Los Angeles Dodgers: We Hate the New Take on Moneyball
By Jason Burke
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the bitter rivals of the San Francisco Giants, which naturally makes them harder for us A’s fans to root against them, but there are plenty of reasons for fans of the Oakland ball club to hate our southern neighbors in blue, aside from the fact that we are doing one of these pieces for every MLB team.
Our hate parade was derailed by some trade activity from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, but we are back. Today, there are TWO hate pieces in our 29-part series! What more could a baseball fan ask for?
The Dodgers have made a flurry of moves this offseason and will be built upon their starting rotation, led by Clayton Kershaw. He seems like a good guy though, so there’s no hate for the reigning NL Cy Young. Farhan Zaidi, formerly of the A’s front office alongside Beane, is now the general manager of the Dodgers, and has introduced the term “Moneyball with money” into the vernacular of the sports media. Not sick of the term yet? You will be.
The fact that they have the extra cash to pay Brett Anderson $10M for what will likely end up being 41 innings of work (the average workload for the lefty over the past three seasons) is a tad absurd. Back in my day (I’m 29), players had to earn their next contract by playing for peanuts for a season and earning their keep. Get off my lawn!
More from White Cleat Beat
- Oakland A’s select Walker Jenkins in first MLB mock draft
- Cody Thomas worth Oakland A’s hanging on to
- Former Oakland A’s reliever Burch Smith signs in KBO
- Oakland A’s giving Garrett Williams a chance
- Yonny Hernandez finds new home with Los Angeles Dodgers
Think of the Dodgers as the British in “Pirates of the Caribbean”. Sure, they have fancy boats and tons of money, but what is the one thing that they can’t buy? Heart. The A’s are the Jack Sparrow (and his scurvy gang of misfits) and will be a thorn in the side of teams with more resources, more money, more influence and more star power than Oakland. That’s just how this works.
While the Dodgers can buy nearly any free agent their hearts desire, it should be noted that their farm system also has the #13, #14, #15 and #100 ranked prospects in Corey Seager, Julio Urias, Joc Pederson and Grant Holmes. That seems like a good starting point to build upon if you’re Zaidi.
Of course, we can’t get too far without mentioning 1988. Yes, 27 years later Kirk Gibson‘s historic World Series home run off of Dennis Eckersley is still played on a loop by MLB Network. It may also be on a loop in the Gibson household as well, after Tony La Russa, Chip Hale and Dave Stewart took over the operations in Arizona.
The Los Angeles Dodgers will be a fun and exciting team to watch in 2015, but with the money they’re spending, they’d better be. The Dodgers are like New Coke, bringing in the “moneyball with money” line (sick of it yet?), while the A’s are Classic Coke. There is a formula in Oakland that is tried and true. No reason to mess with the recipe.
At the very least, there are 19 games every season in which we’ll be pulling for the only team named by their fans, while the other 143 will have us wondering which formula is better.