More Moneyball

Jeremy Brown Retires

In one of the more sad episodes this off-season, Jeremy Brown of 'Moneyball' fame has decided to call it quits.

Brown was one of seven players the Athletics picked among the first 39 players taken in the 2002 draft, a focal point of the book. Billy Beane, the Athletics’ general manager, found Brown attractive, despite his size, because he was a college player with a high on-base percentage.

Veteran scouts for the A’s scoffed at the pick. Picking amateur players from among thousands was too much of a gamble, as everyone knew, and Beane sought a system that could be more reliable and less wasteful.

Brown’s retirement is a good time to look back at the Athletics’ 2002 draft and see how the system worked. Based on statistics more than on the established method of having scouts identify prospects from seeing them play, the system has become more widely used and has created debate between old-timers and younger executives.

The change in thinking made its biggest impact on the former Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty, who was let go last fall despite a World Series championship in 2006, because of a difference in scouting philosophy.

“There are whole Web sites and companies dedicated to providing statistics on college players,” Beane said in a telephone interview. “I think clubs are utilizing them more now than they have in the past. Some companies have solicited clubs and some have accepted.”

Beane unveiled his method to his scouts before the 2002 draft. That was to be a potentially fruitful draft for the A’s because they had so many early picks as a result of the Oakland free agents signed by other teams. With their first seven picks, the A’s selected Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton, John McCurdy, Ben Fritz, Brown, Stephen Obenchain and Mark Teahen. Swisher, Blanton and Teahen have played in the majors for three years, although Blanton is the only one remaining with the Athletics. Swisher was traded to the Chicago White Sox this winter, and Teahen was traded to Kansas City in June 2004 for Octavio Dotel.

Fritz, a pitcher, is preparing for his seventh minor league season, but infielder McCurdy and pitcher Obenchain were released after last season. Beane said hitting on three of seven early picks was a good result.

“You’d like to be 50 for 50, but that’s the imperfection of the draft,” he said. “That was the point of the process for us. The complete randomness is why we did what we did. I think the draft up to this point has been pretty random. The average number of players teams get to the big leagues is two. The idea was to try to do something objectively to compare decisions down the road.”

Four of the seven players picked by Oakland (57 percent) among the first 39 picks in that draft have played in the majors, including Brown. Of the other 32 picks, 20 have played in the majors (62.5 percent).

And so it comes to pass. Mark Teahen made it, but with another club. Nick Swisher made it, but got traded to the White Sox in the current A's rebuild. Joe Blanton too made it, but he too may be traded. McCrudy, Fritz and Obenchian didn't make it. In hat context Jeremy Brown did okay, even if it was to play a handful of games at the MLB level. Was he worth being a first round draft? Not enough players from the first round make it in any given year. He did all right.