The other day, ESPN's Howard Bryant wrote an article calling the A's "Moneyball" strategies a failure as a result of the A's, um, recent failures.
Yesterday, Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy discredited the discrediting, arguing that, if anything, Moneyball worked too well for the A's, and that the "Moneyball" approach to things (i.e. seek out market inefficiencies and exploit them) are still viable. He uses law school faculty recruitment and law school U.S. News ratings to make his case.
Hardcore sabermetic types will find this an old story, but it's an interesting read if you're at all into the whole Moneyball thing or if you give a hoot about law school stuff and/or economics.
(thanks to reader Bob Tufts for the heads up)
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FWIW, Craig, Ilya is a "he".
Hi Craig,
Ilya is a guy.
Enjoy your stuff.
D'oh. Sorry about that.
Silly Russians and their names not following English language expectations of gender.
I don't think that's a fair summary of Bryant's article -- it was more a summary of how the baseball community is reacting to the A's lack of success coupled with the movie falling through.
The article discusses how Beane's tactics upset people who had a stake in the way business was done. If you've spent the last 20 years in AA stadiums, Motel 6's, and Shoney's in the hopes of landing a MLB GM job, and now those jobs just go to Harvard grads, you're going to be pissed.
But there's also that the Moneyball-brand of baseball, while effective, is aesthetically unpleasant, or a refined taste, if you prefer.