled him and the A’s in the era defining Moneyball. Beane currently chairs the Redball company, has an ownership stake in the A’s along with his role running baseball ops, and even bought a Dutch soccer team so he’s not exactly looking to make a lateral move to be the GM of the Red Sox.

John Henry has lusted after Billy Beane for nearly 20 years. So much so that there was an entire scene devoted to it in the Moneyball movie where Henry is trying to lure him away from Oakland to join the Red Sox and become the highest paid GM in the league.

“Anybody who’s not tearing their team down right now and rebuilding it using your model? They’re dinosaurs.”

Now this could be disheartening to Red Sox fans, especially those of us who read Moneyball and have always daydreamed of Beane using his model and John Henry’s money to turn the Sox into the consistent behemoth they could be. But, it seems like that ship has sailed as Beane has his sights set on bigger fish. As does John Henry who, at least in the court of public opinion, seems to be drifting further and further from the Sox being his top priority. In case you’ve lost track, Henry now owns the Red Sox, Liverpool, Roush Fenway Racing, and The Boston Globe. Whether that has any real tangible effect on the day to day success of the Sox is debatable, but for a city as provincial as Boston this could actually anger a lot of fans.

What do you mean you’re bringing in the most famous brain in baseball to manage your SOCCAH TEAM??

He’s looking for Billy Beane to unleash Moneyball on the English Premier League and build Liverpool into a juggernaut.

I get it. John Henry is a guy who literally made his fortune by understanding market inequities in finance and trading “with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion, but also any subjective evaluation of factors outside of price behavior.” Sound familiar? He buys a couple of baseball teams (Henry owned the Marlins from 99-02) and then in the early 2000s emerges Billy Beane, a baseball GM that unlike anyone before him starts using data, analytics, and economics to build a baseball team with an AJ Wright level budget. Of course Henry was smitten. This was like a kindred spirit for him in the game of baseball. So he’s tried to lure Beane away for years with gigantic contracts, but Beane always opted to stay in Oakland. Henry even tried to snag Beane once again in 2019 before they hired Chaim Bloom.

Billy Beane has been John Henry’s white whale for nearly 20 years.

Until now.

Curt Schilling Wants to Be the Red Sox Pitching Coach and I Say Lets Do It

By on • ( Leave a comment )

One of the biggest reported issues with the Red Sox this season was the disconnect between the analytics nerds and the baseball guys. Ya know like every scene in the first hour of Moneyball.

Rather than completely axe longtime Sox employee Dana LeVangie, the team opted to reassign him to the scouting department instead. That leaves a gaping hole for a pitching staff that was an absolute disaster outside of Eduardo Rodriguez. The Red Sox seemingly want to make analytics a more integral part of their decision making, which sounds weird to say. I don’t know when it happened but the Sox seemingly fell behind the pack. This team lead the charge, along with Billy Beane, on OBP and sabermetrics. Hell, the team even still employs Bill James. So how did we get to this point? My guess is old school baseball guys like Dave Dombrowski didn’t exactly see eye to eye with the nerds.

So the Sox want to get back in the analytics game.

You think THIS guy has a problem with that?

Curt Schilling used to walk around the ballpark with a gigantic trapper keeper full of numbers every time he took the mound. That was before the analytics revolution that has led to every catcher now wearing a wristband or having an index card in their back pocket.

Schilling was also an A+ analyst on ESPN before he just could not stop himself from tweeting things his bosses explicitly told him to not tweet about. So theres that.

I think Schill would make a pretty good pitching coach even though he might get into a fist fight with David Price.

However, thats before we even get to the politics. John Henry has donated more than half a million dollars to various democratic campaigns over the years and Curt Schilling has been a very outspoken ride or die supporter of Donald Trump.

So while this has a zero percent chance of ever actually happening I think it’d be interesting to see. Now maybe you don’t want a guy that loves to talk in a typically behind the scenes role of pitching coach, but hey whats the worst that could happen they miss the playoffs?

The Oakland A’s Just Got Rid of Season Tickets, Introducing a Whole New System

By on • ( Leave a comment )

SFGate – The A’s, perennially near the bottom in major-league attendance, are getting creative about selling tickets for next season. They scrapped their traditional season-ticket format and are introducing a more flexible system in which fans will have a variety of options at every home game.  It’s called A’s Access, and memberships will go on sale at 9 a.m. Friday. “A’s Access is the first program of its kind,” COO Chris Giles said. “From access to every game to special member concessions pricing, we’re focused on maximizing the value proposition for members. We are inviting our fans to truly become members of the A’s.”

First Moneyball, now this. Billy Beane strikes again!

If you can’t be good be interesting, or in this case, super convenient. Papa Giorgio and I have debated for years about going in on Red Sox season tickets, but its such a commitment. Aside from the exorbitant price of course, you have to commit to 81 games, and all the expenses that go with it. Beer, food, merch. It adds up to a fat bill quick.

Well the A’s have addressed all of that because they probably realize nobody is going to sign off on going to 81 Athletics games. This ain’t 2002.

So they flipped the script and introduced this new flexible membership plan.

“The program provides members general-admission access to every game, a reserved-seat plan and additional benefits including half-price concessions, 25 percent off merchandise and upgrade credits for games not included in a reserved-ticket plan.”

General Admission access is a great idea, especially for a team that is at the bottom of the league in attendance. Whats the point in charging a guy who buys tickets in the last row in the nosebleeds significantly less than the guy who buys tickets in the first row of the nosebleeds? If no one shows up those guys are gonna be sitting next to each other anyways. (Unless you’re one of those weirdos who sits in his obscure seat despite open seats everywhere around you.)

So just split the difference and offer GA and let people basically sit wherever they want with the option to upgrade and reserve seats for the high rollers.

Now this is where the perks get good.

“Plans begin at $240, and pricing includes $4 beers, $3 hot dogs and $2.50 sodas. Current season-ticket holders can renew under the new program. A 12-month payment plan is available.”

FOUR DOLLAR BEERS?! Thats worth the price of admission alone.

I’m terrible at math so I’m certainly not going to do this exercise, but lets say you went out to the bar 81 times between April and September. I bet you would save significant money just going to the A’s games instead and getting cocked on $4 beers, even when you factor in the ticket price. I’m just going to take that as fact.

Add in $3 dogs, $2.50 sodas and 25% off merch and I am ready to move to the Bay Area (not Oakland because I want to live) and become an A’s fan to take advantage.

Plus this ticket package beats the hell out of what their neighbors the Golden State Warriors introduced last year.

The sales and marketing team got a little cocky at the end though.

“The ticket department, confident the A’s will overtake teams above them in the standings, said fans buying the A’s Access plan for 2019 will get first crack at 2018 postseason tickets.”

Chargers Moving to Los Angeles; Are You Happy Now NFL?

By on • ( Leave a comment )

la-chargers

Hilarious. The market that the NFL held over owner’s heads for two decades as the white whale. The market that subsequently drew middling interest and awful TV ratings with just one team last year, now has TWO goddamn teams. As a friend of mine so eloquently put it, this is like Atlanta having two hockey teams. There’s just no need for it.

But as you all know, I love unnecessary shit. Add in the fact that the Chargers will be playing in an MLS stadium for the next two years (which seats 27,000 people) and its even better. I mean, if nothing else, this means I need to buy Madden again this year right? I’ve never played a professional football game in the house that Landon Donovan built.

screen-shot-2017-01-13-at-2-39-32-pm

Granted the Rams were a god awful team last year, but the people of LA were not exactly clamoring for ANOTHER NFL team. One of these teams better get real good real quick, or its going to be a lot of empty seats and a lot of Stephen A Smith rants on why the NFL needs to abandon Los Angeles, again.

stephena

Now for the coup de gras….the Raiders to Vegas. We got teams moving left and right, shit hole stadiums falling apart all while the Raiders are still playing on a BASEBALL field. Seriously they share a stadium with Billy Beane. Thats just not the 70s Raiders everyone talks about. No, they need to be in a city of debauchery and Sin City has that in…wait for it…spades. I’ll see myself out.

vegasbabyvegas