Billy Beane-genius

Personally, I believe Billy Beane is a visionary genius, whose determination to take a non-traditional approach to evaluating and recruiting players led him to realize and correct a major flaw in baseball’s recruiting process. In the old days of baseball, statistics like the ones that Paul Depodesta was looking at were not available, but now that they are, it makes sense that they should be heavily considered when drafting a player. If baseball has the ability to modernize its ways, why shouldn’t it? It is illogical to spend what has inflated to millions of dollars on guys that have an immeasurable and improvable characteristic called “potential”. High school and college players need to have proved themselves to be more than just a “good body” or “moldable player” before they are considered for the major leagues. If they haven’t showed themselves to be disciplined and consistent hitters by the time they reach the draft, why should major league coaches believe that they could mold them now? Furthermore, Beane’s obsession with the on-base percentage is far from crazy, since after all, it doesn’t matter how someone reached a base, only that he got there. A walk is just as good as a single in terms of its ability to lead to a run scored. Though his ideas may have been revolutionary at the time, Billy Beane is a genius fundamentally questioning and fixing the recruiting process of baseball.