With the firing today of Blue Jays GM JP Riccardi, one of the last remaining disciples of Billy Beane's Moneyball has been vanquished. That book by Michael Lewis was all the hype in the sports world when it was released. Business leaders were even trying to apply it to the corporate world. This idea that you could exploit market bias to get high value labour at a lower cost has not played out well since the book was written. The book inspired me to do my honours thesis in economics on "the market value of human capital in professional baseball". What we have learned is that while "the market" makes mistakes, it is also more efficient than an egghead with a laptop. It appears that the "3 aces theory" was correct and Beane made the playoffs those years because he got lucky with Mulder, Zito, and Hudson; not to mention Giambi and Tejada on the "juice".
For those who have read Moneyball, here is the evidence that the whole movement was flawed.
1) "whiz kid" Paul DePodesta flamed out as GM of the Dodgers
2) Nothing ever came of Jeremy Brown
3) The "fat kid" Prince Fielder is now a MVP candidate, while the "must draft" Nick Swisher is a utility player
4) Jeremy Bonderman (famously Billy Beane threw a chair against the wall when his scouts drafted him) ended up being a solid major leaguer
5) Eric Chavez, supposedly on pace to be the best player ever, flamed out
6) Giambi was only Giambi because of steroids
And now JP is unemployed. Is this the end of an era?
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