NoLongerFunnyball

Reading Moneyball five years after everyone else was kind of fun — when Billy Beane tries to hose the Red Sox for this unknown Kevin Youkilis guy, it’s kind of fun knowing this is a guy who came in third in MVP voting last year. It’s fascinating to read about OPS as the definitive offensive stat and then thinking about how ESPN’s game broadcasts now list players’ OPS during at-bats. It’s fun to see all these baseball luminaries look so stupid to reject the principles of Moneyball, and then turn on the TV and hear guys still sounding stupid for rejecting it. At the same time, though, two of the central premises no longer hold true. First off, Billy Beane did show that...